A night with the day trippers

Tremendously enjoyable day, which I started rather sluggishly coughing and explaining to Lorraine just how wussy I felt. However there is a new cure in town: alcohol taken liberally with your mates.

The mates in question were Kate, Matty, Craig and his new girlfriend Eva, who had come down from London. Lorraine and I met up with them in the Battle of Trafalgar and then as every last one of them had a camera, we took them down to the seafront where there was a good deal of semi-comical snappage. There was a brisk wind, and so we were soon compelled to find another pub, and we had several drinks in fine Brighton boozers such as The Cricketers, and The Caxton and one or two others. Sensibly we broke off for bags full of fish and chips which we ate with wooden forks in the dark by the sea. This is where Tash, the very nice Matty's very nice sister, and Dunc her boyfriend found us.

In the Cricketers Nick, an old pal of Katie's who I'd met a few times, popped in too, so it was quite a gathering. Eva very nice (I'd only half met her once or twice before) and enjoyed her comical goading of Craig on American politics and history, apparently telling Craig, who is something of a deep political thinker, that there were only two events in American history: the Mayflower and Pearl Harbour. Craig: "What was that country called who put people on the moon? Let me see..." etc. One of the fun things is to get Craig, who has a most excellent voice and comes from Minnesota, to say "Brighton", which comes out as a gravelly BRRRRighton! which I think should be the official pronunciation.

Then, as the day trippers went back to London, and Kate was to stay overnight - Lorraine, Kate and I had a cheeky final beer with Anton in the Eddy before heading home for some much-needed shuteye.

Below I of course had my camera too. A Dr Who moment from Kate and Matty, Lorraine peering through the doughnut, Craig and Eva looking noble and windswept, a sort of bleached album cover shot of Katie and the others peering at cameras.