To Mum, and an interlude with fascists

Scorchio! again. Got up and caught the 9:24 train from Seaford, looking from the platform across to the sea. Even here the sky a bit murky as there were violent storms over on the French coast. Up to see Mum, reading  poetry by Martha Sprackland. On the train from Lewes I sat next to a Swiss woman and her husband. She was radiating anxiety about the train being full, and having to go to London. For some folks London is real challenge.

Made it to Mum's fairly easily, doing my now trademarked slinking from shadow to shadow where possible. Rehung the curtain in the kitchen with Mum, and looked at some of the remaining admin bits left by Mas. Then into Mum's car, winding the windows down and zooming off to the Waggon and Horses for a meal.  I copied Mum and had some cider, which was perfect for the day. Mum made me laugh saying that she sneezed so hard that she sneezed her mascara off. Steve and Paul there as usual, although Steve had a troubled air about him and left early after peering at his laptop. Back to Mum's to rehydrate and then, after fond farewells,  I made off again at four for the coast. Arrived a little before seven today, and popped back home to say hello to Lorraine before she left for Ashford.  

Then met Steve for a quick drink having not seen him for some time. A cheery evening, apart from a  dubious interlude in the Saxon, a small place with a three-sided bar and people who go there sit all around it. (It reminds me of a snack bar I went to once with Hiroko in Kyoto, but with people in their sixties and fifties.) Steve and I started off chatting to a couple about beer... Nice neutral topic. Then some guy, who had moved down from London, said he had moved back to Seaford to live in England again. And bingo, before you knew it, Steve and I were sliding down some Reform Party far-right rabbit hole. We left rapidly, as one of them was saying plaintively, what was normal then is called far-right now, some other man was evoking Enoch Powell. 

Steve had recently joined the Union Club (a name with no connections to the Union Movement nor did it promote Unionism). It was almost empty, but they were friendly interesting people there, and massive snooker table in one room where two men were playing. Again, everyone spoke to one another but this was friendly and reasonable. Fond farewell with Steve, and homewards, speaking to Lorraine who'd made it Ashford, and to eat beans on toast and to sit with the cats for an hour before a Lorraineless bedtime.