Boules in a cool breeze

Lorraine and I doing a bit of planting in the front garden, two rose bushes, pyrocantha (orange glow) and a chaenomeles aka the Japanese quince. This done, along with a spot of business admin, I kissed Mrs Kenny goodbye and trained off to Brighton to meet Anton, walk over the hill down to the sea at Hove and play boules in the stiff chilly wind, which was great fun. Anton still frenzied at work, and had to break off a couple of times to send emails. We played three games of boules. Anton won the first two easily, but I managed to last to save face.  Then in search of warmth and a pub. Several of them, even on a Friday afternoon, not open till four. We had a bite to eat in The Hampton, and then walked back to Anton's to drop off the boules. Ambled past a few closed pubs, until we popped into the Batty, which was open and very full with dutch people. The Batty was serving Brains SA on tap, a beer from Cardiff that my old mate Simon used to go on about when we were at university. I drank some, it didn't strike me as the stuff of legend but was perfectly potable. 

Anton broke out his box of dominoes and we played this. It is specially wadded with tissues. Without this padding he sounds like a platoon of Waffen SS when he walks with them in his rucksack. I had not played dominoes since childhood, but there is not much to it. This makes it a perfect pub game that allows conversation and drinking without ever losing its thread. 

From there we went to The Evening Star where I met no trouble. We drank Helles beer there, which is a kind of prototype lager. I snapped a shot and shared it with the Beer Monsters and it created a flurry of activity, and the monsters may be regrouping at some point. A couple of drinks elsewhere and then Anton and I bid each other a fond farewell. I was back in Seaford at about 8:20. Shockingly, and this being a Friday night the traditional night of fish and chips, there was only one chippy still open, and I just managed to be served before the half eight closure. That on top of pubs being closed in Brighton on a Friday afternoon, is another reminder of how the country is gone to the dogs.

Happily home to Lorraine to eat my vittles and talk to my wife.

Below Anton checking the jack ball, which the French call the cochonnet (piglet), in challenging conditions, and Anton playing dominoes in the Batty in his maverick v-necked Guernsey.