Going into Battle
I'm just back from a week in Battle, East Sussex, which is where the famous Battle of Hastings took place in 1066.
Battle is a nice village, with some interesting places to visit, including the remains of the Abbey. We were staying right next to the abbey, in a small cottage, and we spent Monday arriving at Battle and exploring.
We spent Tuesday at Hastings; we did a lot of walking up and down the seafront, and the only disappointment was not getting to eat in a cafe we wanted to go in as we missed out on a good seat, in about the only spot that didn't smell of paint. It would have been a good place to go because it employed people on the autistic spectrum. We ended up in another place where I remember watching an old man decide to bag a table by putting his paper on it, and then going off to the toilet. A large family of people descended on it immediately and joined the table with another table, ignoring his paper. I saw him return, make a bit of a fuss, something like, "Didn't you see my paper?" and going to find another table.
We did get the funicular railway to Hastings Castle, but found it closed for the day.
We had a proper look around Battle Abbey on Wednesday morning, and then went to Bexhill-on-Sea in the afternoon, which is a place I remember going to visit family when I was about two years old. We had trouble parking, but did manage to find the Sovereign Light Cafe, made famous in a song by Keane; we ended up having a drink there; it is very nice inside; like the type of cafe that I love to find in a British seaside resort.
We went to Rye yesterday (Thursday); it is a nice town full of old, cobbled streets, although when we ran out of things to do, we didn't really find anywhere good to visit. We did drive past the B&B we visited in 1994, but we found places like Winchelsea and Winchelsea Beach a bit underwhelming. Winchelsea is an attractive town, but the overriding memory I have of being there was some old man approaching us, pointing at a house and asking, "Do you think they're away?", a question we couldn't possibly know the answer to. Its one of those moments where I see someone in the distance staring at me and I try to avoid eye contact because I can see they want to approach and ask something random.
Today (Friday), we did visit the house where Rudyard Kipling lived, Batemans, and it was very interesting to see places like his study; it made me want to read more of his books; I found many of them a bit too hard when I was younger.
We also saw a nun getting coffee in a service station on the way home.
A few pictures below:
The front of Battle Abbey.
Battle Abbey.
Hastings seafront.
The clifftop at Hastings; I didn't copy what these guys were doing - it looked dangerous.
The Sovereign Light Cafe.
Random shot at Bexhill-on-Sea.
Mermaid Street, Rye.
This shot would have been easier to get had it not been for waiting while a whole family tried to get to grips with a selfie stick.
Batemans.
Batemans again.
Battle is a nice village, with some interesting places to visit, including the remains of the Abbey. We were staying right next to the abbey, in a small cottage, and we spent Monday arriving at Battle and exploring.
We spent Tuesday at Hastings; we did a lot of walking up and down the seafront, and the only disappointment was not getting to eat in a cafe we wanted to go in as we missed out on a good seat, in about the only spot that didn't smell of paint. It would have been a good place to go because it employed people on the autistic spectrum. We ended up in another place where I remember watching an old man decide to bag a table by putting his paper on it, and then going off to the toilet. A large family of people descended on it immediately and joined the table with another table, ignoring his paper. I saw him return, make a bit of a fuss, something like, "Didn't you see my paper?" and going to find another table.
We did get the funicular railway to Hastings Castle, but found it closed for the day.
We had a proper look around Battle Abbey on Wednesday morning, and then went to Bexhill-on-Sea in the afternoon, which is a place I remember going to visit family when I was about two years old. We had trouble parking, but did manage to find the Sovereign Light Cafe, made famous in a song by Keane; we ended up having a drink there; it is very nice inside; like the type of cafe that I love to find in a British seaside resort.
We went to Rye yesterday (Thursday); it is a nice town full of old, cobbled streets, although when we ran out of things to do, we didn't really find anywhere good to visit. We did drive past the B&B we visited in 1994, but we found places like Winchelsea and Winchelsea Beach a bit underwhelming. Winchelsea is an attractive town, but the overriding memory I have of being there was some old man approaching us, pointing at a house and asking, "Do you think they're away?", a question we couldn't possibly know the answer to. Its one of those moments where I see someone in the distance staring at me and I try to avoid eye contact because I can see they want to approach and ask something random.
Today (Friday), we did visit the house where Rudyard Kipling lived, Batemans, and it was very interesting to see places like his study; it made me want to read more of his books; I found many of them a bit too hard when I was younger.
We also saw a nun getting coffee in a service station on the way home.
A few pictures below:
The front of Battle Abbey.
Battle Abbey.
Hastings seafront.
The clifftop at Hastings; I didn't copy what these guys were doing - it looked dangerous.
The Sovereign Light Cafe.
Random shot at Bexhill-on-Sea.
Mermaid Street, Rye.
This shot would have been easier to get had it not been for waiting while a whole family tried to get to grips with a selfie stick.
Batemans.
Batemans again.