I had some visitors last week, Jess, a PhD student from Byron Bay in Australia and Whit, a friend of Abbi's who had come to stay with us for a couple of weeks so she could see the UK. They both loved the quirkiness of Brighton, The Lanes, the North Laine, the noise, the music and the alternativeness of it all, exactly what I love about it. We had strolled past this shop down into Pavilion Gardens where there was a random, ramshakle steel band playing and we were given free ice cream (I know not why). But what I really like is how a cafe culture has evolved over the past ten years. It isn't the tidy outside tables of a familiar French town but something much more alternative where you can see a Rowlf the Dog busking piano requests in a battered old upright on wheels, vying for playing time alongside a blues player on a battered old National. All the town needs is some sunshine and it awakens. Of course I don't spend all my time in town, like some irresponsible flaneur, I have work to do, papers to write, articles to write, a novel to write but all the same, when I fancy a mosie I can - I am just waiting on a sunny day.
