Brighton is the closest beach to where I’ve lived for most of my life so it’s no surprise that it’s been my most visited one. I can recall my younger self, screaming on the pier roller coaster, dipping my toes in the sea from the pebble beach, playing arcade games in Sega World, and being there when my step mother was tricked into buying a bag of stones she thought was a mobile phone, (which is a story my wife has never stopped laughing at). Brighton beach is in most of my beach memories growing up so it was a destination I had to visit with Hannah during our courtship. We purchased tickets, hopped on a train from East Croydon, and in 45 minutes we were in the bustling seaside town which, didn’t look as I remembered.

I had never travelled to Brighton by train before always by car, so when we arrived at the station I expected us to exit straight onto the beach, I didn’t expect us to be met with large crowds, a high street, and all manner of stores that could be found in Croydon shopping centre. The weather was a scorching 21 degrees Celsius which explained why there were people everywhere and why we could feel the breath of someone close to us every few seconds. We even checked our bags to make sure nothing was stolen soon after someone who previously behind us, plucked up the courage to overtake. The type of people there was a mixture of young people in 90s, grunge rock attire, tourists, and people who looked homeless. 

Hannah has some familiarity with the area and led me to a trendy part of the town, a street with colourful walls, ‘arty’ stores and multicoloured bunting above us going from one row of buildings to the next. The number of people there didn’t reduce, but this crowd had some knowledge of personal space. We visited a Photomatic store with old, American style photo booths and took three sets of four images, two black and white, one colour. Unbeknownst to us, this was the first of many photo booth shots we would take throughout our relationship, I’m sure we’ll create an album out of all the ones we have at some point. Continuing weaving in and out of crowds we said our final farewells to Gardner Street by purchasing some ice lollies then made our way back to the main road.

On one of my occasional Google map checks for our current location, I spotted a place on the way called the Royal Pavilion which became the start of our second detour. This was definitely the most unexpected building of our trip. The Royal Pavilion is a sort of palace possibly built as a seaside resort for some royalty, but based on the Indian architecture of the place I wasn’t sure if it was for Russian royalty, British or otherwise? Nevertheless, the large building was incredibly beautiful and the well-kept garden surrounding it matched its beauty in every way. It contained very colourful flora which either of us were familiar with, and a pond full of koi (which is something we were familiar with). We searched for a way to get into the pavilion itself but were unsuccessful, and didn’t have the confidence to ask the people on the balconies how they got up there. Done with our second detour, we progressed to the reason we were there in the first place, Brighton Beach.

The beach was pretty much how I remembered it, pebbles instead of sand, lots of activities mainly for children, people selling items along the promenade and last but not least, the famous pier which was where we went first. There were a multitude of food vendors claiming to have the best type of food in Brighton, clothes stores, and music coming out if various speakers placed around the pier. The view of the beach from there was fantastic and so was the view if the sea, it was even possible to see water beneath us by looking through the cracks in the floor, this ordinarily would be scary for someone like me who isn’t a strong swimmer, but I had full confidence of Hannah coming to my rescue if I fell. We bought some fish and chips from a navy blue store not far from the entrance and sat by the side of it. We were extremely surprised by the size of battered cod and the number of chunky chips we were given for £7 each, one box would have been more that sufficient for the both of us.

Our hunger satisfied and stomach settled we continued down the pier and made our way into a large, carpeted hall packed with all sorts of arcade games; [slots, coin pusher, candy crush and a few arcade ones]. Although we had no interest in playing them–well, Hannah did put a few coins in one of the machines hoping for the money over the edge to tip over but she had no luck. We made our exit after that defeat and continued wandering. Taking some pictures from a few cutouts before I noticed a shop that claimed to have the best milkshakes in Brighton, I just had to see how good these milkshakes were. We made our was back to the entrance to find a Moo Moo’s Coffee and Shakes, I was spoilt for choice, their flavours were very creative ranging from milkshakes made from Maltesers, toffee crumble and chocolate flakes called 'the Teaser’, to one made out of banana, Twix and digestives called 'Banoffee Pie’ which is the one I went for. 

Now at the time of writing this article, I haven’t yet written a post about the best milkshakes I’ve had but when I get round to writing that this one will be in the top three. The thought had never crossed my mind to put Twix, digestives and banana in a milkshake but ever since that experience I believe I will do it more often. The taste of this shake was fantastic but what sold it to me was its course nature, bits of digestives mixed with the chocolate caramel of the Twix gave such a unique, desirable flavour which makes me want to experiment with ingredients for milkshakes even more. Once done with the wonders of the pier we made our way to the pebble beach to enjoy the sound of the sea and the feeling of pebbles on our skin. With no parasol or beach towel, we found an empty spot near the sea and lay down. We were surrounded by other couples, families, of people who wanted to stare at the waves alone. For some reason, we spent much less time here than at the pier, but we soon got up and began to walk along the promenade. The familiar architecture came before us. Green railings, red brick walls, and arches. This was always the first thing I saw when I got out if the car as a child and seeing it then brought back so many memories.

The sun was setting, it began to a little bit colder and the crowd changed from the 90’s grunge type to the 'chav party animal’ type, and that was our cue to leave the area. The day was definitely one time remember and we’re both very excited to make a future trip to Brighton, although we’ll need to do some research for different thongs to do before we set off.