A post to Brighton up your day

I cannot believe I'm actually getting around to writing this while it's still the weekend... I hope you're all doing fabulously and are enjoying the sunshine. We haven't had much of that this week - it's been raining quite a bit. In fact, yesterday it started to hail (again). I looked like a loser taking a photo of the hail but I did it anyway. :P 

So, on Friday, I got an email saying that one of the netball games were cancelled for Saturday so I wasn't needed which meant I got a whole weekend free. Or so I thought until I was told that I'd been recruited to help out at the prep school drama production of Alice in Wonderland for 5 hours on Saturday. But I was actually happy to go since I wanted to see the show anyway and this way I got a ride to the theatre and back. They were performing at a theatre in a town called East Grinstead about 20 minutes away. And our boss drove us to McDonald's for lunch on the way which was also a bonus. 

The production was really good! Some of the kids are so talented, and because it was a musical, many of them could sing amazingly as well. Especially the girl who played Alice. Incredible. Anyway, I helped out with painting faces and not much else really, so I stood on the side of the stage to watch, and here are a few pictures I took...

Before I forget... Apparently dinosaur bones were discovered at Ardingly not long ago. BBC was here the other day to film something about it. Here is a link if you want to read a bit about it. 

Anyway, so when drama was over, I headed back to the college with Jess and Josh who were also there helping out. We then, along with Joel, ordered Indian food and had a few drinks in our common room. We played a few drinking games like Jenga and spoons, and listened to music and just generally had a lot of fun. 

The next day (this morning), Josh left for the year 7 French trip for a week and Jess and I headed south to a seaside town called Brighton. We arrived at the train station late morning and headed towards the beach. It was absolutely freezing - I was wearing a dress and a coat and Jess wore a shirt and a jacket... But we have learnt our lesson: wear lots and lots of layers when in Brighton because the wind is crazy and very cold. 

Our first stop was this chocolate shop called Choccywoccydoodah which (apparently) is a really famous chocolate shop and it has a TV show and everything, but you can see why. Everything in there is absolutely incredible and intricate and edible (and expensive! Some things in there were four figures and up... and that's in pounds!). Below is a dog made out of chocolate. Pretty cool. 

We did some shopping as we walked to the sea, and we eventually made it...

The houses in Brighton are really weird - they're all quite small and really close together and most are painted a different colour. The photo above is just a street we walked down, and the beach is at the end. 

The beach was very different to the beautiful ones back home. For one, the water didn't look all that inviting to swim in... It was crazy choppy, and I wasn't game to test it, but the water looked absolutely freezing. And secondly, the soft golden sand I am used to was replaced with hard pebbles as you can see in the photos. 

On the beach, the wind was so strong.

 This is the old abandoned pier ^

So much wind!!! 

We made it to the Brighton Pier! It's a really long pier with food shops, a big arcade and an amusement park on the end. Above is me trying not to get blown away

Jess rescuing me... 

Here I am in the arcade - which was like heaven because it was soooooo warm - trying to win a Shaun the sheep toy. I didn't get one but later, I did win a Tigger stuffed toy from Winnie the Pooh. I was pretty stoked. 

After we had some fun in the arcade, we went and did the most touristy thing you can do in an English seaside town... We got fish and chips. It then looked as if a storm was rolling in, so we got off the pier and walked to find the shopping complex. Along the way we saw the Brighton Royal Pavillion - the former royal residence for George the Prince of Wales, back in the day. We didn't go inside but it looked cool from the outside, and we also saw some squirrels chasing each other which was beyond cute. (You can tell we are easily entertained). 

  

After shopping, we headed back to school. We only have five days left until half-term break (yay!) and two more sleeps until Jess and I go to London to watch the Taylor Swift concert. We're so excited. But this week will be quite busy since Joel, Jess and I have to cover for Josh's duties while he's away in France, but that's all good because we're so close to a nine day break!

I'm sorry it was so long today, but most of it is pictures so hopefully it wasn't too boring. Love you all, can't wait to tell you about my upcoming adventures. 

Maddi 

xoxo