A Working Day

Yesterday I filled the car with flattened boxes and crawled round the M25 at five miles an hour (rising to 25- is that where the name comes from?) to Brighton.
Offsprog One has had extremely bad luck with accommodation, just as I did when I lived there, actually. She moved from damp, cold hellhole with rude and facetious Brighton University Housing Association staff making matters worse, to tiny temporary room, to nice flat that she then got asked to move out of...
Just like a tailor who cuts their cloth short, the two flats have a month's gap between them, and I went to help her to move her stuff into storage temporarily.
Some days, your body Just Says NO to moving heavy boxes full of books and crockery.
I had to insist.
Two carloads into an overhead locker at a ramshackle storage place later, we managed to sit and eat lunch at 3.30 p.m., with the sea twinkling enticingly in the background.
I was knackered; this is the second emergency visit I've done and I hereby resolve to go on a pleasure visit and catch up with the lovely people I know there as soon as possible.
I realise that I actually have more friends in Brighton than I do in London.

As we drank our Earl Grey tea and coffee, I looked around the caff.
Shabby chic, like lots of places in Brighton, and one of its charms. Almost everywhere, damp bubbles up under paintwork or plaster, crumbs on tables tell stories of cakes consumed, and fluffballs snigger in darkened corners and crevices.

I remembered taking the Offsprogs to a wedding reception at the Sussex Arts Club, a funky place to have a wedding reception if ever there was one. I think it was Mark's, from The Blue Hearts.
Offsprog One was about six and Offsprog two was about three; they were holding hands.
'It's grubby here', declared Offsprog One.'Take me home'.