Swept Away in Brighton

LITERALLY!  I’ve not been in such horrific wind in a LONG time!😂 But it sure made for some fun selfies! 

We assured our server we don’t always look like this. 😂😂😂 And yet, he served us a delicious lunch!

The little guys were unexpected and unfortunately got left behind 😂. Not a fan.

Wind-blown and THEN some!🤭🤭

Still giggling on the bus home!

And a similar shot we pulled from our trip to Santa Monica Pier 😂…

The weather was so severe in Brighton that we cut our visit short by three hours, but still, we had an amazing day there!

Brighton Pier

The ever present historic cathedral💕

We saw this upon arriving at the sea front…

Brighton 360. Of course, we had to try it! And we had the ENTIRE capsule to ourselves😱😆👏👏!

Entering in…

And starting to ascend 😊

At this level, we started to descend again.

It was funny…we were the only ones there, but our guy/guide still wanted to speak to us through a microphone 😂😂😂😂.
Just after we got off, all these people got on…

How fortunate and blessed were we!

An amazingly fun day in Brighton! 

After we got off the sky capsule,we wandered down towards the pier.  We came across a musician performing, despite the stormy weather, for an audience of one.  Three, if you count the two of us walking by. 🤗

Off to bed now! Tomorrow we will meet up with Alan, a friend I met on my first solo tour last year 😊.  He lives in the UK and will meet us in Covent Garden.  It will be so nice to see him again. 😌

Postcards to Heaven

Throughout my travels, since my mom has passed away, I have stepped into every cathedral I happen upon to send her a ‘postcard to Heaven’ by lighting a candle if it is possible, and I’ve not yet come across an ancient cathedral that didn’t have ‘offertory’ candles to light in memories of loved ones 😌.  My mom has been sent a ‘postcard’ from Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral, the cathedral in Bari, Rome (Italy), France, Krakow, Warsaw, Prague, Czechoslovakia, Budapest, Hungary, and Vienna. And many more in between, but the names escape me just now.  Of all the places I most enjoy seeing and visiting when I am in Europe, the cathedrals rank at the very top. They just bring a sense of peace to the spirit and awe to the mind with all of the beauty, tradition, and history that is found within!  My postcards come from the heart, and in one of my Prague blogs, I mentioned that it is quite a labor of love, seeking out post offices and postal boxes in foreign countries, as they are difficult to identify.Since we’ve been here this time around, they are literally jumping out at me! 😂 Still, it is a simple reminder that wherever I may roam, loved ones are always with me in spirit. 💕

Off to Brighton this morning!  😆👏👏💕

But first, an interesting experience…as we were making our way from Westminster Abbey yesterday over and across the Westminster Bridge, there was a table set up with demonstrators, asking me to sign something to ‘free Palestine’. I look the woman directly in the eye and said…respectfully, mind you,  “I will always stand with Israel.” (This was a 70-ish woman, by the way).  She nodded once in acknowledgment, and I went on my way. And then last night we received notification from the STEP department (US Gov’t ‘Secure Travelers Enrollment Program’), advising we avoid central London on Saturday because there will be mass protests by pro-Palestinian supporters.  We plan on going to Nottingham for our last day in England, so we will be much removed from that, thank Heavens. 

We visited Harrods yesterday… London’s most upscale and expensive department store. It covers five floors, and an entire city block. We kept trying to take a picture of us in front of a Harrods sign (they have 10 different entry doors!), and when we finally found one, this sweet doorman wanted to be in our selfie, so he jumped in next to us! It was so touchingly precious😂. And we all had a good laugh over that afterwards.😂😂

Now…once again, off to Brighton! 💕