Hi all.
Well I am lucky to be here with my shattered nerves!!
What was I thinking to hire a car. What a nightmare trying to find my way!
The GPS wouldn't work in London would it! It needs to be charged first then programmed! And it needs the car cigarette lighter to charge - not into the wall!
So here I was with a map book trying to find my way from the north west of London
To the SE!! Couldn't do it and drove absolutely miles around in circles until finally got advice. To keep it simple he sent me to the Ring Rd but via the West so again drove hours etc. Then missed the b-----y hotel on the motorway so more miles to an exit , over the road, back up to another exit and cross again!
Ready to have a meltdown by then!!
Then in Canterbury I couldn't find anywhere to park do illegally parked in a shop carpark and worried the whole time about getting towed/fined.
The Canterbury( which was the whole point of going all that way ) was fabulous but 3 of the best Cathedrals in the world in 3 days is a bit much even for me.couldn't appreciate it and didn't care about all the portent people buried there!!
Bought a beer and went to my very nice hotel to drown my sorrows.
I put today's destination in the charged GPS and it wanted to send me nearly back to London on the motorway then south to Brighton but I wanted to go via Folkstone ( gave Dover and the cliffs a miss, decided not to ask for trouble and weather yuck for walking along the cliffs)got lost twice as the b----y GPS wouldn't re calibrate and see I was going a different route like my one at home does. For 100 miles it tried to send me back to it's original route!!
Finally I was able to reset it and got here, certainly not on a direct route. It doesn't like side roads only motorways!
I went into a branch of the shop I got it from and hopefully got advice that will help.
It us almost impossible to stop anywhere as roads have no shoulders or there are painted lines but I did get to walk a bit along a sea front out of Folkstone and drove thru some nice Kent countryside with sheep and rolling green paddocks.
I drove along the coast quite a bit, nice but not for holidaying!
Brighton is great, fabulous hotels along the front with nicely landscaped gardens and public areas. The beach has massive stones on it nit even pebbles like Greece, there are painted little beach houses. The waves were pathetic and not a soul was swimming or even sitting on the beach but there were lifeguards rugged up sitting on chairs on the beach in the Artic cold!
The Pier was great, full of junk food places and amusement allies and rides Z( like the Easter show or Ekka)
lots of people there spending money happily.
I took a photo with my iPod then sat in a chair on the Pier to have a cuppa( tea from my thermos)
and muesli bar.
I dropped the bar and it managed to fall through the gap between the pier boards and into the sea! Would have been hilarious - what are the odds but then I had the nightmare thought that if that had been my iPod !!! Disaster!
I walked around the nice city centre, pretty big and saw the great Pavilion built in the middle over 100 yrs ago.
It's like a castle/fort/ Russian church all combined! I was to late to go thru it unfortunately and not going back tmw as no parking !
I have moved the car 3 times so far as there are time limits and am now sitting in it for an hour as got to the night spot 1 hr before the time starts (9pm) and need to be ready to move it if a warden comes!!!
Tomorrow I am off to Salsibury and Stonehedge which I have wanted to see for many years.
Carol