Valentine’s day is our anniversary and this year we celebrated our 5th year of marriage.

MrT and I wanted a quiet wedding – just the 2 of us but UK law insists there have to be 2 witnesses. My parents came along to witness our marriage and they brought along my brother and sister in law too.

I drove my little red car to the Registry Office and met our wedding party there. We got married, chatted for a few minutes then drove off again.

I’d  booked a room at a little hotel to spend our wedding night. It looked fantastic on the brochure and I couldn’t believe my luck – a room available on Valentine’s Day! The George Inn didn’t disappoint – a 400 year old pub which oozed character.

BUT the rooms they had available weren’t exactly in the Inn. There was an annex to the back of the building which I can only describe as a concrete block designed in a manner favoured by Stalin.

Think bleak. Think gray. Think soul-less.

We checked in and were handed a key. Only the key didn’t work. We took ourselves and luggage back to reception. The receptionist walked us back to the room and showed us how to open a door. There was a certain way you had to twist and turn the key for the latch to release. Obviously he thought we should have known this by the way he left muttering about ‘idiots and keys’.

Still we weren’t too upset. Nothing was going to ruin our day. We’d planned to get a train to Brighton and spend the day walking along the seafront anyway.

So that’s what we did. When we got to the train station we were told we couldn’t get a train directly to Brighton because there were emergency rail repairs being carried out on the track. So we had to take a 50 mile detour via most of the towns on the South Coast to reach our destination.

Eventually we did arrive.

We walked miles to an Italian cafe on the beach. They were shutting up as we got there and weren’t too happy about letting us in. Thankfully they did so we ate pizza and drank red wine. Wonderful!

Then we walked miles back to the train station periodically being approached by men lurking in dark shadows to see if we’d like to buy drugs. That was a bit unnerving to say the least.

Our journey back to the hotel was as interesting as our arrival. The track repairs hadn’t been completed and there were no trains running back to the town we were staying at. The railway had supplied a double decker bus to take us stranded passengers homewards. As you can imagine, a bus going to all the train stations en-route takes considerably longer than a train.

All in all it was a fantastic day. It was about the 2 of us being together and we loved every minute.

This year we decided to go back for our anniversary. We didn’t book the George Inn and we didn’t take the train.

We couldn’t find a parking space!

We walked miles to the pier to enjoy this…

Probably the second worst cup of coffee in the world

Tabitha was brilliant – she was pushed about in her buggy for hours.

Almost an angel!

Brighton was fantastic.  We’re not going to wait another 5 years to go back!

Brighton Pier as we were heading back to the car