Tales of a bank holiday Sunday

Well there we were having a cracking time in Hastings. We went up the cliff railway and took the kids to the Smuggler's Adventure in the caves there. After that we trotted across the cliffs to Hastings Castle which was the first Motte and Bailey castle erected in Britain by William the Conqueror after he topped Harold at the Battle of Hastings.

Then we went back down the cliff railway and found a cafe to have lunch. This cafe had three waitresses - all young girls - and it was like a BBC comedy watching them. They obviously hadn't been doing the job for long and it was the blind leading the blind. They stood in a row behind the counter, dropping cups, spraying coffee grounds everywhere, doubling drinks orders and then making a right fist of opening a bottle of wine. We were fascinated and it was so hard not to laugh at them. I have to admit to really hoping that something dramatic would happen with the wine, but after a lot of pulling and effort they finally managed to remove the cork without too much drama. They were arguing over who had to clean the tables, and they had this spray bottle of stuff and an absolutely filthy cloth to clean with. However, the meal was lovely, probably because the three stooges didn't have any hand in cooking or preparing it - just had to deliver it without dropping it.

After lunch we went into the amusements, which is lethal really, I don't have any idea how much money we spent on the 2p pushers and I don't want to know. There is this unofficial competition between us to see who can get the most gifts out of the pushers. Getting 2ps is not the goal, it's getting all the little ornaments and other gizmos they put in there nowadays. Alex turned out to be brilliant at it although he couldn't get the hang of the idea that the 2p change machine didn't give away free money and had to be fed with pound coins etc.

We took them down to the funfair as well and they went on the ghost train and the bumper cars and then finally had 10 minutes on the trampolines down the seafront.

So off we trotted back to the car and started on our way home - and guess what? The car broke down - sort of. It kept beeping and saying that the brake fluid needed topping up. So I found a Beefeater just outside of Hastings to park in - make it easy for the RAC to find us and we sat there for 2 hours until they turned up. But it turned out it wasn't the brakes but the clutch slave cylinder that had popped a seal and it was gushing fluid. So we ended up being towed home and getting back four hours later than I'd anticipated!!!! Didn't even get to have a meal at the Beefeater because the first RAC man looked at the car and said it couldn't be driven but he couldn't recover us because there were too many of us to go in his little van. So he arranged for a bigger recovery vehicle to collect us and said it will be an hour before he gets to you. So we went into the Beefeater and ordered a scrumptious meal. Five minutes later I get a call from the recovery to say he'd be there in 15 minutes - so we had to cancel our scrummy meal. I've had to promise the kids that as soon as the car is mended we'll go to a local Beefeater and order the same meal.

So all in all everything went to plan except the last bit ..... But the consolation is that apparantly it's not an expensive repair !!!! Yippee - only a small amount of holiday money to be spent elsewhere then!!! Oh well could have been a lot worse I suppose so mustn't grumble - but it's now 10.50pm and I'm shattered - so night night all - fingers crossed for an uneventful rest of bank holiday for me :o)