By Lyn Funnell
We’re quite lucky here in Sussex as we have a choice of stations in every direction.
There’s the Uckfield/London Bridge line and the Eastbourne/Victoria line.
We went to Eastbourne. It was only £7 to park for the day. But, oh, it’s complicated to pay!
You have to take a photo of the QR code, then type in your bank details. And of course, none of it works the first time. And supposing you don’t have a phone?
I hate them. I’d rather go through a barrier, take a ticket and physically pay with my card. Or put money in.
Anyway, after asking for someone’s help, we finally managed to pay and to buy our travel cards in the station – from a real human! Such a mental relief.
The London Underground is so efficient. There are always people to ask the way, and to let you through if your ticket doesn’t work. (It happened twice.)
We went to Camden Market first. I love that place so much!
A huge fire destroyed a large part of it in 2008, and I think that the rebuilt Market is a great improvement. There’s music blaring everywhere and the whole place is fun.
Gone are a lot of the miserable clothes and jewellery stallholders. And in their place are food stalls of every kind. And there are glass seating pods, so you can sit and eat even if it’s raining.
The food stallholders are very enthusiastic, smiling and offering samples for you to try.
We had a large carton of Chinese food for £10. It was delicious.
Next we caught the underground to The Angel, Islington. It’s named after the old Angel Inn.
I’d been told about an unknown café, off the main road. It’s called the Candid Café. You come out of the station, turn left, left again and first left, behind the station in a cul-de-sac. You have to search for the entrance, up some old worn steep steps lit by l e d lights.
You go through a door, and enter a Tardis! It’s a small area with a worn sofa, and further on is a huge room with the most amazing décor, obviously collected from sales and possibly skips!
We had two coffees, served by Jessamy, the friendly chef/waitress and sat relaxing in a couple of old well-used armchairs.
The whole place is rot. The pattern on the tiles is long-gone. Sheets of newspaper are stuck to the ceiling where they’ve obviously had a leak.
And yet, it’s all immaculately clean, comfy and relaxing.
You can have a freshly-prepared meal there, and time doesn’t matter.
But shhhh, don’t tell anyone. Keep it as a secret rendezvous!
We left to visit the Business Design Centre, the award-winning venue where the London Art Fair and New Designers was being held.
There were some amazing new creations being shown. But it’s always the same at these craft fairs. Everyone is too busy eating or chatting to their new pals to take any notice of the Stupid General Public Who Really Aren’t Interested in Buying Anything And Are Just Wandering Around.
So after trying to attract the attention of a couple of exhibitors, we left and went to the pub.
When will these people learn that they can invent or create the most amazing, life-changing things, but if they’re not interested in talking about it, they’re wasting their time being there.
Sadlers Wells was a wonderful experience, as usual. And all their staff are enthusiastic, which is so refreshing.
After watching the amazing Carlos Acosta, we made our way home.
All the trains were running on time, and we arrived home after a lovely, interesting day.
