We had a trip to Hastings today.  Frankie was moving into his first flat of his own, a studio in St. Leonards.  Its one of those imposing Georgian (I think) buildings around Warrior Square: very handy for shops, the beach and the railway station but a bugger for parking, especially in good weather.   Jayne has various personal reasons to dislike Hastings, but one real advantage of the place is the availability of  privately rented flats that do not cost an arm and a leg.  Over there it is no problem for youngsters, even on pretty low pay, to  find a self-contained place of their own: something we  can only dream about over in Crawley and Horsham.

We spent the morning gathering up stuff from the loft to help him get set up, including my old hi-fi separates ((except for the LP12 turntable. There are limits)) and then filled the car with it all.  After unpacking we went along to another part of town where somebody was giving away a sofa-be, as we discovered in the Hastings free advertising paper.

On the way there I was struck by some of the road signs.  Quite a few of them point down B roads towards two villages and sometimes the two village names appearing together on there just strike a chord, and sound like they should mean something.  Chalvington Ripe was one I particularly liked, but my favourite had to be the sign that just said Ansty Cowfold.  It sounds like a character in a Thomas Hardy novel or perhaps Dickens.

In Hastings itself I was, again, impressed by the visibility of election posters.  I don’t think I have seen a single poster in Crawley or Horsham, but in every road in Hastings at least one window had a ‘Vote Labour’ poster up.   I counted a dozen just along one road.  Doubly pleasing was that for all the apparent interest in the elections there I only was a solitary Tory poster all day. Which reminds me…  must remember to dig out our poster tomorrow.