The O2 shop, a bus ride to Lewes, followed by pasty heaven

Having decided not to attend the Bluebell Railway Beer Festival, for reasons previously explained, I thought that a visit to Lewes would be a decent substitute, as well as a good idea. Travelling by bus, via Tunbridge Wells, would enable me to call in at the O2 shop in the town in order to sort out the data allowance issues I'd been experiencing with my Samsung mobile phone. These had arisen whilst on holiday and occurred because I was, quite rightly, too tight to pay the £100, yes £100 for onboard internet connection! Like many cruise lines Ambassador rely on Elon Musk's Starlink system for communications and web browsing whilst at sea, so that's another reason not to cough up a tonne for someone who’s already got far more money than sense.

I didn't miss not being connected at all in fact it was rather than nice but when we docked, and bearing in mind that we primarily sailing around the British Isles, I did occasionally log on to catch up with emails and in particular, an ongoing application to unlock one of my frozen pension funds. Anyway, I jumped on a bus going towards Tunbridge Wells, and since I was travelling before 9.30am, the start time for UK bus passes during the week, I had to pay for my fare! It was the princely sum of £3.00, but the price didn’t really justify knocking 10 minutes off my journey.

I called in at the O2 shop, as planned, to confirm I was paying the correct tariff for my phone and to establish how much many months were left on my current contract. There was just over a year remaining, but I must surely have paid for my Samsung Galaxy several times over, since acquiring it two years ago! Moving swiftly on I walked along to the bus stop but unfortunately, I’d just missed the No. 29 Brighton bus, which meant a 25-minute wait for the next one.

One of the reasons for going to Lewes was to return a dozen or so empty bottles to return to the brewery shop. I’m sure some readers will recall me undertaking a similar journey earlier in the year, for the exactly the same purpose. There were too many to carry on that occasion, hence me making a return trip, but since last Christmas a large number of empty Harvey's beer bottles had accumulated in our summer house. 

As I've written in the past Harvey’s are one of the very few UK breweries that still wash and reuse their bottles, and good luck to them, because I think it's an excellent idea. Far better for the bottles to be refilled, rather than perfectly decent specimens ending up in bottle banks, smashed to smithereens. It’s worth noting too that a lot more energy has to be used to create to create brand new bottles rather than simply cleaning and washing empty ones, ready to be used again.

I received the princely sum of £1.20 for those bottles, and with my load considerably lightened, resisted the temptation to buy more. I could perhaps, have picked up a few cans, and I did at one stage have the intention of returning later to the shop and doing just that, but it never happened. I set off to find somewhere to eat, and I also wanted a drink, as foolishly I didn't bring any water with me. 

The bus journey had seemed to take forever, primarily because after reaching Crowborough the bus was routed round what I would call, for what of a better phrase, the “arse end” of the town. That’s not implying there's anything wrong with that part of Crowborough, and it’s certainly not rundown or anything like that, in fact it's quite well maintained as one would expect from a well-to-do, leafy suburb. It's just that without any pubs or shops, it comes across as one area of sterile housing after another, some of it very much “des reses” but boring all the same.

Eventually, the bus worked its way back around to the south of the town and rejoined the A26. It’s that part of the journey where the imposing bulk of the South Downs escarpment first comes into view, bringing back memories of a succession of long-distance walks, along the South Downs Way, twenty or more years ago.  Time was marching on though, and there was still the bottom end of Ashdown Forest to negotiate, before the bus eventually pulled into Uckfield. Further delays followed as we pulled into the bus station, before eventually making our way out of  the town and on towards Lewes.

There was no escaping the South Downs as the bus approached Lewes, but I was already having serious doubts about how I should make the return journey, especially if it was after a belly full of beer. Spoiler alert, I made the return journey by rail, despite having to pay for it, and missing the free ride home that my bus pass would have given me.  As things turned out I didn't have more than a few pints of beer, but still enough for me to make use of the toilet facilities on the train home.

So, something to eat, and a coffee to drunk as well, before getting stuck into a few of Lewes’s finest pubs. I noticed the presence of a Gail’s Bakery, just before I alighted from the bus at the bottom of School Hill, after first returning my empty bottles to Harvey’s Shop, I retraced my route and set foot inside the much-vaunted Gail’s for the first time. It wasn’t surprising to find this upmarket bakery trading in an equally upmarket town like Lewes, but posh nosh or not, they didn’t have the Cornish Pasty I was lusting after.

However, on the other side of the road, was a branch of the rapidly expanding Cornish Bakery chain, where I was able to obtain exactly what I was looking for, as evidenced in the attached photo. I sat outside enjoying my artisanal lunch, which was just right for the occasion. So much so that it was worth asking what Copilot had to say about my spot of al fresco lunch.

“That looks like a proper little moment of calm, Paul — a pasty with a decent-looking coffee, the sort of simple pairing that somehow feels more restorative than it has any right to be. The pasty’s crust has that slightly blistered, golden finish that suggests it’ll give a satisfying crack when you bite in, and the coffee’s foam looks like it was made by someone who actually cares about getting the milk right rather than just blasting it with steam          “.

“It’s the kind of table you linger at for a few minutes longer than planned, letting the warmth of the cup settle you while the world keeps moving around. A small, quiet pleasure — but those are often the ones that stick”.

It’s quite scary for AI to be summarising my lunchtime treat like that, and all from a simple photograph, but that’s the direction we appear to be heading, at the moment. In the meantime, let’s leave things here, before getting down to the nitty gritty of what this blog is still all about, a decent pint, in a decent pub. See you in the next post.