Don’t get too excited people, it was just with myself. But I am after all excellent company. I was supposed to have lunch with a friend of mine yesterday. Actually, in the interests of fairness and not painting him as a Bad Man, there was only a very vague suggestion of lunch. And then a Thing came up that he had to do, and I decided to take myself out for lunch instead.

So I’d already been to a couple of charity shops that morning on my way to the beach, thinking I might find something nice to spark up my recently culled and slightly empty looking wardrobe. Charity shopping isn’t really my forte, shall we say, {it has an ick factor for me} so although I did find a really nice top with silk in it for £3.99, after two shops I was totally over rummaging in a small space with frankly far too many other people, and went straight to my ‘mistress’, as my friend-I-didn’t-have-lunch-with calls it.{The sea, in case you hadn’t grasped that one yet.}

Things improved greatly and immediately. I tried a bit of sketching around blobs of paint in my sketchbook {an idea I saw Leah Piken Kolidas do recently to great effect}, which was fun and neatly sidestepped starting with a blank page.

There was also a great deal of reading, wave gazing, smiling like a loon, and building stones into little towers, something I seem to do a lot on the beach lately:

When it became clear that lunch a deux was not on the cards, I wandered down the seafront to the Bandstand Cafe {whose website does it no favours}, where I sat outside and had a croque monsieur and a hot chocolate, and the kind waiter charged my phone for me!

It felt so good to choose when I ate, where I ate, what I ate, how I ate it ~ whilst reading and note taking, and people watching ~ and how long I lingered; of course I do this every day but there was something very treaty about the whole escapade. I really am a great person to go on a date with.

After lunch I continued my stroll, taking in the sights and sounds of Brighton beach on a Wednesday October afternoon.Skateboarders practising, a puppy chasing a plastic bag, the African dude who plays his drum on the promenade, the ropes on the masts of the sailing club boats clattering in the breeze.

I don’t know of many things that stir my soul like the old burnt out west pier. It is beautiful from every angle, in every weather and every light.

Aqua bollards outside one of my favourite galleries here, Castor and Pollux. They sell a lot of prints by contemporary artists, like Rob Ryan, Angie Lewin, Charley Harper and Anita Klein. I spied a gorgeous Anita Klein framed print of an angel making a daisy chain, but it was £875. Bit expensive for a first date perhaps…

This angel marks the division between Brighton and Hove. I love her. Like the west pier she is very photogenic.

So that was pretty much my date. After my wander, during which I also bought some of those little windmills that spin {as opposed to the kind that don’t…} to put in my plant pots on the roof terrace, I had a bit more beach time til the sun started to hide behind some grey clouds, and then I came home, made soup and spent quite a chunk of time helping a friend with their love life.

All in all a very productive and fulfilling day. I highly recommend taking yourself on a date now and again ~ being nice to yourself is so important.

Here endeth the lesson.