Sussex Day 5: Lewes

Monday, November 8, 2021

We started our day fairly early, getting a quick Starbucks breakfast before getting on the bus to University of Sussex to meet Celeste at 9:30 am. Celeste has an hour-long radio show, “Oops That Had Banjos”, on the campus radio station, University Radio Falmer. She invited us to co-host the show. The studio was exactly as I had imagined, and it was a lot of fun doing the show with her. We each contributed a couple of songs to the playlist, and got to introduce them briefly.

After the show, Celeste had classes so we continued on to Lewes. We hadn’t been able to see much on our short visit Sunday evening. We started out at Lewes Castle & Museum, again getting an idea of the history of the place and then visiting portions of the castle itself. It was a clear day, and the view from the top was excellent. As with many of these sites, the castle went through many changes through the centuries as political conditions changed.

After climbing around the castle, we were ready for lunch. We checked out a few restaurants in town before settling on the Riverside Cafe, in an attractive area on the River Ouse. After lunch, we walked among a number of small shops before entering a Waterstones bookstore. How we miss spending time in quality bookstores! I expect we’ll be seeking them out more once we return.

We then took the train back to Brighton, since I had a meeting to attend for work. The meeting went well; the internet connection at the hotel is solid and makes it seem like it hardly matters where in the world I am when attending these meetings.

Celeste came down to Brighton to have dinner with us. We decided to go with Latin American food at a local chain called Las Iguanas. The food was quite good although somewhat standard, at least to those of us from California and Colorado.