Bluer than the Deep Blue Sea: Coming Home from Across the Pond

We spent the last days of summer in London and on the Sussex shore.  It was Mr. and Mrs. Magpie and Mrs. Magpie's Mum on a weeklong adventure that left us with our suitcases and brains stuffed to overflowing with treasures.  Sine we've been back, I've been a bit blue.  

I always love London, and I'll have photos and links to share, as always, but for today, just a few pared down shots of Brighton.  I'd never been to Brighton before, but I had heard so much about it that I felt I knew what to expect: tatty seaside town, pier, greasy fish and chips, tacky shops.  Brighton does have those things, of course, but it has so much more, and I developed a little crush on the place.

I have loads of Brighton photos to post, places to mention, and adventures to share.  They'll be coming soon.  Well, just as soon as I can pull myself up out of these blues.  

I slip into a sort of melancholy whenever I return from England.  To call it homesickness is too grand a word, since I have never stayed there for more than a stretch of a few weeks, but I do miss it terribly every single time I come back.  What's to miss?  Well, in the case of Brighton, there's this:  

"But, Gigi," you may say, "you live near the sea in the States!"  

Ah, yes, I do, and I love it.  I also love the seaside in Brighton.  It's quite different.  For one, the beach is made of large, knobbly pebbles, not sand, and the water there tends towards pale greeny blues that we don't often see in Maine.  And then there's the chalk cliffs.  Here we have granite ones.  Both are awe inspiring, but they make for completely different sorts of experiences.    

What I think impressed me most in Brighton was the architecture, from the Georgian and Victorian townhouses to the quirky shops of North Laine.

And then there is King George IV's Royal Pavilion.  I think that deserves a post all its own, don't you?   

We've been back since the beginning of the month, and life has been full and eventful and rich, but I can't shake these blues, so I think I shall wallow in their depth a bit longer and wade back to shore only when I'm good and ready.  

In the meantime, I promise that I really will have some wonderful links and photos to share.  Misery, after all, loves company, so you can long for some lazy days by the beautiful sea with me.