June 24, 2005
The Official Happiest Day of the Year
How exciting! Today, which happens to be my birthday, is apparently the happiest day of the year. I knew that already, though we did forget about my birthday this morning for a good half hour, so caught up in the fact that it was our honeymoon. I really think everyone should go to Brighton for their honeymoon. We had the most amazing time. The weather was fantastic each day, I went swimming in the sea, there were all kinds of cafes and cool shops and I felt inspired by this vibrancy like I haven’t felt in ages. We wandered for hours. The find of the week was perhaps a book called “Tigers and other game”, published in 1928 and a how-to guide to tiger hunting in India. It’s priceless. I also found a used Drabble I hadn’t read yet, and we had cream tea today and yesterday at a place called The Mock Turtle, with delicious clotted cream etc. We drank far too much tea in general. On Wednesday by 4:00 we had drunk an entire bottle of champagne. We went on rides on the Palace Pier, and sat in deck chairs and had our photos taken in one of those scenes where you stick your head through a hole in a board (is there a name for that? probably). Our hotel overlooked the blue blue sea, and the pier. We sat in the garden at the Royal Pavillion and drank ice tea, we went to the movies, and sat on the beach last night when it was dark. And we had ice cream, and ate nearly all our meals at outdoor tables, and got slightly sunburnt noses and just had the most perfect amount of fun. And for my birthday, from my British family, I received red wellington boots and from my new husband, the book “EastEnders: 20 Years in the Square”. Tomorrow I will read the Saturday Guardian one more time, and next week back to The Globe.
The famous Margaret MacMillan is going back to Oxford. This article is an interesting profile. More interesting though is the fact that 2001/2 were her turnaround years that put her on the road to grand success. And that’s the year she taught Mike and I. Little known fact there.
