Half Term Escape 5 - a bit of a battle

View from the Car Park

So far, the early morning weather update has been encouraging.  The previous day's forecast of rain all day has changed to cloudy with a low chance of precipitation.  Today we visited Hastings.  The site of the battle is further inland at a place aptly named Battle, but it is Hastings that is remembered for the famous defeat in 1066. Nevertheless, the view from the Car Park was not promising.  

We set out to find lunch.  The Master's Fish Bar looked good, particularly as they offered grilled as well as fried fish.  We put two small tables together and eventually ordered the food. It seemed like quite a wait, but eventually the food came and it was very good.

Next stop, the Arcades for Thomas and Ray, and shopping for the rest of us.  The town has a great variety of shops, even the big banks are still there.  There are also most of the big chains.  We found what we were looking for, after a long search, and a few other things were purchased, 'because we were there'.  We met in the arcade, where the streams of tickets were being gathered, and the last games played.  The queue for prizes was long, and mostly consisted of small, indecisive children and their disorganised parents.  We went along to the East Lift, to experience some Victorian engineering.  Thomas was worried about the speed at which it would come down.  I explained the mechanism, and he was then relaxed and happy.

Here are Thomas and his parents standing in front of the view from the top of East Cliff, just in the country park. Once down at almost sea level again, we visited a couple of museums, both free and relying on donations.  The Fishermen's museum, with a fishing boat inside and an explanation of the 3-story tall black garden sheds - they are for making nets and are unique to Hastings.

The second museum was all about ship wrecks.  Yes, it had at least part of a recovered wrecked ship.  The next important stop was at the ice cream booth opposite, where we learnt that he really had to open, because the summer had been so poor.  This was his battle.

Our final event was crazy golf.  This is a Jo and Thomas 'thing'.  We chose the pirate course, and I, as usual, was right at the bottom of the scoresheet.  Jo took over for me as I went to buy more parking time.  I did better on my return, and with her 2 hole help.  I also scored the 'extra hole' to win a free round, which we didn't collect as it was too late to go round again.