My daughter and I love Midsomer Murders, especially the older episodes with John Nettles as DCI Tom Barnaby, so back in the summer when I saw that there was going to be a touring production of The Killings at Badgers Drift (the very first episode), with Daniel Casey who was the original sidekick (Sergeant Troy) taking on the role of Barnaby, I instantly sent the link to her – although with no theatres in Kent on the list, it was more of a ha ha, look at this than with an actual intention of seeing it. As she has far more get up and go than me however, no sooner had she received it than a plan was being formulated, and in no time we had tickets booked for Eastbourne (our nearest venue). We have been to Hastings, Bexhill and Brighton, but never Eastbourne so were quite pleased for the excuse to pay a much over due visit, and although we could have done it as a day trip, decided that we would splash out on a hotel for the night!

I had been so excited about this little trip, but two weeks beforehand I broke my collarbone, which was pretty bad timing. Sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, I had a lot of time to obsess about the weather forecast which, right up until the night before, was for non stop rain for the whole weekend, making me even more gloomy than I already was. And oh the irony of arriving at the station to discover the sign billing Eastbourne as ‘The Sunshine Coast’.

I really wasn’t in the best shape for a weekend away but I didn’t want to lose the money that we had paid, and despite travelling as light as possible, my bag was still causing considerable knock on pain to my injured shoulder, so on arrival we decided to head straight to our hotel to drop our luggage off. Having discovered that the sea front hotels were cheaper than the Premier Inn, we had booked the Lansdowne, which was a short walk from the centre, set back from the sea across the Western Lawns, although sadly our budget didn’t extend to a room with a sea view!

We walked there along the promenade which was lined with exotic palms and must look particularly tropical in the summer (although it would certainly be considerably busier),

and en route we were very excited to see our first poster for the upcoming show.

As the forecast rain still hadn’t started, we decided that we had better make the most of it and continue our coastal stroll. and despite some rather bracing wind, I snapped out of my gloominess and felt incredibly happy and thankful to be there.

Eastbourne seafront sported some very fine beach chalets rather than the ubiquitous typical beach huts, and as I am unable to pass any kind of information board or plaque without stopping to read it (much to the great annoyance of my children over the years), I learned that chalet number 2 had been reserved for the use of King George V and Queen Mary, when they visited Eastbourne in 1935. Lucky them!

The promenade stretched all the way to Holywell on the outskirts of Eastbourne, at which point there was just beach and cliffs ahead, along with a short run of more chalets, these ones modern and colourful.

You can walk to Beachy Head from here, but weather and health wise, even I knew that it wasn’t the day for doing this, so instead we turned round and made our way back. This time the bracing wind was full in our faces which wasn’t quite as fun, especially since I was in a sling and couldn’t manoeuvre my injured arm enough to get it into my coat sleeve. It made it rather chilly, but we battled our way along to the pier.

I am a huge fan of a pier, and what a great pier this one was! It had the right balance between seaside touristy-ness whilst still enabling you to enjoy a quiet stroll along it (Brighton’s Palace Pier has a bit too much arcade/funfair action for me) – and I really loved the gold detail that popped against the blue paintwork.

Counting ourselves very lucky to have enjoyed a whole morning of unexpected dry weather, we headed to Grove Road, which my advance planning had told me was full of independent cafes, for our lunch. It was pretty busy but we found a table at Foundry Coffee and had a delicious halloumi bowl – although it did take over an hour to finally arrive! It was apparently the first day of trialling their new menu and they were having issues in the kitchen, although that still seems a quite excessive waiting time. Luckily we weren’t in a hurry – although we were getting increasingly hungry – and as I am not by nature a complainer, I was more than happy with the free drink we were offered to make up for the wait.

The rain started while we were in there, but before we had chance to get too wet, we stopped off at Camilla’s bookshop, a few doors down. We love a second hand bookshop – in fact we love any kind of bookshop! – and this was like no other I have ever seen, with teetering piles filling all available floor space. Navigating your way through the shop was quite literally like walking though a maze. It was incredible to experience, although the downside was that there were quite a few books that i would have liked to have bought that were too far down the piles to be accessible – although I was pleased to pick up a copy of Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson that I have been wanting to read for a while and which was just a few books down from the top of a pile.

Once back out in the rain, we decided that it was time to check in to the hotel and for me to have a nap, but not before we passed the Towner Gallery and noticed that they had a Eric Ravilious exhibition. I have come across a few of his paintings online recently and so was keen to have a look, and it didn’t disappoint. Ravilious grew up in Eastbourne and many of his wonderful paintings of the South Downs were on display, although the highlight for me were actually his High Street lithographs, conceived as an alphabet of shops for a children’s book. The detail was superb and I spent ages studying them.

The whole point of the trip was to see Midsomer Murders however, so after a cheap but delicious plate of pasta at nearby Pomodoro e Mozzarella (a super busy Italian restaurant), we headed to the Devonshire Park Theatre, a beautiful Grade II listed Victorian building, which was a real treat when our own local theatre is now a modern one.

We only had cheap seats up in the gods, but it was more than adequate. The play was fantastic, with lots of in-jokes for the fans, and we laughed a lot. The set design was simple but effective, and with the exception of the two main characters, the small cast ably took on several roles each, and on one occasion in particular, with great hilarity for the audience! In my opinion, Iris Rainbird and her son Dennis are the stand out stars of the television episode and I was so pleased that they didn’t disappoint on the stage. Both actors were absolutely brilliant. If you are also a Midsomer fan and it is coming to a theatre near you then I would wholeheartedly recommend going to see it.

(In the interval when the safety curtain came down, we loved the fact that, in keeping with the theatre, it depicted a Victorian Eastbourne seafront scene.)

The next morning, the rain was so torrential that we couldn’t even contemplate going out to find a cafe for breakfast, so given that this was the nicest hotel that we had ever stayed in, we did something that we very rarely do and actually had the hotel breakfast. And oh my it was good! So good that we said that we would stay there again when we do our Sussex Coast walk, just to eat it! It’s been a very long time since I have had the opportunity to enjoy a breakfast buffet, and I honestly think that it is one of the greatest pleasures of life. Of course the downside is the temptation to eat far too much, although it did at least keep us full for the rest of the day!

The updated weather forecast was luckily offering a drier prospect from late morning onwards, so we took advantage of the comfortable lounge to sit it out, read our books and watch other people fighting the elements. Then after a quick trip to Boots for another knee support bandage – the trouble that I had experienced on the Isle of Wight had suddenly returned, and because my knee had been absolutely fine since then, I had been caught out and had come unprepared – took a scenic bus ride to the Seven Sisters Country park.

It was a fairly spontaneous plan, formulated in the lounge that morning, so neither of us had suitable footwear, and I felt quite embarrassed amongst the booted and waterproofed hikers who were setting off along the Coastal Path and South Downs Way. However, we had discovered that there was an easy access walking route which followed the River Cuckmere, along to the river mouth and out to the shingle beach and the sea, so we happily strolled along there.

We walked along the beach to the base of the cliffs, but even at just 4km there and back to the bus stop, it was probably too much. I was limping badly as the newly purchased bandage was useless, and the pain from my broken collarbone had been steadily increasing throughout the weekend – but I stoically struggled on.

I did still think that it was absolutely worth it, and being there made me even more excited about pursuing our plan of walking along the Sussex coast, which came about while we were in Bexhill on Sea in the summer – although it will definitely be a while before I am able to tackle those cliffs. Seeing the signposts also reminded me that the South Downs Way is on my bucket list of walks. Oh dear! So many walks, so little energy! We stayed at the YHA hostel in Southease a few years ago and did a small section of the footpath then, and this little outing reminded me how stunning the South Downs are. Plus, the SDW starts in Winchester, and I would definitely be glad of the excuse to return there! (I may also happened to have picked up a leaflet about the Vanguard Way from the Visitor Information Centre as well – a 66 mile path from the suburbs to the sea, running from Croydon to Newhaven, through the North Downs, High Weald, Ashdown Forest, South Downs and Sussex Coast, which sounds pretty cool, so that’s yet another one to add!!)

Heading back from the beach we noticed a row of WWII anti tank obstacles, and my daughter suddenly announced that it reminded her of the closing scenes of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, one of her favourite childhood films, when suits of armour are magically brought to life in order to defeat a Nazi invasion. It’s been years since we last watched it, but it turned out that although the beach scenes were actually shot in California, the Seven Sisters cliffs themselves were featured in the film, so something had obviously stuck in her memory.

By the time we made it back into Eastbourne, the fatigue had hit on top of everything else and I was a bit of a wreck. After a brief drink stop. we collected our bags and headed to the train station for home: a journey which unfortunately involved a 55 minute wait for a rail replacement bus in Ashford that I really could have done without! It had been a wonderful short break however, especially as the weather wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared, and I regretted all the time I had spent fretting about it beforehand (although I’m sure it won’t stop me doing it again in the future!). Eastbourne is definitely worth a visit and we will definitely be returning to explore more of it, although hopefully on a day when the Sunshine Coast is living up to its name!