Through Britain

My train to Brighton from Blackfriars Station was at 9.39.  I was ready to go quite early so I walked alongside the Thames to the station from home.  The main line station straddles the bridge over the Thames.  It's spectacular but still contrives to be a cheerless place.  There's nowhere to sit until one's ticket allows one through the barrier to sit on the platform.  Toilets were closed apart from a few cubicles available to both sexes.  Trains arrived every few minutes mostly heading for the south east.  

It was a day of brilliant sunlight and freezing cold.  I walked from Brighton Station down to Palace Pier so as to start from the coast and from the same spot as Around Britain.  From there I headed north past Brighton Pavilion looking strikingly exotic among more conventional architecture.  I reached a large church with a tower where the main roads turned east and west.  I turned left (west) to pass under a high viaduct carrying the railway.  I'd imagined walking to Hassocks Station but this thought dissolved as I neared the decision point.  In residential streets climbing above the city behind me I crossed the A23 to reach Preston Park Station.  It was a start albeit a modest one.  To reach Hassocks over the Downs near their highest point becomes more manageable now in these short daylight hours.

Distance 2.73 miles.