December 22nd 2025. St Leonards on Sea.
And so, I awoke, 61 up, another year ahead. Never look back, folks.
You’ll know my view on anniversaries and celebrations; don’t do them. My only requirements for my birthday are NO presents or cards, just make sure I’m somewhere I haven’t been before, crispy beef and a new pub,
The last few years have been a bit of a challenge, with COVID and continuing parental strife cancelling plans, often at the last minute. Last year’s “Big Anniversary” was one of the worst days of my life.
Those ongoing parental issues meant a modified and modest plan for 2025 as the sun rose over Rye Harbour,
We’re now miles from the closest GBG tick (Worthing, probably); I’d contemplated staying in Streatham to tick Spoons but sadly SW16 is bereft of budget B & B options.
A train to St Leonards is cheap (a tenner for two if you don’t let Mrs RM out of your sight), and starts with a wondrous sausage roll straight out the oven in Café des Fleurs at Rye Station.
Just as she dropped the battered sausage in Bakewell back in 1993, Mrs RM now drops the pastry from its wrapper onto the platform. The Café des Amis lady watches in mock horror as I count down to five seconds while Mrs RM scoops it up, just in time.
Fen folk used to survive on a diet of eel, pizza and dirt. It’ll be fine.
Half an hour to Warrior Square, start of the UK’s top examples of gentrification down Kings Road‘s organic knitting shops to the sea.
Look ! They even say “PLEASE” here.
It’s slightly awkward when you’re walking with someone who doesn’t share your interest in street art and pastel colours, but at least it means I keep stopping and let Mrs RM walk ahead rather than finding myself somehow half a mile in front.
I’m determined to limit my pubbing to the minimum today, but find it hard to walk past the net curtained Railway at the station (obvs) and mysterious Old England.
Across the road Collected Fictions has 3 pint pots, imperial stouts 5pm opening and is completely invisible from the pavement at 10am, so here’s one CAMRA took earlier.
Mrs RM has missed the Kemp bros,
but does admire the classic brutalism of the Post Office,
and the Christmas message delivered by reindeer.
And then, for the first time in a while, I’m getting to see the seaside on my birthday.
retiredmartin 
It gets difficult to look back when you can barely turn your neck.
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If you never look back, then how can you relate anything to anything else, Martin?
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Lovely photos. I have to confess to dropping a pasty at Clapham Junction Station. It fell out of the bag and I picked it up and eat it and survived. Collected Fictions opens earlier later in the week and I sometimes use it while waiting for the bus.
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Special rules apply to pasties, Jon. You get 8 seconds to pick it up.
Can only imagine what a pasty from Clapham Junction cost.
There was literally no exterior signage to Collected Fictions to indicate its existence. And folk complain about Sam Smiths !
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Yes John, but pasties were developed centuries ago to be baked without a dish because Cornwall was a long way from the Staffordshire Potteries. Whole hillsides of China Clay were transported from Cornwall to the Potteries but so popular were pasties in Cornwall that dishes weren’t transported from the Potteries to Cornwall until relatively recently. Pasties can just as safely be dropped on railway station platforms nowadays as they could be dropped in Cornish lead mines since time immemorial.
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I though the outer pastry on a pastie was originally a form of handle and no-one ate that bit?
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It was some years ago before the pick up time rules started. I was probably quick to avoid being embarrassed. I can’t remember the price but I don’t think I would have been prepared to pay too much although station food prices are usually higher.
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Why would you have signange on a Sam’s pub when it’s going to be closed anyway?
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Yes Martin, Fen folk know that you must eat a peck of dirt before you die.
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That was one of my mother’s sayings on dropping (arguably) recoverable food Paul, but she was from Stamford. (Rutland, as she insisted.) Tedious visitors – and many other unwelcome things – were described as “Neither use nor ornament”.
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Does this mean you have to eat a peck of dirt throughout your lifetime or just before your demise? If the latter, it’s a tall order given that a peck is 16 pints dry volume.
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I claim Fen heritage because my parents were market gardeners but sadly without the extra finger to prove my legal status.
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Happy birthday Martin! Glad to see it is going better than last years. Genius shot of the sausage roll and signal box. I wonder if anyone else has ever paired the two together for prosperity?
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Thanks Lana.
You might have guessed I don’t do anniversaries of festivals of any kind, but if I did I can’t think of a better present than your brilliant post on Aspley Heath.
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