Pit Stop holiday....

June 6th to 13th, and Pit Stop was the name of our self-catering house for the week. We shared this holiday with our lovely friendsN&T who we have known for about 37ish years and holidayed with them before, although the last time was a Eurocamp in France when our children were all little, so definitely about time we did it again!

The website said...
Less than 10 minutes stroll to the unspoilt shingle and sandy beach, shops, restaurants, wine bar and cafés, this delightful terraced property with Art Deco inspirations forms part of the renovated Grade II listed 1930’s petrol station, making this a tastefully styled holiday home. East Preston is a charming, friendly village and an ideal touring base. The South Downs are nearby and within easy reach are NT homes, the cathedral city of Chichester, Goodwood Races, Arundel Castle and Brighton. Shop, pub and restaurant ¼ mile.

...and it's not wrong.

 

The owners had thought of everything we could possibly need so a lovely relaxed holiday for us.

None of us had been to much of Sussex before so we had fun exploring and the weather was perfect, really sunny and very warm most of the time with just a couple of showers.

We were lucky to get there for the last weekend of their festival, looked like bunting had been put up everywhere just for us :-) We made sure we had a good position (outside the pub) to watch the carnival procession while having lunch. Then onto the funfair.

 



The local beach was just a short walk away, mostly stones but when we went for a long walk we found lots of pretty shells, oodles of cuttlefish and crab shells and N found a couple of good hag stones to make into pendants.

We ate locally too lots of the time as the pubs and cafes were really good, even used the Chinese and chip shop takeaways. One of the cafes by day turns to an Italian restaurant for a couple of evenings which of course we had to try and it was lovely. The local pub quiz night got our "Pit Stoppers" team too (we didn't win, nor did we disgrace ourselves either).

Plenty to do during each day, although we were not rushing around, we fitted in a trip into Littlehampton, lunch at the Lifeboat restaurant on the river Arun,

 

A quick look round the local china and antique fair (overpriced tat), a lovely train ride on the Bluebell Steam Railway from Sheffield Park Station to East Grinstead Station and we discovered that Princess Anne was going to be there to unveil a statue of a leading plastic surgeon so of course we had to be in the right place at the right time.

 


After our brush with royalty we just had to treat ourselves to a cream tea in the Bluebell Railway carriage cafe (well us girls did). We had a whole day at Arundel Castle and gardens, it's so interesting made more so by N buying the childrens activity guide which definitely made us look more carefully on our way round.

 


Another day was a trip to a butterfly/birds/small animals farm where N bought two Lantana plants that butterflies love and gave one to me so we both have a holiday souvenir (hope I don't kill it).

 


And for the times we were at the house not relaxing outside with tea and not quite ready for bed we played games, scrabble had been packed specially but there were also lots of games already there and we also managed a game of Kubb on the lawn out front getting lots of funny (interested) looks from the passers by :-)

Then all too soon it was time to come home. Lets hope it's not another 30 years before we do it again!
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