Next port of call

Friday morning saw us rise at a ridiculously early time to catch the 5:30am ferry from Dieppe to Newhaven.

The ferry ride itself wasn't too bad. Nikki and I took turns in doing laps around the deck with the wee man's pushchair to get Ernie to nap.

Next stop Brighton, and a meeting with fellow blipper, KarenC.

Having recently moved from Brussells to Brighton, we've been following each other's blips for many months but Karen is the first blipper that we've ever met in the flesh.

We met in Bill's cafe and chatted for an hour or two about travelling, babies (Karen has a granddaughter called Scarlett, who is about three weeks younger than our wee man), photography and, of course, blips. Karen was kind enough to buy Ernie a little present too, which I'm sure will feature in many future blips. Thanks Karen! (here's Karen's reciprocate blip)

Following brunch we headed over to the New Forest where we met the wee man's great, great aunty and uncle.

Inspired by his aunty, Ernie is in top form, entertaining all before he, then us, passed out. Ernie dropped at 5 pm for the night. ..his earliest night the whole trip. We followed shortly after at 8pm