A Bank Holiday hangover cure

After what had been a rather drunken Bank Holiday weekend – gigs, old friends, falling over – Irish and I thought it was about time we extracted our backsides from the sofa and away from the constant repeats of American Idol. So we headed off for a wholesome trip at the grandly named Hove Lagoon.

The Lagoon, in reality a small sailing lake between Brighton’s West Pier and Shoreham’s industrial works, is the preserve of young middle-class families. The dress code reads: Cath Kidston bag slung over the handles of a top-of-the-range pushchair: Small child with bike, scooter or similar erratically-ridden mini-vehicle: Overly-excitable dog optional.

Until recently I couldn’t imagine anything scarier or less-me than being a mother, but I’ve slowly been coming round to the idea of having children…one day. Perhaps because I’ve finally met a man who I think would be an excellent dad. But I’m still prone to veer from one way of thinking to the other, and did about twenty times during the trip to ‘this could be your future’ lagoon.

Cute, giggling child – yes, I’d like one of those please. Screaming, tantruming child – nah, you’re alright thanks. By the time we got to the lagoon, I’d decided that I could plump for a dog.

VBites

The café at the lagoon was re-opened by Heather Mills as vegan eatery VBites last July, and whatever you think of her – in my case not too much – is a great success. For its target audience it’s bang on the money, serving healthy and affordable food with a conveyer-belt full of ‘scrummy’ cakes – ooo, naughty!

The décor is fresh and comfortable with plenty of seating at the bar, tables and benches and the turn-over is high. This is a fast-food café in the pure sense of the term and despite our reservations about the slightly robotic 'smile-fixed-into-place but head-in-the-clouds' waitress, we didn’t have to drool over our neighbours' fajitas for too long before our own grub turned up.

Irish’s smoky vegan hot dog with homemade salsa and guacamole was delicious and surprisingly ‘meaty’, my falafel pitta with mixed leaves was also suitably filling, albeit a little dry, and baked oven chips helped fill the remaining hole.

On our way back we stopped off for an ice-cream at Marocco’s Italian sea-front café – along with everyone else in Brighton and Hove – and even managed to avoid the lure of a late afternoon pint. How middle class are we…