Even better, I had a cheeky day off to enjoy it. Not just a random day – I did have something to do. As it turned out the something to do involved an hour or so at lunchtime and another hour late afternoon so could have been fitted round a working day. But hey, I got to eat my lunch sitting in the sun in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral, so I'm not complaining.

I also manged to have a bit of a blitz on CGF's garden – cutting the lawn (twice) and digging over the flower beds. Or what will become flower beds when we've planted some flowers in them.

We took a day trip to Brighton last weekend. CS1 was running the Brighton Marathon and we went along to support. For various reasons (such as road closures in the city; exorbitant parking charges; CBA'd to drive) we decided to take the train. Sometimes* there is a service along the south coast from Eastleigh to Brighton, but not last Sunday. Instead, we had to go via the outskirts of London (Clapham Junction – or "Clarm" if you're posh).

* I should point out that the service is run by Southern Trains. A lot of their services are "sometimes". The only thing that Southern Trains excels at is in making every other train company look good by comparison.

It was a great way to travel. We could all sit back and enjoy the journey, and have a cup of coffee and a pee whenever we wanted. I even found my kindle would connect to the on-board wify* and I could bookface – just like a kool kid.

* only on the first leg (South Western Trains (or whatever they're called nowadays)). Southern Trains' wify is even worse than their train services.

Brighton was fun – watching a load of runners is more entertaining than I thought it might be. We were able to see CS1 at three points, owing to the loopy nature of the course and the fact that you could walk from one point of the course to another by a much shorter route than the runners could run it. She finished in 4 hrs 40 which is pretty impressive – especially as (despite our repeated advice) she had never run further than about 12 km in training.

When she finished we picked her up from the floor (pretty literally) and helped her stagger home via a great Japanese bistro. I think Brighton is possibly the best city for cheap-and-cheerful eating that I've come across.

The journey back was slower. Southern Trains (again) were so slow that we missed the connection at Clapham Junction so had a long wait for the next one. We wandered off to find loos and snacks. Clapham Junction is huge – Wikipedia says it has 17 platforms, but I'm sure I counted over 20. It used to have a sign saying "Europe's busiest railway junction" but that's gone now so maybe it isn't anymore.

While we were roaming the station, I noticed that there was a train to Southampton Airport 15 mins earlier than our train – and a faster (fewer stops) train. "let's use that train and get a taxi home", I suggested. "If we're lucky, our tickets won't get checked, and even if they are we'll only have to pay the difference. Or may get away with it as sometimes changing at Southampton Airport is a valid route to Eastleigh". So that's what we did. Our tickets weren't checked, a taxi arrived soon after we got there and we were home just before 10 rather than just after 10.30 - so worth the £8 taxi fare.

We've discovered a long-lost relative – well, not so much long-lost as never-known. Long and complicated story, but via a bookface page connected to a company that my grandfather was involved with. He is (I think) my second-cousin – our fathers are cousins. I had heard of his father as our fathers used to exchange Christmas cards, but lost contact several years ago. Apparently, they last saw each other at a family funeral in 1975! A well-lost branch of the family.