Horley, Surrey

Well, the normal English weather caught up with me and today was rain, mostly rain, a bit of rain, and totally clouded over.  I chose not to ride, so I walked and checked out this town.

Horley is a small town with basically one main street.  It has one regular grocery store, one budget grocery store, an Iceland (all frozen foods), all on this main street, and then there is a huge Tesco extra (think Loblaws superstore) complete with clothes, electronics, toys, household stuff, but no furniture.  That mega store is on the northwest end of town by farmers' fields -- about a 15 minute walk from the Gatwick Belmont.

This guest house is only one of at least 8 on this street.  Many have a small restaurant associated with the accommodation, and several have parking available for when you leave the country for a week.  They are all fairly large houses which have been split into rooms.  I would think that they are all at least 100 years old.  Most of the guests come and stay for one night and then fly.  The guest house delivers people to Gatwick (about 1 mile away) any time of the day or night -- good thing, my flight is at 06:35 on Sunday.  I am known as the lady who is staying a long time with my 5 night reservation.  They do two options for breakfast of which I am doing the continental and have a pub in the evening, which I have not frequented.  I have my bread and cheese and cider up here.

There doesn't seem to be much happening in Horley.  Several of the store fronts are available for lease.  There are at least 4 charity shops.  The largest selection of shoes is at the discount warehouse, and they didn't have a pair of sandals for next week. I have been told that the shopping is much better in Crawley -- about 2 miles down the road.  Strange they use miles, but all their groceries are in metric measurements.

So I poked along the main street, spent several hours at Tesco (came up with a few bargains) and walked the trail to Gatwick Airport.  I had read in a blog that one can cycle through the airport grounds and get views which normal air passengers can't.  I would like to try that on Saturday before I return the bike.  My legs are tired and I walked holes through my socks -- good day.