Hargausiumei: Summer has just arrived in Brighton (& Hove)

According to the meteorological view, summer in the Northern Hemisphere does not start until the 1^st of June and continues until the end of August. In Brighton & Hove it seems to have started already...

Today saw the opening of our ‘summer season’ with the Brighton Marathon. This is followed by various car meetings and displays throughout April, then, in three weeks time, the largest arts festival in England, Brighton's 49^th annual Festival of music, theatre, dance, circus, art, literature, debate and events – over 700 of them – during three weeks in May.

Then we’re into serious fun time with the London to Brighton bike and vintage car runs, Paddle Round the Pier tomfoolery, mud-spattered races, naturist bike ride, the Fiery Foods Festival, national speed trials, Pride Annual Parade, Rugby World Cup festivities and a few hundred other joyous events. Then the Veteran Car Run from London to Brighton in November signals the wind-down of Brighton’s season.

The Brighton Marathon – pardon me, it really should be called the Brighton & Hove Marathon – only started in 2010 so this is its sixth year, but it already attracts over 15,000 runners for the 26.2 mile course, many linked to the over 400 different charitable fundraising causes. This year the men’s winner was Duncan Maiyo, a Kenyan (in 2:10:15) and the women’s winner was Pennina Wanjiru, also Kenyan, in 2:34:25 - in fact, Kenyans have won eight of the 12 top men’s and women’s places since 2010.

Today I walked along the cordoned-off Church Road in Hove just before the Brighton (& Hove) Marathon began. It was a brilliant sunny day with bright blue skies and a forecast top temperature of 13 C (55 F). Volunteers were setting up the stalls for water supplies for the runners.

There was a raucous noise of horns in the distance and soon the official race car appeared heading the ‘honour guard’ of a convoy of scooterists and motorcyclists, moving slowly past Hove Town Hall, sounding their horns...

...followed by a fleet of a couple of dozen Minis and small cars, with balloons attached, weaving from side to side and also tooting.

They were followed by a police car, police motor cyclist, then pedal cyclists in orange tops, escorting the first runners.

(Eventual winner, Duncan Maiyo, is on the right)

It seemed like a good 10 or 15 minutes before more runners arrived, first the occasional one or two, then the first woman runner, then a trickle and then a flood.

Of course, being part of Hove, we're quite laid back about this sort of thing and if we can have a good brunch at the same time as enjoying the atmosphere...