At long last some sunshine, so on Saturday I caught a train down to Brighton for the day, bought bread and Victorian sausages in the farmers' market; remembered how I longed to own a Biba dress; ate fish and chips on the pier and gawped at other people having fishy pedicures. (Yuck. When did that become traditional pier entertainment?) After I recovered from the disappointment of discovering that the once wonderful Bill's is wonderful no longer and has stopped making fabulous cakes studded with fresh flowers ... a victim of its own success, it's become just another noisy, boring chain ... I perked up when I discovered my new favourite Brighton teashop where toffee and cranberry cake was the healthiest thing I ate all day. Then I went for a long, slow amble down the seafront, admiring Regency terraces and tiled shopfronts and King Edward VII's butcher ... and purely by chance found a little gelateria that sells violet ice-cream. Just the thing, don't you think, for a Regency-Edwardian lady?