FAMILY

 Long time, no see! I thought I would introduce you to our family.

A few weekends ago, we had a socially distanced family get together, here's everyone in their face masks that I made for them.  Well, apart from Natalie, who didn't have hers with her then!  We dragged the old kitchen table out into the garden to join our garden furniture so that we had more space.  I cooked a roast dinner and we served it up indoors so that we were not all touching everything. 

It's nice to be able to 'socially bubble' with my Mum, as she doesn't drive, and she can come in the car with me now.  So I am able to bring her over here, and we have ventured out to a garden centre or two, even having coffee!  It just makes us feel a bit more normal.  Husband Maurice is working from home all the time now, and has a lovely office set up in a spare bedroom.

Our son, Nicholas is getting married to the gorgeous Natalie in November.  They know it will be a small wedding.  At the moment in the UK wedding receptions are allowed for up to 30 people.  We are keeping everything crossed that that doesn't change - well at least get any smaller, before November.  They will live in Nicholas's flat, which is about 20 minutes walk away from us.

Our daughter Lucy lives in Southampton, (about 1 hour's drive from here) with the lovely Danny.  They are having their wedding next year, August 2021.  I hope all the limits of numbers of people at gatherings and social distancing are gone by then!   I am not holding my breath!

I am so looking forward to welcoming a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law into our family.

Devil's Dyke Walk

Yesterday was a Bank Holiday here in the UK, so we decided to go a bit further for our walk with Barney, our Springer Spaniel.  We have a goal to walk along the South Down's Way, little by little!  The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that run some 100 miles from east to west in the South-East of England.    They are not very high, up to about 270m, and are flanked by the sea on the South side and the Weald on the north side.  The South Downs Way is a long distance path that runs the length from Eastbourne, East Sussex in the east to Winchester, Hampshire in the west.  We have walked a small part of it, north of Worthing towards the west and the east, so we decided to drive over towards Brighton to the next bit of the path from Devil's Dyke. 

Devil's Dyke is a deep V shaped dry valley to the north of Brighton and Hove, surrounded by hills of just over 200m high.  It has many legends surrounding it, my favourite is that the devil was digging a trench to let the sea in and flood the many churches of Weald inland of the downs.  He stubbed his toe on a large rock, which made him very angry and kicked the rock over the hills towards the sea.  It is said that the rock can still be seen in a park in Hove! 

Starting out at the car park, we were immediately on the South Downs Way.  The path is well signposted and very well maintained.  It is busy with ramblers, dog walkers, families and cyclists.  We headed west to meet up with the point at which we had turned around last time we walked from that direction.

Here's the view to the east, with the next hill and a peek at the flat expanse of the Weald - the land between the North and South Downs.

I was a little nervous about walking through a field of cows!  These were young bullocks, quite small still but very healthy and shiny looking.  They were curious of us, and Barney was curious of them!  Needless to say, we kept him on a short lead through this field.  We came across some much larger bulls in the next field, but I think they were used to us humans and took no notice of us as they lay there chewing the cud in the sunshine.

Here's Barney posing while we stopped to drink our flask of coffee.  We sat on the scarp side of the hill and admired the lovely clear view to the north over the Weald to the North Downs in the distance.  It is a patchwork of  farmers fields, with hedges and trees in between.  You can make out small towns in the distance.

Here's a view along the back of the Downs, showing the steep scarp slopes.  We love to drive along the little road  below the hills that winds its way along through pretty little villages.

Nearly back at the Dyke, I was taken with the patterns of paths on this hillside made by sheep.

I love to look down on the towns and villages below.  It is great to see where towns and villages are in relation to each other.  This view is looking down onto one of the pretty villages, Poynings.  

Of course the camera doesn't do this justice, but this is a view down into Devil's Dyke itself.  You will have to take my word for it that the sides are very steep, and it is a long way down!  There is a pub to the left of this picture and there were lots of families walking around this part.  There are people in this picture right down at the bottom, but they are so small I am not sure you will be able to see them.  

I looked up Devil's Dyke on Wikipedia before writing this, and found out that Devil's Dyke was even more popular in Victorian times!  There was a train station here with a branch line from Hove, which was closed in 1938.  There was a cable car across the valley and a funicular railway up the steep north side from near Poynings.  Apparently in 1893, 30,000 people visited during the same bank holiday!  You would never know this now, although there are small clues to where the buildings were.  It just seems like very pleasant countryside, and rather glorious with the blue sky and fluffy cloud backdrop.

Next time, we will park at the same car park and walk East.  Hopefully we will do that quite soon

Spring Flowers

Bluebell woods are one of the spectacular sights of the countryside in England at this time of year.  The English bluebell is a lovely flower with its drooping bells in stunning shades of blue, and carpets the woodland in a haze of blue.  One of our favourite dog walks at the weekend is Slindon Woods about 30 minutes drive from here.  We decided to go over there on Bank Holiday Sunday to see the bluebells.  The weather was cold and a bit dull, and some of the bluebells had already finished!  But we found enough to take some photos:

 We took a flask of coffee and sat under these intriguing branches of an oak tree to drink it.

A few days later the sun was shining, so I took a walk around my garden with my camera to try and capture some spring colour:

And finally, I potted up 3 tomato plants and a Black-Eyed Susan in my greenhouse.

Dog walk along the Ilex Way

On Monday mornings I usually take Barney for a walk along the Ilex Way, which is an avenue of Holm Oak trees nearby, and a lovely place for dog walking.  It is possibly the best known avenue of  Holm Oaks/Ilex trees in Great Britain.  The Holm Oak is usually found in the Mediterranean, and is a tall broad leaf evergreen tree.   The trees form an arch over the avenue all the way along.  I took this picture back in December when it was a little bit misty, and very atmospheric. 

Yesterday it was a bright sunny morning so I took some more photos.

The trees have grown very large now, and some have had to be trimmed or even felled.  There was a lot of damage in the 1987 hurricane.  The gaps have been replanted and those trees are now quite mature.  There is a lot of wildlife among the trees.  Barney always loves to chase the grey squirrels!  There is always lots of bird song - quite magical.

These trees were planted in the 19th century when the land was part of the Goring Hall estate.  Goring Hall was built in 1840 by David Lyon and it is said that the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon stayed there as a guest many times.  Goring Hall is now a private hospital, but has been a private boarding school. 

To the south of the avenue are farmers fields down to the sea

There is a well trodden path across the famers field, which we usually take to walk back, and that   brings us to the cricket and football fields.

There are usually lots of other dog walkers to chat to and walk with, and dogs for Barney to play with. The walk takes about 45 minutes, but there are lots of other paths you can take for a longer walk.   And finally, here's Barney!