Easter Monday Jaunt

With many folk in full holiday mode yours truly has been seeking out the quiet places away from the crowds.  A couple of hours walking in the stunning Sussex countryside a few miles from home was just the ticket and gave me the reset I needed. Please tag along if you'd care to join us on our most recent meander.

Regular visitors here will know that I am a lover of Spring and Autumn. This time of year it's all about the freshness and vibrant colours of the new season. Nature didn't let me down. Photos never capture the true beauty of the woods at bluebell time...the colour is sublime as are the lime greens and the sharp orange of that lichen [imaginatively called Common Orange Lichen]. The wings of the orange tip butterfly are tangerine, but they rarely land for more than a brief moment so capturing a close-up is well nigh impossible! 

This particular combination of a high gate above and a stile below was one neither of us had encountered before. The design is to keep the livestock in and once we'd crossed the field we found out first hand why that was. That goat is the ringleader....

He called his ovine mates over and then they started nonchalantly following us at a distance to lull us into a false sense of security.

As we neared the other gate on the far side, these would-be Houdinis sped up and we had to get through pretty sharpish. I think that they might have played before😀

Having been very slack this year and barely set foot in any churches I got two for the price of one on this occasion. The first one was a RC one which I only popped over to because I wanted to see the grave of the writer and former MP Hilaire Beloc who lived round here. Not much of interest to report, but then we washed up back at the parish church of St George's in West Grinstead where we'd parked the car. Having been before I wasn't even sure if I was going to bother again, but as ever when temptation is dandled in front of me it is too hard to resist. Am mighty glad that I gave in again for I have learnt over the past decade where I might find things lurking and as you can see below I turned up several things which had previously passed me by.

The faded remains of an early 16th century set of wall paintings featuring St Christopher holding the infant Jesus with a windmill? That's definitely a new one on me. The picture gives you a better idea of what it would have looked like back in its heyday.

You really do find all sorts of things knocking about in churches and often without explanation. At the time I theorised that this wooden box might have been an ancient coffin, but looking at it back at home I can see that it would have been for a very short person and why would it have had strap hinges. Then I wondered if it was the partial remains of a so called crusader chest, but wrong again. It is a hudd [hood] which was a portable shelter to protect the clergyman when he was conducting a funeral service at the graveside in inclement weather conditions.

I have seen my fair share of arcaded 12th century fonts in my time and this one was lovely, but not particularly noteworthy...or so I thought until I saw those teeny faces peering out at me from the corners. Possibly lions, but delightful and nearly missed.

It felt like my outing had definitely been sprinkled with fairy dust.

꩜Aril꩜

Ostara/Easter

David has been baking and a friend dropped this book off that she saw in a charity shop💚 That's my Easter sorted then. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Arilx

Wedding

 

Doesn't this image just sum up spring. My Dad told me that when the blossom cascaded down my Grandmother always said that it was because there had been a fairy wedding. What a lovely window into the folklore of her Edwardian childhood.

Arilx

Not giving a fig

There was the 10.17 bus up on the board yet when I looked a couple of minutes later it had vanished into the ether without any explanation for its mysterious disappearance. With the next one not due for an hour David and I regrouped over a coffee and doughnuts. We were soon chuckling about just how grumpy we'd been about a missing bus [first world problems eh!] and before long we'd come up with a plan B. Half an hour later and we were on our way down to Tarring.

I had always believed that the beautiful village of Tarring was separate from Worthing, but turns out that once again I am misinformed. Once upon a time it was the more important town and Worthing was just a small fishing village, but over time fortunes changed and these days it's been absorbed by the ever expanding coastal conurbation. Somehow though it's retained its character and although the oldest part is only a couple of streets now, it's a joy to spend an hour or so there admiring its medieval buildings which are in such contrast to its surrounding environs. Personally I like to have a starting point when exploring new areas and the short heritage walk provided exactly that. 

The church of St Andrew's dates from the 13th century. As ever the Victorians have had their mucky little paws all over it, but I found the medieval feel of the 19th century stained glass pleasing. John Parsons died in 1633 and his tomb is now the oldest remaining one in the churchyard.

For those like me who enjoy different architectural styles the High Street is the place to head for. Below we have the timbered 15th century Parsons Row along with the very familiar Sussex flint covered former Malthouse. Many of the houses would appear to be later, but if you were to remove their once fashionable brick frontages you would find the much older timber framed structured hidden behind them. The Castle Inn lamp is an amazing survivor when you consider that the pub served its last pint way back in 1911. Although I spotted the castle adorning the top of it when I was there the presence of the cannons were a later discovery. My absolute perfect type of small and easy to miss detail.

Prior to coming here I had wanted to follow up the legends of both Thomas A Becket and the figs. It is rumoured that the great man himself came here and stayed at the grade1 listed Old Palace below. Sadly the facts don't stack up as this dates from 1230 and he met his grisly end in 1170 nor do the claims end there.

The house below is called Bishop's Garth and is nowadays a private residence. If you squint you can see a fig tree growing up above the garden wall and that's where the former Archbishop of Canterbury comes in again. This time it is claimed that the great man himself planted the first one and this little nugget gave the 19th century tourist industry just the boost it needed. By 1830 the fig garden covered three quarters of an acre and had boasted over 100 trees. Visitors flocked in to see this spectacle and with the Victorian nose for ingenuity very much in full view the house became a cafe. One could enjoy a cuppa and bowl of fresh figs. Legend has is that such was the high quality of the figs an Italian warbler called Beccafico bird would fly all that way every year just to feast on the Tarring figs! Legally the homeowners have to open the garden to the public once a year which they do so in July, but nowadays it's a much smaller affair as much of the land was sold off during the 1980s for house building.

As it turned out this change of plan worked in our favour as we had sea mist and drizzle for most of the time we were out and about...we were never going to get fabulous sea views down in Worthing under those circumstances were we😉There's nothing for it...we're just going to have to hop on the bus another day and give it another whirl. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

꩜Aril꩜

New sightings

 I adore this time of year when the breezes are soft and there's some warmth in the air. Have so enjoyed the past few days, although the month has been a quiet one. It seems like this past year has gone past in a flash and we passed the first anniversary of David's cancer op last week. The memories it has stirred up has seen me seeking reflective spaces and heading out into nature has always calmed any emotional maelstroms for me. We are in the best place we can be and I am delighted to say that for the first time the surgeon didn't find anything to remove to test following David's latest biopsy. With a couple of recent wanderings I am so very happy to have seen my first Redwing. Close up you can see very clearly that they are part of the thrush family with their speckled breasts, but the smudge of rouge on their side gives away their true identity. Alas no photo, but instead I have this one to share. My first encounter with Coltsfoot💛🧡

I will endeavour to write about our latest bus adventure next time.

Arilx

Saying it with flowers

We have a rebel with a cause living amongst us. A local chap plants up the worst of the local potholes. Literally flower power in action.

Arilx

Garden doings.

David is naturally a very busy sort of fellow and he's often found to be making or adapting things. A number of factors have combined which has seen a flurry of garden related activity from him recently.

I have spoken before about our efforts to make our teeny garden more wildlife friendly. Our efforts seem to be paying off, but the one thing we didn't have was a pond. There isn't enough room to have anything huge, but it all helps and one black bucket and a wooden hedgehog ramp later and we now have this.

 

To meet the legal deadline our local council is finally rolling out a waste food recycling scheme. We are late to the party on this one. Currently we compost as much as we can, but we're now in the position that our borders are at a level where they won't take much more compost either so we will move over to the new system. We produce so little garden waste that we don't bother paying for the collection service offered (it used to free). That leftover empty bin has now been made into a new smaller compost one than our current one. There will be a space next to it to put our 4th slimline water butt and divert the rainwater from the shed guttering into it.

The final repurposing has been using the trunk from our neighbours' tree when they had it cut down last year (they were happy for us to have it) and making bee hotels. You have to drill deeper holes if you want to attract the female bees apparently.

To be honest I haven't had any input into this bar supplying him with homemade digestives and Dorset apple cake. I did suggest that we had a chat with the pond specialists up at the garden centre about suitable plants and then forced him to stop off at the cafe. Might have picked up a couple of unplanned for perennial wallflowers too🤣

He's now busy working on other stuff.....

Arilx