Bubbly

 Beltane [1st May] is one of my favourite of all the festivals to celebrate. It's big in the Morris world and usually I'd have been dancing and then celebrating with my close friends. As with last year all the dancing events have been cancelled and my friends and I suddenly twigged that meeting inside wasn't possible. We went back to the drawing board and I suggested that perhaps a picnic in a quiet spot of the local woods weather permitting might be a viable alternative. Usually I have to drive, but with this alternative location we could all meet at a central point and walk. I watched the forecast like a hawk all week half expecting that rain might stop play, but woohoo the sun graced us with its presence.

This rather lovely fence and wall [I liked that bottle green glass lamp!] sit alongside the old stagecoach road that used to go all the way over to Worthing. Nowadays we have the A24 with all the traffic zooming along and this little private road is blissfully quiet.

This rather fabulous tree with all its roots showing is in what some of the locals call "the gully" or "the hollow". It has a rather fine face on one side, which I singularly failed to photograph. It's amazing how it continues to cling on to the side like that. However, I expect it has done so for many years and will hopefully continue to do so for many more.

Either side of this hump in the middle of the woods are adjacent ponds known as the "cup and saucer" ponds. I'm not sure whether they are manmade , but perhaps the mound has been created by the earth being removed to create them

By this point we had reached the top of Denne Hill which is popular with the locals. You get a cracking view out across the town if it's clear.

Phew made it. Now not having family that goes back generations in the town means that there are many historical details of which I am unaware. A is, meanwhile, a local lad who grew up around these parts and he was finally able to explain to me why the field across from us is called Barrack Field [I only knew of it, not where it was located]. There have been troops stationed here since the early 1800s, but during WWII it became a training camp for a Canadian division. During their time here the old union workhouse was converted into a general hospital designed to take 600 Canadian casualties from the D Day landings. Prior to this though the building was damaged and the windows got blown out. It was the young men from this camp that repaired them. There is little left to see now, but that's a base from one of the old army buildings that S and I are standing on.

Now you might wonder what I'm holding in my hand.....that's my drinking horn that S & A bought me for Christmas and this was its first outing. You might imagine that it was filled with ale or mead, but no perhaps rather more unusually Prosecco! It's not a drink I usually imbibe [I like it, but forget about it], but I happen to know it is S's favourite. You know once the bottle's opened it doesn't keep😈 so without too much difficulty we managed to tidy it away and then spent a splendid couple of hours slightly tipsy catching up. It was fabulous to be able to just laugh and relax in good company...much needed and long overdue.

Arilx