Headlines
Our Longest Walk (we cheat and only walk 33km)
A Gloomy Start: very pleasant until it all goes uphill
Damp and Tedious: including lunch between showers
Let the Sun Shine In !
Even Dinner is a Long Walk Away
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Stream of Consciousness
Our Longest Walk (we cheat, and only walk 33km)
We start with the usual hearty breakfast. Even Deb has selected the "full English breakfast". I've taken to starting with sugar coated cereal (for the sugar) with yoghurt (because I like the combination). Plus toast and marmalade.
Plus... toast and granulated honey. Granulated! For years I've preferred crystallised honey because it stays on the bread (or toast). When I search the web for, How to make crystallised honey, all I get is ways to return it to being runny. "Granulated" -- crystallised -- honey is sold in England. Perhaps a search for "how to make granulated honey" will turn up some sensible responses.
We have organised with the b&b hostess to get a lift to just the other side of the village, South Harting. We pack, we prepare, we are dropped at the carpark on the far side of Tower Hill. A kilometre or two saved! We agree that it's worth it on this, our longest day of walking.
A Gloomy Start: very pleasant until it all goes uphill
It's not so much raining, as, we're up in the clouds. With occasional spots of rain. We find the South Downs Way -- where it runs across Harting Down. Several people out walking their dogs. Visibility about as far as you could throw a stick for a dog. It's actually quite pleasant for walking, though there is no view.
As I read the signs that name the area as Harting Down it finally sinks home: there are quite a few named downs. So, I realise, that's why they are called the South Downs! Plural ! Learn something every day... Sometimes quite slowly :-)
We reach Beacon Hill. And start to climb.
All of a sudden we are hot. Too hot. And tired.
For walking I wear shorts. Very comfortable. Not too hot. On top I wear a woolen thermal and a thin hiking shirt. Both are anywhere from damp to soaking wet, from sweat, once I start walking... especially up hill. The thermal is wool, so it doesn't get too chilly -- unless a cold wind blows. With a less cold wind I will dry out. Eventually.
Today I have a raincoat on top of all that. Which means -- I get very hot, very quickly. So I spend the entire day wearing a wet shirt and thermal. There's just enough cool wind so that I don't want to remove the raincoat, even when it stops raining...
This will be a very uncomfortable day!
Later: In truth, not so uncomfortable. Just continually wet and tired!
So we climb Beacon Hill. That sets the standard for the day.
Damp and Tedious: including lunch between showers
A few hours of walking. Deb says, This is tedious. It is, too.
There's the mist, all morning. There's the rain, intermittent -- very light -- showers, all morning.
For several hours we tramp along, feeling damp. And feeling tedium. There are several reasons for this:
1. It is damp. Some rain. All damp.
2. The mist and rain block the view. Sometimes we can see 100m. We never get to see any broad distances.
3. When it rains, we put up the hoods on our raincoats. Which means that we don't see much to either side.
4. We spend a long long time walking along a very straight track -- with tall hedges on either side. Tall hedges which block our views to the side.
5. We know that this is the longest -- by far -- day of our walk. Which means that we can't just sit and rest, or dawdle along. We need to keep on moving.
6. And I haven't even mentioned... Deb and I both have colds :-(
For almost a week I've been bravely fighting a cold. Today, it has almost peaked. Deb is just a couple of day behind in the cold war race, today she has started to feel rotten. Admittedly, walking in the fresh (and very fresh) outside air makes most of the symptoms disappear. But having a cold does add to the feelings of... tedium. Not that we complain, of course :-)
There are bronze age barrows off to the left. We look at them over the fence, definitely barrow shaped. From a distancce, much the same as the iron age barrow we saw the other day. I wonder, When these people were carting stones for their barrows did they ever wish that they had built the wheel barrow first?
Just a bit further and we stop for morning tea of bananas. We're in a pleasant forest area, sitting on logs.
We stop for lunch. Sandwiches between light showers of rain. Sitting on the wet grass beside the track. A couple with their dog walk by. The dog comes over to say hello. When he leaves we notice that the dropped crust of bread has also gone.
Every so often I check the time and distance. Then calculate -- at that rate -- what time we will reach Amberley. When the estimate reaches 5:30pm... I relax.
Let the Sun Shine In !
It's now afternoon. The weather is gradually improving. There is even sunshine! And I now know that we can reach our destination by a reasonable time... All is good :-)
We are near a Roman villa. We don't see the villa but we are walking along an old Roman road. It has clearly been cobble-stoned. The stones are a bit uneven by now but the path is still distinctly different to the rest of the Way.
For afternoon tea -- a packet of chips, each -- we sit on a solid seat with a nice view. (Deb tells me it had a nice view, I can't remember. A view all the way to the Idle of Wight. I do remember seeing the Idle of Wight.) (What's dirty, brown and comes steaming out of Cowes? The Isle of Wight ferry. Baboom!) A passing cyclist asks, Are we okay? We nod and smile. Perhaps we do look a bit tired :-)
Towards the end of the day... cross a busy road, start a very long downhill walk. Even downhill can be tiring at the end of a long day! The highlight of this section is, for me, seeing a rat run across a pile of silage :-) Though it may be the rare and endangered silage vole... or possibly not.
Then we are on a flat section that zig zags across the flood plain for the river Arun. Nothing much that sticks in the mind, just a series of straight lines and right angle turns along the edge of a field. And a foot bridge.
We arrive! Up a hill, beside a busy road, along a narrow footpath, past a school... up another short hill... and we arrive at The Thatched House.
Which is not thatched. The building spent several hundred years reincarnated as an ale house... called The Thatch House. It may have been the last ale house in England? Now, after conversion to a house and three owners, the name remains.
Here's a late thought: It's now Thatched House. I'm sure the owner referred to the pub as Thatch House, no "ed" on the end of "Thatch". Perhaps the pub was named for the building's earlier purpose, to store thatch? Never "thatched", just the house in which thatch was stored.
The owners are as friendly and welcoming as all that we have met. With the added bonus of tea and cake and scones on arrival :-) The house is crowded with knick knacks, many with a dog theme... There is a real corgi.
We collapse.
Then walk out to dinner.
Even Dinner is a Long Walk Away
There are two pubs in town but the nearer one is closed, for the short-term. The other one is... a long walk away! Past some fields. Into the next village, it seems.
Neither of us is particularly hungry. Just one course each. And I help Deb eat her one course. We do spot some deer on the flood area way below... but lack the energy to be enthusiastic.
We are sitting by the door. By the open door. The open door to the outside. Sure, there are people actually eating outside. But they are English...
We walk back... Luckily it's a slight downhill slope.
Home, sleep. No energy to write a journal entry...
And even later:
Deb wakes up to go to the toilet. It's down a passage outside our room. The house is all dark. Deb tries to open the wrong door. Can't find the toilet. Decides to go back and ask me for help. Can't find our bedroom... Luckily finds a torch and everything is now easy.
For me, I go to bed knowing that I will wake up in the dark and want to go to the toilet. So I check where everything is. I have no trouble. I even know where several torches are stashed... Of course I don't need them :-)
And now... it being "tomorrow" I have run out of time to write "tomorrow's" journal while it is still today. Oh well, I'll write today when it's yesterday.
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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Agamedes Consulting
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"The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." — William Arthur Ward.
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