The bus from France

The Newick village Hall is booked. A bus load of people are coming for the day from the twinned village in France.

Food and general jollity at the hall, then...

At lunch, we order quickly, to avoid the rush. The pub is expecting a group of 26 for lunch. No sign of the group.

On tonight's news: major delays and traffic holdups at Dover. due to a "glitch" in the French passport checking system.

Oh dear. I think that Deb has worked out what happened to the expected lunch crowd.

What a bummer :-(

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.

Fletching

We walk from Newick to Fletching. Along public footpaths through field and nature.

Yes, we then need to walk back again...

Total distance a bit over six km.

At Fletching we stop for drinks at the Griffin Inn.

Its a Gastropub. we take our drinks to the beer garden out back,

Theres seating, tables. A covered eating area. A grill/barbecue area, just being started up, chefs preparing, wood going on the fire.

Theres a beautiful view.Quite a distant view, out over a hedge and fields, to trees and distance.

Its Saturday. Every table is reserved.

We finish our drinks and walk back to Newick.

Where we have lunch.

In the Bull on the Green pub.

We both have lamb chop, very tasty. The lamb may have been very large but its chops are tender.

Its an old pub. Exposed roof beams, I have to mind my head.

Im well prepared... after our walk, my shirt is dripping with sweat.

So I change into the dry shirt that I have carried :-)

For dessert we share a chocolate fudge brownie. Yum.

After lunch we look for a geocache.

Its in or near a small wooden -- restored -- building. It looks like a bus stop. Its an old pump house, with lever action pump inside, no longer pumping.

No sign of the cache. If its outside, too bad, the hut is surrounded by growth. Brambles and, probably, nettles.

All this green stuff is unfamiliar. We recognise brambles, blackberries. Possibly nettles. Other stuff could be anything.

We admire the flowers. bluebells, buttercups, wood anemone, other unknowns but we try to avoid touching it. We follow paths.

Theres a church in... Newick I think, or maybe Fletching... Anyway, I read about it in Wikipedia. It was built in 12th century.Something added in 13th, something else in 14th, maybe something later. Just from the outside we can see old, older and oldest stonework. Still in use, a sign at the gate gives the name and email for the current priest.

Back to the hotel. We post the cards.

Dinner is in our room, sandwiches that we bought at our lunch pub.

We have to sign that yes, we were talking away the sandwiches. It was, I guess, because the sandwiches are in a plastic takeaway container... limiting one-use containers strictly to takeaways.

And that, I think, is all. For Saturday. Our last day based in Haywards Heath.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.

village to village

After a hearty breakfast we drive to Newick. There's parking behind the village Hall. I say, We can park here.

We pull in and...a man tells us that parking is not allowed. He's quite nice about it. The Hall is booked for noon, a busload of people arriving from the French town twinned with Newick.

Oh well. We move the car and park on a side street called... Cricket Pitch. I wonder what used to happen there :-?

We're looking for a footpath from Newick to Fletching.

We park and walk to nearby shops.

First, we buy postage stamps. Weeks ago I bought a couple of postcards for grandchildren. Finally I addressed them, Today I post them.

The PO man seems to know nothing about postage! But he sells us stamps, we hope they are okay. We expect that we'll be home before the cards.

Next we need to find the start of the walk. We're in a pharmacy. There's a man standing under a sign saying, Prescriptions, Advice. His advice is good, we find the path.

The path starts narrow, between walls of weeds and brambles.

Then ploughed fields, fields with crops just starting, fields with sheep... and lambs. Feeding, sleeping, standing. One farmer seems to specialise in black lambs. One lamb sees us and trots to mum. mum ignores us.

There's a small patch of woods either side of a river..A Boardwalk across.

A bit later we're on a sealed but minor road, over a bridge,the river is larger, a couple of metres across, perhaps one deep.

There are some nice houses. One is called Mill House, they have a robot lawnmower puttering back and forth across the lawn. I'm fascinated :-)

One house has a dock on the river. Very nice, unless you have little children.

For some reason that reminds me... In England, dogs are allowed nearly everywhere. Parks, pubs, restaurants.

One garden does have dog free areas, near ponds. They also provide sort of large shepherds crooks. My guess is, the hooks are to rescue dogs which are foolish enough to leap in the water.

And so we walk.

On a farm, I think we've found a piece of modern art, there may be a photo in a separate post. Turns out, the art installation is... an old piece of farm machinery.

We finally reach Fletching. I'll post this and continue in a separate post...

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.

modern art? near newick

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.

Friday Nyman

Today we visit Nyman Garden. It's my favourite garden so far:-)

We're in England... it's time for me to have a breakfast kipper.

My kipper comes with poached eggs. It's very nice but I must say, it's a challenge to eat.

I think you're meant to peel out the spine and a lot of the ribs come with it. My kipper is just hacked apart. Not very elegant at all. I get enough for a meal but there's room for improvement.

The main thing is -- I'm in England and have had a kipper for breakfast.

We follow the gps to Nyman. The first few miles are in and out and round about. Small roads and roundabouts.

Then the road goes straight -- and we are here. We park -- and go for a walk.

We're in the village of Handcroft. The walk starts along a busy road. We wonder why this is a defined walk. Then we turn off into woods.

It's either Nyman Woods or Brockman Woods, depending on whether you look at signs or a map.

It's a small woodland on the edge of the village. The trail starts on a track beside fields, with sheep and lambs. Then into the woods. A pleasant walk in the woods. With a couple of sculptures, no explanation.

A couple of km and we're back at the car, back at the entrance to the gardens. Time for coffee and cake.

We stand in the queue.I hget hot and bothered, sit down, leave Deb to stand in the queue.

Next stop is the toilets... very confusing. A corridor with four doors. I have trouble deciding if the icon is a male or female. There are so many female, have I missed the male?

phew, found it. Use it. Getting out... there are three doors, all exactly the same, which one did I come in from? Not the first time I've been lost inside a toilet.

Daylight! I'm out. We set off around the gardens.

These are definitely my favourite gardens. I find that they are... accessible. I can't quite explain it. The gardens just seem to be... gardens that I could live with.

Whatever it is...I like it.

The gardens are set, as usual, in a large estate, newer than most,19th century. The gardens surround the house, which is partly ruined.

All these English gardens have taken so long to establish. They seem so absolutely ancient. And yet... This garden makes me think.

The house was built in 1890. the next owner rebuilt it as a mediaeval mansion. then it burnt down in 1930. Was largely rebuilt. Three generations worked on the gardens.

The last of the family returned to the house after her second husband died. She lived there. Sold it, moved to a house in the village, died

... By various means the house went to the National Trust.

All that time and effort and... the family is gone.

Seems sad, really.

We drive to home...

Stop for a late but hearty lunch at the first pub we pass, the Jolly Tanner

oh, jumping back...

We once have coffee in a cafe with a good sign: No, we don't have wifi. Feel free to talk to each other.

If I think I've missed something, I'll put it in whenever i think of it :-)

If I think of anything more about today... I'll get back later.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.

Sheffield Thursday

After a relaxed breakfast we drive to Sheffield Gardens, it's not far.

Deb has an allTrails walk that starts in the carpark.

We walk through a gate, into a field. Through a small herd of cows. They ignore us.

there's lush green grass, cows foot prints from when the ground was muddy. A faint trail and occasional marker posts. We're following the blue trail.

It's an "official" trail, allTrails lets Deb know when we wander off course.

Up a gentle hill. down again to the river Ouse. Here, the river channel is a couple of metres deep, the water less than a metre.

Signs tell us that the occasional shallow ditches are Neolithic diggings. Fish traps, perhaps.

Work has been done on the modern river to make it flow better.

There are decorative wooden... things... standing like posts, we're not sure what they mean. Probably not Neolithic.

Both allTrails and the blue trail are blocked by padlocked gates. New owner of some fields, we guess. No worries, Deb guides us on a detour, we rejoin the track a bit later.

There's a sign to SkyGlade. We can see a clear area surrounded by a dozen large wooden posts. No explanation of its significance. I guess, weird women dancing naked under the full moon.

We don't get to the glade, it's the other side of a fence and brambles.

We walk on. It's very peaceful, just us. There's a distant camp ground, no people in sight. Not even more cows in sight. Just a few birds. Lovely:-)

Through a gate, and we are back in the Gardens. The trail was outside, in farmland, edged with trees.

We find a geocache! Our second this holiday.

We're not really trying. I occasionally check the app, see if there's a nearby cache.

This one showed up from 700m away. we're unfamiliar with the country and, for earlier possibilities, unfamiliar with streets and bushes and such. It's hard to know how to approach a distant cache.

But this one is by a pond. And here is a large pond :-) I get us close, Deb finds the cache. Woohoo :-)

Now we're back at the carpark. And near the Gatehouse Cafe.

After nearly six km we feel we have earned a cream sponge and iced coffee.

We've walked through farms. What about the Gardens?

We pay our money and go into Sheffield Gardens.

These Gardens are, of course, old... all the Gardens are old.

There are sweet Chestnut trees 400 years old. Massive redwoods, rhododendrons with a forest of tangled trunks.

There are several large ponds. water lilies are just starting to show flowers, the water lilies are a feature of the Gardens, we're just a month too early.

These Gardens are less formal than others.

There's a lot of mention-- in this and other Gardens -- of destruction caused by the storms of 1987. A lot of trees were damaged or destroyed.

We walk in the Gardens, around the ponds. Admire lilies and ducks. Then back to the cafe.

We eat a late and light lunch. Buy sandwiches for a later dinner. And drive home.

phew!

Oh yes. This week is the Chelsea Flower Show. No way we will go to London to see it.

But no worries... we see it each night on the BBC.

We avoid the crowds of the major events. It's still quite exciting to be close and to see them live or almost live each night on TV.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.

technot genius

I manage the taps and have a shower. Okay, Deb sets it up for me. All I have to do is turn one tap, the on off, one of three.I manage :-)

My credit card stops working. At its limit, I reason.

I finally find the bank app on my phone! Deb expects me to throw the phone across the room but, I manage to transfer money and get my card working again. clever eh?

I download an area of maps to my phone. It still will not find our hotel. no connection, it says. but I have roaming?!

Look, my phone is in airplane mode...

I remember switching that off. but... it's a tap on tap off switch. I probably just tapped it... on.

Now I can navigate. And use the bank app. Not just with the hotel wifi.

Amazing:-)

We spend some time deciding where to go over the next few days. Why on earth did I book so many nights here? Really, I lost it when planning this holiday.

Oh well. There's plenty to see and do. And... no rush to do it :-)

And it's a nice hotel.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.