Into the frosty fields
Scarfed a fast bowl of porridge, then strapped myself into my walking boots. Anton called for me, and we went by train to Hassocks station, spotting rust-coloured foxes against the frosty fields as the train passed. From Hassocks we walked south and then east along lanes and across fields following the line of the Downs for our first, if rather gentle, walk of the new year.
It was a cold day for Sussex: puddles and little ponds and streams were glassy with ice, and the horses in the fields were wearing coats. Anton and I were warm enough as long as we kept moving: ambling along the route of an old Roman road and chatting about lots of random things from the Beatles to the Romans to bean based recipes as we went.
After a couple of hours we reached a little village called Streat, which had an idyllic churchyard, with eccentric gravestones splotched with lichen. A splendid place to stop for a feed, looking out from the church across the weald to the line of Downs. Anton had packed his Boston baked beans (with extra chili) and corn muffins and some gingery Parkin cake afterwards. All of which he had made. The beans were in vacuum flasks and really hot and lovely to eat in the cold churchyard.
After we set off again, both with cold hands which took a mile or so to warm up again. Then a little further until we reached a village called East Chiltington, where we called a halt in a pub restaurant called The Jolly Sportsman where we thawed by the open fire and had a beer, before calling a taxi to Lewes, where it would not have been impertinent not to have stopped for another beer in the Lewes Arms.
Below a few snaps en route. As ever, click 'em to enlarge 'em. I particularly like what looked like a family of gravestones in Streat churchyard. In that picture you can just make out the bench we sat on, with our backs to an old tomb.
Scarfed a fast bowl of porridge, then strapped myself into my walking boots. Anton called for me, and we went by train to Hassocks station, spotting rust-coloured foxes against the frosty fields as the train passed. From Hassocks we walked south and then east along lanes and across fields following the line of the Downs for our first, if rather gentle, walk of the new year.
It was a cold day for Sussex: puddles and little ponds and streams were glassy with ice, and the horses in the fields were wearing coats. Anton and I were warm enough as long as we kept moving: ambling along the route of an old Roman road and chatting about lots of random things from the Beatles to the Romans to bean based recipes as we went.
After a couple of hours we reached a little village called Streat, which had an idyllic churchyard, with eccentric gravestones splotched with lichen. A splendid place to stop for a feed, looking out from the church across the weald to the line of Downs. Anton had packed his Boston baked beans (with extra chili) and corn muffins and some gingery Parkin cake afterwards. All of which he had made. The beans were in vacuum flasks and really hot and lovely to eat in the cold churchyard.
After we set off again, both with cold hands which took a mile or so to warm up again. Then a little further until we reached a village called East Chiltington, where we called a halt in a pub restaurant called The Jolly Sportsman where we thawed by the open fire and had a beer, before calling a taxi to Lewes, where it would not have been impertinent not to have stopped for another beer in the Lewes Arms.
Below a few snaps en route. As ever, click 'em to enlarge 'em. I particularly like what looked like a family of gravestones in Streat churchyard. In that picture you can just make out the bench we sat on, with our backs to an old tomb.
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