Much-needed day to myself. Briefly went shopping this morning, due to Anton hypnotising, and scored two pairs of Craghopper walking trousers in a sale in a shop called Track and Field. Felt quite rugged doing so.

Slept in the afternoon for an hour or so, and then started an enjoyable book called The Real Middle Earth, Magic and Mystery in the Dark Ages. It is written by Brian Bates a professor at the University of Brighton and he mentions the area beyond the downs, where we have done lots of our walking, was covered in a mighty forest: "the Andredesweald, which was described in the year 892 as thirty miles wide and stretching one hundred and twenty miles from east to west". Anton and I have been walking through its fragments. The writer also refers to Tolkien quite a bit too, explaining the Germanic roots of Middle Earth and so on. Interesting.

Spoke to Mum and to Toby today. Planning to go to Canada to see Toby and Romy shortly. He has a new camera, and took these in the forest behind the farm in Ontario. Lovely close-up shots, either that or there are bees there the size of crows. Here are two of them...