It’s been quite a while since I ventured along the coast into Sussex. The last planned visit was, like most things over recent months, deferred due to meteorological conditions: too wet, too cold; too something or other. Actually, to say ‘Sussex’ is a bit confusing as they sliced the county in two in 1974. I’m off to lovely Lewes in East Sussex just so I can retrace my steps back to West Sussex the following day: destination Pulborough Brooks. It’s a convoluted route.

For a start, this bird spotting malarkey is getting out of hand. I’m not even a twitcher (although I did invest in a pair of binoculars courtesy of my recent winnings). Firstly, I blame it on Sally and Tony who I have allowed to commandeer Wednesday walks and transpose them into ornithological events. Secondly, I blame Paul Martin – he of Flog It fame. I saw him visit a church in West Sussex and suggested to Bev that we also go there. That’s Bev in the photo. I have sliced her in two a la Sussex mode. All those other bods are birding types who we joined for a guided walk of RSPB Pulborough Brooks.

This is what they’re looking at. Pulborough Brooks is a site of Special Scientific Interest in the Arun Valley. It’s a mixed habitat of farmland and water meadows, overlooking the South Downs, that floods in winter so is good for water birds. We don’t care. The sun is shining and the bird people, are all-embracing. They’re quickly alerted to the fact that we know nothing about anything and are keen to tell us all.

I expect you think you’re about to see a load of pictures of birds. Well, you’re not. And I imagine you’re wondering what this is a photo of. Well, you have to click on it quickly and you might just see a couple of slow worms slithering away. We also saw adders but they’re slippery little beings and a bit camera shy.

I could make up any old story such as the sighting of a Dodo. Here’s a Lapwing with its babies. Allegedly. I have to say, even though I enjoyed this walk immensely, I think we have a greater variety of birds in Dorset. Well, excluding the Garganey which was today’s special. We didn’t know it was a duck and were looking for something exotic. Well, that could be said of most things in life.

And as I always say at dinner parties, there’s nothing wrong with a sparrow. And these little fellows were happy enough to keep us company over lunch.

Speaking of Paul Martin, which I was some time hence, here we are at St Botolph’s Church, Hardham. Interestingly (or not), it was only a few weeks ago that I visited the Postman’s Cemetery outside St Botolph’s Church in London and what do you know, here he is again? Look how beautiful it is outside. But we have come to see it indoors.

I don’t imagine my photos really do justice to this place which contains the most complete collection of church frescoes known in England. Like Bev remarked, when you go in, you think it’s a load of wishy washy stuff. Then your eyes become adjusted and you can appreciate the treat in front of you. How lovely. Thank-you Paul: a man who my youngest daughter always hoped I’d marry.

And thank-you Bev for driving us miles around this beautiful countryside for a lovely day out.

Monday is my Friday. You can swap the days around a bit when you’re retired. More specifically, I mean that Monday night is my Friday night. Monday night is when I can have a glass or three of the red stuff because Monday tea-time is when I get weighed at Fat Club. Forget Tuesday morning when I have to take the car for a service and later try to be reasonably intelligent with a friend that I’m meeting at the museum for a spot of culture. Yawn.

Knowing that the weekly weigh-in is imminent, Monday is nothing short of paranoia: up early for the gym and thirty tiresome lengths in the pool. Back indoors for black coffee and a boring Weetabix accompanied by skimmed water masquerading as milk. Walk here, walk there, followed by a sorry attempt at gardening; driven on only by a winking bottle of Shiraz that’s been opened and allowed to breathe at 9am. It’ll need a respirator by the time The Archers starts.

Finally, it’s time to fight a way through the tea-time traffic towards the community hall where all the other fat folk are anxiously gathered. We have a new leader. He calls himself a consultant. The last one got the push for being too fat. When I joined, way back in the mists of January, I mistook Toby for the leader. Toby turned out to be another newbie but it was an easy mistake. He looked pretty trim in my swollen eyes. ‘Oh no’, said Toby. ‘Here’s Roger now’.

Roger was pretty big. Well, not so pretty – just big. A bit like the weebles that don’t wobble. They just fall down. ‘He’s not a very good role model’, said mouth of the south without thinking. Toby pretended he wasn’t with me. I mean, I’m the last person to judge anyone but you need a before and after version in which the before is bigger than the after. Obviously, Roger was very nice. Everyone said so when he was presented with his leaving gift: a large box of Black Magic.

Then the new bloke arrived. Jeff. He turned the joint around. Literally. No-one knew where the hell they were. The books and syn-free chocs were at the wrong end of the room. Jeff was entertaining the next cohort of ginormous Twiggies slap bang in the middle of the weighing queue. Folk waiting for the inevitable disappointment shuffled around aimlessly and the ladies with the scales were lost behind a bunch of posters ten feet high. ‘I can feel a different atmosphere’, said the returner in front of me. Bloody right. It’s bad enough having to rock up here when you could be at home on the settee watching Pointless.

I’ve lost one and a half stones. Will you be staying asks the lady who dispenses the certificates? I stayed the other week when I was presented with my piece of paper for losing ten per cent of my body weight; at which time I was greeted with mass hatred from the onlookers. I don’t think so, I say and make some inane excuse about traffic and further gardening duties. She’s not stupid. She knows I’m going home to down the Shiraz. Have a good week, she says. I certainly will until I get to next Sunday.

Indecisive to the last, I decide rather late in the day to walk along the Stour Valley Way named, accordingly, after the river that runs through it. Wait – wasn’t that the name of a long-ago Robert Redford film? No sign of him hereabouts. No sign of anyone as a matter of fact but the place is in uproar: the almost-in-leaf trees are full to exploding with raucous rooks screaming and squawking at each other. Or maybe at me. Or maybe just in pleasure at the latterly errant sun.

I have some of those directions that have proven so entirely useless on previous new walks. Generally, there are pages and pages which I always manage to muddle up but today’s instructions are surprisingly brief: it’s a four mile venture which seems to begin well enough. The river is looking pretty if a little devoid of wildlife.

Obviously the National Trust own this footpath. Let’s be fair, the National disTrust own every bloody thing in England that could once be safely claimed as the people’s heritage. I expect they’ll be a toll box half way across this field. Speaking of which, their directions claim ‘there will be fleeting glimpses of kingfishers, egrets and herons to add to the walks interest’. Firstly, NT, there should be a fleeting glimpse of an apostrophe in ‘walks’; secondly, a fleeting glimpse of the River Stour would make it more interesting.

I’m only at Point Two on the instructions and I’ve been out hours. ‘The riverside walk meanders over rough pasture and arable headlands for 2.5 miles’. Call it ‘meandering’ if you will; I call it a trudge. And where’s the river? The sky may be blue but the wind is whipping up a fair old hoolie as I try to think of something interesting. Yes, the washing will be dry. I look back at the crumpled paper to see if I’ve missed anything. ‘The otter is re-establishing itself after a two decade absence’. Could be true, but not in this field. I have a feeling otters like water. And shouldn’t there be an S in decades?

‘Having arrived at St Bartholomew’s Church …’ what? There’s been no previous mention of this and it’s not marked on the map. Still, here ’tis as we say in Darset. Interestingly, on the third Sunday of the month, St Barts metamorphoses into a Russian Orthodox joint. What’s that all about then? Uninterestingly, it’s shut. Last time I was here it was shut. I hate that. I’m not a big fan of churches but, having ‘meandered’ across miles of ‘rough pasture’, it would be nice to see inside. Instead, I sit on an old wooden bench dedicated to Ronald Triel, he of the Wessex Cyclists Touring Club; another bunch devoid of apostrophes. Overhead, the compulsory ancient yew is creaking and crackling. I look up, hoping to see birdlife or a glimpse of the re-established tree otter. Nothing. Just centuries’ old branches complaining in the wind.

Well, who knew? Seems I’ve been trying to batter down the back door all this time for, on wandering around the back of the church, I gain easy entry through another opening. If you’ve ever been here, you’ll know that the locked door was clearly the main door in times past. Even the footpath meanders through the final field, over the fourteenth stile and right up to it. Still, I’m in. Interesting and welcome it isn’t. What ropes? Are they in the missing river?

I revert to the miserable instructions and walk through Shapwick along the High Street. Considering Shapwick, meaning Sheep Village, is in the arse end of nowhere, there’s a surprising amount of tarmac to pound before I get to my turn-off, Park Lane. I can’t be bothered. I look at my excuse of a map and decide I can probably get down Piccadilly more quickly.

I wonder if Ronald Triel ever queried the incongruity of following the Monopoly board through deepest Wessex. Still, it’s all rather French: where else do they grow their herbs in the ditch opposite their house? I see a type in his garden and stop to ask whether I can get back to my lost car on this route. When I say ‘type’, I mean a scruffy looking bod with a diamond stud in his ear and a large plum in his mouth. Friendly sort, but he comes out of his five bar gate and closes it behind him in a defensive sort of way before answering my question. I suppose he thinks I’m a tramp. Which I am.

Not going down Park Lane means I’ve missed the attractively named Crab Farm plus a stroll down Half Mile Drove. Time was that I’d be excited by a drove. It’s true, I love the traditional ways but, seen one drove – you’ve seen them all and unless there’s the likelihood of spotting any rambling drovers well, I’ll give it a miss. In any case, had I not stopped to lean over a gate, as you do when rambling, I wouldn’t have seen the little deer wondering whether to venture into the rape seed oil field.

And I wouldn’t have seen the buzzard sitting quietly in a tree close to hand. As ever, I didn’t reach my camera in time but here he is soaring on the thermals.

And I’ve reached White Mill and the oldest arched bridge in Dorset. The mill is owned by the National disTrust and is, therefore, shut. Who cares. It’s free to observe such an idyllic scene which seems the epitome of rural England.

See these two morons? Do you know them? They are having fun with a drone. I was alerted to them by the ear-piercing screech of said implement as it hovered over the swan in the previous photo. This has been a walk both boring and pretty. You have to walk a lot to get a feel for nature and sometimes the way can be disappointing but it’s always better to be outside while you can. You never know what’s around the next corner.

Just back from a fabulous weekend in deepest Oxfordshire where I was the proud recipient of Writers’ Prize and Overall Winner in the Swire Ridgeway Arts Competition. Here’s my winning entry:

Time Travelling

At breakfast this morning, a small porcelain dish of words has been carefully secreted amongst the home-made honey and preserves. The intention is to pick a literary portent, without looking first, and live the day accordingly.

Preamble, forerunner, what you will, assumed original meaningfulness on arrival yesterday. I walked nine or ten miles past white horses of both the living and chalky types just to be where the Ridgeway begins, but it may as well have been journey’s end in this world. With unexpected serendipity, my hostess takes me to close-at-hand woodland where the source of sacred water has been uncovered. Into this, I’m encouraged to dip my weary feet. Later, we visit an enormous yew tree whose trunk has divided in two, leaving a space to hide within the bark. It all seems perfectly natural which, of course, it is. Thus, the dish of words comes as no surprise and my compliance even less so.

My word is ‘surrender’. I don’t understand what it means.

…………………………………

With Milk Hill to the rear, I commence my ascent of the Ridgeway on what will become the hottest day for many years in England’s living memory. But I am beginning my trek to somewhere away from living memory, into a surprisingly remote landscape that even the lowland, thyme-flavoured, time-forgotten sheep have forsaken. For them, the herb infused chalky grasslands are preferable. You know where you are with a piece of pasture; in every sense. The incline is almost unnoticeable, unless you happen to be walking up towards the first and most important of Albion’s astutely named highways. There are a few sporadic clumps of trees and bushes ahead but the horizon beyond is a clear straight line bisecting what lies below and above. Even so, the huge sky remains an integral part of the all-enveloping landscape.

It occurs to me that, already, I am no longer an intruder and I momentarily rest on the ground at the point where the Ridgeway crosses the Wansdyke Path. Just another old girl alongside those two ancients. I feel about a million miles away from this morning’s honey and preserves; from my home and from anyone I ever consciously knew in what I thought was my time. Here, a moment becomes an interminable measure of nothingness and the opportunity to stay awhile evolves into philosophical reverie: can people who have been wrapped in the pattern of a landscape hold it, unknowingly, in perpetuity for their subsequent incarnations? Do folk who choose to walk into the unknown unconsciously guard something more than a passed-down memory or even an instinct of the Otherworld? My Ridgeway is a paradoxical highway: both unimaginable but simultaneously obvious as it stretches across the topography of middle earth offering a tempting confusion of numerous tentacles and trackways leading to other ridges and routes.

Nonetheless, on entering the beech and conifer woods, I become distracted and confused. The veteran trees, baring their ancient scars from a lifetime of battle, sport intricate bark patterns providing a place called home for fungi and insects and small mammals; inexplicably, they make me anxious. On my map, I mark the place where, earlier, I sat and rested: Red Shore. But what to make of the unexpected darkness of the ancient trees wherein I feel just the tiniest bit alone? This is Britain’s oldest road and the noises emanating from within the overhanging branches sound as if they might belong to something that’s been here since long before the way was first forged.

Just as I’m reflecting on the sense, or otherwise, of my lone journey, I’m suddenly able to mark the next place of importance on my map: the place where the lucky feather lays waiting. For looking down, I find a beautiful unseen hawk has left me a kindly remnant of his passing. I thread it into my hat and almost immediately the feather weaves its miraculous spell: the woods close over behind me and I emerge into a vast and untroubled open landscape. I have stepped through a portal into the sun-soaked hidden past and I wonder whether my gasp has been noted by the spirits that roam hereabouts.

Walking along Cow Down, it’s difficult to digest what this Otherworld offers. The land is strewn with long barrows and tumuli. Sarsen stones decorate the furzy fields and tiny pathways wind up and down and round and about like intricate embroidery. Borders are embellished with old plants: cow parsley, amaranth, brown and green grasses, ragwort and a sprinkling of coralroot. And in the distance, like the proverbial jewel in this precious crown of innumerable spoils, rises the majesty of Silbury Hill. Finally, I understand the meaning of that scrap of paper in the porcelain bowl for there is nothing to be done except surrender to the magnificence of it all. Later, I discover that a recent theory suggests the process of construction of Silbury Hill was probably more important than the end result; which seems rather like my walk along the Ridgeway.

It seems apposite to end my journal recording here, somewhere in nowhere. But, I deviate and tag along behind countless other travellers who, walking for eons through this countryside, have temporarily left the Ridgeway to journey towards Avebury. For the Ridgeway, like our short and indeterminate lives, is not a straight and orderly line: it’s a track with important diversions. I cross the road from Londinium to Aquae Sullis and cut through a gap in the hedge that the Romans missed. Did those not-so-ancient intruders forge a path, as quickly as they could, away from the all-powerful signs of the past? I skirt around the perimeter of golden barley to find myself walking bravely alone down the Avenue. There are no visible souls here: just five thousand year old ravens perched, like sentinels, on the stones of the past. It’s like Silbury, it’s like the Ridgeway: it’s the procession which holds the meaning.

…………………………………

Further down the track

‘…there was a main sight of strange old things up there on the hill, besides the White Horse; and though he didn’t know much about how they got there, he was sort of proud of them, and was glad to pay his pound or two…to keep them as they should be’. (Hughes, The Scouring of the White Horse, 1859)

I’m on the Ridgeway once more. What is reputedly the oldest road in the country has become an enticing, demanding magnet that I am unable and unwilling to dislodge. I travel many miles by car just for the joy of standing on the old country. I am as an exile returned: one of a nameless diaspora dreaming of a not-quite-forgotten home. But, even in the now-time, in this incarnation, I am not completely new to these parts: something has lodged itself immovably within the memory that has been generally interfered with over a lifetime. When I was a very small child, nearly sixty years ago, I was taken from my primary school to see the White Horse at Uffington. Despite the annual outing being an intensely anticipated event, I have no recall of places we visited in other years. In truth, I only really remember two things about the trip to what was probably never referred to as the Ridgeway. The first was the profusion of wild flowers, especially the shy cerulean harebells startled by the intensity of their neighbours, the sapphire cornflowers. The second was the horse itself which, in those infantile days, never looked like a horse in my small eyes but, more romantically, as an elongated dragon stretching its fiery way across the hill.

Today, as I walk towards Wayland’s Smithy, I am once more embraced by timelessness. It seems like a cliché but why seek another word or expression when this is the power of the Ridgeway? For a long while, I am all alone in the morning sunshine, just another solitary traveller on a route well-trodden. I am happy to be alone. I feel privileged to have this all to myself, especially as the Ridgeway seems permanently overseen by the sun on my travels. Somewhere down in the valley are the unseen dreaming spires of Oxford: a city ancient and enduring in itself but somehow new when compared with the agelessness of the track I tread. Unexpectedly, a man runs out of the past accompanied by a dirty Neolithic dog. ‘Good morning’, I greet him happily but the exhausted man has run through so many years he can only lift a vaguely acknowledging hand as he passes by.

Wayland was initially apprenticed to the trolls who, as everyone knows, were masters of metal craft. Wayland was a quick learner and soon outshone his bosses by becoming the best smith in the western world. Legend has him living in caves and burial mounds all over Europe, secretly repairing metal objects for gods and kings. Clearly, this is nonsense because when you see his Oxfordshire smithy, which comprises a chambered long barrow constructed 5000 years ago, you just know this is THE place. Perhaps it was more obviously accessible in the past to those who trod the route in the company of animals needing repair courtesy of the master. Today, the smithy is hidden within a verdant copse some little way from the Ridgeway. In fact, the few modern visitors tramping the route this morning seem to be ignoring the signpost. These loud Sunday folk are spaniel-ridden and drowned in Barbour as they trudge a path that, to them, apparently avoids a church or any sense of spirituality.

Well, white horses for courses and all that stuff, and the way is free to all denominations, and those of none. Discrimination is an unknown quantity up here. Me, I’ve come to see the past and Wayland’s Smithy epitomises everything the Ridgeway chooses to offer in the way of atmospheric sideshows. Mind you, today’s peaceful environment belies a far more violent age. The latest research on bone dating here has overturned previous theories surrounding Neolithic life which, it transpires, was short, sharp and horribly brutal. More recently, a tradition of depositing coins in the cracks between the stones was all the rage – a sort of ‘ritualistic narrative’ as one folklorist claimed. I think it sounds a rather nice thing to do but the practice has been latterly discouraged to save the unseen wardens the job of coin removal. I feel there’s something missing from this story. Possibly a sufficient number of wardens.

I turn tail and walk up and along the Ridgeway towards the White Horse. Saving the best for last, I’m appalled to find a change in the weather. I don’t know why – after all, this is England and from nowhere come black clouds full of rain. Finding a still dry stump, I take shelter under a hawthorn and retrieve my notebook. It’s another delight of the Ridgeway that one can simply sit in the rain recording one’s journey without hindrance or judgement. ‘Writing your memoirs’ a passing stranger asks? Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I don’t say. I just smile benignly. No matter: the shower passes and the sky is big enough to hold the promise of imminent sunshine as I continue on my way.

A flock of pretty sheep have pushed themselves against the fence. Shorn to the extreme, they are seeking shelter from the wind. I stop to speak to them when, to my left, I see the red kite sweeping and soaring. It’s such a joyous moment. I’ve seen buzzards and the small birds that took rest amongst the hawthorn but, concentrating on prehistory, I’ve forgotten to look for today’s nature. Now, away from the hedge-lined track, in the vast openness of the White Horse Hill and Uffington Castle, nature and history merge into nothing less than what we might call the spirit of the Ridgeway.

In the village where I’m staying, and where the horse is continuously celebrated, I discovered Thomas Hughes’ informative little tract so I know all about the sideshows of the sometimes long-ago, sometimes recent, nineteenth century that took place on Uffington Castle. Villagers and travellers and gypsies, alongside the squire, would sport their feasting, games and general reverie after a collective cleaning of the horse. Today, it’s a windy hillfort keeping its secrets and the lives it has witnessed safe as it rests quietly. People may place whatever meanings and interpretations they want on the Uffington White Horse but still they flock here in the hundreds and thousands. Tribes and governments have come and gone; beliefs and values have disappeared, yet still the horse remains, surveying the landscape over which it reigns supreme.

On the way down, I see the red kite again in the distance and stand for some time in contemplation hoping it will come close, but it’s busy over Wayland’s Smithy. Finally, I sit on a bench near the car park looking back at the horse and watching more visitors trudge up the hill towards it. Except that no-one is really trudging. Two grandparents come through the gate with a small child aged about three years old. ‘Can you see the horse’ asks Grandpa? The small person looks around, anxious to please but clearly looking for a live animal. ‘Over there, on the hill’, says Grandpa. The boy sees it and all the emotions in his little world pass across his face in a millisecond: ‘It’s there, it’s there’, he cries pointing excitedly. And just at that moment, when all of us have been busy looking elsewhere, the red kite soars from the grass where it has hidden less than twenty feet in front of me. And all the emotions in my small world fly over my head and it makes me cry.