july 25 Up the Downs

Hazelmere (Black Down), Selborne

I decided to go for an early walk to see what was around on the sand.  Although only just past 6 some folk were out walking dogs.  One of them was a very affectionate whippet which certainly stirred up the gulls a tad.

On the way back I photographed a very pleasant little garden in Albion Street, created on someone's nature strip. (The RH sign on the fence features later in this post.)

Next step was to show Frances the old part of Selsey and the holiday park.  This was achieved with no drama.  

Note the (relatively good) amount of space between the vans.

We then went to have a look at the village church – St Peters.  As there was a service going on we didn't go in.  I did notice that the War Memorial listed 57 dead in WW1, at which time the population would seem to have been about 1500: an extraordinary proportion.

On to Pagham Harbour at St Wilfrids.  As we walked round to the spit it emerged that the sea front side was all streng verboten because of nesting terns.  The RSPB fails on issuing good warnings since if there hadn’t been a worker there doing some surveys I would have wandered right in to the restricted area.  However we found a good crop of Ringed Plovers (a bit camouflaged in the image) and Dunlins on the beach

and more of them plus masses of Oystercatchers (20+) and Little Egrets (6+) on the mud in the lagoon.

On to Midhurst which I thought would be an attractive little village.  In fact it was rather boring so we carried on towards Hazelmere and Black Down.  The latter was easy to find, and rather attractive.  However there were no signs at all for Black Down so we instituted spiral theory, which requires getting into the approximately correct area and then continually turning right (or left, as seems appropriate).  I eventually spotted a local sweeping his drive.  (Since a Ferrari was visible in the garage I guessed he wasnt a member of the starving poor.) 

He was a member of The Helpful however and confirmed both that we were on the right road and that the signage was crap.  On, on.  As promised, so it was delivered.  I couldn't remember why we were attracted to this site – other than it being marked in our Road Atlas – but it was an excellent walk though mixed forest 

and heath to the Temple of the Winds where Wordsworth used to hang out looking over The Weald when not fantasizing about daffodils.  Apparently - according to Country Life, which is hardly an organ of the Left, -  if the Government gets its way this view is going to acquire  a bunch of fracking facilities.   Shime, shime David Cameron: and what is Nick Clegg doing about this.

We spoke to a few locals to confirm directions as we had no map and my internal compass (I think driven by the position of the sun) is buggered in the Northern Hemisphere.  I was impressed by the periodoc sighting of fire beating flails hanging up for general use

Getting back to the car it looked to be too much time and messing about to go to Selborne: I shall continue to read the book by Gilbert White which had got the place on the list.  So we rumbled off back  to Selsey where I went to the library to see if they had wifi.  Yes they did – installed the previous day- and I used it.  The first to do so!  It then emerged that some toe-rag - see, I can still speak English despite having moved about 43 years ago -  had hijacked my gmail account – I suspect from Kuala Lumpur airport  - but Google had recognised this and suspended my account greatly to the concern of some readers of my blog!  Hopefully it has been fixed.

I dropped back into the Church – which part at least had been moved from Church Norton and no service was evident.  The most interesting things were the collection of labelled rock on the altar

 and the table of chief religious persons running it from St Wilfrid in 681 CE to date (with a gap from 1070 to 1324 presumably while the Normans got their act into gear).

We have wondered what the Selsey Anglers Club does for its members.  It seems to be two things:

•                     provides winches to drag their boats up the single to the promenade; and

•                     offers a spot to store the boat over Winter.

For this they charge demographically interesting fees:

•                     Regular (ie blokes):'£15 joining fee and £15 a year

•                     Ladies (ie sheilas) £10 joining fee but no annual subs

•                     Juniors (ie rugrats) No joining fee and $5 a year

As this marks the end of our stay in Selsey I'll put in a couple of general images also.  First, a couple more dog poop signs: given the number of pooches around I can see why reminders are a good idea.

Another amusing approach to this problem is being used in Spain.

Trevor was not available this evening and I cannot remember what beer I tasted (but am sure there was not an excessive amount of it!

Bird of the Day: Dunlin in breeding plumage

Building of the day: Bakery in Selsey

Garden of the Day: Little one by the transformer in Albion St

Bad taste of the Day: lack of signs to Black Down

View of the Day: The Weald from the Temple of the Winds

Back to the Index page