July 24 Hunting Woolf near Brighton

Towards Brighton.  Ditchling Beacon, Monks House (V Woolf etc),  Charleston House (more Bloomsbury), Brighton

I started off with a run to the West of the lifeboat station.  To my surprise I found lots of exposed sand a few hundred metres into the run.  It turned out to be quite good running, although the frequent groynes made it a bit challenging at times.  

After getting to the Coast Guard tower – effectively at the edge of the huge caravan Park – I turned back inland and found a nice old village: the folk who lived there must have hated the appearance of the caravan park.

I decided to go back with my binoculars to check for waders and my camera to photo algae 

( especially that growing on the groynes).  

There were few birds, possibly because the dog-walkers were  out in large numbers.  I asked one of them if the sand was usual and apparently it was: this just seems to have been the first time I have been there at this stage of the tide.  She commented that the area where we were was often lined with  Twitchers in the migration season, and certainly Selsey Bill is mentioned as a good sea watching spot in my 'Where-to' book.  In a subsequent conversation I was told about 'Mr Seal' who is often seen in the afternoon in this area.

After breakfast we took off to the East along the A27.  This seems to be one of the two trunk roads South of the Thames (the other being about 20miles North). so if you wish to drive East- West or vice versa this is effectively the only game in town.  It is fine while 2 lanes each way (although tail-back can arise rapidly at roundabouts) but when you get to places like Worthing - which ended up being nominated, and elected as the place on this trip most likely to get the tube when the earth is given an enema - where the road drops back to 1 lane it becomes stop start even in the middle of the day.  At one point there were signs about road works, but it appeaered that rather then carving an additional lane out of the 4m wide nature strip they were making a garden!   I was amused by the name of this area which appeared to be Sompting (faith and begob, to be sure!). 

We found the small road to Devils Dyke which was our first objective for the day.  I wondered why these geological features are always called Devil's?  'Perhaps it is because they are usually downwards orienting – I shall have to check for mountains etc where the name refers to god! In the 3 or 4 miles from the highway to the site we passed 2 golf courses – a little devoid of trees but with brilliant views over to the Channel .  The walk alongside the Dyke was very pleasant.  Apart from the Dyke itself

there were lots of flowers and insects, some photographs of which are in the thematic pages below.  Towards the end of the walk we found a few rabbits – the first since Brum -  and a bouncy fox.  The latter caused me to think that I have yet to see a dead badger, whereas on our previous trip, not that far West, the roads were lined with potential shaving brushes.  Has the infamous cull had an effect already?  (Roadkilled badgers did appear in Shropshire and I was told that the cull was now a test project being undertaken near Cirencester.)

This walk was part of the South Downs Way which is one of the Long Walks that have been developed in the UK.  Several of the other punters we crossed  with seemed to be carrying packs for serious walking. 

Our next objective, Ditchling Beacon, was also on this route.  At the car park was a NT notice 

explaining that this area had been given to the Trust in memory of a WW 2 pilot who had lost his life in the area, which made me realise that this was looking over the Weald where much of the Battle of Britain took place.  There were great views from the Beacon, 

which was the reason it was a beacon, so that the bonfires could be seen from a long way off (if, for example a bunch of supporters of the Real Madrid Bowls Club were spotted on the horizon). Again there were many flowers but no orchids (a photographer told us they had 'gone over' in this area). 

We then trotted off to Lewes from where we headed to Rodmell to check out the Monks House,  at  one time the abode of Virginia Woolf VW - such usage in this post refers to her, not our car!).  Parking was an issue (as everywhere) but we managed.  

A head of VW 

was in the garden of the Manor referring to the place where her ashes had been placed under an old elm tree (rather than the magnolia in situ).   Apparently the elm trees were long gone and the plaque had been shifted to a different position.  There were a lot of interesting things made by members of the Bloomsbury Set around the house   This portrait of VW

was done by her sister, Vanessa.  As usually seems to be the case with NT the volunteers were very helpful and interesting.  In one room there were a bunch of books but only a few, VW's set of Shakespeare  were original.  At some point Leonard Woolf's library of some 7,000 volumes had been sold to Washington State U so had been replaced by some “books by the metre” samples to fill the shelves!

The village of Rodmell was full of interesting looking houses as exemplified by the Rectory.

The small stall seems to be some locals raising money for their village projects.

Our final stop was Charleston Farmhouse which was also linked to the Bloomsbury's.  This is run by a Private Trust rather than NT.  When we got there found we had to do a tour – for which we would have to wait for an hour and a half, so we passed on that and just had a look round the garden.  It is surprising that they talked about the place being unusually busy while the car park wasn't full: I suspect more private sector jobsworthiness.    We were allowed to go and look at some posters one of which included a "family tree" of the Bloomsbury Set.  If you click on this image to see it larger you will understand why there are quotes around the word family!  

The drive home was OK,as far as anything involving Worthing can be "OK", with good views pf Arundel Castle and Cathedral from the highway.

On the way Frances commented on the number of Ford Transits we were seeing on the way.  So it was interesting when we got home to hear that the Transit factory was closing.  On the breakfast program the next day they commented that the production was shifting to Turkey and there would be no Ford production in the UK.

Frances and I trotted off to look for Mr Seal.  As we approached the designated area I noticed a large grey lump on the beach.

This was Mr Seal and a guy wearing a polo shirt announcing he was a Mammal watcher (or similar) explained that its name was Trevor

and it was somewhat controversial since he has been known to bite folk who behave stupidly around him.  He just lay around peacefully while we were there, and all the punters were well behaved – possibly because an official was present.

On the way back I noticed a Heritage sign about Gibbet Field.  An English form of 'Encourager les autres”.  I also remembered to photograph one of the yuccas growing in a garden near the cottage. 

Beers: Freeminer ”GoldMiner”  Normal pleasant bitter;  Shepherd Neame “Spitfire – fuller boided and very pleasant.  Labelled “The Bottle of Britain”with photos of a couple of RAF types.

Bird of the Day: Yellowhammers at Ditchling

Building of the day: Rodmell rectory

Garden of the Day: The Monks House

Bad taste of the Day: Waiting for tours at Charleston Farmhouse

View of the Day: Devils Dyke, narrowly over Ditchling Beacon

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August 2 Leave Tugford and see a little of Gunanxhou

Up when the passerine breaks wind and drive to Birmingham airport.

We had decided that we would, to some extent, follow a suggestion by Google Maps and travel via Bridgnorth.  (Their first suggestion was a little quicker but involved the M6, which as we knew from a previous experience can rapidly turn into a parking lot.)  They went to great lengths - back to the pace notes approach of turning every 900m or less through a set of lanes - to avoid Stourbridge but as we expected to be there before 6am I thought we wouldn't encounter much congestion so just aimed to go straight through.

We were both wide awake at 4:30 so got up packed up and were on the way before the sun joined us.  I assumed that, unlike Carwoola, we were unlikely to have substantial elements of wildlife jump out in front of us.  (Rabbits are not a problem, just cause a slight bump.)  While we had come across many road signs about deer none of these had delivered on their promise and I don't recall such signs around Tugford.  As expected, so it was.

The drive was a doddle with no remark-worthy events, and we were parked in the Europcar lot at Brum airport by 6:30.  This gave us 30 minutes to wait until the check in counter opened.  The entertainment was watching a couple of adults (travelling with 2 kids ) spend the entire 30 minutes (and they had started before we arrived) struggling with the self check in system.  They were obviously experienced travellers and had positioned the kids in the queue!  When we got to speak to someone it appeared that one of the seat allocations made on line hadn't taken (in fact the "missing" allocation was one that hadn't been able to be made) and that, although our seats had been pre-allocated, we would have to pick up our boarding passes for the last leg in Guanxhou.    Whatever: we got seats to Amsterdam and Guanxhou and wandered off to the departure area to fill in a couple of hours.

The flight to Amsterdam was quite OK and I noticed that the weather was the opposite of the flight in.  On that day the North Sea was cloud covered but the UK was clear, whereas today the land was clouded over but the sea was clear.  As we got within sight of the rest of Europe we saw an offshore (at least 5km)  windfarm with 60 turbines, none of which were turning.  Then came another farm with about 20 turbines, of which some were going.    The pilot mentioned that the day was going to be the hottest of the year in Amsterdam  reaching 35C and already (about 11am) up to 28.  Thunderstorms were expected in the evening.

No issues arose in Schipol and we joined our China Southern Airlines flight.  The plane is an Airbus 330.

Before getting to the flight we had to go through security including our first experience with body scanners.  I found this annoying because I reckon the scanners are just the security industry playing on political paranoia to sell more of their toys.  This view was reinforced when everyone then had to be patted down!

The aircraft seemed to be brand new or at least very very clean (as Frances said, cleaners don't get paid much).  We also seemed to have a fair amount of room compared to some other airlines.  There were a couple of small issues as we moved into the journey:

• where we were positioned, in row 50 and thus the last section of cattle class, the fasten seat belt signs didn't appear to work very well;
• my entertainment screen appeared to freeze occasionally (but that wasn't as much of a problem as the positioning of the controls for same, fixed into the armrest, rather than the usual detachable approach.
• the attendant who made the English in-flight announcements had such a thick accent I could barely understand her;
• When refreshments were served the white wine and the beer shared temperature with the red wine - and possibly the coffee.  However the white wine was quite pleasant whereas the red was the first really bad red I have found to come from Chile!.

Whatever we progressed, finding out that the thunderstorms were already happening as we flew South of Moscow.  In fact there little bumps for most of the first 6 hours of the flight.

I think I took the next shot for the exotic names on the map!

So after 10.5 hours we  landed in Guanxhou having been told to go to the transfer desk to get our boarding passes.  We followed signs to to the Transfer Desk where there was a huge queue - at least 100 folk - through what looked like an immigration set-up.  That couldn't be right, so Frances saw an information Desk and asked the young man sitting there what to do.  He jumped up and said "Follow me".  Since

• he was wearing a badge that said 'Police'; and
• this was the PRC

we did so rather swiftly.  He quickly found a young woman in an China Southern uniform to whom he handballed us.  She told us to go to a queue marked Priority Class with 2 people in it, which of course we did, despite feeling the hatred from the other 98+ in the 'normal' queue.  A key observation was that although - or perhaps because -  there were three people at each workstation none of the queues weer moving very quickly.  At about this point I noticed another young lady come in with a sheet of paper with a list of about 6 names on it that she passed to 'our' lady.  One of te names was mine, which I pointed out to her. Immediately, some Cantonese (an assumption there, but Guanxhou used to be Canton I believe) was emitted a desk was quickly cleared we were stuck in there and through in about 60 seconds.

Back to the gate with enough time to take a few images.  Obviously Guanxhou has been taking lessons in Western taste from the souvenir sellers of Schipol.  I particularly like the small child in a panda cossie!

 It was rather hot and humd here.  Guanxhou is at 23N (mirroring Rockhampton) and it was mid-Summer  so that isn't surprising.  Some mountains are just visible through the murk.

 This shot was taken to capture the houses on the far side of the airport.  Then I noticed the figure in orange at the bottom of the image.

 On zooming in, it turns out to be a scarecrow!  I am not worried about my camera's performance in the blurry shot: as noted above it rather hazy; my estimate is the figure was about 300m away; and I wasn't braced on anything!

 These high rises were again barely visible through the murk, but were taken to exemplify the clumps of such buildings seen all over the countryside after take, typically quite close to a cluster of industrial buildings.

So off we went, and I got a few more images before we penetrated the final 10/10ths cloud layer.  The first shows a typical sample of what we saw as we left the area (and pretty much what we had seen on the approach).

 Here is a cluster of industrial buildings and a rather impressive modern road bridge.

Then it was into or over cloud for the next 5 hours until we crossed the cost of Arnhem land.

Although I actually dozed for a bit of it the next hour or so went over really interesting scenery.  This included the many fires in Arnhem Land; the Coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria (we went out over the SW corner - in the image below the wobbles are mine, adjusting a Google earth screenshot)

We landed in Sydney, zipped through the official processes and out to the pick-up area to be re-united with our car by the excellent guy from Discount Parking.  Then to the Ibis Budget Hotel for a bit of sleep - not as much as expected - and at 5am we were going to the Maccas next door for some excellent coffee and on to the Hume Highway. Somewhat less than 3 hours later we were re-united with the small dog and then on home.

Recovery is taking a while as we seem to have picked up a cold somewhere.  As we got damp several times in the last few days, and many people on the flights seemed o have coughs, that isn't totally amazing!


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The search for a souvenir gazunda

In 1997 we were touring Slovakia when I broke the hammer I used to knock in the tent pegs.   It proved surprisingly difficult to find a replacement (known in Slovak as a kladivho) and that phase of the trip report became known as "The search for a good kladivho.".  We now find - thank you SMH - that among the mementos of the impending Royal Birth in the UK are “.. souvenir potties ..(which) …have been given the royal seal of approval." We gotta find one! (For those not familiar with English slang a pottie goes under the bed - thus "goes under" is pronounced "gazunda".)

In fact we found very few souvenirs of The Birth or even The Naming.  This may be explained by the MD of a ceramics company who explained on TV that they tried to do most of their business by pre-order rather than shopfront retail.

Now I am back home I can search the net to see what is available.  My first generated an up market site not offering a pottie as far as I can tell.  In an emergency I suppose these jugs would serve but Stg3k seems a lot to piddle in, and #2s could be tricky during the training phase.  This company offered a measuring jug for Stg 6.75 would could be useful in view of  his paternal grandpa's scientific interests (but Waitrose can probably offer the same functionality for a couple of quid.  In the end the nearest I got was an offer of a second hand potty-chair. located in the town of Prince George in British Columbia.  (At least the purchaser will know it won't have been used by a bear, as they all crap in the woods.)

My conclusion that like a good potty the SMH article was full of it.

Our only relevant souvenir is the edition of Private Eye current when we left, of which the cover is reproduced below.

Other than this, I wasn't aware of any hysteria whatsoever.  Excluding of course the media trying to find something to get hysterical about.  For goodness sake, for this baby to become important:

• Betty has to join the great majority which she is showing no signs of doing;
• Prince Chuck (who The Eye refers to as Brian for some reason known only to Lord Gnome pp Emmanuel Stobes) also has to meet his maker, and with his healthy lifestyle probably has a good few years left in him;
• George's dad also has to shuffle of (as a military helicopter pilot one would have to say he is the most likely to croak).

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