UK - Sussex

Sunshine and snow is one of my favourite combinations and recently we’ve had both – in abundance!!



I am such a tourist (as one of friends recently pointed out!) so it didn’t take long before I’d found an excuse to get out and about. I headed over to Bodiam which is a lovely old village, but for those who don’t know, the main attraction is the castle.



I knew that the castle would be closed, but as it’s a ruin anyway I was determined to enjoy the walk. The car park charges £2 so I’d prepared myself with the ‘I only have a £20 note’ ploy that has worked so successfully in the past in getting me waved straight past the window!



The snow was REALLY deep and the problem at Bodiam is that there are lots of ponds and the river runs through it (to coin a phrase) so I was mildly terrified I might either drown or freeze to death.



I tried to stick to the tractor treads, but the temptation to walk across crunchy fresh snow was just to great and I found myself criss-crossing the hills and dips to get the photos I wanted. It was amazing to see all the animal foot prints; deer and ducks mostly.



In fact, I’d been cursing the noisy ducks since I arrived – I can quite see why the estate houses are so far away as some of them seemed to be auditioning for the next round of ‘pop star to opera star’ and they were making a hell of a din. I did feel mean that I hadn’t remembered to bring any bread for them.



I was quite surprised that the moat wasn’t frozen, but I hadn’t realised that the façade was in full sun, so as I wandered round to the entrance at the back, the castle took on an altogether more sinister air, the sandstone coloured stones taking on a dark grey hue and great hunks of ice floating by. Bbrrr!



The day before, I am sure Sarah thought I was deranged when I called her at during a snow blizzard 10am to see if she was still able to make it for lunch. We’d had about 10cm of snow overnight and I’d had to dig the car out of the driveway.



Apparently Chichester was all blue skies and sunshine, so kitted out with my non-standard-issue survival kit of choccie, flask and a tat-mag to keep me entertained if I got stuck, I headed off. After a scrummy lunch, I headed back passing by the castle at Arundel.



Tempted again by the blue skies (and the camera in my handbag!), I decided to stop off for a quick wander. Of course, I managed to completely miss the castle, despite the fact that you can see it from miles around, and ended up at the bird sanctuary. Fortunately, my French habits kicked in, so I just held up the traffic and did a u-turn.



Another one that doesn’t open to the public in the winter – ggrr! – and I can’t say the ruins of Blackfriar's Abbey really did it for me, but I’d caught a glimpse of some olde worlde shops in the highstreet.



Despite the sunshine, it was bitterly cold and I wasn’t sure how far I could go before needing to amputate frost-bite affected limbs, so after a quick wander, I decided to head back to the car



Of course, by now I’d well and truly given myself the shopping bug, so as the temperature had risen to 3 degrees – woo-hoo! – it would have been rude not to take a teensy weensy detour to Brighton on the way home…



Believe it or not, I have never actually seen the Royal Pavillion before, and this time I came across it quite by chance. I’d been looking for the bead shop, but was slightly hampered by a) not remembering the name of the shop, and b) having no idea where it was(!), so in the end I just explored for a bit.

I am a great fan of Terry Garoghan, the ‘unofficial mayor of Brighton’ who used to do ‘The Last Bus to Whitehawk’ radio show, and I found myself humming ‘Brighton the Anthem’ as I wandered through the streets (to the Brighteyes theme tune);

♪♪ There’s a building shaped like an onion
A seagull eating a condom
A man and a woman completely nude ...
... for all to see.
Oh lord, where can it be?

Brighton, dead handy for London
Brighton, Gatwick’s not that far
Where everyone sleeps with everyone else…
… but there’s nowhere to park your car
Bri-ighton! ♪♪



Yup, there’s the onion!!

It wasn’t long before I found myself in The Lanes, a higgledy piggledy rabbit warren (here’s the Bright Eyes link!!) of tiny shops specializing in all sorts of things, as well as pavement cafés and arty farty bohemian type shops.



Still no sign of the bead shop though :-(