South Downs Excursions

We meant to take it easy on Sunday. After all, we’d hiked a little over 6 miles across windy, chalky terrain the day before. And yet, somehow, we ended up on a train to Lewes, bicycles stacked across from the loo, preparing to visit a Norman castle and then bike our way through the South Downs home to Brighton.

I blame the weather. It was gorgeous today. And when so much of the year is going to be either 1) cold, or 2) rainy, or 3) dark, or likely 4) all three, it’s difficult not to go crazy when a lovely summer day unexpectedly shows up on your doorstep. We start talking about things we might like to do, then the maps come out, then it’s all over. We’re doing something.

I also wonder if there’s something deeply biological about it– a response to the hemispheric extremes of light and dark. At mid-summer it’s light from 4:30AM to nearly 10PM; mid-winter (as I recall from 2008) it was dark from about 4PM to 8 or 8:30AM. I remember we’d be outside at 3:30 and the sun would start to set and a siren would go off in my brain–and I’d respond to it the way I might an alarm clock going off at 6AM–NO! It’s too early. That can’t be it!” And so now, on a lovely, long summer day, I feel the instinct–the duty– to make the most of it. There’s a passage in The Wind in the Willows that refers to this phenomenon: in winter, no animal expects much of any other, because it is a time of rest and somnolence. The other half of the year, however, is a different story, as Badger says, “when once the year has really turned, and the nights are shorter, and halfway through them one rouses and feels fidgety and wanting to be up and doing by sunrise, if not before—YOU know!——”

Well, thankfully I DON’T know about getting up before sunrise, but I do know about fidgety and wanting to be up and doing. And so this weekend, there was some doing.

Saturday: hike from Ditchling Beacon to Devil’s Dyke

Jill Windmill outside Clayton Village

At times the trail was blocked.

At times we had to stop because it was just too beautiful.

The half pint has its own kind of beauty, doesn’t it? Especially since I could enjoy it with my feet up.

Sunday: Lewes Castle loop via train and bicycle

This is another Norman castle, built just after the invasion of 1066, but then embellished and renovated throughout the Middle Ages. Here you can see the older Norman gate (on the left) and the Barbican gate added later in the 14th century.

They have some neat activities for children, including costumes and a crane.

And a crossbow for the young at heart.

And after our castle visit, and lunch, we headed out of Lewes over those distant hillsides on our bicycles.

What was I thinking?

No really, what?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

You bet I had to walk the bike up that steep part. And actually, I know exactly what I was thinking.

I was thinking that it’s worth pushing my bicycle up a treacherous chalky hill to see this land.

And this sky.

Whether because of season’s turn or our likely too-early departure from this country, there isn’t much time left. I want to see it all. A sore bum is a small price to pay.