Seeking Occupants of Interplanetary Craft at Earthship Brighton

It's been a beautiful sunny week in Sussex, a fine start to the school holidays and a complete contrast to last year's bitter Easter holiday weather. On Wednesday we travelled by train to Stanmer Park, a nature reserve with open downland and woods on the edge of Brighton. Our event horizon was Earthship Brighton a sustainable 'green' building constructed using waste car tyres, wine bottles and recycled materials. It's the first Earthship to be built in England and has been designed to provide its own heat, electricity, water and food. Our walk there took us through wide open spaces, blossom heavy orchards and through the grounds of Stanmer Manor where we stopped for a picnic. Continuing uphill we passed allotments, a forest of roughly carved wooden faces (with eyes that followed us) and getting warmer, reached Stanmer Community Farm.

The Earthship was closed but we explored the outside of this intriguing building and its grounds which resemble a glorious eco-friendly Teletubby Land. Heading back downhill we sensibly took a detour to Stanmer Park Tearooms and refuelled with tea and cake before hiking back to Falmer Station.

On Highdown Hill

The day after Saint Jude's storm saw calm blue skies with bright puffy clouds over Worthing. I headed up to Highdown with friends to breathe some South Downs air and hike across the breezy hilltop. Our children scrambled through long grass, explored ditches and climbed trees while we marvelled at the splendid views across Worthing and out to sea – blighted only by the sight of a sprawling Asda superstore.

As the air began to chill we gambolled back down the hill to Highdown Tearooms and refuelled with huge glasses of hot chocolate with whipped cream and generous portions of cake before investigating Highdown's chalk gardens. 

The children disappeared in a game of hide and seek and we could've stayed another hour enjoying the rich autumn colours but were driven out by the sound of a ringing bell warning us that the gardens were about to close.

From The Trees

On a crisp, sunny autumn Saturday afternoon we cycled to Broadwater Green to take part in Transition Town Worthing's Sustainable Foraging Walk. Organised by Dr Barbara Pilley-Shaw, the walk was advertised in our school newsletter and invited us to rediscover useful downland and woodland plants in an amble up to the South Downs led by RSPB plant guide, folklore expert and clover muncher Brian Day. Other experts were on hand too, generously giving us a host of botanical and local historical information while we walked in the leafy Sussex countryside.

The Midsummer Oak – beware dancing skeletons at Midsummer's eve!

Some 37 like minded people assembled at the Green and more arrived later, joining us along the way. We were all ages (the youngest a 5-week-old baby snuggled up in a sling) and it was a family (and dog) friendly occasion. Worthing historian Chris Hare took us from the Green across busy A roads to a small patch of grass where the Midsummer Oak stands. The tree is said to be over 300 years old and local legend has it that on Midsummer's Eve skeletons rise from the ground and dance around it until dawn. Hare explained that the story was first recorded by folklorist Charlotte Latham in her book Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868.

From there we crossed more main roads in busy Saturday afternoon traffic and walked to Hill Barn Recreation Ground – a lovely wide open green space. 

Hill Barn Recreation Ground

Brian Day led us around the edges exploring trees and hedgerows, with intelligence of which plants were edible or could be used for medicinal purposes illustrated with some eye-watering descriptions of ancient customs. We continued on past the golf course at Hill Barn and up into the Millennium Woods. Walking around the woods Dr Pilley-Shaw helped the children identify and take cuttings of trees (which we'll plant at school). The woods also provided plenty of opportunity for our children to play and they formed a merry group.

Foraging in the Millennium Woods

We walked for a couple of hours and it was a really enjoyable day. I have to admit that we did cheat a little and stuffed a few pieces of chocolate and flapjacks into our pockets to take with us, not quite sure whether foraged leaves and fruits would sustain us. However, I am inspired to boil some nettle leaves at home – one of these days...

Top row of cuttings: Spindle, Yew, Ash

Middle row: Field Maple, Hazel, Guelder Rose

Bottom row: Guelder Rose (again), Hawthorne, Hornbeam

Arctic Egg Roll at Devil's Dyke

Devil's Dyke valley is the longest, deepest and widest dry valley in the land, which makes it the perfect spot for National Trust's annual Easter Egg Rolling contest. 

The high hills of the Dyke give splendid panoramic views of the South Downs and twinkling seaside city of Brighton beyond – on a fine day this event draws several hundred people. This year however had to be the coldest egg rolling I've ever been to and only the hardiest families turned out. We huddled together attempting to shelter from a bitter wind on the top of the Dyke while waiting for the ceremony to begin. It was more of an endurance test than anything else (especially for the children present) and the three tier contest was eventually cut short as it was just too chilly to sit still any longer. When the adults' turn came to hurl our decorated eggs into the valley the entire crowd rushed down after them in relief, not waiting for the final 8-13 year old's contest! Alas, my child didn't get a chance to roll her lovely decorated egg (above) after all, though I think she too was consoled by the thought that it was all over.

With numb faces and frozen fingers we stumbled back up the hill and crammed into the pub at the top to defrost by an open fire and drink cups of sweet tea. Once thoroughly warmed we caught the 77 bus back down to Brighton and pledged to return to picnic in the great outdoors on a milder day.

 

In a Bloomsbury state of mind

After going to see the excellent Radical Bloomsbury show at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery last week I was moved to take a trip to Firle, East Sussex to visit Charleston, the country home of artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant which became a meeting place for their friends – the writers, painters and intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury group.
       
Charleston is an 18^th century farmhouse with a walled garden set at the foot of the South Downs. Each room inside is full of paintings, textiles and ceramics including work by Renoir, Picasso and Delacroix as well as furniture and objects from the Omega Workshops. However, I was most interested in seeing the hand-painted embellishments by Bell and Grant who (inspired by Italian fresco painting and the Post-Impressionists) decorated the walls, wonky doors and furniture. The beautiful stencilled dark grey walls in the dining room were particularly impressive, as was the richly painted large circular Omega dining table. I also loved the patched heavy curtains made of several long pieces of sewn-together contrasting fabrics, and the fact that the makeshift curtain poles were dusty with even a cobweb or two. Another delight was Quentin Bell’s witty ceramic colander lampshades.
     
I travelled there by train and bike using the Charleston website’s bike route guide (I took the shortest route from Berwick station) though I’d recommend avoiding cycling along the A27 and taking one of the more circuitous off-road routes if you can. Pedalling along the country roads with cars and the odd lorry whizzing past me at high speed I took courage from imagining Virginia Woolf out on her bike, probably cycling along the same roads to and from the house all those years ago.