We had intended to do an extensive drive today taking in
Christ’s Hospital just south of Horsham, forty or so miles north west of our
current position, and several towns and villages in between however we woke to
rain which worsened over the next couple of hours before our Skype rendez-vous
with Larissa. The wind came up and we were truly in a storm, hardly the right
kind of weather to enjoy a sightseeing tour through narrow country roads. We
decided not to go after all and I unpacked the eski disappointed that we would
not see where our older son, Kit, and his wife, Kyla, had lived for almost a
year about eight years ago. This third day in East Sussex would be spent in a
sedentary manner, an at-home day, a good day for watching the French Open on
television, however in Paris it seemed the weather was little better. Game
after game was either abandoned or interrupted by rain and wind, the same we
were not enjoying just across the Channel.
After lunch we drove into town and stocked up on fresh provisions
in readiness for our departure tomorrow, noting again the signs regarding the
Cuckoo Trail. I say “again”, because our hosts had alerted us to the fact we
were camped right next to this. A little Google search explained this; the
Cuckoo Trail is a fourteen mile footpath and cycleway which runs from Hampden
Park to Heathfield here in East Sussex. It passes through the towns of Polegate
and Hailsham, as well as the villages of Hellingly and Horam. So now we all
know.
Tomorrow morning we will travel south over the Pevensey
Levels, that area of marshland, 3,500 hectares
between Bexhill in the east, Pevensey in the west and Hailsham in the
north, turning west at Polegate and head into West Sussex. (Over the last few
hundred years, the Levels, underwater as recently as 700 to 800 years ago,
have gradually changed from saltmarsh to reedy meadows. This explains the
notation of “Pevensey Levels” seen on the map two days ago.)
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