Day 5 – Bluebells on the South Downs

The Jolly Drover to The Rising Sun, 24Km

Jolly good day today. Scrambled eggs for breakfast at the Jolly Drover. I described in some detail how I like them cooked and I listened to the slam of the microwave door and there was sufficient elapsed time before the thing dinged. The eggs were cooked to perfection. He also made me a ham & cheese sandwich for lunch which turned out to be a blessing because it saved me a very steep descent into Buriton from the top of the South Downs Way and back again. Instead I sat by a pond in a nature reserve to eat the sandwich. There was no mayo or relish but it was delicious all the same.

I set off along the Sussex Border Path this morning, woodland and bluebells galore. Then some open farmland. I walked through Quebec (just the one house) and near Rogate (where I took my surveying field trip in 1975). I emerged from the clay onto the chalk of the South Downs Way. The path was white and climbed onto the relatively mighty South Downs. It’s high ground for this part of England with open grassland and sheep grazing into the distance.

Bluebells are everywhere. I tried to take a photograph of one but the whole point of bluebells is to see a big carpet of them, under beech trees before the leaves block out the sunlight. The final couple of kilometres from the top of the Downs down into Clanfield was through a beech wood and it was pure pleasure. Carpets of bluebells competing with carpets of wild garlic.

I’ve got the same room in The Rising Sun as I had 10 years ago. The same view of the church and presumably the same bed. It’s got one star less than the Jolly Drover but I prefer it because it’s cheaper and they’re playing Dexys Come on Eileen. “Poor old Johnnie Ray/ Sounded sad upon the radio/ Moved a million hearts in mono”