The 2010 Bimble : Tuesday

Miles :121
Start: Brighton
End: Tangley, Hampshire

I woke up early and took a walk out of our BnB towards the beach. Even though it was seriously cheap and cheerful we had a sea view. Sort of. It was down the length of a street with a car park on one side and the back of posh hotel on the other. Not exactly picturesque but a sea view nonetheless. I had a short stroll to the ruins of the west pier which was virtually destroyed by fire a couple of years back. Now its just a skeleton of rusted ironwork jutting out the ocean. I've no idea if it could be repaired but I really don't think it would be worth doing. They should either demolish it outright or declare it a seagull sanctuary (like THEY need protecting).

Back to the BnB and we parked up the car and we were away before you needed a parking permit to stay there. We drove along the sea road watching the genteel Brighton giving way to the more industrialised west. Boat yards and spoil depots replaced hotels and apartment blocks. We turned into the land and saw across a green valley something called Lacing College Chapel. This thing was immense, jutting out of the green hillside like an errant ivory tooth. Most impressive.

Having skipped the breakfast at the hotel we stopped off and had a Sunlit fruit breakfast of orange juice, bananas and grapes. I'd love to say it was organically grown but it was actually tescos as we stopped to avoid a traffic jam. Still sunlit and still fruity though.

We headed into the South Downs national park (proposed). I propose you give it to them as its beautiful and if anything needs saving its our greenspaces. The drive up the hill and along the A272 was really special a rolling dipping highway through some lovely villages.

One of which was Midhurst, which we stopped at for essential supplies where we saw a ruined castle/country house called Cowdry which was apparently destroyed by action in the civil war. As we had no fixed timetable we took a walk along the raised marsh bed towards it. The ragged walls are still there, the roof is centuries gone but the jagged front standing proud against the level marshland was pretty impressive and a great random bimble find.

We drove onto Jane Austens House at Chawley. Now I actually like Austen, we had an extract from one of her books read out at our wedding, so seeing where she wrote all of her works was great and they certainly captured the period well. HOWEVER there was a sense that they were trying to beatify her into Saint Jane of Austen. It seems that for many people she represents a certain attitude and a certain lifestyle, almost 'Austen style' and in her they put their own fears and hopes. Whereas she was a decent writer she certainly wasn't a saint.

From there we needed a cuppa and butty so we headed to Winchester. I have to say it's rather like Chester but with added Win.

A very civil place a bit like Bath but without the pretensions. We found a little tea shop off the high street that did twenty different types of tea. Em had a High tea and I had low tea. Low tea is the same thing just with a toasted cheese sandwich rather than scones with jam and cream.

From there we walked up to the gate museum and Great hall where they claim to have 'THE' round table. Em was nearly apoplectic.

"There isn't a 'THE' round table and there never was! Is the meaning of the word MYTH lost on you people? It's a table that's round and nothing else!"

However they more than made up for their grammatical error with a lovely garden off to the side with all sorts of herbal and eating plants in! It also had a bench where I could have quite happily spent a couple of hours reading a novel. Unfortunately that wasn't an option so we went on to our stop of the night.

We had a very clear plan of not booking accommodation more than 24 hours ahead and so far I have to say its worked rather well. This pub, called the cricketers arms looks like a Small country cottage and has a chalet style accommodation block behind it made out of local timber. This chalet looks a touch like a upmarket motel but the rooms are lovely and decked out (Geddit?) all on wood.

We had a couple of pints of the Bowman ales Swift One (some cricket pun I think) and a wonderful meal. Then sat by the enormous fireplace with a cheery fire and listened to the locals chat about nothing in particular.

We headed to bed and fell into a sound sleep in spite of the room next to ours listening to Radio four quite loud.