I arranged to go out for a walk with a friend on Sunday, and said we should go, whatever the weather. I was a little surprised that she didn’t cancel, considering how bleak the conditions were:
As Billy Connolly is often quoted as saying, there is no such thing as bad weather, only a bad choice of outfit. This was a good opportunity to test my waterproofs. And they mostly did OK, but my boots and gloves both took on water – something to fix before this year’s longer hikes.
The route was a familiar one, which I blogged about back in May 2017, visiting the abandoned village of Balsdean. Despite having visited the valley a few times, I managed to get turned around, and the familiar ‘This Way’ signs helped me find my bearings:
(Edit 22/2) – I also had to rely on my friend Sophie to put us onto the right track. If we’d gone the way I suggested, we’d have ended up in Rottingdean.
There were not a lot of people about, unsurprisingly, but it was interesting seeing the Downs in very different weather to what I’m used to.
I didn’t take a lot of photos, for fear of my phone getting waterlogged.
The ruined farm buildings near Balsdean looked particularly menacing, the floor covered in damp sheep’s wool:
When I was running, I used to love running on wet days. It’s easy to go out when it’s sunny, but it takes determination to go out on unpleasant days. I was glad we went out. As we returned to Brighton, the skies were beginning to clear. We found our way to a pub and rested in the warm bar.
Hi James,
This post struck a note with me. As I think I mentioned on Twitter, I’ve done a fair amount of walking over the last year or so with my two dogs on the Downs, a lot around Truleigh Hill. On one of our earlier trips up there, I decided to walk over to Devil’s Dyke. On the way back, the heavens opened and we had sideways rain lashing in from the north.
In no time, we were soaked through, my clothing proving woefully inadequate. The Gore-Tex jacket seemed to spring several leaks, and water poured into my walking boots from the sodden jeans above, I think. My abiding memory is of our dalmatian, Poppy, sitting down nicely as if doing so would make me get her somewhere warm and dry more quickly 🙂
Also down that way, towards Mile Oak and Thundersbarrow Hill are some spooky abandoned farm buildings.
It’s also interesting that all this stuff exists within such close proximity to semi-familiar parts of Brighton, in this case Woodingdean/Rottingdean
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