I love to go a wandering….

Valdereeeee! Valderahhhh!

Another lovely day today although way, way, way too hot for my tender colouring. 🙁

It was my Mum’s belated birthday celebrations today as her actual birthday was a week ago last Wednesday when we were in Scotland staying with Joyce and she was with a friend who shares the same birthday seeing a show in London for the day. So Malice, holiday and other birthday celebrations all sorted we finally rescheduled to celebrate it today.

Davies was supposed to be doing a tour of the local airport with Badgers today, which he took a lot of persuading to agree to sign up to attend on the basis that I would not be able to go with him and I would not be able to lurk a few paces behind. He was struggling to sleep last night and I think he was hovering between excitement at the propsect of the airport tour and aprehension about being without us for a full afternoon. Personally I was utterly dreading it on oh so many, completely my issue levels but was hiding it really well (I was honestly, ask Ady if you don’t believe me! ;-)) so the plan was for all of us to go to the airport, drop Davies off with the Badgers and head off round the airport and beach (near that scoobidou geocache we did with you, Chris and Alison) with a picnic and meet him afterwards.

So when the phonecall came through last night to cancel it, Davies seemed fairly relieved, I was very pleased and we were free to do something else instead today. We discounted the beach as it is not my Dad’s ‘thing’, Arundel as it would be packed, Brighton as it would be even more packed and any where we’d need to drive far to get to as it was way too hot to be in the car for very long. So we decided to do a downs walk and after checking a very old book entitled ‘walks for motorists – the south downs’ and googling I came up with a five mile walk to Cissbury Ring and back. Which looked idea – about 3 hours walking, middle point break at a nice spot for a picnic, head off around 11.30, stop for 1pm lunch, back by around 4pm, lots of lovely views etc.

Nope!

It was simply too hot, too open with no shade in the blisteringly hot sun, too at the end of a crazy couple of weeks for the children and too incompatible six walking companions with Dad who wants to stride ahead, Mum who wants to walk in the sunshine, Ady who wants to take endless photos, kids who want to be carried / stop for a drink / stop for a picnic / stop to look at every single creepy crawly they spot and me. Who is not built for walking. Who has exercise induced asthma and didn’t bring an inhaler. Who has thighs which rub together in the heat. Who is of fair and gentle complexion which does not do well in open sunlight with no shade and no pimms! 😆

We got to about 2 miles in – a good hours walk in the heat, up hill and along stoney, unforgiving paths and realising we were another mile yet from our destination and every step we’d taken had to be retraced to get home again we fell upon a patch of shade with great delight, decided it was far enough and had our picnic before heading back again. I had applied one lot of suncream to children and self – all of whom have already got a slight tan and have been fine with one application per day of factor 60 but within half an hour it was apparent we were not being protected enough – and had I brought suncream with me in the picnic bag? No I had not. The children were indeed fine and I am only suffering with a feint redness but enough to make me feel very silly. 🙁 I also faired not so well in the heat and was starting to feel very dehydrated (despite plenty of water) sick and dizzy.

It turned out to be one of those retrospective perspective events though and we all agreed once home it had actually been a very nice walk with loads to see, breathtaking views of Worthing, Brighton and the sea to the south and the rolling downs to the north, more wildlife – birds, bugs and butterflies that you get in your average Springwatch episode and a fairly easy going terrain really. The perfect cooler weather route definitely. Photos in the usual place – can’t be arsed to put any here! Loads of educational stuff covered with the children though, we looked at the various crops we walked past and through and discussed what foodstuffs they might be made into, looked at all sorts of wildlife too numerous to mention, collected a small bagfull of caterpillars and their ‘home’ plant which we’ve brought home and installed in our Butterfly garden net thing from last years Insect Lore grow your own butterfly thingy kit to observe. And Ady had a long chat with them about 3rd world countries where heat and being thirsty means a hell of a lot more than it did for the last half hour of our walk when the water had run out…

We got back and as Mum had brought over vanilla ice cream and I’d bought two bottles of coke on BOGOF – one needed for the Nigella ham in coke we had for dinner and the other for spare, I made coke floats all round. A hot summers day staple from my own childhood it was Davies and Scarlett’s first experience of such a delicacy so they were enraptured by it. 🙂 Followed by Mum’s birthday cake which for the first time ever Tarly got to carry in with candles lit from the kitchen to the lounge (actually I’ve only just started letting Davies do it!) and the arrival of my brother the children were in 7th heaven!

They had a wash all the dirt from the downs off bath and I performed my new trick of drenching Tarly’s hair with conditioner and brushing it in the bath to get all the tangles out with the plan being they’d fall, exhausted, into their beds. Ha!

We finished cooking the ham in coke and served it with roasted potatoes, carrots and parsnips, broccoli and shelled ourselves peas for all the grown ups and both children reappeared from their beds to beg gammon from our plates (and beer and wine from our glasses! :roll:). We persuaded them into bed so we could have dessert in peace, they have only just gone to sleep and Mum, Dad and Frazer have just left. Ady is already in bed waiting for morning and his return to work after holiday to come and despite it still being ridiculously hot here at nearly midnight I am off upstairs myself to see if there is any chance of being able to sleep.