Bond Street Lane

Being a fairly exuberant sort of town, Brighton has plenty of what might be called street art. This mural is in Bond Street Lane, just across from the sign that has caused a certain amount of controversy. I like the bicycle racks as well!

Park Crescent

I was stopped at the traffic lights at the junction of Elm Grove and Lewes Road when I spotted the old K2 telephone box over in Park Crescent. To many people this is an icon of England but they are fast disappearing from our streets.

Ditchling Rise

Looking down the hill from outside the house once owned by my wife's great-great-grandparents. In their day, of course, none of the cars would have been there. Now it is difficult to park anywhere in the street and one needs to buy a resident's parking permit in order to do so.

Great-great-grandfather's house

According to the Encyclopedia of Brighton, the houses in Ditchling Rise were built in the 1870s. My wife's great-great-grandparents lived in this one at the top of the road from sometime in the 1880s until their deaths. Coincidentally, my wife and I lived in a flat in a house towards the bottom of the hill when we were first married.

Stanford Avenue Methodist church

The church was built right at the end of the 19th century but just a few years ago a doorway - almost subterranean - was turned into a prayer garden with the addition of this sculpture.

The Warren

I'm not sure that enlarging the picture will show any animals, but there are a couple of rabbit warrens in that field across the valley.

On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine Hawthorn

We turn up the hill beside the golf course where there is a lone hawthorn tree in the middle of the fairway.

Stripes

It looks as though the farmer has had the heavy roller on the field beyond the dew pond.

Frog spawn

There's frog spawn galore in the Waterhall dew pond. This is but a tiny fraction of it.

A Waterhall walk continued

A little further on we can see across the dew pond and up to the head of the valley.

A Waterhall walk

Let's spend a few days wandering up the Waterhall valley. After we pass the playing fields and the rugby club, we come to where the council brought all the timber felled in an attempt to stop the spread of Dutch elm disease. It is still a locked compound where possibly diseased timber is burned.

Daffodils

As in every spring, there are plenty of daffodils in Withdean Park but this year there also seem to be a lot of them coming up blind. It's the same in my garden. I wonder why?

That's more like it!

These blossom trees (variety quite unknown to me) are at the edge of Stanmer Great Wood.

Down at ground level

If the trees in Stanmer Great Wood are showing little sign of spring, at least the bluebell leaves are thrusting up.

Spring in the woods

It might not look as though the trees in Stanmer Great Wood are showing any signs of spring but up close one can see the buds starting to sprout.

Horsdean

Even with the constant rumble of traffic on the by-pass (nearly visible in the top left-hand corner), there must be plenty of worse spots for travelling folk to spend a few days than the official Brighton site at Horsdean, seen here from Scare Hill.

Pyecombe

The village of Pyecombe nestles on the southern slope of Wolstonbury Hill. The road in the bottom left is the main A23 London to Brighton road.

Jack and Jill again

Behind the Chattri is Holt Hill from where we see Jack and Jill, the Clayton windmills, once again.

Sweet Hill

That's Sweet Hill with the mobile phone mast. Quite how it got the name I can't imagine; it doesn't look particularly sweet to me.

Ditchling: the church

One last view of Ditchling before we head back up onto the Downs. This is the village church, dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch and dating from the 12th century.

Ditchling: the butcher's shop

Standing at the orth end of the High Street is what was at one time the butcher's shop. It's an antiques shop now.

Ditchling: The Limes

Ditchling has a wide variety of architectural styles. Further up the High Street from the two bank buildings is the Georgian house, The Limes.

Ditchling: the competition

While I was running the sub-branch of Barclays Bank in the buildig on the right, the building two doors away (now an estate agency) housed a sub-branch of Lloyds Bank. Just what the building in between was I don't know. Probably a private house.

Ditchling: the bank

Stroll up the High Street just past the Bull and look across the road. Fifty years ago I worked in this building on Tuesday and Thursday mornings when Barclays Bank had a sub-branch on the ground floor.

Ditchling: High Street

Come down off the Beacon and just a few minutes along the lane we arrive at the village of Ditchling. The High Street looks just the same as it did 50 years ago when I worked here - except that the cars are more modern and there are more of them. It is perhaps a pity that I had the camera on the wide-angle setting so the narrowness of the High Street is partially lost in the picture.

Ditchling Beacon: the view

This is the view to the east just as one drives over the edge of Ditchling Beacon, seemingly into space as the road turns sharply to left just as it dips down.

Ditchling Beacon: the dewpond

Just as the road dips to descend the steep side of the Downs we pass a dew pond which seems almost to be on the top of the world.

Ditchling Beacon: sheep

The South Downs Way, a long-distance footpath, leads over the Beacon. You can see hat it receives a heavy footfall. That and the grazing sheep are the reasons why I never bring Fern here for her walk.

Ditchling Beacon

It is not often that I get onto Ditchling Beacon as it tends to get a bit crowded - and there are sheep around - but the other day I stopped off on my way to a garden centre.

Snowdrops

I have walked this field many a time but never along this hedgerow at this time of the year so I have never before seen these snowdrops which appear to be growing wild under the hedge and along the verge.

Spring sowing

It was the pattern that first caught my eye, then I thought the tractor added interest, Now I think perhaps it might just be a distraction.