A Week Before Los Angeles

A sticky seatbelt, a broken tap and strange behaviour from AOL were features of the first part of our weekend. My Saturday attendance for TRUCE was quite enjoyable and much enhanced by the contributions of four pilots. The emergency scenarios were creative especially coming from a colleague who had only recently returned from South Africa where, a few days ago, he completed a gruelling cycle race in a highly commendable time. I think he must have cheddar or wine in his genes as he is actually getting better with age whereas I am, more like a Japanese power station, just slowly decaying.

The BBC weather forecast, if unreliable, has at least become pessimistic so that, often, the day is much nicer than predicted. Lately, the rather restrained 'white cloud' has, in fact, meant quite a lot of sunshine. Thus it was today; actually rather cold at times but cheeringly bright and an encouraging background to our near-impromptu itinerary. I felt I wanted to do something on this last day off before we travel to Heathrow and then Los Angeles. At the same time I did not feel that a long drive before an early morning was a very good idea. In fact, Greg did all the driving uncomplainingly and very well for a West Sussex circular I had devised from a brief study of the atlas. I wanted to see any traces of a (railway) line which used to run from Chichester to Lavant, well within my lifetime but nevertheless a long time ago. A remnant itself of a former passenger line, it carried only aggregates traffic in my time and that now moves to and from a location just west of Chichester station. As we traced what is now Centurion Way, a pedestrian and cycle path, we had our first insight into the considerable beauty with which West Sussex competes with nearby Hampshire. North towards Midhurst and east of that route it just gets better. We stopped at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton. I was impressed and captivated. A minimum visit time of three hours is suggested but I doubt even that would do the site justice. For the photographer the possibilities are endless; the historian would simply drown in information. The best thing, I think, is to walk and photograph and try to absorb some of the information provided. I am not sure that my pictures will all be processed before we leave for California. They will appear in due course on Flickr with highlights on Facebook.

The fascination of the exhibits distracted from the physical effort of a long walk within 50 acres. It had its ups and downs and, although it was not Steve's cycle race, it was more exercise than I usually do in a week. I suddenly felt both physically and creatively exhausted. My legs or some part of me protested whilst my mind raced ahead to how I would group and classify the photographs I had taken. Predictably, there would be little point in going on to Petworth so we continued towards Midhurst where a brief foray into Station Road revealed no trace of another line long gone. Bridge work on the A3(M) south of Horndean protracted Greg's much appreciated labours still further but, with one stop for Tesco fuel, we were home to work with our respective cameras. In my case I would do nothing which would hinder a 4.30 start (tomorrow morning) and I would slip into a comfortable mental gear to cruise towards next Sunday's journey to Heathrow and the following day's familiar westbound flight to LAX.

Greg bought me a beautiful bronze hare which deserves a good place to be displayed. Thank you, darling.