Today's word is "precipitous"

[tamaranth]

Today was our Expotition to the Countryside ... to Chanctonbury Ring, an Iron Age hill fort on the South Downs near Worthing, courtesy of ladymoonray.

The party consisted of myself, ladymoonray, swisstone and zoo_music_girl - see their LJs for alternate histories.

Following an excellent lunch at the Royal Oak in Poyning we headed for the Downs via Bramber Castle, a largely-vanished Norman fortification. Here we encountered the local youth vandalising one of the 'Beware - Steep Drop' signs. swisstone used the Voice of Authority, and a camera, to comprehensively terrify them with fear of retribution. Sadly they are probably not bright enough to learn from this: but then, they may have forgotten about the steep drop too.

Pausing only to take pictures of one another taking pictures (as is traditional), we headed for Chanctonbury Ring. (It's up Chanctonbury Ring Road ... where else?!) The last time I went there was 15-ish years ago, and I remember the path as being incredibly steep. (Will dig out the photos of that occasion, soon). Path turned out not as steep, but rather longer, than expected.

The top of the Downs was cold and windy - but not as cold and windy as on 21st October 1987, when the Great British Hurricane felled trees all over Southern England - including the old trees planted in the earthwork itself. I remember it as a dark, forboding place. Now it is fenced off, and planted with young trees, and looks raw and fresh and earthy. There is an authentically Iron-Age smell of cow dung and mud.

Chanctonbury Ring still has a reputation for fairies, magic and UFO sightings. We saw none of the above, and all the pictures came out clearly (though see atmospheric effect, below): also, none of us were abducted by aliens or the Fair Folk. Apparently the place is heaving with Goths and pagans at Midsummer Eve, when you can summon the Devil by running backwards seven times around the Ring while the clock strikes midnight. (Do what? You must be joking ...) zoo_music_girl and I made a pact: if the Devil looks like Neil Gaiman's 80's-pop-star Lucifer, he's all hers. If he looks like Lucifer in The Prophecy, he's mine. As neither of us could run around Chanctonbury Ring even once in the allotted time, we may have to hire an Olympic sprinter.

After a brief pause for sugar, caffeine and fat, we headed down again. I found the path I'd originally ascended, and swisstone and I descended it. The word for today is precipitous. Kind of like snowboarding, without the boards or the snow. I stopped to photograph fungi. swisstone swung from tree to tree. Having kept my feet, more or less, all the way down, I promptly fell over as soon as the path levelled out: but luckily no one had a camera ready.

We looked back at the hilltop and it appeared to be billowing black smoke. But then it all disappeared. (See below for evidence of Occult Thingies) Naturally we expected zoo_music_girl and ladymoonray to disappear with it, ne'er by moral eye etc, but they eventually turned up.

Thence to Brighton, for a tour of parking-permit zones and - eventually - coffee and cake in a seafront cafe. I hadn't seen the West Pier since the most recent collapse (January 2003), and was horrified: the ballroom has folded and tilted like a special effect. Amazingly, this hasn't affected the plans to repair and rebuild the Pier. Presumably the structure would have needed replacing anyway. Meanwhile, the whole thing leans alarmingly as though it's about to topple into the waves. Gloriously dramatic, in a decadent, decaying sort of way.

There were clouds of starlings around the two separate parts of the Pier, coming home to roost: I've read somewhere that starlings are becoming rare, but perhaps they have simply all moved to Brighton. A tempting prospect.

Home, to classify photos into 'web', 'file', and 'will be hurt if I post that'. Can you guess which are shown here? (Captions on mouseover, if you are suffering IE)

Comments

[ladymoonray.livejournal.com]

You didn't tell me about the mysterious smoke! That was the last of my willpower disappearing, you know (hence the blackcurrant cheesecake in Brighton).

There, mystery solved :)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

are you sure? Because there wasn't any black smoke before we went into the pub for lunch and apple and blackberry crumble with ice cream.

Anyway, you deserved the cheesecake after all that gravity!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

busy morning, then :)

Re:

[ladymoonray.livejournal.com]

:p

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[ladymoonray.livejournal.com]

Ahem! I only had a tiny little bit of that pudding!