The fourth stage of my King’s Way walk, from the palace in the south Hampshire town, north-west across the wooded lower downs, into the South Downs National Park. This walk passes Wintershill with its Roman Road, Upham, Blackdown (great views), Baybridge, finishing north-east of Owslebury. Georgeous countryside, very rural, bright spring sunshine and some very curious calves.
Nature
Cheriton Wood
Not far to the north west of where I live is the largest wood in the area, Cheriton Wood. It’s near the site of one of the famous battles in the (Un)Civil War. I think it was closed to the public for most of the time I’ve lived here but is now open under the CROW Act. Here are some images from walking through the woods, and just outside the trees.
Chidden & Hambledon Walk
In warm sunshine and cool winter air, we walked from the hamlet of Chidden on the South Downs to Hambledon and back again in a loop.
With larks calling high above (where are they?) we proceeded south from the village over open downland:
Some winter flowers hinting at spring:
Into Park Wood:
Bird of prey scarecrow:
Park House:
Cricket has been played up on Windmill Down, Hambledon for more than 250 years:
Buds budding:
View north to Leydene Park:
Hampshire downland:
Hambledon vineyards, producing English ‘champagne’:
Into the village. Very nice. Very expensive. Sports cars in front of cottages:
Footpath north through the vineyards:
Panorama north to Chidden Down:
And back to Chidden:
Red Kite in flight – Video
A short video of one of the Red Kites up on Park Hill above the Hampshire Village of East Meon
East Meon Walk
In bright winter sunshine in a crisp breeze we walked a loop of a few km from East Meon church:
From the graveyard the path rapidly ascends 100m up into Park Hill giving great views over the village. Very soon we were higher than the steeple:
Even higher above some red kites effortlessly circled over a corn field. A local said they had been recently introduced:
On the top of the hill looking east to the south downs stretching away in the haze beyond Butser Hill:
The rolling grassland of Park Hill near to Vineyard Hole. (Now there are some vines nearer the village at the Court House.)
On the Bereleigh Estate, Park Farm. The ice on the pond would be soon to melt:
Hey you forgot the hay!
Over open country, down through Rookham Copse, over the road to Pidham Lane. These sunken lanes with trees on the bank always remind me of The Fellowship of the Ring:
Old lanes eaten up by motorbikes and sodden led us to the gravel of the Greenway Track:
No cars. Look how dated the sign design is, some kind of 1960s car:
Frogmore lies to the east of East Meon. Only 2km from its source, the Meon turns west here into the Meon Valley proper. Old cottages and a bridge here:
Taking the lane instead of more mud in the fields, we were soon in the village, with it’s thatched cottages and Georgian houses and pub:
Then back to the church in it’s downland situation:
The old Court House c14 onwards:
Ventilation tile:
Scarecrow at the village allotments:
South Downs Way – Final Leg – Alfriston to Eastbourne
For the final stage of the 100-mile SDW, I took the Coastal Route from the downland village of Alfriston, through the Cuckmere valley, across the Seven Sisters Country park with its bright white cliffs, via Birling Gap, up to Beachy Head before leaving the downs, descending into Eastbourne and it’s seafront promenade. A thoroughly enjoyable last twelve miles – a classic!
Weekend Walk 39 – Beaulieu to Lymington – The Solent Way
From the Hampshire village of Beaulieu to the town of Lymington, the Solent Way proceeds south then west. At first it follows the bank of the Beaulieu River to Bucklers Hard, where many of Nelson’s fleet was built. Two unique terraces of Georgian houses survive. The path then head inland to St Leonards Grange, Sowley and Walhampton, with its oversized monument. The walk finishes in maritime Lymington, with cobbled streets and historic quay. It was surprising to see the wild (if owned) donkeys of the New Forest right there on the streets of Beaulieu. While much of this stage is on tarmac, the lanes were quiet even on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Ramsdean Walk
Wanting to explore the area to the north of Butser Hill, east of East Meon, south of Stroud, we parked in the small Hampshire village of Ramsdean. The area is more varied than is often found around the South Downs, with small streams, undulating countryside and ancient lanes between meadows and copses. The track from Ramsdean to Stroud (pr. strood) is a delight, with warn stone underfoot and steep banks up to beeches overhanging the path. Very hobbit-like. We turned north off the track towards Langrish, up through meadows with great views of Butser Hill behind us. Then down through Mustercoombe Copse almost as far as Stroud, meeting a herd of cows, both curious and literally shit scared of us. Then it was back onto the ancient track to the village with its cottages and farms.
Cymatics Videos
The effects that sound and vibration have on matter. Here are a few videos I came across after being introduced to this subject recently.
Lady sings some Mozart into a tube:
Gregg Braden demonstrates that ‘sound makes stuff go!’
Freaky cornstarch:
The Circle of Life – A Lion’s Point of View
THE SERENGETI—According to a male lion currently dying on the Serengeti Plain, his agonizing demise certainly doesn’t seem as though it’s part of some transcendent cosmic circle of life, but rather as if he’s slowly and painfully bleeding to death.
The expiring lion, who dragged his weakened body onto an isolated patch of grassland Monday after being mortally wounded by a poacher, confirmed to reporters that he is not experiencing a tranquil, satisfying sense of harmony with the universe, but is instead mainly feeling intense physical torment brought on by a fatal wound to the abdomen.
“I could be wrong, and maybe this is all an enchanting and noble chapter in life’s great cosmic narrative, but right now it pretty much just feels like I’m dying alone on the ground in a puddle of my own blood,” said the 500-pound big cat, releasing a deep moan as violent spasms seized his body. “Shouldn’t I be feeling a stirring sensation of kinship with all living creatures or something? Yeah, I’m not getting any of that.”
“Plus, I was illegally shot by a poacher. How does that fit into this ancient, majestic cycle in which all of nature is connected as a unified being?” the lion added.
Observing his surroundings, the moribund lion reported that he has seen no brilliant gleaming light shining down from the heavens that makes him realize he’s part of a sacred tradition as old as life itself, nor has a hush seemed to fall over the land in a reverent acknowledgment of his passing.
In addition, the large African mammal noted that succumbing to a gunshot wound hasn’t resulted in a spiritual awakening in which he suddenly feels at one with the universe, so much as it has made him feel terrified, alone, and utterly insignificant.
The lion also reported that he has heard no triumphant string music backed by thundering tribal drums swelling all around him, but rather only the sound of flies buzzing around his soon-to-be lifeless body.
“I guess I thought there’d be a choir of chanting, melodic voices, and that all the animals of the African valley would gather on a distant ridge to respectfully view my last moments and recognize our essential interconnectedness,” said the lion, drawing his last labored breaths. “But there’s nobody else around at all, except those vultures.”
Added the lion, “Am I supposed to feel pride and great dignity knowing that my body will decay and a bunch of birds will eagerly tear into my rotting flesh with their beaks?”
As he closes his eyes for the final time before yielding to one last series of convulsions, the lion is reportedly pondering whether shitting all over himself really played any role at all in some vast, beautiful, and endless saga of life, death, and rebirth.
Brian Cox on the Higgs boson whatsits
On the BBC:
This is without doubt in my opinion the biggest scientific discovery of my lifetime and without doubt one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time, so I’m tremendously excited… This day will go down as one of the great days in the history of science I think, and that’s not overly hyperbolic.
This is a prediction that was made almost 50 years ago. And the prediction is that the universe, everywhere, empty space, everywhere you look, every little cubic centimetre of space in front of you and inside your body and across the universe, is rammed full of Higgs particles, and everything that makes up your body, the little subatomic particles in your hand, are bouncing off them, and that’s how they get their mass.
And more than that the theory said that these Higgs particles condensed out into empty space less than a billionth of a second after the universe began. It sounds very esoteric and fundamental. But what we’ve shown today is that’s right. That’s actually how the universe works. So it’s one of the central planks of our understanding of how everything in the universe works.
And even though, throughout my whole career as a particle physicist of 20 years now, this theory has been there, I think the realisation that it’s actually right is quite shocking, actually; I’m quite shocked that such a strange thing has been shown to be true.
The old green tree
Maysleith Walk
As soon as one crosses from Hampshire to West Sussex things turn a little bit odd, a little bit spooky, a little bit weird. I don’t know why. This is completely unfounded but I feel it every time. It’s fun to go over the border and explore a little into this wigglier county. Today we went to Maysleith, which isn’t really a place but there’s a wood and a hanger and an old house. It’s near the villages of Milland and Rake. We parked near Combeland Farm and walked north east underneath Maysleith Wood and then Maysleith Hanger, past Maysleith House (C17). Then a steep climb of path and stone steps up to the top of the hill. Soon we were in the churchyard of St Lukes church (Milland and Rake parishes). Unusually there is also a chapel in the same grounds. Tuxlith chapel was built in the 16th Century but there was probably something older on the site. Around it and the church were many rather bumpy graves, each with its own spongy mound. Some of the headstones were headirons, rusty and so very Victorian. The path took us through the woods near the old A3 then down through moss-banked tracks and to the start on Canhouse Lane.
Here’s some of what we saw:
Durford Wood and Rogate Common
This morning, in the cool spring air, we walked through Durford Wood and part of Rogate Common, just inside West Sussex from Hampshire. Here’s some of what we saw during an hour and a half’s walk over very sandy soil.
The Cane Toad in Australia
We brought you in to eat the beetles
But they were too high on the crop
And you hopped away
And mated making thousands
Who mated making thousands
And hopped away
And mated making thousands
And hopped away
Along the coast of Queensland
North and south
Greeny browny yellow and kind of panting
Bounded head-first though obstacles
Munched up the insects
And dog food
You popped when we run you down
You squirted poison when under attack
You half-killed Wallace the dog with your toxin
Then the dog came back
But wasn’t the same
It didn’t do doggy things any more they said
A little girl had you as a pet
Called you Dairy Queen
You didn’t poison her
You liked being played with
And your belly tickled
Melrose the Wonder Toad liked that too
Before he got too fat to hop
Bubbly backed
Most called you ugly
Some said beautiful
No right to be there
But it’s not your fault
Once they built a statue of you
And psychedelic postcards
And tourists came
A man made bags and hats out of your skin
Bags and hats with or without your head sticking out
Dogs licked your toxins
In just the right amount
Tripping on your ooze
Who knows what’s going on in those dogs’ minds?
I guess you might
We spiked you with spears
We froze you in bags
We melted you down into fertilizer
We tried fences and traps
And still you hopped on
Headed west on the highways
Once you numbered one hundred and two
Now one and a half billion
Hibernating in holes
Sometimes forming moving carpets
In your masses
Kimberley’s Toad Busters
Will bag you and gas you
But we can’t contain you
The country is yours, oh Cane Toad!
Trailer:
Tripping Dog Dobby:
Russell Brand and Daniel Pinchbeck have a chat under a neon fish in front a pagan altar
In this video, Russell and Daniel talk about consciousness, media, conditioning, drugs, physics, capitalism. Some quotes:
RB: “People have been – beyond trained – coded to not anticipate change, to think that change is implausible, like we’ve had revolution bred out of us.”
…
RB: “How do we alter the consciousness, the fundamental unifying field? How do we influence change on that level to alter the world?”
…
DP: “A lot of people who were addicts are people with a strong, innate need to experience non-linear states of consciousness.”
…
RB: “Consciousness does affect matter. Meditation can affect crime rates.”
…
“Q: What comes after time?
RB: … We don’t need to know. … We need to align our consciousness with the fundamental frequency from which all life comes and to generate love and unity between us.
Q: But I want to understand.
RB: Then feed and clothe the poor”
…
DP: “Most people are trapped in only one form of consciousness.”
…
DP: Capitalism requires more and more things to being turned into money and profit but this has now reached an absurd limit, so the capital system is breaking down. Capitalism is an immature system.”
…
RB: “The entertainment industry keeps us spellbound, as passive consumers, to negate and castrate our civic duties, to keep us as citizens who don’t participate in our culture but are just independent cells of consumption glutting on life like larve, until we pop.”
…
RB: “Advertising could be used, instead of telling you if you drink Coke you will feel sexy, telling people that if you meditate you will feel connected to your ultimate destiny as a spiritual being that is only distinguished from the earth by subjectivity incessantly imposed.”
…
The video includes a very funny segment of Russell crossing Tower Bridge on acid: “There Be Dragons!” Good to see such a mainstream figure involved in these subjects and questions. I hope with the divorce and his further disillusion with ‘fame for the sake of it’ and focussing on comedy roles, he is able to explore and communicate further along these lines.
I couldn’t embed the video on WordPress but here is the link
Weekend Walk 32 – Emsworth to Hilsea – Solent Way
Getting up too late to finish the South Downs Way, I switched to The Solent Way. Stage one of my back to front walk took me from Emsworth near the border with West Sussex to Hilsea in the north of Portsmouth. This was a level walk via Warblington, Langstone, Brockhampton, Farlington and the Hilsea Lines, with a long loop around Farlington Marshes in fading light.
Weekend Walk 31 – Woodingdean to Alfriston (South Downs Way)
A 12 mile hike along the South Downs, from a suburb of Brighton to the village of Alfriston (mispronounced in the video). This section of the trail goes above Kingston, Lewes, Ilford, Rodmell, into Southease with its interesting c12 church. The path then leads across the Ouse Valley past Newhaven back to the downs above Firle and Seaford.
It was a very windy day and my camera’s wind reduction couldn’t cope.
One more stage of the South Downs Way left to walk, to Eastbourne along the river and coast. I hope to do this in the next couple of weeks before the days get too short.
Mount Everest Live
This webcam showing Everest’s western face is the highest in the world. Whatever is going on in the world of men, there it is, Chomolungma the ‘Holy Mother’, doing it’s thing, rising above us all. That must be the South Col, on the right, where climbers from the Nepal side camp before summit day.
In other news, there are calls for toilets to be installed up there after “a Nepal-based coalition of environmentalists campaigning to keep the mountain clean, has collected more than 13 tonnes of garbage, 400 kilogrammes of human waste and four bodies since 2008.”
Weekend Walk 30
The final stage of the Itchen Way, from Bishopstoke bridge to Weston Point in Southampton, via Southampton Airport, Itchen Valley Country Park, Riverside Park, Woodmill, St Denny’s, Bitterne and Woolston. At Woodmill Lock the fast chalk river suddenly becomes tidal estuary. Such a contrast as the Itchen joins the Test to form Southampton Water, to the shallow clear streams of Cheriton. This was my least favourite part of the walk, at some points feeling like a descent into urban hell after the open countryside and clear river further north.
It wasn’t clear where the Itchen Way actually finishes – some say at the tidal lock, others at one of the eastern Southampton stations. I chose to finish at the natural conclusion of the river.
Falling Awake 