Commuting part II

Apologies for the long delay since the last post, but I've got myself digs in London to avoid the daily commute. It was proving too much for me, taking too much time out of my life.

In all, I estimated that I was spending three and a half hours a day travelling, by the time I added in the waiting time caused by needing to get to the station early enough to ensure I got a seat, and the onward travel to my office from Victoria. None of this was helped by the fact that the rush-hour services are slower then the off-peak trains as they stop more, and the inbound trains seem to wait for several minutes outside Victoria in the mornings waiting for platforms.

Remarkably, I managed to find a room (courtesy of a former Brightonian) in London for less than my monthly season ticket so, even with the additional cost of Underground and bus fares, the arrangement breaks even financially.

All that has, of course, meant less time on the Brighton end of the blog. I will try to catch up in due course!

Commuting...

Well, I've had a month so far of my new daily routine of commuting from Brighton to London in the rush hours.

It's been an interesting but often depressing experience. Until now, I've travelled for work mostly off-peak, when things have seem to have run pretty smoothly. But so far, my regular inbound trains (one of the extended Gatwick Expresses) have been unfailingly late. Sometimes only by 5 minutes, and other times up to 40 minutes. But not one has actually arrived at the stated time: and that is with the slower, peak-time services which all take over an hour from London to Brighton (though I realise they make a few more stops).

Of course, I realise the performance figures refer to trains being on time if they arrive within 10 minutes of the scheduled time, but it seems the figures in the low 90s in percentage terms must be largely determined all those relatively empty trains running off-peak; peak services seem to be much more fragile.

And, is it my bad luck I've had four major incidents - roughly one a week - so far? These include a man who had climbed under a train (5 hour delay), a broken rail (3 hour delay), and the recent problem with Balcombe tunnel (where the lining needed emergency repairs). On that day I didn't even make it into work.

And of course this for well over £3,000 a year. I may rent a room up in town...

Les Vacances de M. Hulot

The other night I visited a friend for the evening and we spent a delightful couple of hours watching the first feature film of the celebrated French mime artist, Jacques Tati.

If you've never seen it, Les Vacances de M. Hulot (Mr Hulot's Holidays) is a wonderfully gentle comedy set in post-war France, depicting the middle classes at play on holiday at the seaside in Brittany. There's no need to speak French: what little dialogue there is plays a very definite second fiddle to the visual comedy. The feel is something like a cross between an Ealing Comedy and Mr Bean: it's all very gentle, subtle yet often absurd, and beautifully executed.

It made me want to rush back to France, yet I know that the world he so lovingly captured has largely gone (except for the food, of course). Our own homage to Tati's cinematography was suitably enhanced by a lovely French Sauvignon Blanc - what else?

Music at St Bartholomew

On Saturday, as I was walking past St Bartholomew's church, a small billboard caught my eye saying "church open: come and listen to the orchestra rehearse".

The said orchestra was the Sussex Symphony Orchestra, being conducted by Mark James with Pavlos Carvalho as guest cellist, and they were indeed rehearsing for the Gala Concert that night (alas, fully booked), with pieces by Mahler, Dvorak and Ravel.

It was a wonderful interlude to the day's chores, magnificent music in the eerie but magnificent setting of this iconic church.

Brighton Station Tour

The annual Brighton Festival and Fringe is rightly well known for its music, theatre, art and some downright quirky entertainment. But perhaps less well known are the tours that take you to some of the lesser known corners of familiar landmarks. And today I've been on one which I would highly recommend to anyone with an interest in local history - a tour of Brighton station, organised and led by the irrepressible Jackie Marsh-Hobbs.

As well as a short talk on the history of the station, with some wonderful old prints, plans and photographs to illustrate it, we walked around parts not normally accessible to the public. Completed in 1841, the main building is unusual for still being in use as an active part of the station, albeit with Victorian and later additions: most of its contemporaries have been replaced or demolished. Designed by David Mocatta, it still has its original cantilevered staircases at either end, complete with decorative ironwork balustrades.

We visited the site of the original cab road, now buried under platform 7; the old subterranean goods tunnel, which runs from the Shoreham lines to the old goods yard - now part rifle range and part disused Second World War control rooms (picture below); and finally the horse hospital (yes, really) and Stablemaster's house on the southern side of the station, today home to a bicycle rental business.But for me, perhaps best bit of all was the wonderful interior view of the 1882 train shed from one of the of station offices at first floor level, looking over the roofs of the trains. The curved, glazed roofs are simply magnificent.

The tours book up quickly: catch one next year!

Bluebells

Despite Sussex's reputation for bluebells and the famous Bluebell Railway, I'd never done a bluebell walk before - until yesterday, that is.

There's a farm near Arlington, near Lewes, which specialises in bluebell walks through nearby woodland, with a tea shop and stalls selling cards, plants, books and locally made preserves at the end. They've been opening up to the public every Spring for 39 years. (Details can be found at Bluebell Walk Arlington.) Takings go towards local charities.

Although - thanks to the dry weather and recent thunderstorms - the flowers were past their best, the walk was still very impressive. As they say, a picture paints a thousand words, so here are a few.

Brighton Festival

Had a bit of a break over Easter in Berlin. Great place. Will be back.

And have come back to find the Brighton festival in full swing. I've been emailing a friend to try to decide which fringe events to go to, and have decided that it's too exhausting ploughing through the brochure. You can have too much choice...

Instead, I think I'll go for one of the Open House art trails. They are a great way to see a bit of the city and enjoy some varied art at the same time - so long as the weather holds...

A spell of good weather...

...really lifts the spirits. I went biking with a mate on each of the last two weekends, enjoying the dry and settled weather. It helps blow the cobwebs away, and we visited a clutch of interesting mediaeval churches in East Sussex last Sunday, following some wonderful back roads, before ending up in a very nice pub (the Six Bells in Chiddingly). Worth going back to at some point, I think...

One discovery was the grave of Malcolm Lowry in the churchyard of St John the Baptist in the village of Ripe. He wrote 'Under the Volcano', one of the most highly regarded novels of the 20th century, but died tragically young, in his forties, thanks to a formidable drinking habit. It would be hard to find a place more different from the setting of the novel: Ripe is as tranquil as rural England gets.

Black Cap and Warningore Bostall

I took a walk last week-end from Falmer to Plumpton, walking via a short stretch of the South Downs Way, passing over the area on the ridge of the Downs called Black Cap.

This is one of the summits of this stretch of the Downs, rising to 206m (676ft). There are signs of Bronze Age and Saxon burials, with a number of low tumuli. The summit looks southwards down onto Ashcombe Bottom, an area of natural woodland, coppiced hazel and areas of open glades, with exceptional biodiversity of plants and butterflies.

To the north are splendid views of the Sussex Weald, as well as an ancient track-way leading down towards Chiltington called the Warningore Bostall.

This is a steep sided track, worn down over the centuries by flocks of sheep being moved up and down the hillside from the Weald to the Downs. It's quite a dramatic man-made feature. This really is a special area, and home to nine species of orchid and - at the right time of the year - clouds of butterflies.

Preston Park

I walked through Preston Park on my way to a meeting this morning. Alas, sans camera, but the weather was just perfect: cool, with a hint of a warm breeze, and glorious, glorious sunshine. After such a grim, grey winter, whose spirits could it not lift?

West Pier, Brighton, in the Vernal Equinox

The recent 'big moon' phenomenon, caused by the Moon passing at its nearest distance (perigee) while on its orbit around our home planet, for 18 years. But another facet of this was that the recent Equinoxial Spring tide also resulted in unusually high (and low) tides.

This was captured beautifully by my friend Giorgina, who took the photo above, showing the remains of Brighton's West Pier standing almost above the tide line, the tide was so far out...

Another grey day

It seems to have been a particularly grim start to 2011.

There are lots of reasons for me in this, but it is not helped by the continued grey weather, interspersed with drizzle and heavier rain. Last Thursday was an exception - a beautiful, bright day, almost Spring-like, and it was noticeable just how everyone's spirits were lifted.

This is unusual for Brighton, in my experience; one of the reasons I like the place is because it has a higher than average sunny day count compared with much of the UK.

Sorry for a grey post. Roll on Spring...

A jolly Christmas tree

OK, so this about our new home and not much about Brighton, but I thought that now we are in the gloomy and cold post-Christmas period, I would recall some festive cheer with a posting of our Christmas tree, from our first Christmas in the new place.

We had meant to get a real, living tree this year but, with the snow and other commitments, I couldn't find one in time, so we reverted to our trusty artificial tree. I read somewhere that the carbon footprint of an artificial tree is only lower than a real tree after it has been used for 10-12 years, so we're quids in as it is much more venerable than that.

And, having combined two households into one, we ended up with rather a lot of baubles, so it is definitely not what you'd call designer or restrained...

More on the snow

Despite all the complaints about the snow, I witnessed a very encouraging example of good neighbourliness in the street where I live; two people who live further down cleared the pavement of snow along one side of the road, from one end of the street to the other. They were helped by the young son of one them, who put a bag of grit on his sled, happily scattering it along the way.

There has been a lot of debate about what the Tory policy of the 'Big Society' might mean, but it strikes me this is a perfect example of it; an unrequested, altruistic act of practical help.

A second year of snow

Just when you thought it was safe to put away the thermals, we get a second year of freezing, snowy weather. This one seems to have taken public transport more by surprise than last year, with trains badly disrupted, although to be fair Brighton got their buses back on the streets quicker than before.

Temperatures in this normally mild coastal city dropped to a chilly -8.7C before a rapid thaw last weekend, although the mercury has dropped well below freezing again today.

Moving home...

Regular followers will have noticed something of an interruption to this blog, for which many apologies. But we have been moving house. Now, this is something I hadn't done properly for 17 years, (not counting moving into my other half's flat last winter when most of my stuff went into storage).

They say that moving home is one of the most stressful things you can do, up there with losing your job, getting divorced and even bereavement. But I confess that I'd never found it that difficult - until now. Perhaps it's an age thing. When I last moved I was still in my early 30s and had the enthusiasm of fresh starts and all that (not to mention lots of energy, unproblematic knees and no bad back).

I am now firmly in middle age, and one of the things I am slowly finding out is how my tolerance of disturbance (of any kind) is diminishing. Perhaps I really am turning into my father...

It didn't help that on our first morning, when still surrounded by boxes up to chest height in just about every room, my partner had a shower, only for a good portion of the water to cascade into the lounge which I had spent the best part of the previous week painting. It turns out the seal around the bath was failing, and the bath itself sinking gradually into floorboards softened by being periodically soaked.

On the positive side, my Vicar recommended a good plumber who came to the rescue that day. (Definitely a prayer answered). After a lot of huffing and puffing, he and his mate built a new platform to support the bath, replaced the seal, and split the tiled bath panel in half so that, in future, getting access under the bath will not require removing the washbasin and shower screen.

After a start like that, it's hardly suprising the next few weeks were stressful. My other half took one day off work, leaving me to sort out the house, as I'd cleared my work diary for most of August in the anticipation that I'd not get much work done anyway. That turned out to be much truer than I had thought possible, thanks - or rather, no thanks - to BT.

All we had requested was our old number and account to be switched to our new address - a simple and regular enough task, you would have thought?

Oh no. No - no, no, no, no.

It has taken two months, and 14 phone calls to 11 different staff to sort out the total mess that was created: no line at all for a week after we moved in; a grand total of 4 other numbers allocated to us before we got the one we wanted; two separate accounts and a byzantine puzzle of payments (that I am still not sure are finally correct, although we now have approaching £100 of repayments, corrections and compensation on various of the 8 bills we have been sent); and, to cap it all, no broadband for 6 weeks. (Hence no blog).

And that's the short version: one of the biggest problems has been trying to explain the ever worsening situation to a succession of hapless staff who, despite their best efforts, have usually managed to take me two steps forward and one (or two) steps back, so at each turn something else has gone wrong and the tale has become yet more complicated. Theseus had an easier time negotiating the Cretan Labyrinth. Unbelievable.

Still, 2 months on, we're now almost settled; we have broadband; just 4 more boxes to unpack, some minor building work timetabled before Christmas; and we're looking forward to our first Christmas in our new home.

Watch this space...

Devil's Dyke

The other weekend I did a wonderful walk starting out from Devil's Dyke, situated on the South Downs, north of Brighton.

Although this time I walked down and away from the Dyke, it makes for a great afternoon out in its own right: superb views, good walks, and (the least good bit) a pub. It’s a great place to fly a kite as it’s almost always windy (though sometimes too windy for flimsy modern kites…), although you’ll be competing for air-space with hang-gliders and micro-light aircraft. The whole hilltop is classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The Dyke itself is a natural geological feature, formed by melt water at the end of the last Ice Age: it’s a short, very steeply sided V-shaped valley, which cuts into the north face of the South Downs, above the village of Poynings. The Dyke is only 1km long and narrows from 400m to a blind point, but is over 200m deep, making it the deepest true dry valley in Britain (ie, with no waterway) and, some say, in the world.

The name comes from a wonderful (and more entertaining) legend. Apparently furious at the conversion of the peoples of the Weald to Christianity, the Devil decided to dig a dyke through the South Downs, so the sea could flow in and drown their villages. To ensure his efforts were not discovered until it was too late, he decided to dig it over a single night. However, his toils woke an old woman, who lit a candle: this then woke her cockerel, who began to crow. Seeing the light and hearing the cockerel, the Devil was fooled into thinking it was dawn, and rushed off with his work uncompleted, and the Weald was saved.

The adjacent hilltop was first settled by Iron Age fort builders, who found the natural spur formed by the Dyke to be a superb defensive site. The remains of their earth ramparts can still be traced, albeit with some difficulty. But the beauty of the place gradually attracted more visitors, and in 1887 a railway was built from Brighton to bring visitors up to the Dyke. This proved a runaway success – an astounding 30,000 of them visited the Dyke on Whit Monday in 1893, and over a million during 1897.

By the turn of the 19th century, the Dyke had a hotel, a 360m aerial cable-car across the Dyke, and a two-tracked funicular railway 250m down to Poynings. Alas, the short season and high costs forced the closure of these attractions by 1910, although the railway from Brighton survived until 1938. The faint remains of the cable-car and funicular can also be found at the site if you look closely. The hotel survived, later to be replaced by a refreshment room, the predecessor of to-day’s pub.

You can get there by road (it's well signposted off the A27) or by an open-topped bus service from Brighton (daily in the summer), or for the more energetic, via the South Downs Way.

Arlington Reservoir

I recently did a walk around Arlington reservoir, as part of a longer walk from Berwick station to Eastbourne. I am constantly surprised at what I find near Brighton - Berwick is less than half an hour away by train, and yet this is a lovely spot, with great views, lots of wildlife, and nice cooling breezes on a hot day. It's also easily accessible by car, with a good car park, picnic tables and toilets.

Strongly recommended for a good family day out.

An amazing tree

I came across this amazing tree when visiting the church at Birdham, south of Chichester. It was more interesting than the church - it's like a living sculpture.

It is a Macrocarpa, native to California, for anyone interested. Or an Ent, if you are a fan of 'Lord of the Rings'...

Nearly fledged

Well, with England's current performance at the World Cup a spectacle too painful to view, it's been back to watching the seagulls nesting instead. The two surviving chicks are now distinctly larger, and walking around.

Only a matter of a few weeks before they try their hand at flying, no doubt.