Connected again

 The wifi and communication in general were really either non-existent or very poor where we have been in beautiful W Sussex. I would have posted while we were there but it proved to be so frustrating and difficult I just gave up.

I wrote this yesterday (Monday) hoping to post at a friend's house but it didn't work out, so I will do it today now we are home.  

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A few days have passed without my posting anything, mostly due to the difficulties of getting online. This part of the country has poor connections, and the campsite has no wifi in particular.  The campsite is pretty stressy, or was during the weekend. It used to be a rated/certificated site - with minimal facilities, but the new owner took over at the start of the year, not having run a campsite before, and of course with no idea that the lockdown would bring people in their droves.  What works perfectly well with 10 or 20 groups does not work with 150. One ladies’ toilet, for instance, is not enough……  

We were jammed in, so close and crowded we could hear everything and no doubt our neighbours heard us too. Dogs were roaming and barking and howling and pooing…. The showers quickly ran out of hot water.  Bonfires and music and clattering …. agh!  That was from Friday till yesterday morning when (blessedly) most people left.  Now it’s just lightly populated and we can hear birds singing.   

All this pressure was exacerbated by the extreme heat and humidity. We have been so grateful for the trees all around. They are lovely, blessed things. Their shade, their coolness, their beauty......

On Saturday we went to the Roman Villa at Bignor (wow!!!) and then to the painted church - St Botolphs's at Hardham.. the gracious little interior filled on every square inch with 12th century paintings… all the Bible stories. An amazing place, quite empty, so we had this treasure to ourselves. The wonderful lanky Adam and Eve are on the inside of the chancel arch, reminding the priest of the wickedness of man, I suppose, every time he faced he congregation.  They would be looking (among many other images) at the Lamb of God, the Annunciation, the Presentation, the Flight into Egypt, the trials of St George, what’s thought to be a scene from the Battle of Antioch (previously thought to be a dragon-slaying scene), the Magi, etc etc.  These paintings are glorious, humbling.  Coming straight after our walk around the mosaics at Bignor, it was quite a feast for the eyes all day.   

In the later afternoon we went up to Bignor Top, a clear space on the down… with fantastic far views. A cycling rally station was manned by a team ready to offer them water and oranges, but not many had made it up there in the heat and they were deciding how and when to pack up. This involved quite noisy phone conversations wth other organisers or team members…. it was a relief when they went and we had the place more or less to ourselves. I painted one scene - the ash die back …. the acrylics dried out really fast despite spraying but  I was quite pleased with the result. We did not walk to the very summit - it was really still very hot and that pathway had no shade.

Later we drove to Sainsbury’s at Chichester, to see if I could get a pair of cotton shorts. Yes.   We drove past he Lavender Farm where it seemed from the road way that families of African origin were wandering….

The shade from trees has been essential… we were lucky, in that respect, to get a pitch with more shade than some. And the countryside is so richly wooded, unexpectedly green and ancient… some of the woodland is being cleared out (to create stronger timber I suppose, removing the competitive undergrowths) but few of the roads through these lovely forests are fenced, so the feeling is very unspoiled. The villages are in the valleys (water) and  unbelievably pretty and quaint. One poor old thatched house in West Burton looked very sad… 

everything else is spinked up and looks pretty plush.  I asked the campsite owner about it. He said it would be owned by Lord Mersey, Ned Mersey,  He called him a bigot. He said he’d once had words with him. Mersey had ticked him off for being too close to his horse, and William retorted that the horse was lame…. ‘How would you know?” sneered his lordship. ‘Because we have horses, race horses, always have done…. Take that to the vet or the farrier….’   And late Mersey said to him, ‘you were right. The horse had an access in its foot…’    But  William don’t like him anyway.   William says he’s a cockney, though he was actually born in Shoreham. His family is split between Hackney and Shoreditch and Sussex.   He’s very tall, bald, scary looking. Could have been a boxer. Is now a builder and man of property (Vale of Health included), and since the start of the year, a campsite owner.  He has a fair amount of work to do here to bring it up to scratch.

 Yesterday I managed to wangle enough sitting-and-doing-nothing time to make a painting.  During the last few weeks, campaigning against that wretched man’s ambitions to build on Ordnance Wharf, my beloved and demanding art course has suffered… just not enough time to think or do….  And here too, on the holiday - Andrew’s drive to be doing something all the time has been difficult….Off we go again!  Just sitting and looking, if I am doing that, must be very frustrating for him. It looks like nothing.  But I have to do it to be able to paint.  I have taken so many photos, of the trees, the glimpses of distant landscape (so tantalising as we sweep past), the light and shadows.   I can hear him now, saying ‘Right!’ which means he wants to be off.  We will do a bit of shopping about, and then head towards Chichester again, for lunch w my friend Sandy. 

Getting our bearings

 I am finding the very small awning on this rig frustrating and difficult. In fact I’ve decided I’m never going to use it again (much to A’s annoyance. He said - OK, you buy a new one then). The tent next-door has a connection to the van but has a proper size bedroom and then an open front part which is so much more sensible and practical. Here we are so cramped & with nowhere to store anything. We have too much stuff. There are no points to hang anything, and we keep losing things. We have to grovel through all the various bags looking for things.

Despite the fact we (A) brought a huge tray full of food from the house, tins, jars, packages, etc., we called into a farm shop and bought salads, cheese, hummus etc. That was a good move as they will be shut over the weekend. Extraordinary. 
Then we went into Pulborough, to explore. At the library, they wouldn’t let us in, but said we could use their wifi which was kind of them - it meant in a rudimentary way I could post yesterday’s blog and leave the computer back in the car.  We met two very hot and red-faced traffic wardens ... We’d been lucky to bag a shady parking place.
We strolled down Lower Street, calling into a couple of charity shops to look for a salad bowl because our friends Mary & Stewart are coming for lunch on Sunday & the plan is to make a Salade Niçoise. We called into a brilliant delicatessen where the man advised us not to buy the mayonnaise because it wasn’t very nice, but we picked up various other delicacies. And then had a coffee at the Little Bean cafe where we had to give track-and-trace details, the first time for us. 
We picnicked up at Burton Lake, where we had once visited a few years ago. I’d completely forgotten about it but Andrew remembered straightaway. We hoicked our chairs & stuff through into the woods and had a lovely picnic in the quiet and cool. 

Outside the sun was beating down almost savagely at about 33°. 
The afternoon’s entertainment was to hire a boat at Houghton on the river Arun. We arrived in good time as they asked us and then spent nearly an hour waiting while they got everything ready. Our boat was a bright orange plastic thing and our lifejackets neat and easy to wear. We set off through the pretty bridge and down towards Arundel. After about 20 minutes chugging along, a man in a grey inflatable rowing forwards rather awkwardly, with a little girl as passenger, asked if we would give them a tow. He had been rowing since 2.15 - it was by then 5:20. He’d been against the tide most the way and had gone much further upstream than he planned. 

It took us 3/4 of an hour to get him down to the Black Rabbit, where we dropped him off at his request on some very dodgy looking steps. The little girl had been very distressed and he was very relieved not having to row against the swift and powerful waters of the river. However it made us late getting back because then we were against the tide - It was hard going even with a 6 hp engine. 
Luckily I had rung them to tell the boatyard what had happened. We did not have to pay an extra charge as we feared, and they said that this happened quite a lot. In fact they asked if was it a guy with an open shirt and a little girl, and we said yes- they had spotted them earlier on in the day. 
Back at the campsite we were amazed to see how many more tents and caravans and cars have been allowed in. It really is crowded now. Our neighbors in the yellow box box said ‘Don’t worry! they’ve built a whole new toilet block…’

We had a delicious supper of spelt and spinach pasta with pesto and a fresh salad. We are both very tired but not as tired as the night before.

Happy hols

 We went through London to drop Lucie back home to her flat, and then headed out through Crystal Palace, Croydon and on into Sussex.  The architecture of London fascinates me. South of the river, it’s never quite the same as my childhood roaming grounds, but still tells the stories of expansion and development, speculation and exploitation.  The Victorians were really so plumptious and proud of what the achieved and seemingly made attempts to include everyone in the feeling of wealth…. 

The obsession with a glorious past is everywhere - the endlessly reiterated story of the Golden Elizabethan Age appears in almost every street… gable ends, black-and-white, Tudorbethan… It defines the 19th and 20th century suburbs and indeed is still reigning supreme in the newbuild estates throughout the south.  All mouth and no trousers, these days. The developers spend money on the facades and leave the house itself poorly furnished in terms of sustainability, flexibility, use.   We look in vain for cellars, storage space, gardens, fireproofing…  

Still the Victorians knew what worked best and built - even in poorer districts - with confidence and quality. The brickwork and ornamentation is still really attractive. The contrast, when you hit Croydon is astonishing. Here every single domestic value has been junked in favour of glittering glass-faced towers with fantastic competitive styling and glitz.  Since this is the year of lockdown and zoom, we wonder if these towers will ever really be wanted. They look magnificently wicked but they may well be much less use than the Victorian streets which they replace.

So much of England is hopelessly out of date. Main A-roads wind along narrow country lanes… with hedges and fields. There is some glory in seeing how ancient landuse still prevails according to the geology… so in a remote outer suburb where clearly building values would be very high, nonetheless, on a one-mile strip of road across sandy soil, there are nine or ten market-gardens, a lavender farm (with flocks of families of African descent wandering among the rows of purple).  The market gardens - some open to the public as garden centres, some with poly tunnels, some much more pre-war in appearance - must still be earning enough money to resist selling up for housing.  You get this tenacious little patch of medieval landworking, in strips, with the Great Wen nearly surrounding it.

Our campsite is past Pulborough, not far from the Roman villa a Bignor.  The lanes approaching are pretty well free of traffic but the edges of the road are well-worn and beaten down, from constant parking over a long period of time. Not this year, presumably. 

We drive in past a rising field with one or two caravans or tents tucked into the edges of an open sunny field, and up a driveway to a huddle of pretty ropey old huts and sheds.  We are asked - did you get the email?  Our card machine isn’t working…… Are you electric or…..?   We say we are electric (true!), and are directed to a long mown strip cut through some tall old woodland… pines and oaks.   There is a double electricity supply cable slung above it, all the way.   Cars and tents are lined up down one edge, very very very close together.    Despite our fears, it seems there is a toilet and a shower facility set up in those sheds.   We have never ever camped so close to other people. I am thinking of Glastonbury … Social distancing is nowhere near this.   The owner looks like the Landlord on telly - a bruiser, in a golf buggy.  He’s affable but wants to know how and when we can pay. 

He says he used to come here w his grandad when he was little, to buy eggs. The grandad and the guy who owned the land had both been in the RAF, so they did business… He came back to visit and found the sons/family of the owner were selling it, so he bought it, though he is in reality a building in London.  Andrew said, we had often thought of running a campsite and quick as a flash he said ‘Wanna buy this?’     He’s only had it a few months, and seems to be regretting his decision.    He has a full-time business on his hands already.

It clearly has potential, but needs so much done to it… the whole thing is under-invested. The woods are lovely, but it needs opening up to offer more pitches, and it needs proper facilities such as water, rubbish disposal… etc etc.    In some ways it’s like a campsite in the 1970s - if you remember that Mike Leigh film Nuts in May…. which was filmed at the wonderful campsite near Corfe Castle, where we went to stay several times.    Trouble is, we are older now, and expect more. We have done our rough camping. We have been to France and Spain where the campsites are properly funded and are very civilised….. This is Britain in 2020. A wilful cheerful ignorance prevails. ‘We are inadequate and we like it like this. We don’t want to join in, or be up to date. We like bodges … We expect people to put up with things……  Yes, the pitches ARE that close together…….’    Our man has a lot to do. Will he do it? If someone wants a really good project, this could be it.  The Brits will not be flying off to Spain or Italy for a while. They will seek out home-grown holidays. Happy camping! 

It's lovely to be able to take time out to paint these trees, even though I feel very hemmed in...

All change

Leaving Malta, in March, where the lockdown was being effectively put into place, was strange enough. The main point was that most people seemed compliant. The supermarket queues looked so strange and irritating to us, but little did we know what chaos and confusion we would have to live through for the next several months in Britain.  Our flight home was about half full.  It was perhaps the last EasyJet plane out of Malta. 

Here our government seemed hopelessly out of touch. Common-sense precautions were delayed for months, if put into effect at all.

Planes are now mostly grounded. We hear the airlines have scrapped all the old ones. The skies have been clear and quiet. The occasional military flight, far higher than normal commercial flights, leaves a distinct trace in the perfect blue.  

The excellent summer weather - bordering on drought - has made life tolerable as we faced the worst fears imaginable, but carried on with gardening, cautious shopping, zoom-calling, missing our dear ones. People have died in their tens of thousands.

We contemplate another huge depression as the disastrous effects of Brexit are forced onto us... plus the lockdown which has shut all hotels, shops, restaurants and pubs, parks, theatres, concert-halls, any place where people gather.  Though the government has encouraged race meetings (where the directors are friends or family of cabinet members).  As things were loosened, people went in their tens of thousands to the beaches, hugger mugger...  leaving tons and tons of filth and litter as they dragged home.  As the infection rates had been sinking, gradually, then they started to rise again.   Schools must shut. Schools must open. Grannies cannot see their little ones, but cleaners and nannies may go in and out.   All beauty parlours and hairdressers must shut, or perhaps open.  People must stand 2m apart, or 1m.     So companies have gone bankrupt.  The travel industry is reduced to miniscule amounts... who wants to travel in a closed space with strangers for hours?  I foresee a total economic collapse, as in the Great Depression - and that lasted 10 years.  Eventually the banks themselves, and the insurance companies, will take hits.... who foresaw the collapse of Equitable Life, or Lehmann Brothers?  I wonder if money will survive? Pensions?  This may sound grim - but honestly, who, five years ago, would have predicted Britain crashing out of the best trade arrangements in history, the most peaceable... and on a voluntary basis, and  fighting in the streets about who should or should not wear a mask?

Maks? Hijab? Race riots in America and growling injustices here too... Race riots!!!!! A racist president in the White House openly inciting violence.  And we, peaceable us, are (in a small way) stockpiling dried and tinned foods.... And JuicePlus+ too I think.  Will the supply chains break down? It's entirely foreseeable that many many household items and food goods will become very very scarce.  

   

We are actually putting a box of some of these stored foods into the VW, along with amusements, awning, bedding etc, because we are going camping in Sussex for a few days. Lucie who came here on holiday for a week after 3 months solo in her flat, stayed on for six weeks, but we will drop her in Forest Hill and then go on to Pulborough.   She has been working from here, a sea-swimming, and biking, and wild camping with her intrepid friend Miranda who biked round the world on her own not long ago.   Various friends have been here to party in a quiet way.. the social distancing acting as a kind of safety net.  John and Laura Pool, Tasha and Tom Day (who have moved to her folks' place at Luddenham while they househunt and wait for their baby to be born), Tom Sutton Roberts, Daisy Perkins, Hannah who's down from Edinburgh, so her social scene has not been just us crumblies.  She likes it here (free hotel).

So much has happened. So many shocks and fears. It has been, or is, like being in the first act of a dark opera... so far, everything seems to be going along ok... but we know, we all know that catastrophe is about to strike. And again, and again.   The second act will start during this winter.   

But today, after a hectic, frantic fortnight campaigning against a planning application on Ordnance Wharf, in which I succeeded in getting Jonathan Neame to put in an objection, we are off till Tuesday camping in Andrew's VW.  I am not really looking forward to it.  No facilities, no wifi.  I have a lot of art work to catch up on.... loving my ten week deep course in feeling-art.  Already seeing changes.  Have a bag packed with art materials and somehow have to negotiate Andrew's urges to always be doing something. No rest.  Though he walks much more slowly than me.  Weird.