I’m back from Sussex, back in Camden, soon to be leaving for New York. Had a brilliant weekend with Ade, Lucy and the world’s most intelligent two-year-old. Jaw-dropping vocab, unfailingly polite even when cranky, full of opinions, inhabitant of a rich and baffling fantasy life and does a reasonable job of working a PS3 controller. And then there’s his child. Ha!
The world needs more parents like those two. Had an absolutely smashing time.
First night consisted of my first trip to a Sainsbury’s, talking a lot, playing a bit of Uncharted 2, being taken on a tour of the graveyards, fed a fantastic curry, and then heading down to the Coach House for pints and to watch the last quarter of USA vs Ghana, followed by talking about writing.
Had a dream last night that I think works as a story. Really well.
Called East Side Ink. Couldnt get the other guy who does finer line work (booked til November), so I’ll sit down with Mark and if the transfer copy’s good then I’ll go ahead with it. If not I’ll pay for his time and look someplace else.
They put me up in the loft of what was once a Victorian workhouse, with a small window overlooking a 13th century graveyard and church.
My body is remembering how much it likes being asleep.
Had a brilliant time yesterday. Drove around, stopped in at a farm shop in which was built a sprawling library of hand-crafted mead, we saw a recently-defaced (degroined?) Long Man of Wilmington (someday I’m coming back and hiking across those fields toward that thing) (the Man, not the groin, specifically), and spent some time at Birling Gap where we found a few scraps of paleolithic (?) tools and arrowheads while local folk baked and bathed.
Drove back listening to the Rolling Stones, the Velvet Underground and watching a two-year-old in a capsule seat headbang to Thunderstruck.
On the train ride back to London I managed to finish the photo editing from Saturday, so I’ll attempt to throw that online now.
No washing ’til Brooklyn. Or somewhere on the Upper East Side, at the very least. Fortunately I’ve one outfit left.
Imagine a golden pompadour. Shave it into a mohawk with the texture of painted clouds. Stick it on the head of a seventy-year-old white guy with spectacles dressed otherwise run-of-the-mill. That’s standing outside the window in front of me. Off he goes.
I’m in Cowfold, Sussex. Ade and Lucy have been kind enough to put me up. I’m sleeping in the loft of what was once a Victorian workhouse, with a small window overlooking a 13th century graveyard and church.
Tomorrow, once I get back, I’m camping out in the bar at Belushi’s and doing as much on the ms as I can.
I’m looking forward to the flight to NY. I love being on planes. Door closes, get airborne, and for a few hours there’s nothing to worry about other than reading and sleep. If something’s been forgotten, there’s no point worrying about it.
What I saw before going to sleep at Christophe’s. Camera struggling with that much darkness, but basically it’s the two doors, the roof of the apartments opposite, and the Eiffel Tower behind them.
I can’t remember what the name of this place was. The Princess and… something. It’s near the British Museum. Used to be a gin palace back in the Victorian era, now a pub. Gets used by the BBC as a location quite a bit. Very, very pleasant.
Okay, so this is the Cowfold bit. The 13th century church-and-graveyard bit.
This was the Vicar’s Lot (I think they called it.) The gated off section where they buried the priests who served in the church. The church and tower can be seen just behind it. All of this is, quite literally,
Interior of the church. There’s only a couple of surviving pieces of 13th century stained glass. This one window is slightly more modern.
One wall featured marble plaques like this, featuring rather earnest dedications to deceased parish members. Note the batwing skull motif beneath this one.
There’s an aboveground stone casket outside the chapel which bears a similar design at its foot. Here it is:
Here’s three more interior shots:
After looking around we went outside to take a look at a more modern (early 20thC) section of the graveyard.
This is Adrian, outside the church.
Looking back at the church from the ‘new’ graveyard section. Adrian’s daughter wanders in.
This is the silhouette of a Carthusian abbey in the distance, past the cemetary hedgerow.
This is a grown man in a medieval graveyard minding his daughter’s Hello Kitty.
Below, this is Pogo. He’s the cat from the local Wattle and Daub, but spends a lot of time in the graveyard. Last winter they thought he’d wandered off and frozen to death. He’d actually sheltered in the church’s belltower and survived quite well.
Below is a shot of the “Witch’s Grave.” It faces east-west rather than north-south, and is some distance from the other graves. Local legend says it contains the remains of what had been the local witch. There’s also a rumour that this graveyard was either the setting or the inspiration for Gaiman’s ‘The Graveyard Book.’
Sussex Day 2
Photos and commentary behind the cut. Mead library, green and pleasant land, prehistoric workshop.
Oh, and in case you didnt know, clicking on them will take you to Flickr where you can see larger versions.
Direct link to the full Flickr album is here
The Bean, at the back door, looking out at the graveyard.
The G11 is a great camera, but struggles with this little light. Or maybe I’m not adept enough with it yet. Either way I couldn’t let this go without one nighttime shot in the graveyard.
People parasailing off the hills. Some were gliding, others just hovering there. Apparently it makes for a fun day out. Would have loved to have tried it myself. We passed this on the way to see the Long Man.
We stopped at a farm shop and got what I guess was a late breakfast. In my case it was chicken wrapped in bacon, with baked potatoes and veggies, an organic cola and a piece of cheesecake. Did the job. Actually, it tasted pretty much exactly like the kind of Sunday meal my grandmother used to make – except for the thing with the bacon.
The world’s greenest duck pond.
Library of Booze. Mead and cider mainly. The stuff we would up getting was incredibly good. If the cost of shipping it back to Melbourne wasn’t so prohibitive I’d have bought up.
Ade driving us past one of your more Celtic looking rivers.
The Long Man of Wilmington. I took the liberty of Photoshopping out the sizeable wang someone had spraypainted on him two days previous. Beautiful spot of country, this. I’d love to come back and walk around.
Long Man, with wang.
Birling Gap. This the spot Ade refers to as "Zog’s Workshop". Paleolithic flint-napping site. Now with boobies. Second rise along I believe is Birling Drop – one of the UK’s premiere suicide spots.
Ade escorting the Bean while she stomps around and makes friends with dead things.
Kinda liked this one.
Especially happy with this shot. Totally lucked out. Saw them up there, got off about five shots and this was the one that really stood out.
Ade and Lucy. Bean is in the shot, crouching on the rocks off to the left. If you squint you can make her out.
Loved these windblown trees – a forest actually – on a distant rise. Once we got closer the treeline really sloped up remarkably, away from the ocean wind. The forest looked like a wedge.
Run. Just run.
Holy fuck, I’m going to New York.
Night!
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Wow! From one desolate landscape to the next. Okay, I’m not being completely fair. There is plenty of grass in the English countryside and the occasional patch of trees, and very few of either in New York city (except perhaps in Central Park), but what really strikes me about pictures of England is how effectively humans have stripped the landscape of living things, particularly trees. I couldn’t help noticing it in New Zealand, where first the Maoris then the Pakihas (Europeans) deforested most of the country. When I returned to Australia I was amazed by how many trees were growing here… even though I know only something like a tenth of our tree cover remains.
Imaging what England was like once upon a time… all that rain… it must have been wonderful.
I’ve hear that there is still quite a lot of forest still in New York state.
[...] Bott lives in Sussex. I stayed with him last June in the home of he and his family, next to a medieval graveyard. He used to run New Aeon Books, [...]
[...] Transcript of conversation on LiveJournal. 22nd June, 2003. 15:58. Between CR, PATRICK O’DUFFY and ADRIAN BOTT. [...]