Monday 11th April

We woke late - such is the life of the traveller, and went through the ritual stowing of equipment and all the odds and ends one does to make Mavis ready for the road. It's that or risk a stray spatula striking you on the back of the head when you brake. 

We headed out of Littlehampton in squalling rain, although it cleared enough for us to get a clear view of the imposing Arundel Castle, and spire of Chichester Cathedral,  after which Ray was rewarded with a migraine. When driving long distances we're finding simple distractions to keep our interest, and today's included the wince inducing locksmiths van 'Surelock Homes',  a rather splendid radio controlled mowing machine keeping the verges of Hampshire neatly trimmed and a  beguiling sign for Monkey World Tank Museum, which we rather hoped was dedicated to primates fighting with tanks but we later discovered was two separate attractions in need of some punctuation.  

We passed from rain to watery sunshine and into the new forest in its pallet of browns, purples and lilac before the run in to Dorset and thence to the outskirts of Weymouth where we've pitched at the rather splendid East Fleet site, with stunning views over The Fleet Lagoon, which as you will know if you visit the area, is England's largest lagoon. A much sought after title we're sure. Anyway it is most enchanting and we took in a 6 mile early evening ramble via Fleet Old Church, a comely little church two pews deep, and back to enjoy a glass of wine in the setting sun, serenaded by a robin.

After the site at Littlehampton, with the railway and busy road and the sound of children playing, the site at East Fleet near Weymouth has a quality of silence that we have seldom experienced before.  It is almost tangible.  It is a silence where you can detect the sounds only of nature; the hum of a bumble bee, the song of a robin and the lap of the almost still water as it gently kisses the shore.  In the depth of this silence I feel, not as I expected, an interloper, but rather it connects to a peace within myself that transcends the here and now, that speaks to the most primal part of me that remembers maybe a time where nature reigned unchallenged and human beings were more intimately linked with the seasons, the tides and the rhythms of creation.