Saturday 20th July

 Cooler morning,  rain, even! Summer is being measured out in days and half days this year. 

We both felt so lethargic after lunch that in the end we forced ourselves to go out, otherwise we would have sat around all afternoon.

Prairie Gardens, our current favourite, had a botanical art exhibition on. That sounded interesting,  but not so much when we discovered it was as extra £9 on top of our season ticket. So we carried on to Devil's Dyke, on the South Downs above Brighton.

It was still cool and cloudy so I didn't take photographs of the view, but what a jigsaw puzzle picture it would have made! Imagine a patchwork of fields, in every shade of green and gold, with hedgerows and woodland, surrounding a couple of compact little villages. We could see three cricket matches in progress; one village had two matches going at the same time.

All around us were family groups some with pic-nics, a father and very young daughter flying a kite, one family setting up camp with tent and camp chairs (presumably they would have to pack up at the end of the day?

I just scribbled some notes in the little book I take out with me

We spotted the pay and display machine on our way back to the car... oops... but I  don't think anyone was checking the cap park while we were there. NT and blue badge people can park for free anyway. 

I think it is wonderful that there is a regular and reasonably frequent bus service up to the top from Brighton; it's fairly hairy driving up along the steep, narrow, twisty lanes in a car; the bus drivers must have nerves of steel.