27th January They call the wind Maria Paint Your Wagon
The previous day at Dungeness had been the
coldest day of the year so far, thanks to an east wind. Today though, now that
I was heading west, the strong wind was from the west! Great, straight into my
face. Maria is not what I was calling the wind.
Cycling along Jury's Gap Road, west of Dungeness I came across large
gravel pits with many duck and geese, Scotney Gravel Pits. I stopped to count
them and noticed three Smew at the back. Now being a keen birder I had thought of
Smew as one of my favourite birds. Indeed a drake being mostly white with a few
black lines, a white crest and a black eye patch, is a very smart bird. Duty
bound to phone Birdline and inform them to inform others, Steve Whitehouse, a
Worcestershire birder of note, was on the other end of the line when I called
to say there were three. Steve’s helpful comment was:
A male Smew achieved megastar status in the West Midlands when it took
up residence back in the 80s at my old patch, Belvide Reservoir in
Staffordshire. Arriving as a redhead, the supposed female showed itself at its
first moult to be a male. It did not leave that first spring but stayed
throughout the summer and all through the next year and the next. Indeed so
famous was 'Sid the Smew', sweatshirts were made in his honour and sold to
local birders. Sid eventually died and I remember finding his remains down a
drain on the north shore.
Into Rye and a warm hour spent in the library updating the blog. A beautiful small town with a castle like arched entrance, cobbled streets and attractive old houses.
Onward towards Hastings, weather warming a little, I turned down a small country lane to avoid the town and go towards the next RSPB reserve on the itinerary to visit. Along this road, as the hills there got steeper, I stopped to ask for some water from a house. A wonderful gentleman answered the door. Invited in, John Short gave me a cup of tea and the much-needed water and then the story of his fascinating life. A trawler man from Rye, he had done National Service in the navy, going on HMS Sharpshooter and LCT0437 - a large landing craft, as well as having been a whaler in the Antarctic for a few years. His trawler was called Grace Emily [RX135] so many stories of sea fishing exploits from around the world.
The bike had been all right up to now, yet the
gale from the west had meant that I was cycling into the wind all day. North of
Hastings now, I cycled down a long downhill section but on reaching the bottom there
was nothing from the gears on the corresponding way up. The gear lever on the
front right bike handlebar had broken and that meant that the bike was stuck in
its highest gear. Great for downhill but impossible for me to cycle up a hill.
Off I got and pushed, unable to get into the lower gears. The area I was
cycling through now was hilly and so my time alternated between downhill rides
and uphill walks.
I got to Crowshurst late. Instead of being
there at the expected one o'clock, it was now 4:20 p.m. and I eventually found Fore
Wood RSPB reserve. A five-bar gate and a small RSPB sign denoting the
entrance to a very muddy track through a quite large, mostly oak woodland.
A lovely couple, eighty six year old Jim Lawrence and his wife Kate, saw
me arrive and asked who I was and what I was up to. They offered to look after
the bike as I spent an hour in the descending gloom of the very muddy woods. No
new birds for the year list but common birds such as Blue and Great Tits, Great
Spotted and Green Woodpeckers.
On returning to collect the bike, I was invited in by Jim and Kate for a bowl of rich veg' soup and toast. I did not refuse their kindness. I was frozen and very wet from the sweat of the cycling and pushing! It was then that this wonderful couple offered their settee for the night, also not refused. I had not been able to find a local B & B and, don't tell my mother but I had thought of sleeping on the railway platform at Battle, five miles or so up the road.
It turned out that Jim had
been an FA coach for a number of teams and had worked in the 1950's with the
England team and other professionals at Lilleshall with Walter Winterbottom and
Sir Stanley Rouse. Now luckily I knew something of the football of that time as
I'd read about such things in my Dad's football annuals from the 1950s.
Needless to say the four hours to bed time, luckily nice and early at 9:30 p.m.
went quickly with chat, history lessons, brilliant photos and letters and even
a World Cup Final ticket 1966 to hold! Kate and Jim went to bed and I stayed up
a little longer to see the headlines on the news. A book on their bookshelf
caught my eye - 'Soccer in the Blood' by Billy Walker. Now Billy Walker was a
Villa player from 1920 to when he left nineteen years later to become manager
of Sheffield Wednesday. Described by Eric Houghton as the greatest player he had
ever played with, I just had to have a read. I finished reading it in the early
morning, before Jim and Kate were up because I had fallen asleep with the book
in my hand.
27.37 miles 1197 feet elevation up 1039 feet down
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