WEEKEND IN SUSSEX

For Michael's birthday last October the family had arranged for both of us to visit an English vineyard. So, for our first weekend of March we set off down to Sussex, for a guided tour of the Bolney Estate. We're not great English wine drinkers but must say that the time we spent there was very interesting.





Following the talk and the tour we sampled some of their wines and they were surprisingly pleasant. After a ploughman's lunch we left with our free bottle of red and a fairly expensive bottle of sparkling rose, which Michael wasn't convinced was a necessary purchase.


We stayed the weekend in a hotel close to the village of Warburton not far from Littlehampton. We visited this area years ago when my mum's sister lived there. She had moved from Essex to Sussex not many months after the death of her husband in about 1970 and my mum at the time to be honest wasn't best pleased, she just couldn't understand why her only sister would want to move away "at a time like this!"

During our weekend it was nice to revisit some of the places in the area and the following 2 pictures are of Bosham, a little village which surrounds a river inlet, just outside the town of Chichester. The road here often floods at high tide, fortunately for us, not while we were there on Sunday.

It was so peaceful and quiet there. Sunny but cold, we wrapped ourselves up and went for a lovely walk before our journey home.

When I think about my auntie, I have nothing but admiration for her. She wasn't 50 when my uncle died, that's 2 years younger than I am now.
Walking around the lovely little village of Bosham and the other places we visited during the weekend made me realise how brave she was to be able to take off and do something different with her life. She learnt to drive, got a job, made new friends and most importantly maintained her independence.

At the time I thought she was old! How ridiculous is that?