rocks and olives: A big birthday

Wind the clock back to 1946 to when Carole and I, just a few months old, and our Mums, met. Fast forward 70 years and we planned a joint celebration to mark our birthdays!
Carole lives in Sussex and I used to work in Portsmouth back in the day so that's where we went

Day 1 - WWT Arundel

A beautiful setting in the Arun valley just outside the town of Arundel itself

Wetlands discovery boat safari

Plenty of Mallard! We also saw loads of small fry swimming around in the water, showing up well in the sunshine,
And a Kingfisher! But too busy watching it to take its picture

Glimpse of Arundel Castle

We wandered around for a while then and came to the conclusion that birds siesta before lunch, rather than after...

Sleepy Nene

Sleepy Bewick's Swan

Though a couple of these Trumpeter Swans seemed more alert!

The sight of all that drowsiness reminded us of lunch - a very tasty orange and carrot - and then we were off to see the diving ducks being fed whitebait - a daily event at the enclosed Icelandic Lake.

Common Scoters

Long-tailed ducks - the most numerous species world-wide!

Icelandic Lake

Long-tailed Duck diving - diving ducks have their legs set much further back than non-divers

Trumpeter Swan

Emperor Geese

Red-breasted Geese

Black-necked Swans

Hawaiian Geese (Ne-ne)

There was also a lovely area under trees where small birds were on feeders but it was a bit dark for photos so, wildlifed and wetlanded out, here ends a lovely, and unexpectedly sunny day

Day 2 - Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

And a train trip, since it seemed a lot easier to hop on a train from Lancing and hop off again at Portsmouth Harbour Station! And my, how it has changed! There were no shopping centres and Historic Dockyards there back in the 1970s. No Spinnaker Tower either, and there was a lovely view of HMS WARRIOR from the station.

Spinnaker Tower on the left, and HMS WARRIOR

The main point of the visit was to visit the Mary Rose in her brand spanking new home but to get there is a pleasant walk, in through the Main Gate (odd not to have to show ID!) and along the main drag past the lovely Georgian storehouses. I couldn't help doing a bit of building stones on the way - nice granite cobbles, and some oolitic limestone on the quoins of the stores.

Detail of cobbles

Looking down Main Road with Stores on the left

Rather like Merrivale granite from Dartmoor?

Looking along the row of Stores - the white stone quoins are oolitic limestone

At the end of the Main Road there's now a statue commemorating the Portsmouth Field Gun crew - nostalgia again as they used to train at Whale Island when I was there, and we marched everyone down to the Field Gun track every week after Friday Divisions to cheer them on and give them a feel of what it was like performing to a crowd!

Portsmouth Field Gun memorial and a rather truncated VICTORY
missing the tops of her masts!

The VICTORY

The MARY ROSE exhibition hall

Carved on the outside of the wooden clad Mary Rose building
Not sure what it is - a Tudor "Plimsoll Line" perhaps?

Cannon balls used in iron guns are solid granite (cast iron was used in bronze guns)

The Mary Rose herself is most impressive as the centrepiece of a three floor exhibition hall. There are short videos of people working projected onto relevant parts of the ships side which gives a great sense of realism and scale

A free harbour trip is included in the admission price so we yielded to the temptation to have a sit down and went for a trip round the bay - names of places came back to me as we passed them - South Railway Jetty where Queen Victoria used to embark for the Isle of Wight, North Corner which is almost opposite Whale Island sailing centre (I worked at Whaley for over two years).

HMS WARRIOR (the floating version, not the North London one!)

Semaphore Tower

I think the new shapes take some getting used to

Trying to remember what it looked like before!

Whale Island

Day 3 - Fishbourne Roman Palace and Chichester Festival Theatre

More nostalgia! I'd spent the summer after A levels digging here, in 1964. It had been a fascinating experience, with regular updates on finds from director Barry Cunliffe.