Being 42

Sunday 27th January 2019, 10.20am (day 2,712)

What yesterday’s football shot did not make apparent was that I have transferred down South for the coming week, firstly in leafy rural Sussex — specifically, Crowborough, where I grew up. This place has appeared on two previous days of the blog, back in July 2013, but I really don’t make a habit of returning. Why am I doing so this week? Well, I could elaborate on the details but basically I just want a quiet place to hang out, start my sabbatical and get some inspiration to start writing what I have to write. And, so far, it’s largely provided these things. (The fact this was taken on a golf course has no significance, I can assure you.)

One thing I always do forget about this place, though, is quite how hilly it is. Crowborough is definitely the place to bring anyone that you want to disabuse of the notion that the south-east of England is flat. We are hundreds of feet in the air here, and in the distance, those are the South Downs, some 20 miles away. The south-east may not have the mountains of the north, but it certainly has the bloody hills.