We picked up our hire car after work, and despite some heavy traffic on the M25, we arrived in West Sussex within a couple of hours.
Dinner was had in the beer garden of a great pub called the Partridge Inn (complete with plenty of partridges... one of which can be seen, as if on cue, sitting above the pub's sign in the photo below), in the lovely little village of Singleton...
It was then onto our accommodation for the weekend, a pub called the Royal Oak, in the tiny village of East Lavant...
We stayed in a brilliant little cottage next to the pub called Flint Cottage, which overlooked the surrounding fields...
We each had a dessert and a dessert wine overlooking those fields...
Saturday, 14 July 2007
After a very filling breakfast at the Royal Oak, we headed into Arundel and spent a couple of hours exploring magnificent Arundel Castle...
These photos don't really do it justice, but the views from the top of the Castle were really spectacular (and worth the considerable knee-pain suffered by Cat) ...
We then had a bit of a stroll through the town of Arundel...
...where we found a great second hand book shop. I bought Cat a leather bound compilation of Shakespeare's plays, which had been awarded to someone in 1916 as a school prize, yet remainded in perfect condition.
We then drove for a while through the West Sussex countryside, before stopping for lunch in the beer garden of a pub called the Sussex Oak, in the village of Warnham...
We then headed for the golf course (the name of which I can't remember), and had a really enjoyable 18 holes, played in great weather. The highlight was unquestionably Cat paring the 7th hole, her first par on a par 4...
We then wearily returned to the Royal Oak, where we had a pre-dinner drink on the terrace, followed by a delicious 3 course meal...
Sunday, 15 July 2007
We again had an excellent breakfast at the Royal Oak, then headed in the direction of London, stopping at a pub called the George and Dragon, near the village of Horsham...
We parked our car there and headed off on a long walk through the surrounding countryside...
Along the way, Cat had a call from her aunt Sue in Australia...
We then got a bit lost (thanks to our reliance on the "West Sussex Pub Walks" book which we had purchased in Arundle the previous day... which we discovered (once lost) was published in the mid-1990s, pre-dating various changes to the countryside which affected the route of our walk).
We eventually made it back to the George and Dragon for a quick lunch...
...before returning to London through afternoon thunderstorms.
A top weekend which left us huge fans of West Sussex.
