
Since we’ve had use of a car on various occasions over the past month, we’ve used it as an opportunity to explore some of the countryside within an easy drive from SW London. Back in mid-August, I had taken a day off work (I’ve actually been off for a lot of August and September, since I was saving up all my annual leave in the hope things would improve enough that we’d be able to travel safely at some point in the summer, and when that didn’t happen, I found myself with an awful lot of “staycation” time to use before October), and had made up my mind the night before to go check out Deepdene Trail, near Dorking, without bothering to consult the weather, which is always a mistake. Sure enough, the day dawned exceptionally cold and rainy, but I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to go somewhere, so I grabbed my big parrot-handled umbrella (purchased at the Mary Poppins musical last year), Marcus took a waterproof jacket, and off we went.

When we left our house, it was only drizzling, but by the time we got to Dorking, it was absolutely pissing it down! And the only parking we could find was in the middle of town, about a mile away from the start of the trail, so I was already pretty cold and unhappy by the time we got to it (we subsequently discovered numerous places we could have parked that would have been a lot closer, so don’t be like us). Deepdene was at one time a grand estate owned by the Hope family (of cursed diamond fame), containing a manor house, a variety of follies, and other delights, but all that survives today are the gardens, the family mausoleum, and a few other random bits and bobs that I’ll get to in a minute. We first headed for the mausoleum, and I was not pleased when we followed the signs to the top of a hill only to be led straight down again when we reached the top. Due to the relentless rain, the hill was very muddy and slippery, so I had to take teeny tiny steps so I didn’t fall on my ass and ruin my giant purposely ripped goth sweater (I actually bought two of the stupid things in different colours because they’re really comfy).

Unfortunately, the mausoleum was more than a little underwhelming – I just didn’t find it all that aesthetically pleasing, and given the awful weather, I didn’t think it was worth the effort it took to get there. But I still really wanted to see Coady the lion, who is a replica of one of the two lion statues that used to sit in the gardens, mainly because they’d bothered to give him a cute name (he was made of Coade stone, so kind of a pun), so we then had to walk back in the opposite direction (back up mud hill again) to find the gardens, which were at the bottom of the most uncomfortable set of stairs I’ve ever walked down. For real, they were made up of pointy stones of all different shapes and sizes that literally hurt to walk on, even though I was wearing sneakers. Marcus was a fair way behind me, so I don’t think he heard the full extent of my complaining, but I was bitching to myself the entire way down. And they were slippery because of the rain, so trying not to slip whilst still walking quickly enough to minimise the pain stressed me out even more.

But Coady was pretty delightful, albeit a lot smaller than I was expecting. I was picturing a full-on Trafalgar Square sized lion, and got one only about two feet long! Fortunately, the gardens were also home to the cute tower you can see me standing on at the start of the post, and a crumbling, graffiti-covered folly of some sort where we hid out from the rain for a bit, since the sound of the drops pattering on my brolly was starting to give me a headache. Unfortunately, the gardens now look out on some kind of unattractive yard full of building materials surrounded by fencing, and we ran into a couple of dead ends before we found the way out (since I was NOT walking up those stairs again).

You will notice that I look wet and miserable in every photo, which pretty much sums up the experience of the walk. Neither one of us could wait to get home and change into dry clothes, but we did stop at the M&S in Dorking to grab some crisps, since I was starving and didn’t want to get carsick on the way back, as I’m wont to do on an empty stomach, and I was really not impressed to see that not a single member of staff was wearing a mask. Dorking’s a cute town otherwise, though there isn’t much to do unless you’re into antiquing, and I was perfectly happy to be on my way. As you can see, Deepdene Trail is not without attractive features, and I think it would be a perfectly fine walk in nice weather, but definitely don’t try it in the rain like we did!

We had slightly better weather for Nonsuch Park, which is located in Ewell/Cheam. Those are not places I would normally visit (no offence if you live there, but they’re not exactly tourist attractions), but I’ve always been intrigued by Nonsuch Palace (pronounced none-such, despite the spelling), which originally stood here, and was built by Henry VIII to be the best palace ever. After Henry died, it went through various owners before eventually passing to Barbara Villiers, mistress of Charles II, who had the place demolished, but honestly, it was probably falling apart before then, since I remember reading somewhere that most of Henry VIII’s palaces were crappily built. He tended to want things built quickly that looked impressive, but they ended up having shoddy workmanship. The only reason Hampton Court is still standing is because it was built by Cardinal Wolsey, who did value quality over quantity! Poor construction aside, I bet the palace did look amazing, and I would have loved to have seen it, but all that’s here now is a park and a Georgian manor house that they rent out for weddings and such, though I don’t think you can go inside unless you’re attending an event.

Most of the park is just grassy fields – to be honest, I think Richmond Park is nicer – but there were formal gardens near the manor house that contained some nice topiary and trellises and things, and I was relieved to not have to keep my distance from scary deer for a change. Most importantly, I found the memorial bench shown above left, which I thought was adorable and funny and certainly a cut above the normal boring “in memory of” or “he loved this park” benches. We walked around for about an hour and then the wind started to pick up and the rain clouds were a comin’, so we headed back home to avoid a repeat of Deepdene, especially as I was wearing my I Love Lucy replica dress that would have become real see-through real quick if it got wet (Lucy definitely wore petticoats and a slip with it, but I wasn’t!). I’m glad we checked it out, but I probably wouldn’t go out of my way for it again.

Finally, I wanted to go to the seaside at some point on a day when the weather was nice, and since I knew I would be eating ice cream (my main reason for visiting the seaside), I thought we should probably go on a walk first, so we decided on Cissbury Ring, which is managed by the National Trust and is located not far from Worthing, in West Sussex. The carpark is free, which is unusual for a National Trust property, but I guess you get what you pay for, because there were no maps or signage of any kind, and we were just left to make our way up the hill, assuming that was the right direction to go for a hill fort. But we definitely took a wrong turn somewhere, because we found ourselves hiking up a really steep bit through a poo-filled pasture, though we made it in the end. Maybe this is my own ignorance of neolithic sites coming through, but when I heard “hill fort” I was picturing ruins of some sort. Nope, it is literally just the top of a big ass hill that you walk around. Apparently there used to be flint mines here, but you wouldn’t really know it to look at the nothing that is here today.

Well, I shouldn’t say nothing, because they had wild ponies! For some reason, these didn’t intimidate me as much as farm horses do, I guess because they were intent on eating and paid me no attention whatsoever, but I did feel bad for them because all their heads were being completely attacked by flies. If you watch TV in Britain, you’ve probably seen that Lloyds advert where all the horses go running up to the people on a beach, and they get to shower them with sugar lumps, etc. Well, I bank with Lloyds, and I’m still waiting for my free horse to show up, who I will name Bill Withers (because horses have withers…it’s a pun!). So I thought maybe this was my moment at last, and Bill Withers was in that field waiting for me, and he’d run up to me and we’d be together forever and I could ride him to work and have him kick people who pissed me off. In case he needed help finding me, I started walking past the horses calling, “Bill Withers, Bill Withers,” but didn’t get a response. I guess he might still be out there somewhere (because a Lloyds advert wouldn’t just lie to me, would it?), but sadly, he wasn’t at Cissbury Ring. So I cheered myself up by singing “My Lovely Horse” instead. I’m sure the other people there thought I was strange, but they shouldn’t have really been standing close enough to hear me anyway, frankly.

We headed to Worthing after, which was fortunately nothing like the horrible extremely non-socially distanced pictures I’ve seen of Bournemouth, where people were packed so close together on the beach they could barely move. It wasn’t really that warm, and it was a weekday, so we had a large stretch of coast to ourselves where I could dip my toes in (only a bit though, the water was cold!). Sadly, despite what the internet said, the Worthing branch of Boho Gelato didn’t open until 4, so we ended up having to drive all the way to Brighton so I could get my fix (which is farther than you’d think because traffic) from the main branch of Boho Gelato (the one in Worthing only has half the amount of flavours anyway, so I can’t say I regret going to Brighton in the end, even though finding parking was a nightmare, and I had to queue for half an hour to get my gelato). I can’t see any reason why I would ever go back to Cissbury Ring, since I am totally not a fan of walking up hills (or walking down them for that matter. It hurts my knees), and it didn’t even have a Coady the lion to keep me entertained, but at least I saw it once!
