Heaven at Devil's Dyke

Tree's a Jolly Good Fellow
 
I fell in love again - another tree - phooooaar! - looked like it had groupies already! Very handsome. There were others, of course, but not like this one. Smitten. Maybe it was the heat; being outdoors in such a gorgeous place; I'm soooo lucky to live minutes from the sea and have the Downs on my back doorstep. Great place to catch up with a friend I rarely see since she moved 'up north'.  A walk, fresh air, damn good lunch & chat. I was saying this project made me realize all the birds & flowers I didn't know; she said she'd bought her man a book to identify garden birds; it plays their songs!  Wow! I want one! Kept seeing brown butterflies - what were they?! I wasn't fast enough to get any photos - too elusive!
 
 
City Gals in the Countryside
 
I was to lead the way [oh dear!] I set off thinking we were heading to Fulking & the 'Shepherd and Dog'. We risked life, limb & dodgy back scrambling down a very steep & slippery slope & emerged in Poynings at The Royal Oak! Oh well! It made a nice change. Just as I don't believe you can make a mistake in art, you just have to turn it into a design feature, I'm thinking maybe it's not possible to get lost - you just find a different way... Great to sit in the shade & be refreshed with cool drinks. The City Gal in me found everything interesting - feathers, leaves, 'weeds'. the City Gal in Sandie had to make calls to her builder! that twice went to other people. Hey ho! it kind of made me laugh the pair of us and our ways.
 
 Anyone for cricket?

Or should that be grasshopper? I remember that TV series with David Carradine as 'Grasshopper' - so much to learn.....
 
 
It was on the way back up to the Dyke for our lunch that I became acutely aware of the sound made by the...er....crickets? grasshoppers? Did grasshoppers make that sound? Were they green, and crickets brown? Were they, in fact, one and the same with different names?

Sandie talked about how it was so hot during the nights in Sydney when she was there that the cicadas (crickets?) didn't know to stop, they thought it was still a blazing day. She told me they spend the 1st 7yrs of their life underground, then emerge, and it's the males who make that racket - but she didn't know how the eggs got back underground - or did they? I realized I'd have to do some research: crickets; grasshoppers; cicadas, oh my!
 
 
 

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