1st october 2003
October Day

from Kilvert's Diary, 1st October 1874
This morning I went to Bristol . . . we projected a visit to St Mary Redcliffe on the way to the Station. Kathleen, Ella and I ascended the spiral staircase to the Muniments Room and saw the old wormeaten remains of the chests in which Chatterton averred that he had discovered the poems of Rowley the monk.
And there in the great windy dusty room as we looked out through the mullions of the glassless windows over the murky smoky misty city there came a sweet reminiscence of the sunny hillside of Chanctonbury Ring on the afternoon of the Findon wedding day.

Alas, my own reminiscence of Chanctonbury Ring is cold rather than sweet. We camped there one early summer night, wondering exactly what would happen to us (there are stories of hauntings, UFO sightings, any old rubbish you care to make up - plus legend has it that the trees there cannot be counted, even though they were only planted in the 1760s). Personally I would have welcomed alien abduction when I started to freeze to death at about 2am, not having brought a sleeping mat. I tried to insulate myself from the ground by lying on a hand towel, with limited success. A fried breakfast at the Little Chef never tasted so good.

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