Postcards from this week …

We caught an early train to London, wedged with our rucksacks in a moving mass of grey as commuters made their way to work and we sat smug in the knowledge that we were off to walk in the sunshine. Picking up the South Downs Way at Amberley, we headed up to the hills and away.

By early afternoon we reached the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum where buildings have been rescued from decay and destruction by dismantling them and reconstructing them on this large site.

The museum wasn’t too busy and at times it felt as though we had stumbled upon an almost deserted village as we followed paths through gardens and in through the back doors of houses where fires smouldered in the hearth. It gave me more of a feeling of how people lived than I’ve ever experienced in a normal museum room set and I couldn’t help thinking that the introduction of glazed windows must have made an enormous difference to people.

Over the next two days, we saw villages and farms nestled into the valleys below us and crops at different stages of ripening formed a coloured patchwork that reached into the distance. We ate lunch in the shade of trees as we gazed up at the blue sky and finally walked into Winchester, at the end of the South Downs Way.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig. My favourite drink this summer is a  Raspberry Gin Slush.

• Want to know more about walking The South Downs Way? Read Walking notes from The South Downs Way.

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