Have You Found Your Little Piece Of Heaven?

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Well, it rained last night and again this morning, and although the forecast had changed a little, and we had hazy sunshine today, there were no buses through the village, so Hastings Jack In The Green Fest was out. Perhaps next year!Instead, I decided to go, with my Son's family, to Heaven Farm, which isn't nearly as far, and for which we didn't need to leave so early. So, I was picked up and off we went... it was beautiful there today, and I found my little piece of Heaven for the afternoon. Famous for its' nature trail, magnificent spring display of bluebells and its foxgloves which stand tall above a carpet of lush green in the summer, this unique farm is well documented back to the year 1387. It is said that “time stood still” here and walking around the now one-hundred-and-eighty-year-old farm buildings, you can understand why. You can imagine the Saxon pig-drovers and the Iron Age people, whilst treading the trail of hammer ponds an undulating countryside. Ashdown Forest is a section of the original St. Leonard’s Forest - the great forest of Andereswald - which lay between the North and South Downs and stretched east to west for a hundred miles, inhabited by deer, wolves, wild boar, and, of course, man. St. Leonard’s Forest has seen Saxon pig drovers, iron smelters, Romans, Tudors and smugglers through its years; the area now being known as The Weald of Sussex - no longer a giant forest but a patchwork of woodlands and heath, interspersed with areas of farmland and intersected by a series of streams… a place of much folklore and legend. We took the Nature trail which takes in a woodland park and waterside walk around the farm, with its abundance of beautiful white wood anemones and rich, blue carpet of bluebells in spring or in summer, it’s rich, green glades of foxgloves, attracting the bees. Further along the trail, we encountered an ancient Bloomery, which is thought to have survived since Roman times, the Millennium Water Wheel, an old pack horse bridge, a three-hundred-year old dam, and many badger sets and foxes’ earths bored into the undergrowth. On the final part of the trail, as you come back towards the Farmhouse, you can see a pen with wallabies and their joeys hopping around, or merely lazing in the afternoon sun. Many a sunny afternoon could be whiled away in the cool woodland and beside the water, on a wooden bench. After that, we spent a little time taking in the view across the open countryside of Sussex, before returning to my Son's Kentucky Chicken which I had with salad. We sat in the garden after eating, and chatted awhile, enjoying the evening air. Where do you find your little piece of heaven?