Humps for 300 yards.

No epic plans for the weekend since we knew that, what with this amazing weather (sunny with temperatures hovering around 80 degrees - the last time it was this warm in July was seven years ago), all of Britain would be out and about. On Saturday, we headed down to Chichester for a market that turned out to be not much more than a handful of stalls in a car park. That said, we did buy cherries and crepes, and we had a wonderful time walking the downtown area, a street mall with a jazz guitarist and an opera singer and a 500 year old cathedral.

Tea and sausage rolls for Griffin and I at the cafe and the girls had scones. Pam ordered an ice coffee, which turned out to be coffee with ice cream. The kids are all screaming for ice coffee now. 

We walked the Chichester Cathedral grounds inside and out, and the girls each lit a candle and said a prayer. Then we were off for West Wittering.

The empty beach we saw at 8:30 pm on the cold night of our arrival on Wednesday was now thronged with Brits basking in the sunshine and playing in the waves. Parking was eight pounds, and the guy must have laughed to himself when I asked if there was any parking left, as it turned out to be nothing more than a vast field packed full of cars. We found a good space right next to the entry over the dunes and hit the water.

It wasn't nearly as cold as the Solent had been in Southsea, and we swam around for a while before the girls flopped down on towels and Pam, Griffin and I took a walk down the beach; for Griffin the walk was more of a run and jump and swim. When he wasn't trying to catch fish in the water, he was sprinting from the sand onto the water in an attempt to emulate the "holy Jesus lizard."

Every day is a contest to see who can find the funniest sign. Berit took yesterday's prize:

Today we headed off for another walk. This time to Kingley Vale - a National Nature Reserve steeped in historic antiquity. A site where man has been living and dying since just after the last glaciers rolled through Britain, Kingley Vale boasts ancient barrows, burial mounds at the top of the walk where the remains of Bronze Age chieftains were interred. It's also the home of yew trees that are up to 2000 years old and some of the oldest living things in Europe.

After Kingley Vale, we rested in the cemetary of Saint Andrews, a church built in 1060, before heading off again into uncharted territory. Our finds included the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, a very cool attraction to which we will return another day, and Petworth, a gorgeous ancient town defined largely by the wall surrounding the Petworth House Estate as well as by the tearoom that Berit said was "literally the cutest place she'd ever been." And finally, on our way back to Emsworth, a wrong turn at a roundabout landed us accidentally adjacent to the Cowdray Castle ruins which, despite Berit's initial protestations about making yet another stop, was, in fact, her high point of the day.