Ahem,
Richard and Marie, from Cholsey in Oxfordshire, where Alli and I lived just after we got married, came to see us for a weekend. It was wonderful to see them after so many years (around 30). We walked around Sheffield Park, looking preternaturally multi-coloured in the wintry sunlight at the height of its autumn bloom, then drove to the Piltdown Pub, which has now restored its reputation in Alli’s books by cooking and serving a delicious Sunday lunch.
Sheffield Park, November 2025
We had another Sunday roast at the Hickstead Stage with Ella and Sam a couple of weeks later. They were off to Madeira for a few days’ holiday while Gwen and I shared Maisie-sitting duties in Burgess Hill. Not to be outdone, Jessie and Jurrat went to Bangladesh for a couple of foodelicious weeks to spend high quality time with their friends and Jurrat’s family. They came back via pit-stops in Bangkok and Hong Kong. Clearly, holiday-wise, November is the new August. Casey and Bex, who were house-and-Jaxon-sitting for them, came to Uckfield with Jaxon to have Sunday lunch with us (Alli’s superb bouillabaisse with rouille). To complete my foodie month, I went with my Old (of nearly 60 years) Dragon friend Tom for an enjoyably interesting, often circular, and repeatedly hilarious conversation and lunch in Fletching at the Griffin pub. I feel sure that neither of us were as interesting when we first met as we are now. Or, who knows? Maybe not.
Just before J2 left for Bangladesh, I joined Jessie to see Ashley Campbell and her band in concert at the Hassocks Mid-Sussex music hall. It was an excellent evening of good ol’ American country music. The drummer went frontstage for a couple of the songs and energetically played a mean washboard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a live gig.
Ashley Campbell Band, Hassocks, Nov 2025
While Maisie-sitting in Burgess Hill, apart from the pleasure of watching it snow outside from a warm room, I discovered a puncture in the flat front tyre of my car on a morning when I was going into Brighton for a lunch at the Ivy in the Lanes. A cheery AA man arrived within an hour and sorted it out with a new-fangled plug. The temporary repair allowed me to drive to Brighton for the lunch and get back again quickly afterwards. I just wish that the lunch and the meeting had been worth the bother, but they weren’t. The Ivy brand has been spread too thinly. Later, I went to the local garage and had the beleaguered tyre promptly and efficiently replaced.
My cousin Christopher has been taken very ill and is now in Croydon hospital. I went to see him and talk to him after I heard the news from his sister, Christine, who arranged to fly to England from New Zealand to be with him. Everyone he knows is hoping and praying for his recovery.
On the last day of the month, Alli and I went to Burgess Hill with assorted presents, cards, bubbly, and cakes baked over the previous few days to celebrate the birthday of my mother-in-law Kay, otherwise known to all as Nanny. Brother-in-law Ant had come from Luxembourg and kindly picked up J2 who had arrived from Bangladesh into Gatwick earlier in the day and brought them to Burgess Hill. Also in attendance were Gwen, Ella, Sam, Nick, and Sophia. It was a Miles family celebration well worthy of Kay’s 87 golden years.
The mild November has fooled our spring bulbs which were bursting forth luxuriantly until the sudden cold snap stopped them in their primrose paths like rabbits in headlights. I wondered what happens in these cases. Do they shrink back like violets, apologise thinly to the rest of the garden for their prefab celebration, sink into hibernation for a few months, then reappear with a new burst and a silvery waistcoat like an old rock star? “Did ya miss me?” (Audience: “No”.) Or have they shot their bolt, condemning us all to a ditchwater-dull spring? Sheffield Park gardeners (and Richard from Cholsey) would know. We will see next March… or April….
Yours in pre-winterwatch,
Lionel