The Alexandra Park in Hastings is a mixed environment that goes from the gentile Victorian facilities and lovely Victorian cricket pavilion now converted into a nice place to refuel and have a cupa if you fancy one. And then there is the manicured beds in contrast with more woodland like areas.
The park length is 2 1/5 miles without considering the area that leads to Bohemia Road or the Old Roar wood or Coronation wood which was my main target today. Thus I don't know how much I walked but it must have been more than 5 miles.
From where I go into the park is quite a walk to the main body of the park, but I also decided to go to the other side towards the town centre so I can now say I walked the whole thing there and back...it was quite a walk and I won't lie, bit tired now but very pleased.
I love nature, I have always done since I was a child. Then my place of refuge was an olives park down in Lima, Peru which was reasonable near to my home.
I have been told that when I am in nature my eyes lit up. True to say what I feel is very light hearted and enthralled by the workings and beauty of Mother Nature.
Every blade of grass so perfect, every leave so unique and every flower a riot of colour, shape and sometimes fragrance. What could one say about the magic of trees?
I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say that I was really ill for more than a decade. So ill that going up and down the stairs was challenging. Losing my strength was something I never imagine might happen, but it did.
Walking the whole length of the park and back, and the other bit that leads to Bohemia Road was unthinkable a while ago and yet today it happened.
Since I love going to woods I have not only benefited from their beauty, silence, inspiration and spiritual expansion, they have little by little tease me to walk a bit further, to see that shining leaf, or that rare flower, or that special trunk, further and further forward.
I know it is all Fairies doing this, for they live in woods and parks, or at least I call fairies the spirit that inhabits such intelligence and peace.
Well, hopefully my fitness level will get even better if it is possible. I do not want to push myself in the wrong direction because that is not the purpose of my walks.
My passion is to engage with nature. To meander in silence seeing it all and sometimes recording it with my camera. That is what keeps me ticking.
I consider myself lucky to live where I do. So many parks, natural reserves, small woods and the sea of course. Much of which is accessible by public transport. I do not have a car.
Many people point at Hastings as "faded glory" but I see it differently. I think its green spaces are what one expects. The wild ones are wild and the manicured ones are "pretty" in the Victorian sense. Difficult to have both living side by side but they do.
Me, I prefer the wild. I love seeing how the different wild plants appear in succession from early spring like a well tuned orchestra. A choral of colours that goes in crescendo until it reaches the ultimate fortissimo in early summer. Then all goes just green and into production of fruits and seeds.
Sometimes I feel rather lucky to have chosen to come to live here. I would have never imagine that what London took from me (as in my health) Hastings will give me back.
I don't know if it is something to do with its healing waters. There is a Chalybeate spring just like the one in Tunbridge Wells or the Chalice well in Glastonbury.
Or perhaps is something to do with the sea air so ancient and connected to the land of Ys...Across the English Channel in the other side Merlin's Brittany and the Broceliade Forest. Further down Mount St Michael.
I don't know. One thing I know is that since I moved down here many magic things have happened to me. I don't care any more whether people say it is "rough at the edges" for that is just a point of view.
As my friends the trees say, houses are not alive, what is alive is nature and when one is surrounded with nature it does not matter if one's house is truly dead but standing. To have town conveniences and accessible nature in and around is quite unique for me. Other places with Chalybeate springs are inland with exception of St Ann's Well Garden in Hove.
There is something about this place that makes one see life in a different way. I was such a different person when I moved in. Now I have learned the old ways of seeing all in nature as alive, as it is, and accepting that age does give you wrinkles and bulges which trees are happy to have as their badges of sturdiness and wisdom.
Today I feel the last of the "made up me" has gone. I have learned from Nature to love my imperfect life which is not imperfect for me but a Symphony of magic happenings from dawn to dusk with birds included.
Can't believe I have sunburn in my face even though I put the sunblock but well, a little price to pay for the spiritual feast that rewarded me with sighting of Herons, Squirres, Seagulls with black heads? Wagtails and many others. Many trees including the Wellingtonians, Yews, Pines and Cedars and so on. And in the Old Roar I had the luck to walk the very, very muddy path of the stream (very slippery so do take care) with its magic fairy like walls...ahhhh....til my next walk.
Fairy stream me thinks
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