Hastings

At Christmas we were given the present of a wine tasting experience at Westfield, near Hastings, just on the East Sussex/Kent border.  We booked for a tour last Friday morning, so travelled to our hotel on the outskirts of Hastings on Thursday.  As we had plenty of time we had stops along the way on the coast roads David visited a railway model shop just outside Arundel, and we took a lunch stop around Littlehampton to enjoy a picnic on the deserted west beach there. We had another stop at Worthing and went to a fabric shop, Eclectic Maker.  It's a modern fabric shop so any thoughts of getting some purple/red/pink batik type fabric went out of the window. Instead I bought this

I've undone the woven ribbon, but not the fabric, yet.  It was so neatly folded and tucked and if I undid the squares I wouldn't be able to put it back the same way! The photo doesn't do justice to the delicate quarters of golds, yellows, creams. I did get another 2 fat quarters, a newsprint one which was folded the same way, but you've guessed it, didn't go back together again.

In contrast to the sunny day when we travelled the Friday was cold, grey and damp.  We had a brief tour of the vines at the winery followed by a wine tasting.  We tried samples of 5 wines, some sparkling, a couple of fruit wines and followed with lunch and glass of wine.  We took a taxi into Hastings then had a look around the Old Town.
 

It was a grim day!

David took a photo of the mosaic on the underpass

And here he is on the beach, going to take a photo of the pier.  I stayed on the pavement as I didn't fancy walking across the stoney beach.

The tall fish sheds for drying out the nets

The two pics above were from one boat.  The bottom photo was showing a fisherman's cottage

A funicular railway with the carriages moving.

Stained glass window in the fishing museum (formerly a church building)

more boats

On Saturday we took the trip home but instead of taking the coast road we headed north towards Tunbridge Wells and across Sussex before taking the motorway from Gatwick before heading towards the M3 and home.  On the way we stopped at David's brother's place in Surrey.

But before getting there it was out with the NT cards again as we went to Bodiam Castle, built in the 14th Century with quite an impressive moat.  The ruined castle had murder holes above the entrances so they weren't that welcoming to strangers!

It was onward to Scotney Castle which has two buildings, a house owned by the Hussey family and the former castle at the bottom of the valley which was made into a ruin by its owner, but makes a lovely view from the house.  The azaleas and rhododendrons were making their impact on the garden with their flowers which added to the lovely vista.

The main house at Scotney Castle

The Castle

The tiniest daffodil I've ever seen, in the grass bank

Just look at that colour!

Quirky pic of the castle

Looking from the castle to the house

More rhododendron loveliness