Jackson's Actions

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire. --Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) <

Vanessa Gebbie is the Angel that found my father's burial place, and is the author of a brand new collection of brilliant short stories "Words from A Glass Bubble," invited me to Sussex for a couple of days before my trip to France. We took the train from the London Meet up and arrived at her wonderful house where I met her hubby, her dad, and her cat. We had a wonderful visit!

At Home with the Gebbies


Venessa Gebbie with husband, Chris.


Garden view of the Sussex house. My guest room was delightful (and has the open shutters.)


I was up ahead of everyone, and taking snaps of the house. The charming dining room overlooks a magnificent garden.


I let Kitty in and we had breakfast before everyone else.


Kitty poses for a portrait to thank me for the vittles.



Here's the massive kitchen in the wee hours.


I believe Vanessa said something about Chris's tongue sticking out?


The garden as seen from my upstairs guest room. Bird song was so loud that it woke me! Beautiful!



Another shot of the garden.

A Drive to the Beach

Vanessa took me down to Beachy Head, East Sussex, where the white cliffs are so high that suicides are commonplace. It is where "England ends," and is a lovely sight.


We had beautiful weather but the wind was high!

Onward to Berwick Church

This wonderful old church was a must see on our way to see Charleston, the house and meeting place of the famous Bloomsbury Group. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, who lived at Charleston, also painted Berwick Church with the help of their friends. The style and charm of Charleston leapt into the holy renditions of this beautiful old country church.



HISTORY:
Berwick Church is a Grade 1 listed building dating back to the 12th Century and heavily restored in the Victorian period.


THE 20TH CENTURY BLOOMSBURY MURALS:
The church is of national, and arguably international, artistic and cultural significance on account of the extensive 20th Century Bloomsbury murals. These were commissioned by Bishop Bell of Chichester in 1941. They were executed by the Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Quentin Bell who lived nearby at Charleston Farmhouse.


There is a serene churchyard cemetery as you enter the building.



The murals adorn the nave walls, the Chancel Screen, the pulpit and both sides of the Chancel Arch.






The Altar frontal was also designed by Duncan Grant and worked by his mother.


I was enchanted by this church, and we met the Pastor as we left, a young and
handsome Englishman. It was all charming.

Passing by the Long Man



The Long Man of Wilmington

Standing 226 feet tall, the Long Man of Wilmington is one of the largest carved figures in the world. It dominates the grassy downland at the village of Wilmington near Eastbourne, holding a stave in each hand.

The origins of England's tallest chalk hill figure, the Long Man of Wilmington, have puzzled historians and archaeologists for generations.

Carved into a steep slope on the South Downs in Sussex, the imposing figure has been claimed as an Anglo Saxon warrior, a Roman folly and an Iron Age fertility symbol.



But according to a team of researchers, the Long Man may be a relatively recent addition to the landscape. Tests carried out this summer have produced compelling evidence that it dates from the mid-16th century.

The findings have surprised the experts and will cast doubt on the age of other supposedly prehistoric carvings, including the Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset.


Although the earliest known record of the figure comes from 1710, many scholars have argued that it already existed when the Romans invaded Britain.


A Quick Stop at a bookstore in Alfriston village


Vanessa in front of the bookstore.


I fell in love with the villages of England (as I would later do in France).



Visiting Charleston!



Charleston was the home and country meeting place for the writers, painters and intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group.


The interior was painted by the artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, and together with their collection forms a unique example of their decorative style. But photos were not permitted to be taken inside.


The grounds were as captivating as the interiors however.


A walled garden offered a charming peek into the life lived there.


Here's Vanessa alongside the walled garden.


The Bloomsbury Group created their own art throughout, including the garden.


The flower gardens were wild and rampant, like the artists themselves.


The smells and the buzzing of many bees made this garden particularly grand.






Here's Bev hamming it up with one of the more formal statues.


In 1916 the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Sussex with their unconventional household. Over the following half century Charleston became the country meeting place for the group of artists, writers and intellectuals known as Bloomsbury. Clive Bell, David Garnett and Maynard Keynes lived at Charleston for considerable periods; Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry were frequent visitors.




Vanessa and I had a wonderful, wonderful visit. We dined with her father that evening, a veteran of World War II and an enjoyable gentleman. V. saw to it that I
caught the Eurostar to France on the morning of the 12th.

Thank you Vanessa and Chris for a fantastic visit!! And Vanessa, I shall be eternally indebted to you for finding my dad's resting place. You have been the source of an experience that altered my life! There are no thanks adequate for that.

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