A little piece of history: this is the Royal Oak, the pub in Swallowcliffe now co-owned by James May of Top Gear and The Grand Tour fame.

But this was long before he bought it, back in January 2009, when it was just a run-down looking pub with a sign with aspirations above the rest of the pub.

A rural scene features a white building with a sign for The Royal Oak @ Swallowcliffe and a parked car in a countryside setting.

Started reading: The Year in the Countryside by Frances Pitt 📚

This is a pitch for a Doctor Who episode, not a useful journalism notification…

A notification from The Telegraph states that Ed Miliband is preparing to wage a wind-powered war on the British countryside.
Red catchfly at Woods Mill.

If you go down to the woods today…

A tree stump surrounded by ivy at Woods Mill.

Dragonflies at Woods Mill.

Two dragonflies in the Sussex woods.

I needed this.

The pond at Woods Mill, Henfield, Sussex
And, really, nothing is more political than the way we engage with the world around us. We have an obligation to see the world for what it is, the bad as well as the good, and we have to blinker ourselves to keep on pretending that it is not broken.

– From The Circling Sky by Neil Ansell 📚

Bank holiday breakfast in a wee café deep in the Sussex countryside.

Evening walk at Woods Mill.

The lake at Woods Mill nature reserve in Sussex