WATERSHIP DOWN

After visiting the Sandham Memorial we were driving through some cryptic country lanes of rural Hampshire and randomly came across Watership Down. I had no idea that this was actually a real place so we made a pilgrimage in honour of childhood obsessions with the Richard Adams book and the animated film from 1978. At the end of the story when Hazel meets the ghostly rabbit folk spirit El-ahrairah and is invited to leave his friends and body behind to run into an afterlife through the blooming primroses I am left destroyed. I'm pretty sure this was my first exposure to the concept and reality of death and I can't watch this without openly weeping like an emotional mess. The beautiful winter light coloured the fields and downs to stunning effect as we walked past a mysterious heap of flowers and a lonely series of horse jumps. I've never been anywhere like this before, it was heavy on the poignant.