Cycled along part of the Downs Link today. It was a grey day but not raining and relatively warm (12 or so degrees C). Mind you, it was quite windy (and it was a head wind, of course) along the coast.

I took the train to Brighton. From the rail station, I went down to the coast through the centre of town and then along the National Cycle Network route 2 through Hove and Portslade by Sea to Shoreham-by-Sea. There, I headed inland on NCN route 223, the **Downs Link**, to Christ's Hospital just outside Horsham where I took the train back home.

The Downs Link follows the river Adur for quite some while. The river is very wide at Shoreham-by-Sea as you can see in one of the photos attached. The whole route is quite lovely, with great views of the South Downs for the first part. It is almost entirely off-road and mostly suitable for gravel bikes (caveat: I was on a mountain bike) but probably not road bikes. Given the amount of rain we've had recently, it was unsurprisingly wet with lots of puddles but, luckily, very little actual muddy slippery bits.

The ride was 42 km. I took just over 3 hours with lots of stops for photos, charging phone which died halfway, talking to people (and their dogs), etc. Total time actually cycling was 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Highly recommended if you're in the area!

#BikeTooter #Cycling #UKCycling #WestSussex #Brighton #ShorehamBySea #ChristsHospital #Horsham #NationalCycleNetwork #NCN2 #NCN223 #DownsLink #SouthDowns

I thought I found a Habsburg way way back in our family tree (I know, so what? But I'm a genealogy nerd) (through my great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Ellen Rager) but the tree breaks per the official records at the father of Melchior Greiner, a glassmaker, born ca. 1380.
FamilySearch claims Melchior's grandfather was Count Eberhard von Württemberg II, but the son listed (Melchior's father, supposedly Eberhard Greiner) is not in any official records.
Eberhard II was NICKNAMED "der Greiner" and one official record does say he had an illegitimate child, but I don't know how they would have proved the link to Melchior.
What's interesting is that the line of Greiners DOES stay in Baden-Württemberg for quite a while… so it matches up geographically…

+++

Going directly back, even the Constable line breaks in the 1400s before we get to the cool names like D'Aubigny, de Mowbray, de Braose, and supposedly even Llewelyn Fawr ap Iorwerth, via the maternal line via Agnes Gascoigne (who married Sir Robert Constable). We lose the official line at her purported grandson, John, maybe even at her son (sources disagree) Richard. It doesn't help that there's a fuckton of Roberts and Marmadukes (yes, Marmaduke Constable, we just know know which one(s)).

++++

Well, by golly, I didn't click back far enough, because there's ol' William the Conqueror himself in my family tree. Henry I even shows up a few different places, through Edith/Matilda to Joan, Lady of Wales, to the de Braose line, and through Empress Matilda to William Longespée (illegitimate son of Henry II and Ida de Tosny), his daughter marrying into the de Mowbray line, AND supposedly Robert FitzRoy, 1st Earl of Gloucester's (illegitimate son of Henry I) grand-daughter married a de Clare, and a few more generations down that merged with the de Mowbray line.
Now I still don't BELIEVE any of it, because it all hinges on Agnes Gascoigne, and I just can't track down any record of her son Richard (Constable) having a son named John, and I can't find an explanation for how we got from Flamborough to Horsham (where we KNOW we immigrated from to Pennsylvania in 1836). And as far as direct descendancy goes, all it takes is one bastard in the bunch to break that maternal line.
I was honestly most excited at the idea we might be from Yorkshire at all, because, you know, that's the Raven King's country. (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell fangirl, here)

I'm with my son, buying more school trousers.

A girl near us has picked out a nice hoodie. Her dad says to her "that's a boys top, don't you want to choose a girl's top?"

Her mum responds "it looks unisex to me, she can have it if she wants it."

Dad channels his best talk radio dickhead voice and mutters "I suppose, I guess you can't say boys and girls any more." I swear he's partly addressing it to me. You had better believe I left him hanging.

Just another day in #Horsham #EverydaySexism

Smaller homes in demand during regional housing crunch

When Lauren Arnett began searching for a home in late 2020 in western Victorian town Horsham, she found…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #albury #AU #Australia #horsham #Housing #housinginvictoria #regionaldevelopment #regionalhousingprices #wangaratta
https://www.newsbeep.com/165034/