Rottingdean -- Rudyard Kipling's Sussex

As an adult, Rudyard Kipling, the British poet & author perhaps best known for "The Jungle Book", lived in our English county of Sussex, in the little nearby town of Rottingdean near Brighton. He fell in love with the town and the area, and wrote a poem called "Sussex" about it. The final stanza is well-known to those of us who live here,

God gives all men all earth to love,
But since man’s heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground—in a fair ground—
Yea, Sussex by the sea!

The town of Rottingdean is an absolute favorite of mine, and I particularly love it on a bright and sunny day like the one we had recently when D and I spent an afternoon in Rottingdean. I made D take a long walk in a stiff breeze up to the top of a cliff to see this particular stone, called Hangman's Rock. There is a cool legend about it, which apparently I am MUCH more interested in than he...let's just say that D's reaction was slightly less than enthusiastic to seeing it...and it went something like, "Umm, that's IT?" Oh well. At least the climb gave us a clear view back across town to the old windmill on the hill.D was much happier to be off the cliff and down on the beach... ...where we would have been careful to stay off the "groynes"... ...if we could have figured out what they were? Back in town, we strolled the gardens at Kipling's house... and admired the use of the readily available flint (from the chalk cliffs) as a building material all over town. Such a pretty little place!"Little", get it? (I crack myself up.)