What goes down...will go up

Do you ever look back on a hill and think "bloody hell I've just cycled up that"?  Seems to happen to me a lot these days and as the mileage clocks up on my bike (I have now reached 233) I am finding hills much much easier, getting into bigger rings on the front and not having to get out of the saddle so much.

This hill I do have to get into a smaller front ring, and get out of the saddle...I first tackled it on the very short 6 mile inaugral journey I did on my bike - I was so excited I had done 6 miles (!) - well you have to start somewhere don't you.  This hill was a nightmare then but has now become part of my Sunday route of 17 miles...and now I am finding it, well relatively short and easy! 

Unfortunately on the way down I do have enough fear still to apply brakes - now normally I would build up courage with reference to my speed on going down hills.  I think my maximum so far is 33mph, unfortunately at the bottom of this hill is a cattle grid and I have found that riding over them, in the wet, does cause wheels to slip slightly.  So one of my challenges, perhaps during a dry summer will be to complete this hill without applying brakes?