Breaking the silence

Yes, I did manage to leave the splendours of Canada, and I did take large numbers of photos but I have been silent because life has become ... let's say "full" ... ever since I returned.

A day or two after I returned, work started on my bathroom.  Why I thought I would have recovered from jetlag within a day or two I really don't know.  I never believed anybody's stories of only being able to snatch 30 minutes or so of sleep on an 8 hour flight.  I do now.  Oh, and my son plus family arrived for a visit.

Before the bathroom work was finished, scaffolders were swarming around the outside of the house, preparing for the outside maintenance needed every few years here by the seaside.  I appear to be the only resident of these flats who has the required talents (sight, hearing, and an almost functioning brain) to direct proceedings so I struggle on pretending I understand what is happening.

At some point while the woodwork was being repaired, my sister arrived from Canada to stay until such time as she finds a house of her own.  Her family comes to visit from time to time and I'm running out of beds and sheets.  My second son is threatening me with a visit over the next few weeks and the first may return for a rematch.

All is not bad though. I have had a couple of days out - Dover Castle, London - and a good few walks.  There's nothing like the countryside to bring balm to the soul.

It has been a wonderful year for butterflies

Chalkhill blue

And, I think, a good harvest.  We haven't had much at all of the rain that others have had though I thought there was a downpour last night.  This field doesn't seem to have suffered.  I can't believe that there is a planning application in to build on this land.  It's an AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) but is that enough?

Then down the cliff (going down is easy enough) to find people enjoying the end of summer sunshine, dodging the waves.

And swimming to France?

So, I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch with anyone.  It has been all I can do to keep treading water, not waving but not drowning either.

Walking

Today I thought it was time I went out walking again so I had a quick look out of the window.  Not bad, but only just above freezing.

An hour later....

Now 4 degrees warmer but looking less inviting.  Nevertheless I braved the elements and walked to the far end of the town, all along the sea front, to meet up with the group.  I thought about 20 minutes would do it.  How wrong can I be.

Forty minutes later, with the skin flayed from my face by hailstones driven in on the the north east wind, I arrived at the meeting place, sodden, frozen, and worn out.  They had gone.  Sigh.  Fair weather friends. (Thank goodness)

I did an about turn and set off back home, though at least the wind this time was something of an assistance.  I dropped in at the local volunteer centre supposedly to offer my services but really to thaw out for a moment or two.

Now I find I have to go back on Thursday morning for an interview.  Interview!  I thought those days were over.  I'd better do some homework though I'm not sure what sort.

Sea wall progress

They have put up fences for protection along the length of the sea defences works.  It makes it remarkably difficult to take photos of what's going on.  Possibly that's the intention.

Sometimes you can manage to get a shot through the gaps, sometimes you can't.  This is supposed to show the wavy sea wall I thought we were getting but as far as I can see at the moment, this is the full extent of the waves.  The rest looks remarkably straight.

Whenever they start to manoeuvre the sections of wall into place...

...a little crowd gathers.  We are easily entertained in this part of the world.  Or maybe they're just queuing for their jellied eels.
 

Often, this is all that's going on.  It's all too much excitement for some.

End of summer

Yesterday I was walking through the fields enjoying the sunshine, watching the farmer finishing the harvest.

This field had a machine throwing out rectangular bales but I noticed the field next door had round bales.  I don't know if there are any reasons for choosing round over rectangular bales other than the available machinery, or maybe the whim of the moment.

The hedges were filled with berries, not all ripe just yet but plenty of them.  It seems to have been a good year in spite of the poor start to the summer.

Blackberries

Hawthorn

Rose hips

All these make me want to go foraging and make the berries into jams and jellies.  I won't of course, but it's a nice thought.

Many of the hedges are covered in Old man's Beard, or Clematis vitalba.

It climbs and twists around bushes and trees rather like a cultivated clematis but it can be invasive.  It's more common in the south of England and on chalky soils.  It's also known as Traveller's Joy because a herbalist in the 16th century thought it decorated and adorned the hedgerows all through the winter.   Personally I think it looks very nice shining in the sun at this time of year but it can look very scraggy by the end of a wet winter.  It's officially considered a pest in New Zealand but you can actually buy plants in the UK.

Teasels.  They can grow to 2 metres or 6 feet.  One variety used to be used to "tease" cloth, or raise a nap on fabrics, in the textile industry.  They were replaced by metal cards but some say the natural teasels did a better job.  Teasel plants can be invasive and are considered so in the USA and, it has to be said, my father would have agreed.  He was given some seeds by someone saying they attract butterflies and birds.  They do, but they spread their seed with happy abandon.

All that was yesterday.  Today we have had almost everything weather-wise, including thunder and lightning, but every cloud has a silver lining.  Or a rainbow.

Three years in a row...

"You don't get snow on the beach, not here," they said.  I looked out this morning, and what did I see?  Not France, that's for sure.

The joy of circles

Most of these photos seem to come from in and around churches or cathedrals and that probably reflects the joy I find in visiting these very often ancient buildings.

The bishop's gardens, le Jardin de la Berbie, in Albi with circular patterns described in boxwood hedges.  This is how it would have looked from 1678.  Everything is tended by hand, watering, pruning, weeding.

A circular window above an ancient door in an equally ancient church in the south of France.

A small gravestone behind a small church in England.

Circular panels in this stained glass window in a church in central France.  The colours are so rich and vibrant.

The final picture possibly brings me most joy because I made the effort to go out very early on an autumn morning to catch this reflection while the mists were rising from the river and before any breezes ruffled the water.

A two-in-one post for the Photo Hunts.

St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury

It seems unclear why exactly St Augustine came to England - was he sent by Pope Gregory I or was he invited by Aethelberht?  In the end it doesn't seem to matter because there are traces of his presence all over the south east of England.

He arrived near the Roman fort of Richborough where you can see remains of a Saxon chapel dedicated to him, but it was just outside the city walls of Canterbury where he founded the monastery that later became St Augustine's Abbey, on the site of three Saxon churches, St Peter and St Paul, St Pancras, and St Mary,  some of which can still be seen.

The remains of the chapel foundations at Richborough Castle

Unfortunately remains as old as this tend not to be terribly eye-catching and it's usually the history surrounding them that is more interesting.  If you aren't so interested in history it looks much like many others.  "Is this going to be more ruins?", is a question I'm often asked.

The Abbey in Canterbury is, admittedly, a lot more ruins but possibly enough of them remain to be a little more interesting.  It's hard to believe though that once is was a similar size to Canterbury Cathedral.

The site as it is today, cathedral in the background

A hexagonal tower that was never completed.  It was intended to link the Saxon church of St Peter and St Paul with the chapel of St Mary.

Part of the crypt

Eventually the Abbey became part of Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.  In the first round of dissolution, monasteries with an income of less than £100 were targeted.  St Augustine's escaped at that time but it didn't escape the second round.  It was dismantled and many of the stones were transported for use elsewhere. It was such a large site it took about 20 years to complete the process.

Part of the site was kept and remodelled so that Anne of Cleves could use it as a royal palace though apparently not very often.

Walls of the Royal Palace

Later, in the early 17th century, John Tradescant the Elder laid out formal gardens and mazes over the ruins of the Abbey which he had covered with soil.  John Tradescant was a great traveller, gardener and naturalist, as was his son - both featured in Philippa Gregory novels.

It's fairly remarkable that so much of the Abbey has remained.  Later on the site was used for a brewery then the Kent & Canterbury Hospital.  It wasn't until the hospital moved to a new and larger site that excavations could reveal as much as we have today.  

St Martin's graveyard

The graveyard of St Martin's church is on a hillside so quite a few of the graves have tilted over the years.  The church is the oldest church in continuous use in the English speaking world, dating back to Roman times.  As a result, I suppose, the graveyard is one of the most populated I have ever seen.  These ones were on a fairly steep slope and under trees.

The Weekend in Black and White

Sea mist

At low water and on a very still morning, the pier sometimes makes great reflections in the sea.  It did again today but I was too slow.  There was a slight breeze just sufficient to ripple the sea and to spoil the reflections.  It's not the most attractive pier in the world and needs all the help it can get.

I did see what I took to be a bird diving, but it didn't move at all when the rest of the birds did, so could it be a wreck?  Next low tide I'll have to take a closer look.  We have more than our fair share of wrecks in these waters but I've never noticed this before.

In spite of the sea mists which really haven't lifted for 24 hours, the cliffs still catch what little sunlight there is.  I don't think, even if you click on the picture, you will be able to see a family on the beach and two or three swimmers.  The village on the beach below the cliffs is Kingsdown, a 30-40 minute walk from here.  Pity the pub doesn't serve better food.

Another swimmer here, striding out with determination and what looked like a briefcase under his arm.  Maybe it was a towel.

All this time I could hear engines of ships passing by, but I couldn't see them at all, only this lone yacht making it's way slowly south down the English Channel.  To some real sunshine, I hope.

Dickens' "English Watering Place"

Charles Dickens was very well travelled.  He lived in and visited an impressive array of places but for a number of years he took his summer holidays in Broadstairs, a small town on the south-east coast of England.  He even wrote a short story about it, called "Our English Watering Place".  It was here too that he wrote "David Copperfield" while staying in Fort House.

Broadstairs.  Broad stairs.  A small seaside town, very popular in Victorian times, which started as a very small fishing village known by the Anglo-Saxon name of Bradstow, a broad place, possibly referring to the wide bay.  The stairs came later when steps from the shore led up to the village, as it was then, at the top of the cliff.

The bay, one of seven in the Broadstairs area, was renamed Viking Bay in 1949 to commemorate the Viking invasion of 449 AD.  You can see how the sand has been banked up to protect against expected high tides and rough seas during the winter. 

The house overlooking the bay is the one in which Dickens spent most of his Broadstairs holidays.  In those days it was called Fort House, and was much smaller. It was only later that it was renamed Bleak House by someone who had thought the house was the basis for the book of the same name.  Then for a time it was a museum but in 2005 it was sold as a private house.

If you look carefully or click on the picture for a closer view, you can see wind turbines on the horizon.  These are part of the largest operational offshore wind farm in the world, completed last autumn.

There is an arch, York Arch, on the road from the town approaching the pier.  A plaque beside it states:

York Gate - about the time of Henry VIII a small wooden pier appears to have been built here, for the safety of the fishing craft, probably by the Culmer family who fortified the gate or way leading down to the seashore by an arched portal, defended by a portcullis and strong gates to prevent inhabitants from being plundered by the sudden incursions of privateers.  These gates have for many years been gone and as the stonework was fast decaying, it was repaired and beautifued by Lord Hennikerwhen Sir John Henniker.  Above the arch is the following inscription:

York Gate July 17 1811
Built by George Culmer AD 1540
Repaired by Sir John Henniker Bart 1795

In fact the inscription reads "York Gate July 1797".

Also on the same road is the Palace Cinema, the tiniest cinema I've ever seen.  Their website, though, insists that they aren't the smallest in Britain so it sounds as if it may be a sore point. All the same, I feel sure the House Full notice is often used.  To the left is the gateway into the Pavilion once the site of a shipyard owned by the George Culmer who built York Gate.  Shipbuilding was important in Broadstairs until the 19th century.

And because shipbuilding was important, so too was having a lifeboat, especially because of the notorious Goodwin Sands nearby.  The plaques on the wall of the lifeboat station list all the rescues made.  The two figureheads are from ships that presumably weren't rescued. 

A view of the bay from the farther end shows more beach huts and a sole family braving the winter chill.  You would need to enlarge the picture to see them, at the end nearest the lift from the beach to the road above the cliff.  That lift functions only in the summer time.

On that road above the bay you can find Dickens House.  It is the house where the inspiration for Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield lived.  It's now a museum preserving the character of the house and displaying Victoriana and Dickens memorabilia.

A little further along the same road is the Charles Dickens pub, while nearer the centre of town is the Barnaby Rudge.  Every other building or path has a name associated with Dickens.

Every year there is a Dickens Festival here in June, and another in Rochester.  Dickens is big business in the south east of England.  Now, I'm told, there is even a Dickens World, a theme park of sorts.  I visited Broadstairs in November because I found the crowd in July too much, and that was without any festival.  I do wonder how far they can go before attracting people in is counter-productive.

Out of season, though, it's a lovely place.