Thursday, April 01, 2004
OK, so I've been spending the last couple of days on the sea coast of Kent. See my healthy wind-blown complexion! Oh, you can't, oh well...
It seems the National Trust has graduated from caring for piles of rock over the United Kingdom and has now started letting people rent holiday cottages in or near them. My parents had taken a three day off-season break at a cottage next to The South Foreland Lighthouse which once was used to try and encourage shipping to avoid running aground on the Goodwin Sands to the north (before the days of G.S.P.) and was also used by Marconi in his experiments with radio communication between England and France. The cottage used to be where the lighthouse keeper lived and reflects this, curved walls facing the wind, thick walls which nicely insulated us. Admittedly the central heating is of a more modern vintage but I've been in holiday places in mid-summer and felt colder than I did in East Cottage. You can always tell if you're living somewhere that was built for tourists to stay or somewhere that used to be the house of people who lived and worked there, but anyway...
I think I've mentioned before that I don't particularly like Kent, or Dover, so it was a bit odd that I accepted my parents invitation to go and stay with them, as I didn't think I was under any illusions about what the surrounding are had to offer. If it had been any longer than just a couple of days I definitely would have found some way to get out of it. Kent has no clear idea about it's past and, being first stop for most invasions or attempted invasions of this country, most of it's past has been destroyed. It often can't show you the castle that once stood on this spot, only a few bricks that is all there is left, so it has been forced to eulogise the memory, which feeds into the county's natural conservatism (read the letters page of the Kent Messenger some time, it's like someone threw up in your forebrain). I propose a program of forced house building on sites of ruined abbeys and old Roman forts for the psychic wellbeing of Kent and England as a whole. It's all very well to say smugly that "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" (and hasn't that misquote been used enough times to automatically render it invalid?) but there is a fine line between learning from history and living in it. We visited the Richborough Roman Fort which was mildly interesting but as I stood amid the piles of stones I couldn't help but think "Hmmm, nearby road, a train station could be put in too, admittedly seeing the Pfizer factory isn't a massive plus but otherwise you can see the sea when it's clear, this would be a great place for a housing estate." Of course, this must be carefully monitored, we don't want old ruined buildings replaced by ugly new ones, but I think my suggestion has merit.
Anyway, on the Monday we visited Sandwich for lunch. It's a horrible place that deserves to be carpet bombed for being Tory and devoid of anywhere decent to eat, we ended up having to retreat into a hotel that was so old-fashioned it still had maids that dressed in pinafores. The meals were all over-priced and not worth it, big on sauces for meals that consisted of heated fruit, I had lamb with a hot raspberry sauce. Thankfully the weather varied between mild and hot, so we spent the afternoon down at the beach at Saint Margaret's Bay, I was collecting some pebbles which I might use to make myself a rune set.
On Tuesday, after another dodgy dinner at another dodgy Kent pub, we went down into Dover. Dover suffers from relative patches of prosperity and distress. A lot of houses that people have to live in are pretty rubbish, decrepit hotels by the ferryport that once would have been on the sea front but now slowly crumble like the cliffs above them as there is now a very busy road between them and what was once a beach but is now just part of the port. The Heritage Centres and Dover Experience Centres (tonight, for one night only, it's the Jon Spencer Dover Experience!) for the tourists that come to Dover are nice and shiny, the Sports Centres and the Libraries and the Train Station, for the people who have to live in Dover are falling apart. The one exception is Samphire Hoe. You'll pass it if you're coming down to Dover by train from London. All the earth that was dug out when the Channel Tunnel was constructed had to go somewhere, so it was used to make a nature reserve. It's a lovely place just outside of Dover and we visited it on Tuesday afternoon. The wind was up that day and the place is very exposed, consequently I think most of the birds were hiding in patches of grass concentrating on holding on. I don't know if it was the grass or heather but the wind was making something whistle as we walked around. The sea was this lovely shade of turquoise too.
Wednesday we headed to Broadstairs. We had lunch by the beach. Overlooking the beach is Bleak House, where Charles Dickens wrote the book of the same name. Such a building must have surely been taken over by the National Trust or English Heritage you might have thought, to be safeguarded for the national good and the future. Sadly no, it's a slightly tatty house.
We drove back via Pegwell Bay (don't let the picture fool you, it's nowhere near as nice as this) whose claim to fame is mainly the replica Viking boat Hugin which was sailed to this country in 1949 by a crew of 53 crazed Danes to celebrate the 1500 anniversary of a similar voyage by a Danish King, Hengist, which ended up with his daughter marrying Vortigern, who was a Kentish King at the time. The Daily Mail paid to have the ship installed at Pegwell Bay, which just shows you that the Viking invasions were probably the last foreign influence in this land that the Daily Mail approved of.
After the aforementioned Richborough Roman Fort we arrived back at our holiday flat. It was only mid-afternoon but we decided it was time to go. We didn't have to be out until 10:00 this morning, but it is an isolated spot, the last mile of our journey was over a shockingly poor condition National Trust private road and there wasn't much in any direction except for Saint Margaret's Bay about a mile and a half away on one side and the 'White Cliffs Experience' centre above Dover seaport two or three miles on the other. The bright sunny weather was failing and returning to more usual March weather so we couldn't go out on the cliffs again, so we decided we'd had enough. We packed up the car and left, Mum and Dad dropping me in town to catch the train back to London from Dover Priory. The trip would have been improved if the first third of it hadn't had three or four very loud, very drunk young teenagers in the carriage, trying to bunk their way to Ashford international. I tried to ignore them, especially the loudest and drunkest, a girl who on listening to I'd thought was a boy, who didn't shut up about how she needed the toilet, what they'd say if they were found without tickets, how she couldn't be arrested, how they'd spent the last of their giro (does anyone call it a giro any more? Even kids?) and how they'd get a taxi home at Ashford. Of course, they ignored the announcement as we approached Ashford about how the doors would not open until another few carriages had been connected to the train, so they were shouting even more and punching the door panels and carrying on when we arrived. Finally they got out and there was much rejoicing. We got up to London Bridge about an hour and a half later and I was able to get the tube the rest of the way home.
So, anyway, what have you been up to?
It seems the National Trust has graduated from caring for piles of rock over the United Kingdom and has now started letting people rent holiday cottages in or near them. My parents had taken a three day off-season break at a cottage next to The South Foreland Lighthouse which once was used to try and encourage shipping to avoid running aground on the Goodwin Sands to the north (before the days of G.S.P.) and was also used by Marconi in his experiments with radio communication between England and France. The cottage used to be where the lighthouse keeper lived and reflects this, curved walls facing the wind, thick walls which nicely insulated us. Admittedly the central heating is of a more modern vintage but I've been in holiday places in mid-summer and felt colder than I did in East Cottage. You can always tell if you're living somewhere that was built for tourists to stay or somewhere that used to be the house of people who lived and worked there, but anyway...
I think I've mentioned before that I don't particularly like Kent, or Dover, so it was a bit odd that I accepted my parents invitation to go and stay with them, as I didn't think I was under any illusions about what the surrounding are had to offer. If it had been any longer than just a couple of days I definitely would have found some way to get out of it. Kent has no clear idea about it's past and, being first stop for most invasions or attempted invasions of this country, most of it's past has been destroyed. It often can't show you the castle that once stood on this spot, only a few bricks that is all there is left, so it has been forced to eulogise the memory, which feeds into the county's natural conservatism (read the letters page of the Kent Messenger some time, it's like someone threw up in your forebrain). I propose a program of forced house building on sites of ruined abbeys and old Roman forts for the psychic wellbeing of Kent and England as a whole. It's all very well to say smugly that "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" (and hasn't that misquote been used enough times to automatically render it invalid?) but there is a fine line between learning from history and living in it. We visited the Richborough Roman Fort which was mildly interesting but as I stood amid the piles of stones I couldn't help but think "Hmmm, nearby road, a train station could be put in too, admittedly seeing the Pfizer factory isn't a massive plus but otherwise you can see the sea when it's clear, this would be a great place for a housing estate." Of course, this must be carefully monitored, we don't want old ruined buildings replaced by ugly new ones, but I think my suggestion has merit.
Anyway, on the Monday we visited Sandwich for lunch. It's a horrible place that deserves to be carpet bombed for being Tory and devoid of anywhere decent to eat, we ended up having to retreat into a hotel that was so old-fashioned it still had maids that dressed in pinafores. The meals were all over-priced and not worth it, big on sauces for meals that consisted of heated fruit, I had lamb with a hot raspberry sauce. Thankfully the weather varied between mild and hot, so we spent the afternoon down at the beach at Saint Margaret's Bay, I was collecting some pebbles which I might use to make myself a rune set.
On Tuesday, after another dodgy dinner at another dodgy Kent pub, we went down into Dover. Dover suffers from relative patches of prosperity and distress. A lot of houses that people have to live in are pretty rubbish, decrepit hotels by the ferryport that once would have been on the sea front but now slowly crumble like the cliffs above them as there is now a very busy road between them and what was once a beach but is now just part of the port. The Heritage Centres and Dover Experience Centres (tonight, for one night only, it's the Jon Spencer Dover Experience!) for the tourists that come to Dover are nice and shiny, the Sports Centres and the Libraries and the Train Station, for the people who have to live in Dover are falling apart. The one exception is Samphire Hoe. You'll pass it if you're coming down to Dover by train from London. All the earth that was dug out when the Channel Tunnel was constructed had to go somewhere, so it was used to make a nature reserve. It's a lovely place just outside of Dover and we visited it on Tuesday afternoon. The wind was up that day and the place is very exposed, consequently I think most of the birds were hiding in patches of grass concentrating on holding on. I don't know if it was the grass or heather but the wind was making something whistle as we walked around. The sea was this lovely shade of turquoise too.
Wednesday we headed to Broadstairs. We had lunch by the beach. Overlooking the beach is Bleak House, where Charles Dickens wrote the book of the same name. Such a building must have surely been taken over by the National Trust or English Heritage you might have thought, to be safeguarded for the national good and the future. Sadly no, it's a slightly tatty house.
We drove back via Pegwell Bay (don't let the picture fool you, it's nowhere near as nice as this) whose claim to fame is mainly the replica Viking boat Hugin which was sailed to this country in 1949 by a crew of 53 crazed Danes to celebrate the 1500 anniversary of a similar voyage by a Danish King, Hengist, which ended up with his daughter marrying Vortigern, who was a Kentish King at the time. The Daily Mail paid to have the ship installed at Pegwell Bay, which just shows you that the Viking invasions were probably the last foreign influence in this land that the Daily Mail approved of.
After the aforementioned Richborough Roman Fort we arrived back at our holiday flat. It was only mid-afternoon but we decided it was time to go. We didn't have to be out until 10:00 this morning, but it is an isolated spot, the last mile of our journey was over a shockingly poor condition National Trust private road and there wasn't much in any direction except for Saint Margaret's Bay about a mile and a half away on one side and the 'White Cliffs Experience' centre above Dover seaport two or three miles on the other. The bright sunny weather was failing and returning to more usual March weather so we couldn't go out on the cliffs again, so we decided we'd had enough. We packed up the car and left, Mum and Dad dropping me in town to catch the train back to London from Dover Priory. The trip would have been improved if the first third of it hadn't had three or four very loud, very drunk young teenagers in the carriage, trying to bunk their way to Ashford international. I tried to ignore them, especially the loudest and drunkest, a girl who on listening to I'd thought was a boy, who didn't shut up about how she needed the toilet, what they'd say if they were found without tickets, how she couldn't be arrested, how they'd spent the last of their giro (does anyone call it a giro any more? Even kids?) and how they'd get a taxi home at Ashford. Of course, they ignored the announcement as we approached Ashford about how the doors would not open until another few carriages had been connected to the train, so they were shouting even more and punching the door panels and carrying on when we arrived. Finally they got out and there was much rejoicing. We got up to London Bridge about an hour and a half later and I was able to get the tube the rest of the way home.
So, anyway, what have you been up to?
