Week 20 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
“The Spinnaker” at Portsmouth, taken from The Hard. Having now seen it in the flesh, as it were, I’m still not sure I like it. And it is certainly pretentious, standing proud above the waterfront area. 🙂
Perhaps this should be in celebration of May being Masturbation Month?
Wanting something to read in bed the other evening, and not wanting anything heavy, I chose at random from the pile of books by the bed. My hand alighted on Betjeman’s England, an anthology by Stephen Games of extracts from the scripts of Sir John Betjeman’s TV films about England.
Now I love the Romney Marsh and Dungeness in Kent, and the nearby small town of Rye. So imagine my enjoyment when the book fell open, quite at random, at the following piece about Fairfield Church in the heart of the Romney Marsh.
KENT
FAIRFIELD CHURCH, ROMNEY MARSH
From the Shell series Discovering Britain with John Betjeman
Random Film Productions Ltd
ITV, Spring 1956 (exact date unknown)
Director: Peter Woosnam-MillsRomney Marsh, on the Sussex border of Kent and close to the sea. Romney Marsh, where the roads wind like streams through pasture and the sky is always three-quarters of the landscape. The sounds I associate with Romney Marsh are the bleating of innumerable sheep and the whistle of the sea wind in old willow trees. The sea has given a colour to this district: it has spotted with silver the oak posts and rails; it gives the grass and the rushes a grey salty look and turns the red bricks and tiles of Fairfield Church a saffron yellow.
For a moment, when you see Fairfield Church there on the skyline, you think it must be a farm or a barn. There’s no road to it – only a footbridge and a path. And in the church, you feel you’re on an island in the marsh.
Inside, it’s like walking underneath an upturned ship. (Those great beams are made of Kentish oak.) The communion rails go round three sides of the altar as they used to in many churches two hundred years ago; and since in those days, just as much as now, people were literate, they hired a local inn-sign painter to paint, in yellowish-gold letters on a black background, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments.
The church is still kept up and used, though it’s miles from anywhere, and that’s what gives it atmosphere.
Another thing that endears Fairfield Church to me is that it’s been spared electric light and the surgical basins in the roof that go with it. How pleasant those Victorian oil lamps are and how well they fit in with the scene.
Let’s go into one of the high, white box pews. And sitting here in the quiet waste of marsh, islanded by grass in water, let’s think ourselves back two hundred years. The place can’t have looked very different. The parson read the service from that lower desk where the candle is, he climbed to the pulpit to preach, and if you found yourself not attending to the sermon, there was always a text to remind you of where you were and of the reverence due to this loved and lonely house of God.
Fairfield Church: it’s about ten miles from Tenterden in Kent and therefore sixty-three miles south-east of London.
I’ve been to Fairfield a number of times and it is even now just as fascinating and delightful as Betjeman paints it, despite several heavy restorations in the last 200 years. Fairfield really is in the middle of nowhere, and probably always was as there was never anything much by way of village there. There is still no electricity but the church is used, at least sporadically.
For me Fairfield has a further attraction. It is dedicated to my patron saint, Thomas Beckett (Thomas of Canterbury), ca. 1118 to 29 December 1170; murdered at the behest of Henry II and canonised by Pope Alexander III in 1173.
The church, which is tiny, is on a slight rise in the middle of a rather wet sheep field, and when you go into the church you have to remember to shut the door behind you so the sheep don’t follow you. I have been there and found several sheep sheltering in the porch!
Yes, it is one of those idyllic and idiosyncratic English places!
There’s more on the architectural structure of Fairfield church here.
Stephen Games (Ed.), Betjeman’s England (John Murray, London, 2009)
Slightly late with this week’s Listography entry, as proposed by Kate Takes 5. This week it’s all about products — specifically those top five products you couldn’t live without.
So in the interests of not frightening the horses natives, here’s my sensible list:
Laptop or PC. I don’t mind if I have a laptop or a desktop PC; I’m happy using either; both have advantages and disadvantages. But I’m a fish out of water without instant access to the intertubes and all my documentation.
Bed. I need my sleep. I need oil tanker loads of beauty sleep and even then it doesn’t do any good. Bed for me is a haven; not just somewhere to sleep but somewhere to relax, read, think and even on occasions watch TV. Yes, we still live very much in student mode, even 40 years after the event!
Camera. I always carry a camera. You never know what you’re going to see. Mostly it’s dull, but very occasionally it isn’t. And I like photographing people and the odd things that go on around me; especially people. Even at home my camera sits to hand on my desk.
Beer. Well we’d better have something to sustain us. I don’t drink a lot of beer these days; I’ve switched mostly to wine in the interests of trying (and failing) to lose weight and control the diabetes. But I love beer and couldn’t do without the occasional fix. And anyway, what else does one really want to drink with curry?
Glasses. As in spectacles. I’m as blind as a bat without my glasses, which I’ve worn since I was about 14. They are such a part of me that I don’t know I’m wearing them, so I’ve never even bothered to think much about having lenses — and not too much point now as I’d still need reading glasses. I like my varifocals; unlike many people I’ve never had problem with them.
So there you are. What are your top five things you couldn’t do without.
[19/52] 2.05 PM, originally uploaded by kcm76.
Week 19 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
As you’ll see if you work out the angles, this was taken from the passenger seat the other day. I wanted to capture the combination of camera, wing-mirror, a bit of self-portrait, the traffic behind us and the traffic beside us at the lights.
Number 5 in my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things about me.
[18/52] Turkey Cafe, Leicester, originally uploaded by kcm76.
Week 18 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Taken on our day trip to Leicester on Tuesday to see our friend Katy. We did gossip, coffee, gossip, superb South Indian curry lunch, gossip, a detour round the villages, gossip, tea with Katy’s parents and her kids and more gossip. A good day!
OK guys & gals, so here’s another weekly, but doubtless occasional, new series — links to interesting sites I’ve come across during the week but which haven’t made it into a full posting.
An article by my friend Potter-san on the Soul of Okinawan Music. The music of Okinawa (the southern-most tropical islands of Japan) is a fun eclectic mix of their native music and just about anything they can import. Try it! I was surprised how much of it I liked.
Also advance information on the London Okinawa Day 2011 on Saturday 25 June. I’ve never managed to get to this annual event but it sounds like it should be a fun day. Anyone want to get together a party of us?
On a totally different subject, a thought-provoking item Should Young Teens be Prescribed Hormonal Contraception? by Prof. Kate Clancy. All the more powerful because Clancy is American and her stance is totally contrary to the prevailing American ethic of total teenage abstinence.
If you are interested in your family history and have forebears who worked on the railway you might be interested in the Railway Ancestors FHS.
In view of the week’s biggest event (at least here in the UK) history buffs may be interested in Medieval Weddings.
One of the most misunderstood areas of the law as it affects anyone involved in literary or artistic ventures is copyright. Fortunately the British Library describe the duration of UK copyright in one easy flowchart. But I suspect I shall have to continue to explain intellectual property law even to our literary society trustees. 🙁
And finally, here’s a super eco-idea: use cardboard packaging impregnated with seeds to rejuvenate the environment. No sorry you can’t have the idea, it’s already been done by Life Box.
[17/52] Pussy Porn, originally uploaded by kcm76.
Week 17 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Over the long weekend we’ve started the process of clearing out the rat’s nest known as our study. Progress has been slow, but steady.
Anyway I was sitting at my desk early on Monday morning, and trying vainly to wake up, when I heard this rustling sound. I checked and the pickled pussy wasn’t in Noreen’s chair so I thought “oh well she’s probably burrowing under Noreen’s desk somewhere”.
Some minutes later I heard the rustling again, and turning round saw Sally emerging from the cardboard box which was stacked inaccessibly behind my chair. This had clearly been sleeping place for the night having clambered over various obstacles including my big camera bag.
Just what is it about cats and boxes?
Week 16 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Time for another self-portrait, I think, this week. As the title implies, this was taken sitting waiting to see my osteopath.
Number 4 in a monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things.
Image from 123RF Stock Photos.
