kent

A SOLO STAY IN THE WOODS

| sophiekemsley

“You’re never really alone in the woods…”

These words were said during a recent talk I attended by a wonderful local author, Simon Pollard. The sentence does sound a bit like the premise to a low budget slash-horror movie. Blair Witch springs to mind.

“…how can you be, when you’re surrounded by so many different living species, including the trees.”

I went on to learn from him that trees have heartbeats, albeit very slow ones. I was amazed by that (though probably wouldn’t want to admit to my tree surgeon brother that I hadn’t been aware of it before).

I’ve always adored and appreciated nature, even though I often feel that I know so little about it. Sometimes I feel that that makes me a bit of a fraudulent fan, but you don’t need to be able to identify every tree or be literate in compostable irrigation to truly enjoy it.

All you really need to do, is observe it, in every sense. To look at it. Hear it. Feel it. Inhale it. And yeah, you can taste it too… but you kinda need to know what you’re doing if you want to go down that route. I certainly don’t, but a foraging course with somebody who does is definitely on the bucket list.

You also need to treat it with the same respect you’d give any other living being. Don’t do any harm to it, and let it simply be itself.

I had a week off work and knew I needed a change of scene rather than be in the same flat I work from every day, but I didn’t really fancy going too far away. I found a gorgeous bell tent on Air BnB in a village 20 minutes from home and decided to head there for a few days to focus on my writing and do some new blog posts, like this one.

The description of the site included a lot of words like “remote” and “secluded”. To some people these are scary words, and in normal life, they are to me as well, but for this purpose, they were perfect.

To get there I needed to drive along a number of tiny country lanes that I’d never been down before despite having lived so close to them for years. It was late afternoon on the hottest day in June, and the sun was beating down a golden glow over the Syndale Valley. I could only catch quick glimpses as I was too paranoid about having a head-on collision with a tractor, but whenever I did, I felt a similar glow within.

I was greeted by a very sunny, cheerful lady – the BnB owner – and was then left to my own devices in what was definitely a remote, secluded location in the woods. But it didn’t feel like it. Anything but, actually.

There were birds. Lots and lots of them. I can’t tell you what they were because I’m no ornithologist, but maybe somebody who is can identify them for me from the below phonetics:

“Twiddlywoowootwit” (or maybe they were just insulting me, I guess I am a bit of a twit at times).

“Twt. Twt. Twt. Twt. Twt” (okay. There’s no need to labour the point!)

“mmmHMMHMM,hmmhmm” (fairly sure that one’s a wood pigeon. Think I know that one. Either that or it’s just a bird agreeing with all the other ones that spoke before it. B***h).

Having been sufficiently besmirched by my bird friends I wandered down to the meadow like the cheerful lady had recommended, and came across a gate which opens up to a beautiful looking valley. I wasn’t driving and there were no tractors to worry about at this point, so I could really afford to take it all in.

What a peaceful, glorious, hidden gem in the heart of Kent. A giant golden ingot in the middle of nowhere.

A few miles away from here, people are currently jammed on the ring road in Maidstone. A few miles in the other direction, they’re at the Costa drive-through in Sittingbourne, taking in breathtaking views of the Eurolink industrial estate . In Ashford, they’re steadfastly opening the windows on the High Speed trains in desperation for air.

And I guess I can’t leave out my hometown, Faversham, as the fourth corner in the urban rectangle that surrounds this field. In Faversham, they’re shoo’ing off the seagulls from swooping down to steal rashers of bacon off any more plates (as I’d witnessed earlier that day. And yes I laughed, because it didn’t happen to me, and I’m mean).

Back to the valley, and I just can’t fathom how a patch of land as magical as this exists and can feel so far away from the above, despite being so close.

I think about my love for Kent, and how it grows every day… or at least when I’m out discovering new parts of it. Watford was a great place to grow up, but its presence on my birth certificate is a bit like a dodgy tattoo that you try and cover with your fingers when anyone asks to see it. Kent feels more like home to me.

I walk into some dense woodland where I see a group of silhouettes in the distance. Sheep and goats, all gathered underneath the trees to escape the heat. They look at me suspiciously as I approach, and then start noisily BAA-ing to one another.

They’re probably insulting me too.

I walk in the other direction and see one standing completely alone.

“Were they rude to you, as well?” I’m tempted to ask, until he starts baa-ing at me too. I point in the direction of his friends in case he’s a bit lost but he’s reluctant to move.

Probably wants some space from them all.

I enjoy my explore, even if I have now been insulted by two different species and shredded my legs on a number of stinging nettles. It’s peaceful, and the surroundings are authentic. Authenticity is one of my favourite qualities, in anything – people, music, food – and it’s especially present in nature.

Magic happens when you just let something be its true self. To grow in the way it’s meant to. Stifle that for any reason, and you’re just left with something very underwhelming.

These trees have grown in the way they’re meant to, knobbly trunks and all. Those thistles didn’t grow with the help of a watering can, but with rain and sunlight. They haven’t been trimmed back. In nature, everything is as it intended to be.

I spend the rest of the evening writing away apart from having a small break to take an outdoor bath, an experience I recommend everyone do. I see a few planes overhead. One of them is flying from London to Tokyo, and I imagine all the passengers up there, 300 snippets of chitter chatter, and all the cutlery clitter-clatter.

But it doesn’t drown out the volume of the birds, as they flap against the bell tent and continue to insult me, a temporary guest in their home. I see a mouse run out from underneath the washroom, take one look at me, and scuttle away. Bit like some of those Tinder dates.

My heart smiles.

No, you’re never really alone in the woods. Try it.

THE “UK’S WORST HOTEL”, A DESERVED TITLE?

| sophiekemsley

I have a really strict criteria when it comes to hotels. Since they’re not cheap, when the rare opportunity arises for me to stay in one, it absolutely has to be one of two things:

A little bit quirky

OR

Have lots of terrible reviews

I know it might seem like I’ve made a typo in the latter, but I mean every word. Unless I’m travelling with friends or family – when I’ll comply with more ‘normal’ choices – I’ll always choose budget and character, over nice, but expensive and boring.

I haven’t always felt this way, but then in 2017 I needed to book into a hotel opposite the train station in Stoke on Trent, and it changed everything. Say what you will about cleanliness and quality (neither of which that hotel particularly had), but I’ve never stayed in a hotel I’ve spoken about more. I can’t even remember most of the others. My stay at the North Stafford Hotel prompted much laughter, and conjured bizarre stories and anecdotes in abundance.

It also gave birth to a dream of visiting terribly rated hotels all over the country and writing a book about them, but I never pursued that dream due to both time and financial constraints. Now, a vast number of writers and YouTubers have beaten me to it, and probably do it better than I could anyway.

But there’s always been one hotel here in Kent that’s been on my list of places to experience before I die. Maybe it would be in poor taste to name it, so let’s just say I’ve been burstin to go ever since I found out it earned the grand title of the ‘UK’s worst hotel’. For several years running. Perfect.

I finally got to tick this item off my bucket list (no, not ‘sick bucket’!) in April 2025, when a Folkestone-based friend was having some birthday drinks. I could have found a way to get home that evening if I’d tried to, but I didn’t try. At all, in fact.

It was time.

Beautiful Folkestone, a town I always enjoy visiting

After a delicious lunch on the Harbour Arm and an hour reading my book on the dreamy seafront, I finally make my way to the hotel to check-in. The automatic door opens, so already my expectations have been exceeded.

“I like your green shoes, love!”

The group of men in the lobby start laughing. Maybe I should be offended, but I’m not. I’m too excited to be fulfilling a dream, and am eager to check-in. The service is friendly, professional, and hassle-free, and this would be the case in every encounter with staff during my stay. Before heading to my room, I take a little tour of the building. It’s everything I hoped it would be. Hypnotic carpets. Worn leather seats. Yellowing ceilings. I feel like I can still smell the many B&H’s that would have been smoked in these rooms in the 1980s, and strangely, I don’t actually dislike that fact.

The whole place brings back memories of some of the best nights out in my life. Only those who attended Lancaster University before 2010 will understand it when I say this is like Morecambe’s Premier Venue – the Carleton (R.I.P) – but for those who didn’t, the Carleton was basically like this, but with stickier floors, cheesy music, and people throwing up everywhere (not always me) after one too many of the venue’s signature cocktails, named ‘stiff’uns‘. Maybe that’s what happens to this place at night, too. That’s something I’ll have to find out next time.

I head to my room and elect to take the stairs over the elevator, on account of only being on the first floor. Room 151. If this was the North Stafford Hotel – which incidentally belongs to the same chain as this one – Room 151 would probably be between rooms 312 and 543 on floor 7, but here, the numbers do seem to run in a logical order. On my floor, at least.

Room 151 is in the very regal sounding ‘C Wing‘, although some odd kerning on the signage makes it read more like ‘C WIN G’. To get to C WIN G I must walk down a very long corridor. A very long corridor.  One which I’m not sure even has an actual ending, and quite possibly doesn’t. I walk along and am enveloped by a smell that evokes memories of visiting my much missed grandmother in her care home shortly before she passed away. It’s both a comfort and a discomfort and it leads me to ruminate, but I’m quickly detracted by a piece of paper stuck to a door on which a note has been scrawled and highlighted with a blue Stabilo marker pen:

“KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING PLEASE“

I make a mental note to keep my door locked, and wonder what sort of commotion has been ensuing along this very long corridor recently.

I enter my room, and am pleasantly surprised. The reviews and articles I’d read had evoked visions of walking into some sort of bog with bricks for beds and stained underwear for curtains. Instead, I walk into a light, bright space which upon first inspection seems clean and tidy, although the artwork is a little terrifying:

Lute, or weapon?

My room is – unfortunately – on the wrong side of the building for a sea view. Instead, I am proffered stunning views of the car park, and the Sunshine Bar and Grill over the road. Still, it’s better than the view of vents and discarded Styrofoam containers I had at the North Stafford. Another thing I have here, which the North Stafford didn’t offer, is a full on ironing board and iron. Just in case I fancy straightening out any creases in my luggage whilst absorbing the beautiful panoramic:

I make myself a coffee and notice what appears to be Pot Noodle dust peppered around the spout of the kettle, but it’s nothing a little wipe can’t fix.

I’d been hoping to use my time pre-party to check out the sauna, but the swimming facilities were closed due to staff sickness, so I decide to have a bath instead. It’s during this initial venture into the bathroom that I discover the previous occupant has failed to flush the loo (I wonder if they had been burstin, and just forgotten to flush in the wake of overwhelming relief), and there is no sign that there has ever been any shower gel in the shower gel receptacle. I draw a bath anyway, and become perplexed at how the bath tap seems to activate the sink tap too. Multitasking! The running water alternates between trickles and full on downpours, but we get there eventually.

Bathed up and dressed, I decide to head down to the bar area for a coffee. And to be honest, it’s all absolutely fine. It’s busy – proving that even in spite of the reputation, the hotel remains popular – and I appreciate the range of dialects I can overhear. Scottish. Irish. American. I’m proud to live in a county so attractive to tourists. It makes me feel like I’m on holiday, too.

I choose the comfiest looking piece of worn furniture and am shortly joined by a noisy group next to me, where one lady in particular is enjoying herself and appears to be a little inebriated. She starts to empty the contents of her handbag all over the table. One of the items is some lipbalm:

“Sharon’s never seen me without my Carmex, and we’ve been friends for 20 years!“

She then cackles out an incredibly loud innuendo about the lipbalm that’s too filthy to put into print, and people turn to look for from whom that exclamation came from. She doesn’t care, she’s enjoying her own joke too much, and I actually quite admire the hubris. Good for her, I think to myself.

Coffee consumed, I decide to venture out in the sunshine to grab a sweet snack and test my theory that everybody always looks deadly serious when eating ice cream cones. I return a few pounds heavier, having witnessed no challenges to my hypothesis.

Back in my room, I make a phone-call, and whilst gazing ahead notice what appears to be a blob of snot affixed to the wall. Of everything I’ve experienced in this hotel so far, this is the one thing that crosses a line, and makes me physically gag. I reassure myself I’m only here for one night, and by the time I return from the party it’ll be hopefully too dark to see it. Or not. It’s pretty fudging massive, like it came out of the nostril of a hippo, or some other megafauna. It’ll probably even illuminate the room overnight with its green glow, I guess I’ll find out later.

A short while later my ‘neighbours’ arrive. I don’t see them, but I can definitely hear them:

“No, please don’t, you’ll set off the alarm. You’ll set off the alarm. YOU’LL SET OFF THE ALARM!”

“Oh, alright then, I won’t!”

Phew.

I then hear them comment on their impressions of their room. They, too, are in awe of the ironing board. They also rate the beds, and have an early start in the morning. A sheet of toilet paper dividing the rooms – like the one I found in the loo perhaps – would provide more sound insulation than the existing walls, I’m sure.

***************************************

I return from my evening out around 11.30pm and walk over a pile of crushed tortilla crisps that have integrated into the hypnotic carpet. No salsa. The bar is busy and full of life, and accents from all over the world. I love it. It feels like the entire planet has compressed itself into this little tatty cruise ship shaped building in East Kent, frozen in time since the ’80s. The nautical theme also makes it feel like the cross-channel ferries I used to take with my grandparents around the same time, watching the ashes from Nan’s fag drip down into an aluminium ashtray whilst nibbling on a Toblerone too big for my infant-sized mouth.

Back in the present, I hear only laughter, people conversing with strangers, others burstin into song, and the likes of ‘Time of my Life’ emanating from the ballroom. I see people smiling and enjoying themselves within the craziness of it all. I hear an American comment that life is not about money, but community, having fun, and eating tasty food. Last night, he ate the best prawns he’d ever had in his life. He “even took a photo.” I love him.

If this hotel is ‘bad’, then I’m not sure I really care about ‘good’.

Character over perfection, every single time. I’m burstin to tell you, that places like these are so much better than you think they’ll be, and they will almost always make you smile, and even laugh a bit. They’ll also save you a fair amount of money, so you can afford to come back again.

Now there’s an idea…

SAY-SUN-ARA, SUMMER?

| sophiekemsley

This Summer seemed to go as quickly as it came, but there are still hints of it here and there (if you search hard enough!).

The other week I particularly admired the resolute energy of this ageing sunflower in a nearby field. It was clearly a bit beyond its best, a bedraggled, hump-backed figure swaying in a lilting September evening breeze, ochre petals that were once lemon yellow wilting and reluctantly falling to join all the decaying neighbours on the ground.

Gastropod inflicted holes. General bit of a mess. I think we’ve all pretty much felt like how this sunflower looks at some point, I felt myself developing a hangover just by looking at it.

But what I liked about it is that it stood tall anyway, desperately seeking out what final remnants of sunshine it could to prolong the time it had left to dance. And dance it would, even though everybody else had already headed home. Even if once steady sways were now somewhat more wobbly.

And maybe – at this time of year especially, as clouds increasingly come to nudge blue skies away – we could all do with being a bit more sunflower. This particular one, ideally.

Looking up, dancing on.

WALKING THE ELHAM VALLEY WAY

| sophiekemsley

When a friend recently asked me if I fancied doing ‘a really long walk’, it didn’t take much convincing. Not only do I really like walks, but I particularly love ‘really long’ walks – the sort that make your legs feel totally jellified by the end – and at 35km, the Elham Valley Way walk is exactly that. We would walk and walk and walk, from Canterbury – with its impressive Cathedral backdrop – to Hythe, before celebrating with a mini pork pie and tin of beer by the sea. Perfect.

Our route followed the trail of what had once been the Elham Valley Railway, a commuter line which had ran between Canterbury and Folkestone from the late 1800’s until the 1940’s. The line is known by most for the role it played during the second world war, when it temporarily stopped its passenger services to assist with national defence. Three guns were mounted at various locations along the old track, the largest of which (known as the ‘Boche Buster’) was capable of firing shells a distance of up to 20km and could – and did – cause damage to many nearby homes when set off.

I’m no railway buff by any means. I leave that sort of thing to my Dad, who relishes in it. Yet, something about the Elham Valley Railway – or rather – the remnants of it, has always intrigued me. Not far from where my parents live in south Canterbury, down a litter-strewn alleyway that otherwise seems to lead into a rural nothingness, can be found a glorious old honey-toned Victorian railway bridge at the bottom of a steep verge. This was one of the first bridges that trains would pass through having departed from the city centre, and the fact it’s still pretty much intact today – albeit clad in litter, graffiti and discarded Vapes – feels incredibly romantic to me. Absorbing historic architecture – viewing the same bricks as those who came before us – is probably the nearest we will ever get to travelling back in time, and so it’s important that we preserve what we can of it.

My friend shares similar sentiments. She likes to imagine that when walking along a former railway line, personal artefacts may emerge from the earthy banks: an engagement ring, hastily tossed out the carriage window following a fractious conversation between lovers; a pair of binoculars dropped by an excited youth leaning out the window to take a closer look at the rolling hills of Kent; an old shoe – because they somehow manage to get anywhere – or any other signs of an Elham Valley Railway passenger.

In reality we found no such things during our eight hour trek, but that in itself felt remarkable. Today, there is stillness in coordinates that were once the site of so much movement; peace in a place once associated with war. The Elham Valley Way is one of the most beautiful walks in Kent and a virtually bottomless trove of delights, boasting panoramic views, ancient woodlands, butterflies, cowslips and bluebells, among many other goodies! We ate our packed lunches rested upon a fallen tree surrounded by sheep and spring lambs, most of whom surveyed us carefully as we entered the field, before turning away nonchalantly. A few moments beforehand we had also come across some highland cows on a hillside, their horns silhouetted against the grey skies as they grazed on grasses several hundred miles away from their home. Neither of us had expected to see that.


In the villages that punctuated the journey we passed numerous cottages that gave us house-envy, a former home of Audrey Hepburn in Elham, an ancient well in Lyminge, and a friendly old man in Newington who approached us with an offer of help and a smile after observing us looking a bit lost. The railway museum in Peene had just closed up for the day when we passed but given the lack of engagement rings, binoculars and shoes en route, thank goodness it’s even there at all, to help keep the history of the former railway alive.

Our experiences on the outskirts of Hythe included being out-stared by a group of stern-looking cows the other side of a fence we were looking to cross, and wandering through a misty golf course, fearful of being concussed by a mis-shot. That wouldn’t have been a great ending after the best part of 35km, but fortunately was not to be the case. As we finally heard the lapping of waves and smelt the sea air we knew we had accomplished our mission for the day to reach the coastline, and both the pork pie and the beer lived firmly up to expectation.

Not only had this been a lovely and long walk, but it had surpassed all expectations in terms of what we would encounter along the way. In an age where digital technology attempts to simulate on screens as much of the world around it as it can, walks like this serve as a timely reminder of why it will never be able to fully do so. All the YouTube, Streetviews and online guides in the world cannot replicate reality, no matter how much you zoom in, nor can they tell you everything about a place. There will always be room for wonder and surprise.

There is always so much more beyond the map, just itching to be found.

Song of the Day: Kettel – Duck

Kettel is an artist from the Netherlands who specialises in playful and melodic electronica. Perfect for accompanying Summertime exercise!

THE ANCIENT PYRAMIDS AT CANTERBURY, UK

| sophiekemsley

Out of the 150+ posts on this blog across the past eleven years, I’d guess that around 50% of them reference things seen or experienced whilst out and about in rural Kent. That was never the intention, I never really warmed too much to the idea of keeping to a main theme, even though a lot of people suggested it was the best way to create an established blog. It’s just testament to the local area that so many of my outdoor rambles have managed to inspire the content for the monthly post.

It seemed to start about ten years ago with a trip to the beach, continued with a maybe slightly-cheesy-in-retrospect ‘life lesson’ from the maze at Leeds Castle in 2015, a fresh glut of writing upon moving to Faversham in 2018 and then an even bigger one in 2020/2021, because walking outdoors was essentially all we were able to do.

And though we can thankfully do a lot more again now, there are still few things that I enjoy more than being out exploring the pretty unique surroundings of Kent (or perhaps it’s just because I grew up in Watford, where postcards feature the ring road and you feel privileged just to see a tree.)

(That’s possibly being a little unfair, you’ll often see one. But only one.)

Nonetheless, in over ten years of living here I’m still not bored of Kent, and despite having walked round the countryside near to where my parents live in Canterbury countless times, it took until now to learn that we have our very own set of pyramids:

Giza, Canterbury

The photo above features what is known locally as the ‘Tetrahedra Field’. It can be found at the end of a private residential gravel-track road leading out of a village just outside of the city. With minimal footfall, it’s of little surprise that hardly anybody knows of it, and though it could be easy to assume (I certainly did) that these stones are probably nothing of note, the reality is much more intriguing.

It turns out that these triangular structures lie on what was once the site of a World War I aerodrome. Their purpose was to generally get in the way of the tanks that were used by the opposition, and if you look closely, you can still see the letters and numbers which identified them. When the airfield was closed down in the 1940’s, they were all moved into the random field above, next to the railway line.

At first glance it may only look like a graveyard for unwanted giant Toblerones circa Christmas 1972 (though that too would be exciting) but it’s also a classic example of the benefits of looking at some things twice. I will continue to be intrigued by what other hidden gems and pieces of secret history we may have lying around us here in the Garden of England, and I want to go and find and write about them all, ha!



Song of the Day: The Bad Plus – Silence is the Question

Eight minutes that’ll change your life (I exaggerate. But I promise you, it’ll do something). I don’t normally have the patience for long songs, particularly if they start off too slow, and nor do I really listen to jazz, but I somehow stumbled across this one and it sucked me in. I’ll say no more, you just have to listen to it all in one go. Just amazing.

Fragility

| sophiekemsley

I’m not sure what it was – the way the lilac flowers swayed in the soft Spring breeze as I looked out of the train window, or the remnants of varying emotions within – still lingering from a range of recent events – or perhaps it was just ‘that time of the month’…

But something made me stop today.  Something made me pause, and without any clear reason, I found myself feeling overcome with a strange sense of sadness (perhaps perpetuated by the piece of music which was on my MP3 player at the time)

We all know that nothing in life ever stays the same way forever and for the most part, we’re grateful for that.  Life could not be classed as life without change or growth… but all of a sudden, today, that acknowledgement of impermanence resonated within me with a sense of fright, as I realised just how fragile any given moment is.

All too often it takes a tragedy to remind us of this.  Through soaking eyes we utter those somewhat cliched words, “…this really puts things into perspective…” and vow to henceforth never let any of life’s daily grind detract us from that which is truly important – our family and friends, and our values.  We reflect upon this for a little while but despite best intents and purposes the sentiment can so quickly be lost – the telephone rings, we remember there’s somewhere we need to be or something we need to be doing, something irritates us, we see something amusing in the distance, or we go to sleep – there are so many minor occurrences that can so easily detract our minds back to things which in the grand scheme of things, really don’t matter.

…At this point, I recall an excerpt written by one of my favourite travel writers, Canadian Ryan Murdock, in his book ‘Vagabond Dreams’, a stunning book describing a both physical and personal journey through Central America which I wish everybody would read:…

“Nicaragua taught me that there’s a poverty of life in the West, a poverty of the spirit that mimics the drudgery and dull wasting away of monetary poverty.  Meaninglessness is our great disease.  Life’s spark is smothered by routine, by the grind.”

Herein lies the problem.  We simply have too many other things to think about in life – duties to perform… plans to be made… financial sustainance to achieve…. and other random, sporadic little things to think about – that we don’t always feel as though we have enough available time in which we can revel in what Murdock refers to as ‘life’s spark’ – those moments when we can focus upon fun, and love – all variants of it.  And central to that is appreciation – the underpinning knowledge that the special moments we share, with the people we care about – may not always be an option to us…

Life goes by so quickly these days.  We each live within a constant state of change where the various elements of a ‘typical day’ can change week upon week.  Our circumstances change, and people will come and go from our lives all the time.  It’s simply not feasible for us to forever live out ‘life’s spark‘ in the same way, yet we so often allow ourselves to be consumed by meaningless things that a year from now we will barely remember.  And perhaps that’s why the word ‘fragility’ was the one which so pertinently came to my mind today.  These days, at the ages we are, dwarfed by what sometimes seems to be an insurmountable pressure to ‘sort our lives out’- it is more important than ever to make the most of any opportunity we have for love, and fun (aka – the stuff which matters most, in the grand scheme of things).

But how does ‘making the most’ of these moments manifest itself?  How do we handle such ‘fragililty’? For something so largely important, it can be done in the smallest of ways…   Listening to every word.  Savouring every minute.  Focusing on the ‘here and now’ and not allowing our minds to wander towards external things that may be bothering us. Tight hugs…

…but above all, giving thanks that we ever had that opportunity in the first place – because it’s all so susceptible to change.

… Upon reflection, perhaps today’s strange surge of sorrow was down to the flowers swaying in the wind – looking at them, overcome by how beautiful they looked growing along the banks, knowing that several weeks ago they were not there, and knowing that in several weeks’ time they will have disappeared again, but being grateful for the pleasant imagery they provided today…

fragility

To See The Sea

| sophiekemsley

I never really used to understand the big deal about the sea.

Metropolitan town born and bred, I never felt particularly enthusiastic when my parents would express their desire to one day live by the coast.  “But why?  The sea dun’t do anything”, I would debate.  I spent several Saturdays of my teenage years in the beach-hut at Tankerton we once had (before repeat vandalism meant we needed to sadly sell) and with the exception of those really hot, bright Summer days in which we could get the dinghy out I would normally just sit inside the hut shivering and cursing the cruel, cold air, just waiting to go home, to Watford, so that I could go to Wetherspoons with my mates and share a pitcher of Blue Lagoon.

And then I grew up, and started to pay a lot more attention to our landscape and the environment around us.  Moving down to East Kent – with all it’s cobbled streets, historic buildings, coarse beaches, deep forests, and valleys adorned with bright scarlet poppies or neon yellow canola – slotted in perfectly with this.  I began to realise how much I really appreciated the great outdoors, and just how beautiful it can be, and how even its imperfections can be a source of stimulation.

There’s something about this particular time of year which doesn’t fill me with too much inspiration.  It’s that awkward, gloomy little period between the fresh heated glow of Autumn and the festive warmth of the run up to Christmas, with it’s illuminating snowy skies.  Sandwiched in between those two somewhat cheerier bookends, we have November.  November, where daylight is a fleeting moment and the rain bounces monotonously off slippery pavements that shimmer orange underneath the street-lamps.  On a working day, it’s that image which seems to be my only experience of the outdoors.  Oh yeah – and if that’s not bad enough, it’s freezing cold too.

That’s why over the weekend it was nice to visit Seasalter, even if only for 5 minutes.  5 minutes just to pause and look out to an open sea, a sea which spans 70% of the Earth’s surface.  A sea which throughout thousands of years has remained resiliently lapping up to the shoreline – ebbing and flowing, but always there, always going.  This movement is profoundly peaceful to look at, and sitting there on the sea wall, breathing in the fresh salty air, I remembered how important it was to take that time every now and then just to relax and reflect – to just observe the world as it is, as it’s always been, and as it’s meant to be.  In those 5 minutes – everything else was irrelevant.

Song of the Day:  Destroyer – English Music

Destroyer is the musical alias of Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Bejar, fellow frontman of indie-supergroup The New Pornographers.  Predominantly indie-rock, Destroyer’s music draws upon influences from a variety of decades and genres, mixes it all up, and puts its own unique stamp on it.  This is Winter Music.