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the_elyanSince writing is better for the mind and soul than reading, I shall attempt a brief resume of the weekend (or part of it) before retiring:
I got up at stupid o'clock, and was on the train out of Ely at 7:26. This was necessary, due to the utter buggrage (hopefully not a distant cousin of suffrage) of the trains to London. I came down via Liv St, the train being fine until harlow, where almost inevtiably several loud and lairy Friends of the Fosters' got on. Thankfully they didn't damage my brain, only their own...
From Liv St I wandered to London bridge (a short and pleasant stroll through the City, with the Gherkin peeking with its typical shyness from behind various edifices), and onto another deserted train, this time to Hastings. This was the first of several very pretty runs, across East Sussex and down to the coast, through rolling countryside and distant glimpses of Cold Comfort farm and its ilk.
At hastings I was surprised to find that the trains to Rye and Ashford are no longer pre-war monsters with exposed springs, but are actually quite modern. Due to the fact that there is a tunnel or two whjere you can't get a bus ticket between the train and the tunnel wall, they don't get upgraded very often.
I arrived in the beautiful town of Rye just before 12, found my B&B room to not yet be ready, so climbed up into town to go to the exhibition I had theoretically planned the trip around. This proved, as I had expected, to be small, but perfectly formed - about 40 items, including drawings, photographs, and about half a dozen large canvases, going at the thick end of £10K and beyond. I was especially impressed with several of the photographs, including some from a series on the Tarot which he has been doing recently. I started idly speculating on buying one of the smaller framed photos, but checked myself when I realised that the sum (comfortbaly into three figures, for a 12" x 12") was still a hell of a lot of money. Nonetheless, it was a great exhibition, and I would definitely recommend checking it out if you have a free day before it goes on May 4th. And if it helps, when I enquired about book availability, I was told "WEll, dave's always popping in with more books, so it just depends". Apparently I missed him by a day, and missed the Miraculous Mr Gaiman by a week.
Now then - Rye. I do witter about this town a fair bit, which is strange for somewhere so small. It's hard to explain - this print of Mermaid Street might give you some idea, or here and clicking on the "photo tour" link. basically, I would say that Rye is the most perfect small town in England. It is flanked by Lavenham as most perfect large village, and Stamford as most perfect small-mid sized town, but in its size, nowehere else I've been comes close. Gathered on top of a hill, crowned by a late 14th century church and the Ypres Tower, it is a crowded little collection of beautiful buildings, and because a main road skirts the bottom of the hill, relatively free of traffic. On a Spring day, with the views across the Marshes and the Downs, and the jostling roofs around the High Street and the church square, it is absolute and unmitigated bliss. I cannot recommend the place highly enough if you have an eye for the best in English architecture, and a keen sense of history. A gem of a place...
After getting into my room, via an argument between the two owners of the B&B (like all slightly seedy mid-range B&B's, it was named after somewhere random in Scotland - Aviemore, in this case), I then returned to the streets of the town, and climbed the church tower, moseyed along the river, and poked about the shops. [In the surprisingly fine record shop in the old Grammar School, I found what appeared to be a Japanese soft porn DVD, with the most delightful title for such a thing - "The Fruit Is Swelling"].
After four hours spent in such pleasant diversions, and with hunger growing, I took a bus two villages along, to Icklesham, where lurks the Queen's Head, one of the finest country pubs you could ever wish to meet. Excellent food, good booze, and a garden with a 180 degree panorama of the Sussex countryside laid out before you. After a large All-Day Breakfast and a pint of Stowford Press, I was ready for just about anything, and mellow enough to deal with four toddlers with something approaching equanimity. An outdoor pint in a nice pub on a spring evening is about as much as one should ask for in this life...
What followed, however, was far more than anyone deserves - probably the most glorious walk I have ever been lucky enough to enjoy. Avoiding the A259, a tiny back-road ran from Pett to Winchelsea, and along this I ambled, listening to the evening sound of birdsong and newborn lambs. With the sea two miles or so distant, and the hills rolling around me, bluebells in the hedgerows, and not a car in sight, it was absolutely, utterly perfect. No, really, it was - it's so rare to realise that you have got it exactly right - and the evening sunlight filled the fields with gold. If you;d been there, you would have seen what I meant.
The midway point of the walk was Winchelsea, one of the oddest places I've ever been. Rye and Winchelsea were both among the Cinque Ports, despite now being some miles inland, and whilst Rye has maiontained itself as a small town, Winchelsea (officially the smallest town in England, I believe) feels like a tiny village. A grid of street,s with many fine old buildings, and in the centre, a deeply odd church, which is broader than it is long, and surrounded by ruins of the nave they never had the money to finish. Sitting there at dusk, with shadows lengthening and not a soul about, the Twilight Zone was very much in evidence. One of the possible reasons for its oddity I sadly did not find out until the next day - Winchelsea churchyard is the last resting-place of Spike Milligan - I mus have sat within ten yards of his grave, and not noticed. Rest in peace, you brilliant, mad bugger.
From there the last stage was a long, slow stagger along the main road, laid down as a military road and dead straight, back to Rye. With dusk turning inexorably toward dark, and the town in front of me, atop its hill, one felt a definite sense of a journey ending, of marching toward a place of rest. The church tower was a beacon, guiding me home. After a brief wander to check that the town was just as beguiling in the dark as in the ligtt (it is, and like Venice, there is an added air of largely benign mysetry added to the old buildings by the flickering street-lights),l I collapsed into bed, and slept like a log
I must sleep - more later, if I remember.
I got up at stupid o'clock, and was on the train out of Ely at 7:26. This was necessary, due to the utter buggrage (hopefully not a distant cousin of suffrage) of the trains to London. I came down via Liv St, the train being fine until harlow, where almost inevtiably several loud and lairy Friends of the Fosters' got on. Thankfully they didn't damage my brain, only their own...
From Liv St I wandered to London bridge (a short and pleasant stroll through the City, with the Gherkin peeking with its typical shyness from behind various edifices), and onto another deserted train, this time to Hastings. This was the first of several very pretty runs, across East Sussex and down to the coast, through rolling countryside and distant glimpses of Cold Comfort farm and its ilk.
At hastings I was surprised to find that the trains to Rye and Ashford are no longer pre-war monsters with exposed springs, but are actually quite modern. Due to the fact that there is a tunnel or two whjere you can't get a bus ticket between the train and the tunnel wall, they don't get upgraded very often.
I arrived in the beautiful town of Rye just before 12, found my B&B room to not yet be ready, so climbed up into town to go to the exhibition I had theoretically planned the trip around. This proved, as I had expected, to be small, but perfectly formed - about 40 items, including drawings, photographs, and about half a dozen large canvases, going at the thick end of £10K and beyond. I was especially impressed with several of the photographs, including some from a series on the Tarot which he has been doing recently. I started idly speculating on buying one of the smaller framed photos, but checked myself when I realised that the sum (comfortbaly into three figures, for a 12" x 12") was still a hell of a lot of money. Nonetheless, it was a great exhibition, and I would definitely recommend checking it out if you have a free day before it goes on May 4th. And if it helps, when I enquired about book availability, I was told "WEll, dave's always popping in with more books, so it just depends". Apparently I missed him by a day, and missed the Miraculous Mr Gaiman by a week.
Now then - Rye. I do witter about this town a fair bit, which is strange for somewhere so small. It's hard to explain - this print of Mermaid Street might give you some idea, or here and clicking on the "photo tour" link. basically, I would say that Rye is the most perfect small town in England. It is flanked by Lavenham as most perfect large village, and Stamford as most perfect small-mid sized town, but in its size, nowehere else I've been comes close. Gathered on top of a hill, crowned by a late 14th century church and the Ypres Tower, it is a crowded little collection of beautiful buildings, and because a main road skirts the bottom of the hill, relatively free of traffic. On a Spring day, with the views across the Marshes and the Downs, and the jostling roofs around the High Street and the church square, it is absolute and unmitigated bliss. I cannot recommend the place highly enough if you have an eye for the best in English architecture, and a keen sense of history. A gem of a place...
After getting into my room, via an argument between the two owners of the B&B (like all slightly seedy mid-range B&B's, it was named after somewhere random in Scotland - Aviemore, in this case), I then returned to the streets of the town, and climbed the church tower, moseyed along the river, and poked about the shops. [In the surprisingly fine record shop in the old Grammar School, I found what appeared to be a Japanese soft porn DVD, with the most delightful title for such a thing - "The Fruit Is Swelling"].
After four hours spent in such pleasant diversions, and with hunger growing, I took a bus two villages along, to Icklesham, where lurks the Queen's Head, one of the finest country pubs you could ever wish to meet. Excellent food, good booze, and a garden with a 180 degree panorama of the Sussex countryside laid out before you. After a large All-Day Breakfast and a pint of Stowford Press, I was ready for just about anything, and mellow enough to deal with four toddlers with something approaching equanimity. An outdoor pint in a nice pub on a spring evening is about as much as one should ask for in this life...
What followed, however, was far more than anyone deserves - probably the most glorious walk I have ever been lucky enough to enjoy. Avoiding the A259, a tiny back-road ran from Pett to Winchelsea, and along this I ambled, listening to the evening sound of birdsong and newborn lambs. With the sea two miles or so distant, and the hills rolling around me, bluebells in the hedgerows, and not a car in sight, it was absolutely, utterly perfect. No, really, it was - it's so rare to realise that you have got it exactly right - and the evening sunlight filled the fields with gold. If you;d been there, you would have seen what I meant.
The midway point of the walk was Winchelsea, one of the oddest places I've ever been. Rye and Winchelsea were both among the Cinque Ports, despite now being some miles inland, and whilst Rye has maiontained itself as a small town, Winchelsea (officially the smallest town in England, I believe) feels like a tiny village. A grid of street,s with many fine old buildings, and in the centre, a deeply odd church, which is broader than it is long, and surrounded by ruins of the nave they never had the money to finish. Sitting there at dusk, with shadows lengthening and not a soul about, the Twilight Zone was very much in evidence. One of the possible reasons for its oddity I sadly did not find out until the next day - Winchelsea churchyard is the last resting-place of Spike Milligan - I mus have sat within ten yards of his grave, and not noticed. Rest in peace, you brilliant, mad bugger.
From there the last stage was a long, slow stagger along the main road, laid down as a military road and dead straight, back to Rye. With dusk turning inexorably toward dark, and the town in front of me, atop its hill, one felt a definite sense of a journey ending, of marching toward a place of rest. The church tower was a beacon, guiding me home. After a brief wander to check that the town was just as beguiling in the dark as in the ligtt (it is, and like Venice, there is an added air of largely benign mysetry added to the old buildings by the flickering street-lights),l I collapsed into bed, and slept like a log
I must sleep - more later, if I remember.
