30 June: Solitude by the sea.

On this day in 1826 Charles Lamb replies to John Dibdin who has written from Hastings, Sussex, where Charles and Mary Lamb had enjoyed many walks on their own holidays.

Let me hear that you have clamber’d up to Lover’s Seat; it is as fine in that neighbourhood as Juan Fernandez, as lonely too, when the Fishing boats are not out; I have sat for hours, staring upon a shipless sea. The salt sea is never so grand as when it is left to itself. One cock-boat spoils it. A sea-mew or two improves it.

By the way, there’s a capital farm house two thirds of the way to the Lover’s Seat, with incomparable plum cake, ginger beer, etc.

from “The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842

Four miles from Hastings, the Lovers’ Seat is on the Fairlight cliff, seen here from Pett Level on a day when clouds were forming at the cliff top. Although the beach often has families enjoying the sand that lies below the shingle seen here, a little way off are quiet spots where one can stop and stare. A rare solitude for Lamb, the convinced Londoner.

Where and when today can I find a few minutes of solitude with God and creation?

Juan Fernandez is a group of Islands in the Pacific Ocean belonging to Chile; it includes Robinson Crusoe Island, though that name was not in use in 1826.

Sea-mew: sea gull, especially the common gull.

A therapeutic exercise for January

My friend Thomas sent an email to say, ‘We are not failures’ if our New Year Resolutions have not borne the fruit we’d hoped for. So be good to yourself: ‘if only for a moment, let yourself be at home with yourself’.’

One place I am at home with myself is the kitchen. The school Thomas and I attended expected us to master basic cooking, but many of the lads can do better than basic. My January therapeutic special activity is making marmalade. Not much foraging to this one but come Autumn we can make October marmalade using citrus peel, sugar and windfall or crab apples, which supply the pectin that helps the preserve to set.

January the set depends on long boiling and added pectin, using most of the stored jars from under the stairs. That’s our label up above. Friends and relations look out!