The gate at Snailham Level Crossing

Not any old gate

We came across this gate while walking in Sussex. When we got home I saw that there were a few stories to be heard – or seen – here.

This is where a track crosses the railway, or better, the other way about, because the track was there well before the railway was built. There was a station here, though few passengers. The station had a wooden platform, wooden shelter and no lighting, oil, gas or electric. Not surprisingly. there is little to be seen of the station, nor of the crossing keeper’s cottage.

The footpath is on the Brede Level marshland. It must get very muddy, so someone has added cobbles to make the foot crossing dry. The crossing keeper would surely have kept the gates open to trains, closed to road vehicles, so the position was something of a sinecure, or a job for an elderly worker still strong enough to manage the heavy gates. There were fewer road vehicles than trains. A lightweight farm gate either side of the track is all that’s needed.

The old pedestrian gate is a picture; I guess it’s XIX Century. Its new galvanised post suggests that a surveyor did not want to scrap this unique specimen – the one on the opposite side is quite different, but both were clearly handmade by carpenter and blacksmith, probably in the South Eastern Railway works at Ashford. No question of an off-the-peg gate here. Note the decorative work on the top hinge, and the swivelling pulley cover to keep fingers safe; its makers took pride in their work. The gate frame will have been made of hardwood, possibly English oak, and when the upright palings had perished a sheet of marine plywood was substituted. Railwaymen seem to have had a soft spot for this gate over the last 150 years or so.

Modern technology is represented by the telephone: drivers of slow moving vehicles are warned to call the signaller for the all clear before crossing the railway. We arrived here by foot downhill from Udimore where King Edward III once stayed. He was supervising defensive fortifications at nearby Winchelsea in 1350 when the Spanish fleet came into sight and gave battle, ending in an English victory, witnessed by Queen Phillipa from the top of the track we are following.

Since then a naval safe haven has become a saltmarsh, supporting sheep beside the river; and the sea is now some distance away.

In the distance across the marsh is a hill with a village and pub, a destination for our walk. A shared walk, a shared meal; reminders of why we chose to share all things, for better or worse, forty-three years ago.

9 May: Summer’s severity.

Here is an extract from a letter from the writer Charles Lamb to his friend Vincent Novello, the musician and publisher, May 9, 1826. May can occasionally feel as cold as March, as Lamb asserts, ready to put more coal on the fire.

Dear N.

You will not expect us to-morrow, I am sure, while these damn’d North Easters continue. We must wait the Zephyrs’ pleasures. By the bye, I was at Highgate on Wensday, the only one of the Party.  Yours truly C. LAMB.

Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly writes, has set in with its usual severity. Kind rememb’ces to Mrs. Novello &c.

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

Beech trees in Maytime.

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!

A shared table

I had been sitting at the garden table, taking tea with Mrs Turnstone and Grandson No 2, but they had to go to find his parents. I sipped on.

I feel I have short-changed you, dear readers, because the central character in this story does not appear in the feature photograph, but she would have been even more camera shy than Mrs T is, and I was enjoying her company too much to send her packing by pulling out my phone. (When I moved to do so the next day, she flew off.)

She is one of the hen sparrows that nest in the roof of next-door-but-one. The landlord could do with fixing the roof but will have to wait now until the breeding season is over. The sparrow flew down to the table and attacked one side of the sliver of cake; these was a waspy looking creature opposite who probably would have posed for a photo, but Mrs Sparrow is not that bold, so what you get to see is a sliver of strawberry cake, slightly ragged at the edges. I got a shared meal with Mrs Sparrow, an uninvited guest.

Not that she sees it that way. As far as she is concerned, we humans are part of God’s providence (Luke 12:6). Food was provided, and food was accepted. She tucked in herself before taking a beakful home. At some point later the cake fell to the floor and was scattered across the flagstones; but it grew too dark for photography, and by the time a tardy human dragged himself downstairs next morning, the crumbs were gone.

I expect this bird is one of those that helped themselves to Mrs Turnstone’s sphagnum moss for nesting, leaving her hanging baskets denuded; I daresay, too, Mrs Sparrow knows about the garden flowers pecked to ribbons for their sweet petals and nectar. Some things just have to be forgiven.

Other translations of this psalm have swallow for turtle; turtle being the turtle dove of course. Not as noisy as our local collared doves, I imagine.

How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of host! 
My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. 
My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. 
For the sparrow hath found herself a house, 
and the turtle a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones: 
Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, 
my king and my God. 
Psalm 83 (84)2-4

Snowdrops

Somewhere recently I saw these called Candlemas Lilies. That rang a distant, tinkling bell; it must have been in childhood. It’s easy to forget Candlemas (2 February) these days, Christmas disappears into the distance and normal life takes over.

But this year – this year, whatever your beliefs, take a Christian custom and make it your own. Dining alone, with partner or family, light a candle on the dining table to be a sign of hope in these dark days of covid.

Manna from heaven

It was a day that demanded a Sunday Walk. With foraging bags. Just as well, since the chestnuts are beginning to fall. Christmas preparations are under way. Small nuts will make stuffing, many are large enough to roast in the fire.

The local rector, Jo, was out foraging the day before. Her post reminded us to be grateful for God’s bounty. Amen to that, and how good to live in this part of the world! The chestnuts are a reminder of manna: we foragers have only to go out to gather them in – but they do not have to be eaten the same day.

A Kerfuffle in Canterbury.

We were about to sit down to lunch in the garden, with all the furniture arranged for social distancing, when there was a mighty clamour from the roof of next-door-but-one. That roof has a hole, approximately 20cm square, where a tile has fallen. this has been a godsend to the sparrows who seem to be on the increase; they’ve moved back into a hole under our eaves which was abandoned for a few years. Two sparrows in particular are tame enough to come near to our table and suggest that we might spare a crumb. How could we say no?

It turned out that the racket on the roof was from the combined forces of sparrows and starlings, combining to chase away a pair of magpies who were taking too close an interest in the hole in the roof. The magpies left the scene, apparently empty-beaked, and life seemed to return to normal for the little birds.

Except that there was a little chick, still flightless, struggling at the edge of the garden pond. With wet feathers it was becoming more difficult, till Mrs T stretched out her arm and pulled the sorry sodden sparrowlet to safety. The little fellow seemed to know that safety lay in camouflage, hiding in the herbaceous border, but loud ‘feed me’ chirps told us he was still around.

I think he may have been involved in the magpie incident, perhaps pulled out of the nest but dropped to the ground as the bigger birds fled. Let’s hope his devoted parents’ efforts to feed him in hiding were enough to bring him to the joys of flight!

Going Viral XXIII: what we take for granted.

Written in 1890, still worth reflecting on today!

Railway lines had been laid over the whole 700 or 800 miles to facilitate my progress; bridges had been built, and tunnels made; an army of engineers, and guards, and signal-men, and porters, and clerks were waiting to take charge of me, and to see to my comfort and safety.  All I had to do was to tell Society (here represented by a railway booking-clerk) where I wanted to go, and to step into a carriage; all the rest would be done for me.  Books and papers had been written and printed; so that if I wished to beguile the journey by reading, I could do so.  At various places on the route, thoughtful Society had taken care to be ready for me with all kinds of refreshment (her sandwiches might be a little fresher, but maybe she thinks new bread injurious for me).  When I am tired of travelling and want to rest, I find Society waiting for me with dinner and a comfortable bed, with hot and cold water to wash in and towels to wipe upon.  Wherever I go, whatever I need, Society, like the enslaved genii of some Eastern tale, is ready and anxious to help me, to serve me, to do my bidding, to give me enjoyment and pleasure.

From “Diary of a Pilgrimage” by Jerome K. Jerome

Big Bird Watch 2020, 2: in the shed.

At L’Arche Kent we cannot let a year go by without some of us joining in the BBC and RSPB’s* annual  Big Bird Watch – spending an hour at the Glebe,§ watching to see how many species and how many individuals call in to our feeding stations.

Nothing exotic here! The parakeets have not arrived yet, there must be plenty  of pickings in the Thanet seaside towns to encourage them to say.

But we saw seven sparrows at once and a pair of moorhens: as you see, we are at the riverside. We were quite surprised not to spot any wood pigeons, but when our photographer went to speak to someone at the other end of the garden he saw that they had been there all the time, behind the shed and out of sight. The rats were there all the time too, but then it was the first day of the Year of the Rat.

As ever, the afternoon ended with a shared meal, in thanks for a shared afternoon  enjoying creation.

*BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation, the radio and tv people; RSPB – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

§ Glebe: a plot of land for the priest to grow food on: a church allotment.

A Christmas Rose

On Christmas morning there were a few blooms on the Mermaid rose by the front door, so one was brought inside to open fully in front of Mrs Turnstone’s place.

The winter so far has not given more than two frosts, neither sharp enough to kill Mermaid’s flowers, nor those of Thomas Becket. One of them can come inside on Saturday, the day he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.

And, as our parish priest would insist, it’s not too late to wish you a Merry Christmas!