In waiting
Today has been an unexpected bright spell after a rather dull and rainy week. Aside from my walk to work in the twilight and home again across a muddy field in the dark, I have been kept mostly inside. So I was glad I made the time to wrap up warm and make the best of the sunshine. Even though the days are rather short on daylight, which I need to see the colours of my wool properly, it still feels important to get outside for an hour.
At this time of year, my mind is firmly fixed on the near future. In five weeks or so, sure the nights will be as long as they are now, but they will be getting shorter. I'm sure all our minds are fixed on the near future right now, there is a ray of hope. The end of this terrible situation we all find ourselves in may be in sight. But for now, it's better to stick close to home. Better to wait a little longer. I do feel badgers have the right idea at this time of year. It might be nicer and also safer to block up your front door with earth and leaves and only venture out during a mild spell.
In my imaginary life, Daniel Defoe and I are setting out on a new journey this week, visiting the Southern Counties. We set out from Greenwich, where the Royal hospital is still being built. Our journey takes us east along the South side of the Thames and down to the mouth of the Medway where he is particularly impressed by the Royal Dockyards at Chatham. They are enormous and terrifically well organised. He is positively swelling with English pride, but I will gloss over them.
Further East is the Isle of Shepey (Sheppey) and the town of Queenborough which Daniel doesn't like at all. He says it is all ale houses and oyster catchers. We are not visiting because he tells me the last time he was there, the mayor, who was also a butcher, turned up at his inn, gifted him of a shoulder of mutton and then drank his wine. Apparently this is insupportable behaviour for a mayor, but it sounds like an interesting evening to me. Most of this part of the coast seems to be mainly oysters and the 'owling trade' which, disappointingly, has nothing whatsoever to do with owls, but means the illegal export of wool.
Instead, we turn south to Maidstone and then on to Canterbury. Being a dissenter, he is extremely sniffy about Thomas Beckett and saints in general. But he does tell us that even then, the steps to the alter were worn to a slope by the knees of pilgrims. West of here is an area he calls 'the wild of Kent' variously known for producing a vast amount of wood to build ships with, cherries, very good paving slabs and enormous red cows with big pointy horns. But we are heading along the coast with much talk of storms,sea battles and smugglers. At Hastings we ride west along the beach for eighteen miles as far as Bourne (Eastbourne). From there we go north to Tunbridge Wells. It's a lively town. People go there to take the waters but there is also much drinking, gaming and general loose behaviour. There are people who turn up early in the morning to play music beneath your window and you have to pay them to leave. Truthfully it is a place where it is easy to lose both your money and your reputation.
Honour intact, but decidedly low on cash, we leave and head south again to Lewes, which seems to be properly in 'the wild'. We travel by 'the deepest and dirtiest' roads in all that part of the country. By which he means they are very muddy. You might think you have seen a muddy road before, but these are often impassable. Let me give you an example. He once saw a rather fine lady going to church in her carriage which was pulled by six oxen because 'the way was so stiff and deep that no horses could go in it'. My favourite description though is of the large trees that are often felled here and transported whole to the shipyards at Chatham. They are carried on wagons pulled by twenty-two oxen, and still often get stuck. They just have to be abandoned, wagon and all, until the land dries out again. Sometimes it can take two or three years to get them to their destination.
Measured against this scale, a few more months of limbo doesn't seem so long, the mud in the fields in not so deep that I need oxen to pull me out and spring is really just around the corner. Also one big advantage of these shorter days is that you stand a better chance of catching a really nice sunset.
