Not in Provence

As a kind of follow up to the hopping story a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would be interesting to show what’s been happening in some of the fields in Kent in recent years.

I had heard that lavender was being grown here, but it was kind of theoretical only; I’d never actually seen any until coming down to Kent on the train from London, I passed by an amazing vision. Three or four consecutive fields, stretched out and undulating away from the railway track, were Lavender fields in full bloom. Several of us on the train exclaimed out loud at the shock of seeing such an image from the train. I jotted down in my notebook the name of the station that we went through next so that I could look up where it was with a view to driving out to take some pictures.

Lavender, with all its old lady connotations, has always been one of my favourite smells. Not only has it a divine aroma, but it’s also soporific, and ever since my children were tiny I would drop it on their duvet or pillow to help them sleep.

Husband and I drove out to Castle Farm the day after we got home from Manchester and I talked all the way about where I envisaged us living when we moved back from Thailand. Poor Husband, he had no idea where my fantasy planning had taken me and he had an awful lot of catching up to do.

Every time I look at these pictures I can smell a wonderful whiff of lavender: divine.