A little bit of family history

I was five weeks old when we moved to Kent. My parents bought a house on the edge of the village. It was a big place, divided into two and on the other side there was a farm. On the farm they had a goat who’d just had twins - a male and female - and John the farmer offered the boy goat to my brother as a pet.  My brother asked our Dad who said, "ask your Mum"; so he asked Mum and she said "No". John the farmer said "what a pity; I shall have to kill it." So we had a goat.

This was when my parents first met the local vet who became a good friend, which is miraculous really because he informed my Mum that she would have to assist him in both de-horning and castrating our new pet. Ugh! Our new pet was called Rubin because bilirubin is the stuff that makes your blood red. (Billy Rubin, get it?)

Dad, my brother and Rubin, early 70s

He had a nice warm hut to sleep in at night and a long bull chain from which we tethered him everyday so that he could eat the garden. A year later we moved and the garden at the new house was around 2 acres and had been empty for years so Rubin had a grand time eating down an enormous amount of overgrowth. Some new people moved into a shop in the centre of the village and asked if they could borrow Rubin to eat down their overgrown garden.  My parents agreed but the shop had no back entrance so he had to be taken him through the shop! They managed this without any accidents (or health and safety issues) but unfortunately Rubin must have seen the enormous pile of cardboard boxes on his way through and he spent two happy days eating those rather than the weeds.

When my parents first got him he was tiny.  My Mum says he was ‘like a long legged puppy dog - really charming - but he seemed to grow minute by minute and in the end he was the size of a pony.’ He was already of considerable size by the time we moved to the new house. It was ten days before Christmas when we moved. My Mum was irritated to be told that she and my brother had to walk the goat the mile and a half to the new house because Dad had to dismantle Rubin's hut and re-erect it in the new garden so that he had somewhere nice and warm to sleep.  They walked him round in pouring rain; Rubin stopped every five yards to eat somebody's hedge or a bush or to rip the bark off some juicy looking young tree.  At this rate it was a slow and nightmarish journey and Mum was fast losing her sense of humour. It wasn’t helped when, still a long way from the new house, a passing car slowed down, wound down his window to ask, “which way to the manger?”

If it’s anthropomorphizing to say that Rubin had a wicked sense of humour himself, then I’ll just have to go with the fact that our family memories of him make it look so. He chewed up a much loved monkey puppet of my sister's which she only just managed to yank out of his mouth before it disappeared inside.  Another day, when she bent down in the garden to pick something up – I think it might have been his food - he eyed her rear, put down his head and dashed towards her, butting her bottom with such strength that she left the ground, sailed through the air before landing with a start on her feet.  My Granny always wore an apron; Granny swore blind that Rubin would only try and eat it when it was a floral one, which none of us ever believed. So it was a surprise that during a childhood birthday party (we were 8 or 9, I suppose) he took a great liking to my friend C's flowery new dress and started to eat it. As the pretty flowery fabric disappeared further into his mouth she began to have hysterics, convinced that he was going to eat her.

As he got older, although reasonably fit, he did have the occasional medical emergency (it was hardly surprising, given his diet of floral fabrics…) There was one terribly hot summer when Rubin got very poorly.  Dad diagnosed heat stroke and he and my brother hosed him down. Granny, who was devoted to Rubin, insisted on getting the on duty vet - on a bank holiday Monday - he looked at the goat, and ‘yes, yes,’ he said, ‘it was definitely heat stroke and that was the right treatment and that will be £40 if you please.’ (This was early 70s and a vast amount of money.)

My Dad was away from home during Rubin’s final illness. It was again very hot but he wasn't suffering sunstroke this time.  We were all worried sick about him and tried to make him comfortable.  G, a good friend and neighbour turned up with a pony trailer in which she had half a dozen large bales of straw for us to assemble a comfortable bedroom around him so that he was protected from the sun and could stay out all night in the cool. We kept a vigil by his bedside but it was getting late and my sister and I had school the next day. Eventually Mum persuaded us to come in for a bath and we left Granny sitting out watching him, feeding him sips of water. At about 9 o'clock, after our bath, we reappeared in the kitchen to say goodnight and Granny walked in and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but he's died". Everybody burst into tears. I couldn’t remember a time without Rubin and so my sister and I were inconsolable.  Granny and Mum treated their shock with scotch and my sister and I didn’t get to bed until 11 o clock.

The trouble was the weather was baking hot and we had a large corpse on the lawn.  It was obviously a health risk to leave him there, so the following morning Mum had to get the local building firm in with a digger, to dig a big hole and to lift his heavy weight into the grave. He's buried next to the compost heap and lots of lovely things (the technical term) grow on top of him.

Rubin lived to be nine years old but he continues to live on in our family myth. If ever anyone requests friends to come and stay, the answer is usually ‘yes, I think the goat’s hut is free.’

Made to measure views

So I promised photos of the apartment some time ago. This isn't quite photos of the whole place but here's my office. It's alright, isn't it?

But yes, that is a brick wall I look out on.

Back in the summer, before I'd even seen our new apartment, I was at an Arvon course outside Inverness - at Moniack Mhor. This was the view from my window. I made a joke that I wanted to paste the view up on my window when I got to Bangkok. Ha; I had no idea that unless I wanted to look out on concrete I REALLY would need to stick up a picture.

All I needed to do was blow up my digital image onto really large photo paper and I could have Scotland outside my window. Voila:

Then I got to thinking.... I could do a few - dependent on my mood. It's a sunflowers in Lopburi kind of day today:

Tomorrow I might be homesick. Let's have Kent in July:

How about back to Asia? How about Kuala Lumpur at night:

Oh HOW much fun can we have here? Hastings beach anyone? With killer seagull...

Right; okay. I think it's time to go back to work now. Head down...

The Hop Farm

I've spent so long wanting to go to the Hop Farm and not going that my children are all grown up and too big for it. Still, Daughter and Daughter's Friend were keen to go along. There were big pillow things they wanted to bounce on as well as animals to pet and other 'attractions.'

I've written about hops here, here and here. As I said at the last link, "Hop bines grow up to five feet, up coir string supported by permanent poles and wires. They’re harvested in September in a 6 week period, and traditionally casual workers from London’s East End would bring the family down for a holiday in Kent to pick the hops. They are picked and dried out in the oasts – they build a fire at the bottom on the building, spread out the hops on a grid and the white top – the cowl – turned in the wind to circulate the air." 

It was very expensive to get in but I'm glad I went because the Hop Story, which tells all about the workers from the East End of London coming down to Kent to pick hops is really good.

Oast houses at The Hop Farm:

Tiddly widdly ponies and Shire horses with feet the size of dinner plates.

Sheep, llama, goat and donkey:

Pardon?

Yesterday I took my Dad to the hearing clinic to see about a hearing aid. There are still many pockets of Kent I don’t know and although I know many of the hospitals (my Dad is a retired doctor) I didn't know the one we needed - Preston Hall.

Before long I was instructed to turn left and immediately right into the entrance of Preston Hall. Just look at this fabulous building:

And of course Dad knew a bit about its history too and how it came into the hands of the National Health Service.

He told me that the owner, a railway magnate had boasted that he owned everything he could see from the hall. My research suggests that the father, Thomas Brassey was the railway magnate and that he bought Preston Hall for his second son Henry Arthur Brassey sometime after 1850. Much of the original property dates back to the 12^th century and the reign of King John when it remained in the Culpeper family.

Later owners let the Hall to the Red Cross during the First World War for use as a convalescent home for servicemen with TB and then the British Legion took over in 1925 followed by the NHS in 1948. A village was built in the area around it to provide homes and workshops for the convalescing men. One famous patient was George Orwell who received treatment at Preston Hall between 15 March - 1 September 1938.

Sunday catch up

Today is Sunday. I expect you know that… and instead of staying in London until Thursday, I am leaving to go home to Kent because my mother has also (in addition to my Dad who broke his pelvis a few weeks ago) had a funny turn and a fall. She is fine; her confidence is shaken but she’s not broken physically.

What else?

Oh yes. I had my industry day yesterday with the Literary Consultancy. I think this deserves a full post so I will do that tomorrow.

It only remains to say that words this week were only 1498. I am rather pleased with any words at all. But once settled at my parents, I think I shall be able to get on again. I look forward to hearing Sheepish's words... there'll be no threats about putting her in the hot wash from me today... just a feeble arm raised to toast her wordcount win and thank her for keeping my nose to the grindstone.

Landscapes

Last year, on my trip to Kent, I told you about discovering the lavender fields somewhere near Sevenoaks (or Threeoaks as Son calls it after the great storm in 1987.)

This year, I was really excited about driving over to Castle Farm again during my month in the UK. I wanted to stand at the edge of the field, to gaze at the purple stripes of lavender, undulating away. The first time they had made me gasp out loud when our train flew past them.

So when we landed a month ago, I looked out for them as our train sped away from London into Kent. And there they were. The tiniest hint only of the purple to come, just lines of small, round, mostly green shrubs.

Each time I caught the train to or from London, I obsessed about my seat; desperate to be on the correct side to catch the startling view of the lavender over the Downs.

Over the four weeks with each train trip it changed, ripening. I planned, tried to identify when I could get over to the Farm to stand and inhale the perfume, the view. I knew that I would take scores of pictures, all of which would look exactly the same as last year’s photos but I still wanted to get over there.

Time was running out, not just for me, but for the lavender too. I knew from last year that they would harvest at the end of July.

And then three days before I flew back to Bangkok I was on the train for the final time. I crossed my fingers and hoped that they hadn’t harvested yet; perhaps and I could get over to the farm during the weekend. I gazed out of the window, waiting for the purple fields to appear in front of me but all I saw were shrubs, rich green, in neat rows disappearing over the hill. I’d missed it.

I was a bit sad but hey, I saw them from the train. I watched them ripen over June and July.

On my last day, I went off to a car boot sale in Sissinghurst with my sister and a couple of her friends. On the way back I spotted another Kent vision. This is a disappearing-from-the-landscape vision: a field of hops.

Being back in Bangkok

Oh, it is lovely to be back.

When I ‘phoned my parents to tell them I had arrived, I could hardly believe I had been at my childhood home, six thousand miles away, just the day before. The only evidence of this strange time travel was my dizziness and the fact that Monday was only a few hours long.

The bit of Monday I did have was a slither of the late afternoon and evening before Daughter disappeared for a sleepover (life goes on even when mum returns from two weeks away.) I caught them up by telling tales from Kent and they told me bits from Bangkok life and then Husband, Son and I watched Slumdog Millionaire. I stayed awake!

Life really began again on Tuesday. Only a couple of hours after getting up, I lay down on my bed ‘to read’ and had to sleep again: horizontal is a very dangerous position to be in after time travel. (Oh my bed! My pillow, oh they are divine and the shower, my mugs…) Having put myself back on UK time with my nap, Daughter and I went shopping and gossiping, past her bedtime… Eek (The shops stay open ‘til 10pm here.)

I do wonder if this culture hopping/time travelling will ever feel normal. Or perhaps it’s me? Am I making it worse by being conscious of it each time I do it in order to keep it alive for my writing?

Still, who cares? It might be odd, but it is lovely to be back.

New bag for life

But I'm on my way back to Bangkok...

Introducing Leo

Regular readers might remember the demise of poor old Flicka, my parents’ dog back in November 08.

Several dogless weeks passed and then my sister spotted a notice about a litter of local puppies that would soon be ready for homes. She and our Dad set out to have a look. And that’s how they found him. Both parents are working dogs: Dad is a gun dog and Mum, a sheep dog. Leo is a love but I think he might be crossed with a kangaroo as well.

He has had a colourful few months at my Mum and Dad’s. At Easter he broke through the Fort Knox type gate across the bottom of the stairs and stole a chocolate egg. For anyone who doesn’t know, chocolate contains theobromine which is dangerous for dogs. Poor Leo was horribly unwell for three days. I’ll spare you the details, just in case any of you are eating, but the kitchen tiles had to be removed and destroyed … as you can see from the pic the floor has returned to some tiles I remember from my childhood.

There are four cats here. Two, HP and Ketchup, are my parents’ and the other two, Peanut and Custard, are my sister’s. Custard is sweet but aptly named: cowardy, cowardy Custard. He lives upstairs and accesses the garden through a series of catflaps that never require him to come face to face with a canine. HP and Ketch are elderly and pretty stoical about the bouncing dog; they’re buggered if they’re going to run from him.

A couple of days ago Peanut came over the stair gate and Leo appeared from nowhere, 0-80mph from prostrate. Peanut, claws attempting purchase on the lino, reacted with a run toward the kitchen, where Dad was making supper. On hearing the commotion of scrabbling paws, Dad turned in time to see Peanut take flight from nearly two metres away. He glided through the air, landing out of the dog’s reach, on the kitchen table, with one paw in the shepherd’s pie.

Last night Leo started obedience training.

Hello again

I’ve had a lovely break but I think I’m back now.

I’ve been in the UK for a bit over a week and I have a bit under a week remaining. The weather – as you can see from yesterday’s post – has been beautiful though often chilly after the 40° heat I left in Bangkok. (Never have I been so grateful to get away…) The days are disappearing fast and I fear I won’t catch up with everyone I had hoped to see. Still, the kids and I are back at the end of June…

I’ve been doing some of the dutiful daughter tasks that are impossible to do from Bangkok. I took Dad to the hospital, the dog to the vet, then the dog back to the vet, picked up and dropped off nieces, shopped for my Mum… In between those duties I’ve managed two days in London.

One day I met friends at the London Book Fair (oh I can but dream…) and waylaid Becky Swift and Jess of The Literary Consultancy with whom I am doing my mentoring. It was so nice to meet them. I also met up with Leigh, who I already knew and SueG, HelenMH and DJ, none of whom I had met in the flesh before. We had a lovely, relaxed time among all things bookish. The following day I met another friend. We had gorgeous food which made up for the decidedly dodgy sandwich at LBF.

My sister and I made a 24 hour dash to Wiltshire to see our brother. We squeezed it in between dropping nieces with their Dad and getting back to the village for my sister’s band practice. The trip involved gorgeous food (more than I could imagine possible in only twenty four hours) and a hike up a hill, which I doubt offset the quantity of food.

Tomorrow I'll check in with news of my parents' gorgeous new puppy, Leo. Finally, a picture: I’ve had my hair cut (hurrah), I’ve bought a few bits of clothing and *cough* one or two books. One pile is new books and the other is secondhand.

Taste of my childhood.

My parents live next door to a big field that used to be a cherry orchard in my youth. Every summer a family of travellers (I am fairly sure they were the same family each year though my memory may fail me) would purchase the rights to the fruit. The whole extended family would move down and live in caravans, in time for the fruit to begin ripening.

Of course selling the cherries was the aim, but that wasn’t all there was to the job. As the cherries began to ripen so the birds had to be kept away from eating the fruit and they used several methods for this. One was to have several weasely dogs that ran around the orchard yapping; another was scarecrows and the last device was what I knew as ‘cherry bangers.’ Quite simply this was what sounded like a cross between a shotgun firing and a very loud clap. I’ve no idea how these were set off but they went off all day, every day. Visitors would remonstrate but we hardly heard them any more.

By way of compensation for being next door to what they worried was a nuisance, a large bucket full of cherries would be passed regularly over the hedge for us to consume.

They were lovely people. On the day of my maternal grandmother’s funeral they closed up shop for the day, out of respect. My mother was so touched.

They put a sign on the gate, saying ‘No cheeries today.’

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.

The Garden of England

Normally I tell you about life in Bangkok. Today I’ve been driving round, taking pictures and I’m going to tell you about where I'm staying now, coming back here makes me feel I’m a bit in love again.

I grew up in the Weald of Kent. The name derives from the Anglo Saxon for ‘forest’ or ‘wild’ and actually stretches from Hampshire, through Surrey to Kent. I don’t think any of these areas are particularly wild anymore, but it’s very beautiful: Kent itself is known as the Garden of England. Where I live is a farming area, crops mostly but animals too. Living in Bangkok, I miss a lot of the landscape but the oast houses are among my favourite part of the landscape and I have a desperate hankering to live in one.

Oast houses are farm buildings in which hops are processed. Hops have been grown in this area since around the 16th Century – in the last fifty years they have almost disappeared from the landscape although they were grown all over my immediate locale during my childhood. Hops add bitterness to beer so there are more hops in ‘bitter’ than in ‘lager’ and as lager has gained in popularity so hop farming has declined. The hop fields have almost entirely disappeared here now, which I think is a tragedy, but we are left with these amazing buildings most of which have been converted into homes. You really can't drive 3/4 of a mile without seeing one in the distance or just over the hedgerow.

Hop bines grow up to five feet, up coir string supported by permanent poles and wires. They’re harvested in September in a 6 week period, and traditionally casual workers from London’s East End would bring the family down for a holiday in Kent to pick the hops. They are picked and dried out in the oasts – they build a fire at the bottom on the building, spread out the hops on a grid and the white top – the cowl – turned in the wind to circulate the air.