What else?

One day we had the car for the whole day so we went up towards Sevenoaks to Castle Farm, home to the Hop Shop. Long term readers will remember this trip the year before last. It was so unexpected that as I spotted them from the train, I gasped out loud. 

Of course they look exactly the same as last time but somehow, I don't tire of seeing them. They are so beautiful.

It didn't take long to admire them and visit the gorgeous shop so I suggested we shoot back down the A21 to the pebbly beach at Hastings. I've already blogged about the pebble angels it was a lovely afternoon but once we'd finished our lunch (chips) we set off home, via one more place. It is almost my favourite place (not) in Kent but just over the border into Sussex. I will cover that in tomorrow's blog.

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.

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.