Ahem
Alli and I were up and early on Good Friday to be driven with Ella to Gatwick by Sam. There we met Gwen, Jurrat, and Jessie just after 6am, in plenty of time for our short flight to Jersey, a channel island that is a British Crown dependency; but formally, geologically, and constitutionally, it is neither part of England nor the United Kingdom.
This was our daughters’ typically and imaginative generous Christmas present to Alli and me. Thanks to Ella’s meticulous yet flexible itinerary, we were already visiting sites in our rented 6-seater, had eaten a good brunch, and completed a wine tour and tasting at La Mare Wine Estate before we had even checked in at our hotel. We were efficiently embarked upon a genuine tour of discovery since no one had been there before.
The Jersey War Tunnels were built by imported slave labour during the Nazi German occupation during the war. In a significant military miscalculation, the island was left defenceless by the wartime British government when it could have better played its historical role as a militarised fortress. We wandered around the tunnels, learning historical insights with every step.
The fortress was Elizabeth Castle, dating back to the heady reign of its eponymous monarch, when Sir Walter Raleigh was Governor of Jersey. I became involved in a conversation with a man in battle dress. He told me about how the castle gave refuge to Charles II (as a young boy) in 1645 during the English Civil War, and about the Battle of Jersey in 1781 against the French (relations between the English and French were at an all-time low), before he excused himself, stepped out of the armoury, and joined his comrades in firing their muskets for the midday parade. Alli met a woman who was doing some contemporary crochet or knitting.
We walked to the Corbiere Lighthouse, surrounded by 600-million-year-old Precambrian granite rocks, and the Mont Orgeuil Castle in Gorey, surrounded by Armorican bedrock and vast stretches of sandy beaches. Our daughters went on the Easter Saturday Jersey parkrun and we all enjoyed a stroll around the Botanical Gardens of Samares Manor as well as drinks and dinner in the Royal Square at the Cock & Bottle.
We breakfasted well at the Good Egg, Off the Rails, and The Yard, and had fine dining at the Bass & Lobster and the Oyster Box, where I re-discovered cuttlefish. It was a brilliant and inspired weekend of history, geology, and culture, good food, and lots of fun, aka our family’s essential requirements. I even saw a couple of probably misplaced dolmens.
Back in Uckfield, Alli was hard at work in the garden even as the irritable spring made its laboured start. She spray-cleaned the terrace and front, which changed colour abruptly as if they had been washed down with bleach. A visiting professional (Zak) efficiently but separately cleared a long-blocked drain and another (Darren) replaced the stair and upstairs corridor carpet. I brought yet another (Steve) in to inspect and improve our internet reach and re-attach our printer after Alli’s favourite builder (Mick) had fixed the loft cupboard doors and erected a new wooden arch in the garden for the honeysuckle.
I joined the Uckfield Chamber of Commerce, becoming the first and only listing in their new category of “writer”. I realised I needed to brush up my “elevator” speech about what I do and who I am, after going to a Chamber lunch in Piltdown later in the month and being reminded of the agonies of corporate self-expression. Or maybe I won’t bother. Nevertheless, I await the flood of work offers. Meanwhile, I received with considerable relief an offer to publish my international best-selling historical novel. I am now discussing a draft contract sent shortly afterwards, although I am set on re-writing parts of my original draft after receiving helpful comments from an agent who had turned it down.
Dog-walks moved quickly from navigating waves of wild garlic to photographing processions of bluebells. By the end of the month, spring was up and clothed. The woods and gardens, including our own, were proud to show it. One Friday evening, Alli and I went to Brighton to attend a spring wine festival of tasting in St Mary’s Church in Kemptown, where Jessie was participating on behalf of Butlers Wine Cellars, for whom she is pleased to work at the weekends. Jessie is learning a lot about wines and was passing on some of this knowledge to customers in the shop and others. I bought a few promising bottles that I will reserve for our occasional dinner parties with favoured guests (unless we chug the lot before in short shrift). Jurrat made us a fine dinner before we joined the tasting. On the following sunny day Alli spent seven hours transforming J3’s terrace and front garden (planting, re-potting, weeding, watering) while I shuffled about between dog walks, reading in the sun, buying the wine, and welcoming and signing in a new tenant to our flat. I revisited the impressive Queen’s Park, not far from J3’s place, but I’m not sure if our old dog Max remembered that he had been walking around there too a couple of years ago.
The month ended in an unusual and coolly unplanned streak of three gigs in four days, one in Brighton, one in Hassocks (these with Jessie), and one in London with Gwen. The first of these was a jazz night with a young pianist, Roella Oloro, at the highly prized Verdict Club. It was interesting but not always compelling, although the drummer was very good. The second was the Julian Taylor Band, featuring Michele Stodart (from the Magic Numbers) playing at the Hassocks . They were bright, positive, and exciting, with a deep and broad range from anguished blues to hard rock. The third was Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, “rapt in fatalism and sorrow”, according to the NYT. I thought they were dark, dreamy, and occasionally dreary. Henry Grace, the support act, was more encouraging. I stayed the night in Gwen’s flat in Brixton, finally getting to sleep despite the unaccustomed traffic sounds outside.
Yours in stark contrast.
Lionel