Ahem
The English summer, impolite at the best of times, was damnably rude: it left abruptly, neither saying goodbye, nor asking leave to withdraw, nor offering excuses for its sub-par performance over past weeks. In its place we had rolling grey clouds, morning mists, evening chills, and repetitive downpours. Perversely, it then returned in mid-month, but sheepishly, as if it had left its scarf behind, offering the miserable gratuity of a few Indian summery days, before the sky cried another river as populations of birds and weathered hopes flew south.
I toiled in the allotment when it didn’t rain, often with Max lying contentedly nearby in the grass, and by the end of the month the ground looked more like a potential vegetable patch for 2025 than had been the emergent mini-rainforest that I had first surveyed. This was less about digging or hoeing than dragging out and removing all the gardening detritus clustered with vines and bindweed. Together with the weeds, there were rusty tools, heating devices, cheap tarpaulins, fencing, wooden posts, wire, plastic sheets, tin cans, and the shards of an entire greenhouse gusted high by a storm, then dropped in a jagged pile in the corner. I also removed a dingdong sign in bouncy script hung on the shed door: “Grumpy’s Shed”.
We had a convivial drink in our under-used conservatory with our neighbours Gary, Amy, and their daughter Maeva, who developed a liking for Max. Our garden shed is now semi-detached into a tool shed and a small garden office with table and shelves. Our garden continues to thrive and grow under Alli’s care, with plants now covering a large part of the available space. The pond plants were bursting their banks, and most have now been removed after a decisive visit from the pond-guru. So open is the new pondular space, the numerous goldfish are even re-introducing themselves. I imagined an aquatic tea-dance intercourse: “Do you come here often?”, “I haven’t seen YOU around recently!”, “Well hello, stranger!”, and for the magical realists: “I NEVER saw you in the time of weeds!”.
Alli’s birthday was celebrated with a suitably sophisticated dinner in Squisito, a small Italian restaurant in Lewes, and a picnic with Jessie and Jurrat in the excellent Beacon Down vineyard near Heathfield. The morning rain abruptly stopped when we got out of the car, exactly as if we had switched it off at the mains. Later, Alli made a ceremonial visit to inspect my clearance work at the allotment during the afternoon as I collected a seed catalogue and joined Uckfield’s Worshipful Company of Sweary Allotment Holders. Alli then suggested that she might be getting interested in the project (having no space left to make changes in our garden). This encouraging news prompted me to phone a few friends. So in the evening the entire population of Uckfield came down our road to pay us a processionary tribute, with banners, hoods, burning torches and wearing everything from fishnet tights to American Indian whoop-heavy battledress. It was a quite a carnival for such an apparently sleepy little town. Uckfield’s is always the first in the county’s unique tradition, and the villages and towns of East Sussex will be carnivalling each weekend until November’s climax in Lewes. This is where bonfires, smoke, and rhythmic chants will spice the night mist while flaming crosses and fireworks splay across the black sky, honouring the Lewes martyrs once again.
Alli and I enjoyed a lunch at The Sloop in Scaynes Hill with our friends Mary and Brian, although the company was ten times better than the meal, and free rather than stupidly expensive. Jessie and Jurrat came over to bring Jaxon, their Staffie, to stay with us while they were away at a wedding in the Cotswolds, and also before they went off to La Hune for a well-earned few days with their friends. My friend Charlie came down from Barnsley for a few sunny days and I took him to Brighton to visit the Royal Pavilion, the Lanes and the North Laine. We also saw the Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters.
On the second day we walked all over hilly Lewes and visited the castle with its wide views of the Downland countryside, and the Anne of Cleves House. Despite being gifted the house in a divorce settlement from Henry VIII, the uncrowned queen never lived in it. She kept her head, living quietly in Rochester for the rest of her life. Alli cooked some delicious meals, including a raclette, Charlie’s first. Several local pubs were assessed: The Basketmakers’ Arms in Brighton, the Hare and Hounds in Framfield, the Highlands, the Alma, and the Ringles Cross in Uckfield, and the Laughing Fish in Isfield.
On the third day, we went to see ‘Bloomin’ Marvellous’, an exhibition of Raymond Briggs and his best known work, The Snowman, at the Ditchling Museum. The exhibition offered many fascinating personal insights into Briggs’s determined humanity, which included a fiery pacifism, especially on show in his books When the wind blows and The Tin-Pot General and the Old Iron Woman. The museum was amazing. A dusty wooden hut has quickly become a cool, modern museum with a Tardis interior and an information hub on the village and its history.
Yours from across the spectrum,
Lionel