Day Thirteen

Bear with me on this one. I am trying to get all sorts of jobs underway, but repeatedly find that, in order to make progress, I am having to journey through time.

Elham is first mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon Charter of 855 AD, and later in the Domesday Book of 1086. Evidence of neolithic occupation includes hand-axes and flint scrapers. There are Bronze Age remains, including tumuli; Roman coins and pottery; and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in neighbouring Lyminge. St Mary's church dates from 1200; the market square dates from 1251; a large Tudor building greets people who alight buses from Folkestone. All that said, the village emanates a strong sense of the nineteenth century. The population of Elham in 1881 was 1,192, and today, 140 years later, it is 1,465. A railway, the Elham Valley Line, ran from Canterbury to Folkestone between 1887 and 1947, with a station at Elham, but the first world war closed the line after which significant passenger traffic never returned. Elham had its own brick works, a chalk pit, a ropery and two windmills: the district was largely economically self-sufficient. Cherry Gardens and Cherry Tree Lane point to former orchards

As well as the Anglican church, Elham also has a Methodist church, a village hall, a primary school, a GP surgery, two pubs, a restaurant, a tea room, an estate agents, and a very small shop. A pub, a bookshop and an antique shop all closed down in recent years. The smallest post office imaginable is hosted a few days each week in the King's Arms, and a mobile library visits Elham for twenty minutes every Thursday morning.

Looked at from a different standpoint, the nearest (expensive) petrol is 4.5 miles away, the nearest (cheaper) petrol is 6.5 miles away; the nearest supermarket is also 6.5 miles away; the nearest shopping centre (Folkestone), including banks, is 8 miles away; the nearest cinema for us (Canterbury) is 12 miles away. The nearest railway stations are in Folkestone and Canterbury. We have to buy heating oil because Elham is not on the natural gas network. There is no cable broadband, and the BT broadband signal fluctuates wildly. BBC radio signals are poor. There is no Vodafone signal at all, and the O2 signal is patchy. Elham is due east from Gatwick airport, and every evening a huge number of jet planes overfly on their way to continental Europe and the Middle East.

It seems that we have chosen to live in a place that, despite witnessing the aerial dog-fights of the Battle of Britain, has avoided many of the ravages of  the twentieth century, but as a consequence has been substantially by-passed, and is now something of a little world of its own. I am reminded variously of Brigadoon, The Shire and the Island of Sodor. Whilst both attractive and desirable, perhaps there is something a little unrealistic about living in a place that has a kennels for the local fox hunt, but very few of the features of twenty-first century life in an economically- and technologically-developed country.

Day Twelve: A New Rhythym

A different rhythm both to my day and to my week is starting to emerge. It is no longer the mechanical rhythm of commuting to and from paid employment five days each week, my hourly schedule regulated by the clock, fitting food shopping, cooking and leisure into evenings and two-day weekends. Nor is it the kind of relaxed daily routine into which one slips during a holiday, in which the week as a whole follows a schedule but no rhythm.

My week still retains a reasonable differentiation between the days: so, for instance, I still cook pancakes for Sunday breakfast, and we have returned to attending the Sunday morning Quaker meeting. Most mornings I walk between four and eight miles before breakfast, and as a result am getting to know the geography of the area, and to encounter people out jogging or exercising their dogs.

It is hard to ignore the fact that we have committed ourselves to a massive undertaking, and there is an enormous mountain to be climbed. My temptation is to press on relentlessly. However, as a friend pointed out, it is important to try to pace oneself. I recognise that from mid-morning until lunchtime my energy will be higher, and I feel readier to embark on heavier work. This morning I launched into carving an office out of a solid block of still-full packing boxes. The crowning achievement was re-assembling and setting up my desk-top computer. Afternoons bring with them a serious risk of flagging, so I try to do something less strenuous (than box shifting) that involves lots of movement. On several occasions last week the activity was grass cutting; today it was skip (dumpster) diving. A few days ago I spotted some wooden palettes beside a skip. Today I was able to request the palettes, and removed them on a sack barrow (station porter's trolley), palette by palette, wheeling each noisily along the road. My intention is to construct a two-bin garden compost unit, for which wooden palettes are reputed to be ideal. Nous verrons. By the time I had rescued seven wooden palettes, two large, palette-like wooden crates and five 60 cm concrete kerb stones, it was nearly time to start vegetable preparation for dinner. However, I was determined to rearrange the kitchen before I started the cooking. This was not a distraction activity, just trying to make the slowly emerging space work a little more efficiently.

After dinner, we each visit Facebook to catch up with people. The living room is still solid: which is how it will remain until I have some furniture straps with which to secure the book shelves, and as a result we are unable to watch television (a situation about which I do not feel especially unhappy, although my daughter does). It is usually well after midnight when, having drunk a hot (soya-)milky drink, I switch off the bedside light.

Day Eleven: A trip to Samphire Hoe

A brisk 90 minute walk at dawn, up hill and down dale, decorated like a William Morris design with the usual complement of rabbits, squirrels and assorted birds. Nearly back in Elham, I greeted an old, old man dressed in his Sunday best, on his way to church. I slowed to his pace and we talked about how he had recently moved to Elham, along with his daughter and son-in-law, having spent much of their life in and around Romford, Essex. Sadly, he had lost his son seven years ago, and his wife twenty years ago. A passing neighbour greeted him as "George". We parted at the lytch gate. Almost every day someone stops to talk with me. It was the same sitting in the garden of the Quaker Meeting House in Canterbury later that morning - Friends came over to talk.

In the afternoon we visited Samphire Hoe, a somewhat underwhelming country park beneath the Shakespeare Cliffs, created from land reclaimed from the sea by the spoil removed from the construction of the Channel Tunnel. The car park was nearly full: clearly a popular destination for a Sunday 'blow'. Samphire, sea cabbage and sea buckthorn (sanddorn in German - we encountered sanddorn saft in Stralsund last summer) were all thriving in the harsh littoral environment. A stiff breeze was whipping up the white horses as we walked over a kilometre along the sea wall. At the far end of the walk, a middle-aged man with his young daughter were standing watching the waves crash onto a pebble beach and sibilantly scour the shingle. Without ambiguity his appearance, including a lengthy beard, showed him to be an Orthodox Jew. A little while later, as we were arriving back at the car park, he approached me, explaining that his car battery had failed, and asked if I could help restart his car using jump leads. From the other side of the car park I drove our car over to his, and opened the bonnet to expose the car battery. His (now) three daughters were all in their car, and his wife hovered, expressing considerable gratitude. I concluded that the length of my beard, and having a daughter, must have allowed him to feel a sufficient degree of association that, out of the many people in the car park, he felt comfortable requesting my help.

Day Ten: The Concert

Today was emotionally dominated by one event - The Concert. Twelve of Elham's ukulele group shared a platform with the Cherry Town Warblers (a Cheriton community choir) in All Souls church, Cheriton (a suburb of Folkestone). The choir performed some songs a capella, whereas others were accompanied by a keyboard and a flute, and some were accompanied by the ukuleles. Half the concert was given over to the ukulele group alone, playing (and singing) a medley of Beatles, Buddy Holly and other '50s and '60s numbers (including, oddly, the Postman Pat theme song). Fortunately, I had had a few days to practice some of the songs, but saw others just once last Monday, and had to sight-read one (which rather took me by surprise).

Apart from a few ukulele-accompanied songs at a Durham community association Christmas fete, and a quick flash-mob in Durham City centre, this was my first proper concert playing a musical instrument. There was an audience of three dozen, and they paid good money (three pounds) for their evening's entertainment. 

I wonder if the ukulele group might secure some paid gigs (like in The Blues Brothers).

Day Nine

It is unreasonable to expect everything to go well all the time, especially having made radical changes in one's life. Today was a day when some things went wrong, and other things just didn't happen.

I felt fatigued when I woke up, but determined to make some space in a room we have been calling my 'study', but I think I shall revert to my preferred term: my 'office'. I turfed countless heavy boxes out into the hall, and because I have not yet moved them back, it almost impossible to use the front entrance to the house.

I needed some furniture straps to secure book cases to walls, so decided to drive to B and Q and Homebase in Folkestone. After spending ages scouring their aisles I was unable to find any in either, as a result of which I did not have time to do a supermarket shop. I also needed to get to the Post Office, the bank and the council offices, but failed at the latter for the second time. When things go wrong or don't work out, questioning whether we have done the right thing (most of the time, lurking in the shadows) skulks more openly.

I guess that there are bound to be demoralising days.

Day Eight (Week Two)

We have now been moved in for a week. I doubt that we have yet managed to unpack ten percent of the boxes which, in some rooms, remain four or five deep. I doubt that we shall have fully unpacked before Christmas. At least the kitchen has become sufficiently functional to permit the preparation of a full roast (vegan) dinner.

I shoveled gravel, and lugged paving slabs from a variety of locations, in order to improve wheelchair access at the rear of the house (we await a ramp from social services to help with the front entrance).

I have produced (and part shredded) huge heaps of woody prunings, although the garden close to the house still looks like a set in Jurassic Park. I spent several hours making myself very travel sick cutting the grass using the ride-on tractor mower - it sounds as though it should be fun, but not for me.

I found a neighbour's cat in our kitchen - maybe a sign that it is now time to acquire our own felines.

Day Seven: Welcome To The Arboretum

We live in an arboretum. I have by no means fully enumerated the number and variety of the trees. The property is infamous for the massive line of Leylandia that camouflages the house from the road (yesterday a visitor had to return to Ashford having driven past several times and failed to find us). The huge poplar trees that mark a far corner of the property are visible from elsewhere in the Elham Valley. A different corner is marked by willow trees. There is a majestic yew, and a tall and elegant silver birch. Several varieties of conifer are vying to attract the term pinetum. The mature sycamore outside the bedroom window was hacked back to trunk and a few limbs at some point last year. A horse-chestnut is reaching towards maturity. There are at least three dead trees, bare, gnarled and twisted, as though props in a production of Macbeth. Overgrown stands of hazel (awaiting pollarding), hawthorn and elder can be found in several places. I discovered an apple tree hidden in the Jurassic Park shrubbery. There remain many trees that I have not yet identified.

It is something of a jungle, with nettles two metres tall, and thistles with stems as thick as my arm. There are drifts of cuckoo pint which flick intensely poisonous sap into my face when I strim. The yew trees, the leaves and berries of which are also fatally poisonous, require some serious management. Some of the shrubs have thorns that would have not embarrassed the movie set of Jumanji. My wife found a spider in the kitchen: it was the size of a saucer. I shudder to think what reptiles live in the jungle.

Day Six: A Trip To Dungeness

Trip to Romney Marsh and Dungeness. I was proud of having successfully navigated my way across the Marsh, simply relying on my sense of direction. Despite the looming presence of the hideous nuclear power station, Dungeness is fascinating. It is Britain's only official desert, and consists of one of the largest expanses of shingle in the world, yet has an amazingly rich bio-diversity. We watched dolphins catching their afternoon tea. The photogenic wooden shacks, scattered across the shingle landscape, are like out of a (cowboy) Western movie: the late Derek Jarman (movie director) owned one of the shacks. Dungeness is the other terminus of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway, and seeing the little engine with its long train brought back memories of my only previous visit (by rail) in 1962.

Day Five: The Ukulele Group

The highlight of my day was attending Elham's ukulele group. I was welcomed with great enthusiasm, even though there were fifteen of us (which is quite a lot). We rattled through a lot of material. I had to sight-read all but one piece, which was exhilarating. Their overall approach is slightly more 'professional' than that of the Durham group, which suits me because it feels as though I shall be given the opportunity to develop.

Afterwards we retired to the Kings Arms where I started to learn people's names. They were highly impressed when they learned that I had made enquiries about the ukulele group even before moving to Elham - and it was not me who informed them of this.

We shall be performing in a ukulele concert in Cheriton (Folkestone) on Saturday evening. I have no idea for whom we shall be performing, but tickets are on sale.

Day Four: A Trip To Canterbury

Attended the Quaker Meeting in Canterbury. After the meeting people were so friendly. Bought some tempeh at Canterbury Wholefoods, and some cauliflowers and a cabbage at a farm shop in Broad Oak. Almost every time I drive from Canterbury to Elham I am able to find a different way home. It is delightful to live in such gorgeous countryside. Almost back in Elham I had to stop the car because a baby rabbit was sitting, probably petrified, in the middle of the narrow lane. My wife got out of the car and lifted the rabbit into the hedgerow.

Day Three: Visiting The Acrise Flower Festival

We visited Acrise Flower Festival, held in and around St. Martin's Church in Acrise. It was like stepping back in history. Hundreds of people turned out for a rural village fete straight out of The Archers, including a real coconut shy, ploughman's lunches, and historical photographs. The tiny, ancient church (a simple chancel and nave) was dressed with floral arrangements, and in the organ loft the village organist played Bach.

Day Two: A Trip To Howletts

Day Two began with a protracted thunderstorm and some much-needed rain, so instead of going for a walk in the rain I backed-up the contacts from my now-old Sony Xperia X1, and transferred them to my brand new Sony Xperia E, in preparation my cellphone number being ported from Vodafone to O2 - the Elham Valley must be the only place in the world without a Vodafone signal. The afternoon was given over to a restorative activity: a visit to nearby Howletts Animal Park. Famous for its gorilla colonies, Howletts is strongly animal oriented, focusing on breeding programmes for some of the most endangered species. I enjoyed spending a long time observing the gorillas behave in ways that are more natural to them in the wild. Seven million years ago the forebears of the gorillas I was watching would also have been my forbears.

Day One

Shuffling packing boxes as though in a three-dimensional version of the sliding tile puzzle; pruning bushes and trees that belong in a set for a Jurassic Park movie; inventively cooking with three sprouts, an olive, and some black pepper, or at least that's how it seemed.

Day Zero: Moving-in Day

A team of removers arrived in an articulated lorry. They unloaded, and unloaded, and unloaded (300 cubic metres) all our worldly goods, and then had to call in additional help. They left at tea time, and we are treading water in an ocean of of cardboard boxes. We also have telephony and broadband, and hot water. I already have council tax, water and electricity bills to pay, and the requisite forms to register with the local GP. It is strange that a simple statement such as "I live in Elham" appears to be made up of a multitude of confirmatory components, without which there would remain some uncertainty.

A time to scatter stones

10:17 

The removers are busy removing the final items of furniture, boxes of crockery, and disability-related equipment. At the moment this feels like moving-out day - although, interestingly not quite yet moving-on day - that comes a little later. Ecclesiastes 3: "A time to scatter stones."

13:06

The removers have gone, and all our possessions are trundling southwards in a lorry and articulated trailer. The house is empty and quiet. Soon my wife and daughter will be following in the wake of the lorry. At some point today BT will sever telephony, at which point I am recalled to all centuries prior to this. Once the estate agent has checked over the house and I have returned the keys, I shall close the door for the final time, and drive away. Crossing the Tees to the west of Darlington, I shall have left County Durham and the North East of England. 

End of Book Three.

Cooking pizze in a wood-fired pizza oven

Last night we sat beneath a starry sky, keeping warm in the 'afterglow' from the pizza oven: I cooked wood-smokey pizze in a real wood-fired pizza oven - a culinary first for me. Sadly, I did not prepare a vegan pizza for me, so only my wife and daughter benefited from the wood-smokey flavour.

It was an intensely summery activity: sitting outside beside a warm fire counting the stars as they twinkled into existence. Small pleasures. However, I resisted the temptation to inflict my ukulele playing on the immediate neighbours - I reserve that pleasure for when we move into our new house in Kent where there are no immediate neighbours on either side.

Less than a week to go

In less than a week we shall emigrate almost to France. I have forebears and relatives who emigrated variously to New Zealand, to Australia, to the United States, to Canada and to France; in addition to many former colleagues who emigrated to Australia. Even my father made it as far as Cornwall. Somehow, given all that context, emigrating to Kent really doesn't sound especially adventurous ... and yet, is that a television advertisement for Hovis bread I can hear, or is it simply nostalgia upsetting my tinnitus?

We have asked to transfer our membership of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) to East Kent Area Meeting, and will mostly attend Canterbury Friends Meeting. Folkestone Meeting is closest, but meets only fortnightly, and I am told is a small meeting. Ashford Meeting is also only small. Canterbury Meeting, which I have attended several times, is similar in size to Durham Meeting.

Good Energy

Moving house has presented us with the opportunity to select a new energy supplier. It has long been a matter of deep principle to me to distance myself utterly from nuclear power, and to move away from electricity produced by fossil fuels. I am happy that Good Energy both supports micro-generation and has its own wind farm.

Our future plans

We intend to make part of the house into a mid-price holiday let, especially to accommodate walkers (the area is thick with footpaths), vegans, people with physical disabilities and people who live in France (which is less than 30 miles away). I intend to replant the orchard with apples, pears, cherries, plums, damsons, greengages, mirabelles, and maybe some figs and persimmons. Some nut trees would be good. There will be substantial vegetable beds, and cages for soft fruit. A principal challenge will be to encourage the rabbits to emigrate (there are six warrens), to discourage the badgers from eating the intended strawberries, to dissuade the wood pigeons and collared doves from snaffling the buds and seedlings, and to re-educate the mole population about where it would be best to dig.

Soon to be on the move

We shall soon be on the move. We have bought a house between Canterbury and Folkestone. We shall be leaving Durham and moving to Kent in July. I shall have lived in Durham for almost 37 years, so this is a significant move. It will be sad to leave behind the people who have been part of my life for so long. However, it will be exciting to be creating a new life, especially so close to France and to London. 

The promise of multiple trips to Howletts, and a wealth of new places to visit in Kent, in and around London, In northern France, and elsewhere in continental Europe is part of what is pulling us towards this corner of the UK: new horizons beckon.