The Thrones Of Grass

As passing through Dymchurch is unavoidable we decide to take look at this charming and ancient town at the edge of the word….Waaaaagh!  They have a funfair the size of Alton Tower shoehorned into a village the size of Midsomer Worthy. It looks like someone has dropped a bomb in a lego factory – our visit ends before the car engine has stopped. We travel back through Romney Marsh, stopping at villages impervious to the passage of time;  Newchurch, where a decrepit old woman with an eyepatch gives us the full neighbourhood watch stare whilst holding a stick.  Ivychurch, still decked with Christmas decorations from the previous year and its church modestly labelled ‘ The Cathedral of Romney Marsh’. The marshes are Dickensian, you can’t beat a gently breeze moving through thick reeds on an empty reen, and lockdown has stopped all the verge cutting and general fussing about landscape management: there are more wild flowers than I can remember and our much abused insect population can buzz around without fighting over the scraps of pollen we’ve left them on the side of the M25.

We drive home via Rye to ritually support the local economy.  The pensioners who usually shuffle the narrow streets from coach to tea room are not here – they’re locked in their homes afraid of dying.  We buy a guide to Derek Jarman’s garden and this irony is not lost on us, Jarman was a brave fighter of injustice and prejudice who was killed by a global disease nobody really gave a fuck about.

 

I wonder if the porpoises have moved on.