Jane Metcalfe

Today I thought I’d carry on my walk further down the alley looking for the allotments I remembered. Well I had no luck. I’m pretty sure I needed to go right somewhere, though where? It’s odd but after likening my walk to an alternate reality yesterday, I had the distinct feeling that the order of things had been rearranged once again. I didn’t meet a soul. I heard and glimpsed flashes of families out in gardens between the cracks of dense wooden fences, but nobody out walking the dog. But then social distancing would have been an issue – if indeed that existed in this reality. One of us would have had to flatten ourselves against brambles and nettles to create the required two metres. Maybe that’s why I was left to enjoy my little world. 

It came to me that if we are not directly involved in the events that exist on the news, in the papers, online, it is not actually our reality. We are like bit players in a disaster movie: hired but not used. Of course it would be very different if we had a main part. Certainly the attitude that is healthiest for us is to stay aware and informed yet to live in the present that we actually inhabit. If anything changes then we will act accordingly in a different present. Meanwhile sunshine, fresh air, exercise whilst enjoying the fruits of this particularly radiant gift of a spring, is the best thing for us.

The wild garlic was a surprise. Next time I’ll take a bag collect some leaves and make a wild garlic soup!

Have you noticed how many men are out with their small children? Well I’ve noticed a few. This most delightful father and young daughter were crouching down together just off a path in the park early this morning. He was clearly showing her a plant, carefully parting the shrubbery so she could waddle nearer to whatever it was. Her bottom went up in the air like a duck as she buried her face in the invisible wonder. He was so gentle and loving; one could see by the way he carefully steadied her, every gesture in time with the slowly unfolding day: The natural grace of tai chi.

This time of unexpected reprieve from work for many has its up side. There is time to enjoy your children, to introduce them to the natural wonders that no HD nature programme can convey. To bury your nose in sweet earth, to smell the scent of real blossoms and leaves: so far removed from rose room freshener and the like. This is another country. A world that exists happily without us thank you very much! 

It makes my heart ache and soar at times like these for that which is so precious.

Dogs, dogs and more dogs! I love this aspect of my walks. In fact I positively look forward to it. There have been quite a few cartoons flying around with dogs slumped on sofas with captions like, “I’ve been taken out by every member of the household and I’m exhausted” type of thing. I see dogs of all types perkily trotting or plodding, stouter ones dawdling, on the lead, or off, chasing balls and stones, in the park or on the beach. In my little park there’s always a sniffing competition or a circling game in progress whilst owners chat at a distance. But there isn’t one dog that seems reluctant to be walked by their stir-crazy owners once, twice or four times a day.

I love dogs; always have. I don’t have one because I like my independence but I don’t feel deprived as I get my fill of them here. In the past few years St. Leonard’s has become Doglington-on-Sea. Delighted down-from-Londoners stroll along the prom with their designer dogs side by side with good old Staffys, Rottys, German Shepherds and the like. I love it: glad my walking day is populated with such an array of uncomplicated creatures.

This is Stanley, a shingle-toned Labradoodle with his happy mistress who tells me she moved down in December and loves it more than she can say, as she sniffs the air with a sense of sheer delight. I tell her I was new once: down-from-London 35 years ago this May… 

What an interesting day! I checked my email this morning and there was a note from a cousin I have not heard of for years. Our family was rather a disparate one. There were little feuds and standoffs that resulted in me growing up not knowing many of my cousins. But I knew Martin who was a couple of years younger than me and very shy (at that time.) They didn’t live near us but my mother and his mother (they were sisters and fond of each other) would meet in London and we’d go to Lyon’s Corner House on the corner (of course!) of Trafalgar Sq and The Strand. I remember having the biggest knickerbocker glory I’ve ever eaten. I can still see the glace cherry on top – the only bit I didn’t like because it tasted like poison! It was left with its sickly glaze on the side of the doily-ed plate. 

The big thing for tourists in those days was the strolling photographer who would take pictures of you feeding the pigeons (not poisoning them with glace cherries!) by the fountains. This photo of the two of us taken in the 1950s is a rare surviving image of my childhood, as many photos were lost in a burglary years ago.

So tonight for the first time in fifteen years Martin and I chatted. It was interesting hearing his side of old family stories, but it mainly got me thinking that a positive side of this current situation is that it has brought me back into contact with my family. I am sure there must be others who have found the same. This is a time when the present day band of friends and family may expand to include those from our distant past. An adventure that has overtaken my walk experience today.

Up Maze Hill, left at upper Pevensey Rd into the genteel, timeless area that goes down to Archery Rd where the old Hastings College and a little round of trees used to stand; all razed to the ground; and now smug houses or flats rise half-baked by builders,, dreamt up as a tasteful housing option by urban architects – for those who can afford inflated prices.
Many of us just want to live in harmony with enough, not always too much; too soon tiring of acquiring the perishable.

Nature springs up year after year from roots firmly in the ground. No temporal buildings to huff and puff down by the elements. Nature survives, works with, bends with, adapts to the elements. Not so cement, steel, brass.

All the beauty of the seed turned ripe is in this photo of a little front garden just as Pevensey Rd curves snake like round to Boscobel Rd, where all is less ostentatious, yet still quietly its unpretentious self.