The other day the family went for a walk around the local reservoir. It’s not that far and quite a quiet and picturesque place to be. It was calming. While there I took part in a photograph competition between some of my close friends. We also built a tree swing and had some fun rushing in an arc.
Burham Brick Lime and Cement Company
The area we walked through used to be a brick factory. It’s next to the river and in the old days bricks were cooked (?) here after the materials were taken from the North Downs. Then, they were placed on boats and shipped to wherever needed them. I do believe some ended up in Buckingham Palace.
Anyway, you can always find interesting things just lying around. Sometimes these are burnt out vehicles but other times these are discarded bricks with interesting insignia. See the picture I took of a 1910 brick. Someone somewhere will find that brick very interesting.
The village in which I live is under attack. The attack is probably the thing that is needed for the country. But I don’t like it and it’s raising lots of horrible feelings and selfishness. Part of the local council plan involves adding 900 houses to the village where I have lived for almost twenty years. I wrote about this before in this communication. 900 houses. Right outside my garden. It makes me angry while at the same time I know housing has to go somewhere and I’ve always thought that people who protest should accept progress for the greater good.
So, first I want to recognise the need for new housing. Apparently there is a need for lots of homes for people and they need to go somewhere. I suspect it is easier to build on fresh ground than to rework brownfield sites to make them habitable. We all know that the housing developers and land owners are in the back pockets of many Tories and probably lots of other MPs too. Where I live is like Tory world centre and most of the local councillors are that way inclined too. So I do believe that the housing companies get the easier route for more financial security rather than actually doing what is right for the environment and local communities. That said, there is a need for housing.
I live in Tonbridge and Malling local district. I live almost at the northern tip of the district. I live in the relatively poor part of the district. The southern area is much wealthier. Do I think there’s a correlation to where the new housing is going and the relative wealth of the area? Of course I do. The wealthy have the ability to fight these things or at least bribe their way to not having the new houses nearby. It’s always the poorer people who get fucked over by those in power because for the powerful it’s about power and money and nothing else really.
The Medway Gap area has had masses of housing development over the last twenty years and it continues. The company that owns the land, Trenport, I’ve written about before. They like to think they are doing good things I suspect but ultimately don’t care as long as they can make themselves more powerful and more wealthy. Here’s a picture of what land is going to be developed:
My Feelings Are Unsure About This
As you can see in the picture Eccles is the blob of housing just right of centre and the pink land is the area going to be developed. I’m pretty sure you can see that it’s all fields. Arable land for growing crops to feed this country. Now, to be clear, not all that land is going to be housing. Some of it will be made into recreational land along with a village car park and community centre. We already have a community centre, it’s the church and hall which can be used by locals. Parking is utter shit in my village but the new car park won’t be big enough, they never are. I think there’s a new shop involved there too but what happens to the current village shop?
All the land heading SW from the village of Eccles is my current view out the back of my house. I don’t really want that to change. I can see for miles. I can see fields and trees and the woods in the distance. It’s a calming positively enduring view that helps my mental health. It’s one of the reasons I bought this house.
I’ve looked at the “consultation” online and the questions are clever. One of them asks what I use the field for currently. Well, in reality I walk or run or cycle on the footpaths. The developers are going to keep the footpaths so that should make me happy but it doesn’t. The reason I walk along those particular footpaths is that the outdoor experience is best there. Wide open spaces in the middle of a barley field really make you feel good. Just having the footpath there through houses isn’t going to be the same.
I’m stuck. I don’t want this development. For mostly selfish reasons. I like my view. I like the fields. I like the ambiance of the village. It feels “country” while entirely surrounded by massive urban sprawl. I know we need houses. I just think there’s somewhere else they could go.
This is communication number 1956 so here are a couple of things that happened that year:
IATA finalises the phonetic alphabet.
96 US congress members sign a manifesto against de-segregation.
The last British troops leave Egypt.
The world’s first industrial scale nuclear power plant is opened at Calder Hall in England.
The village in which I live was primarily built for workers of the Burham Brick Lime and Cement Works Company based close by at the river front. The entire landscape around here was formed by the mining for materials. The brick works supplied bricks until around 1938 and the product was used for the building of the East Wing of Buckingham Palace. I’ve heard that the bricks in my house are the same type as those in the domain of the privileged.
If you wander around down near the reservoir and the river you will invariably see bricks lying around. This one below I took out of the ground out of sheer curiosity. It’s quite nice that these are just there for all to see.
I’ve noticed this apparition a few times recently. I’ve been out running to the east of the village and nearly fallen over past this tree. Well, it’s a mug tree, isn’t it. Any idea why?
Mug Tree
I have to say that it looks a little better in the winter and the mugs stand out more, but you get the idea. How very strange, but also, quite cool. I think that one of my mugs will end up on it soon.
Mug Tree
I am sure that some people could be convinced that this is a rare form of tree. One that grows mugs. Most major china exporters have more of them. Obviously.
The 18th July was a good day. It was the end of my twentieth year of my teaching career. It was also the hottest day of the year. My car said 33C at one point.
Phew! Just been for a 20 minute drive so I could feel vaguely human. Sorry earth, I will plant some trees! pic.twitter.com/KUxvlTt6iP
That night there was also the most almighty storm. I was sitting watching television when it went darker than normal and so I went into the garden. I saw a sight I can tell you. The sun was setting in the west and it was bright in that direction but to the east and south it was dark and foreboding. There was no noise but there was a lot of lightning over towards Maidstone.
Before The Storm
Lightning
After a while I could hear what I thought, at first, was rain but it was a slight breeze going through the nearby trees. Then all of a sudden the wind really picked up. It became a constant driving wind and then the rain came, large spots at first and then torrential. The lightning and thunder was just spectacular.
An Evil Arrives
These are two videos I took to show the electric storm over the Weald of Kent.
It’s such a shame that my iPhone camera doesn’t do very well in the low light. The moon has been gorgeous these last few mornings. A full moon and setting. Brilliant.
I’m amused by effects of our eyes on our perception of reality. To me, when I looked at the moon it seemed much larger than in the photo. My eyes and brain do a really good job of ignoring all the stuff I’m not interested in. To me, this view was mostly the moon and tree. My brain just chose to ignore all the houses and car. It will really freak you out once you start understanding perception of reality. We observe so little of what we see.
This communication is pretty much the limit of my Jubilee celebration. I’m not fussed about the monarchy, however, I do think they are the least worst out of all the governance options.
Eccles park on Jubilee day:
And for the jingoistic amongst you here’s a Union flag not quite blowing in the wind.
The end of one of the pubs in the Kent village of Eccles. It’s a bit of a shame really. They are going to build some houses on the ground because at least they’ll make money for the land-owners. We do have one pub left in the village and I guess I can’t complain as I went into the Walnut Tree just once in the 6 years it was open and I lived in the village.
![Burham Brick [ ] Works](http://fooyah.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/20200517_140803785_iOS-1024x768.jpg)
