Martin Jeffes in England
A Collection of his Writings
At the Hythe Venetian Fete
Introduction by Barry and Margaret Williamson
Martin founded, built and managed the Sakar Hills campsite in SE Bulgaria, before recently handing it over to his son Matt and retiring to the south coast of England. Near to the campsite Bulgaria meets Greece and Turkey, making a rare European triple point, which for forty-five years was the southern end of the Iron Curtain. It remains a place where cultures, languages, religions, histories and much else meet; a place where a bicycle takes you through the three countries on a magnificent circular ride. We should know!
What follows are just a few of the many words Martin has written over the years, words that create their own landscapes, populated by people whose activities are captured with a wry humour. Here we are at the interface of Bulgarians, English ex-pats and a heterogenous bunch of worldwide campers and tourists. Complementing this rich mix is Martin’s fascination with Bulgaria’s origins, using his trusty Land Rover to trace the remnants of Thracian and Roman occupation.
The following collection of Martin’s writings over the years is one of eight.
The other collections are:
Martin in Bulgaria and the Balkans
Martin in Australia
Martin in his Land Rovers
Grapevines One and Two
Grapevine Three
Grapevine Four
As well as many Photographs
Martin founded, built and managed the Sakar Hills campsite in SE Bulgaria, before recently handing it over to his son Matt and retiring to the south coast of England. Near to the campsite Bulgaria meets Greece and Turkey, making a rare European triple point, which for forty-five years was the southern end of the Iron Curtain. It remains a place where cultures, languages, religions, histories and much else meet; a place where a bicycle takes you through the three countries on a magnificent circular ride. We should know!
What follows are just a few of the many words Martin has written over the years, words that create their own landscapes, populated by people whose activities are captured with a wry humour. Here we are at the interface of Bulgarians, English ex-pats and a heterogenous bunch of worldwide campers and tourists. Complementing this rich mix is Martin’s fascination with Bulgaria’s origins, using his trusty Land Rover to trace the remnants of Thracian and Roman occupation.
The following collection of Martin’s writings over the years is one of eight.
The other collections are:
Martin in Bulgaria and the Balkans
Martin in Australia
Martin in his Land Rovers
Grapevines One and Two
Grapevine Three
Grapevine Four
As well as many Photographs
What Happened to MagBaz?
The answer to 'Whatever happened to Magbaz', could, if one is blessed with a fertile mind, run to volumes, but my answer to the question is 'nothing'. Magbaz is like the wind. It's far more now than you two old codgers, rattling round the countryside on your bicycles, and annoying your neighbours. Not many people get to create something that will stand the test of time, but I reckon you two have done it in spades."
Martin as Train Driver
Sometime around the turn of the century, I ran into a Scottish bloke, one lunchtime, in the pub in the village where our business was located.
His name was Alastair, and from his uniform it was apparent that he worked for our illustrious railway network After a bit of conversation, he informed me that he was a train-driver, upon which I remarked that I had always wanted to drive a train, more to encourage the continuity of the conversation than anything else. Some time later, as I was leaving, he said he would leave a message for me with the landlord, but would not elaborate on this. A couple of days later, when I was, again, in the same watering-hole, having lunch, I was given the message to meet Alastairat a station near Park Royal, west of London, on Friday evening at a given time.
Needless to say, Friday evening found me there at the appointed hour, and soon the slightly furtive figure of our village train-driver appeared, gave me a black jacket to put on, and told me to follow him across several sets of railway lines, before arriving at the great bulk of our electric locomotive, into which we climbed and after a few minutes set off to trundle a couple of miles to Park Royal sidings, where we were connected to a long, long line of wagons carrying containers. I recall we then sat around waiting for 'the off', for about twenty minutes, and, when eventually we did get going, it was almost dark. We were bound for Crewe, with something like nine hundred tonnes of freight behind us. The first surprise for me, my eyes having adjusted to the dark, was when we entered our first tunnel, where everything suddenly became pitch black. In my mind I could see us running headlong into a brick wall that had been built inside the tunnel, but which we wouldn't see, it being so dark.
Somewhere north of the Chilterns Alastair told me to press and hold down a button on the armrest on my right side, which allowed him to leave the driver's seat and come over to stand behind my chair, telling me to go and sit in his chair, which I duly did. I was driving the train. He then gave me a crash course on train-driving, which mainly concerned keeping my feet on a sort of rocking treadle-type foot rest, which, I was told, on hearing the chiming of a small bell in the cab, I must rock this hinged foot rest back and forward with my feet. This is designed to make sure the driver is awake, and, if is not rocked when asked, will cause the power to be reduced from the motor, and the application of the brakes, bringing the train safely to a halt.
That didn't seem too challenging, especially after he imparted the next bit of good news, which was that every time we went past what is known in railway parlance as a 'distant signal', which is an amber light by thyt he has a few seconds in which to press a green button, set in a chromed steel surround, just the sort of thing that used to be used to switch on electric motors, and that failure to properly press this switch would bring the train to a halt. I had no problem with the rocking foot rest, but, try as I might, I couldn't get to press the green button correctly on, at least, three occasions, each time bringing our nine hundred tonnes of train to a standstill, as well as all the trains behind us.
It takes a while to get nine hundred tonnes of wagons up to cruising speed, so, on that Friday night, I imagine a few people were late home from the office that night, because some fool was having a driving lesson in front of them. But I was driving the train, which was a great experience.
Because of my emergency stops along the way, we were a bit late arriving at Crewe in the dead of night. We were supposed to be taking over a train coming south from somewhere in Scotland, but, due to a broken rail near Motherwell, that train was delayed by some hours, forcing us to wait in the unparalleled splendour of the drivers' rest room, lavishly appointed with canteen furniture, flourescent lighting, and a large electric urn full of hot water.
No food, cutlery, plates, mugs or anything other than hot water. Here we sat for about four hours, until Alastair decided it would be better to try and get some sleep in the cab of the train we had come up in. Two hours later, just as it was thinking of getting light, and having found it difficult to sleep, our train arrived, and soon we were on our way, this time with just over eleven hundred and fifty tonnes of wagons behind us.
But it was now past six o'clock in the morning, and, as we soon discovered, the world was waking up and people were on the move. It wasn't long before we were routed onto a slow line, and made to wait for about fifteen minutes, to allow a passenger train to overtake us, and this procedure repeated itself, with increasing regularity, all the way back to Park Royal, which we were not to reach until late morning. The locomotive we were now erratically propelling towards London was one of the freight equivalent of the high-speed passenger locos, and was, compared to the one we had come up in the previous night, superbly luxurious.
It even had two telephone communication systems, which, of course, this being British Rail, were not connected to anything, and, therefore, of absolutely no use, as I found out, when Alastair, having been watching a crack in one half of the windscreen get ever bigger, decided he would have to report it to someone. This involved him in bringing the train to a standstill, climbing down from the cab and, using a trackside phone in a wooden box on a pole, to speak to a nearby controller, who eventually told us to carry on at a reduced speed to our destination. Once there, I gave Alastair back his jacket, promised to buy him a drink next time I saw him, and made my way home.
Life in Hythe
The weather here has been most dispiritng since Christmas Eve, with a hint of sea mist carrying a fine spray of drizzle, that clings to the window panes. From my bedroom window, where, normally, I can keep an eye on maritime traffic heading westwards down the Channel, now I can't even see the sea.
Life in Hythe rumbles along taking little note of the antics of the wider world. We don't have the following:- 'woke', Prince Harry, Muslims, Prince Andrew, hooligans, traffic jams, and many other things that wind me up. Here is the next best thing to normality in this septic isle. Having read your last piece about the ills prevailing here, and the hoped-for red revolution, I thanked the Lord that there aren't any guillotines within reach of Barry. I do, however, think that a return to putting people in the pillory or the stocks would be a good idea, but would we be able to afford vegetables to throw at them.
We have just had the local council elections across Britain, in which the Conservatives did, justly, badly. Here in Hythe, the Conservative-led council have been trying to foist a seafront development on us, against almost total opposition, for some years, with it actually getting underway last autumn. The Green party and Labour both opposed it, but, at the election, we had only a choice of Conservative or Green party, so, now, we have a Green party dominated council. I wonder if I'll get my garden waste collected more often.
The Hythe Festival
Hythe hosts a food festival each year, and this year it is taking place between 26th and 30th July. It's a sort of collection of little tents and stalls all set out on a public field, at which one can sit on a bale of straw, listen to some live music and eat something weird, floating in sauce, and accompanied by stodgy boiled rice. I hope I haven't over-egged this event too much, but it actually is quite good.
The Hythe Venetian Fete
It's a month away from the biggest event in the Hythe calendar, the Hythe Venetian Fete, (Look it up on Google). It's a lovely evening of illuminated floats being pulled along the Military Canal, by rowers in small boats, and is something of a step back in time. The Council seal off a large expanse of the canal bank and erect rows and rows of bench seating, for which tickets can be bought in the town. There is, of course, a brass band, and the mayor, in fully ceremonial garb, presides over the fun. It's a little step back in time.
It' s an afternoon and evening sitting on the bank of the Royal Military Canal, watching a procession of floats, usually about thirty in number, which make their way through the town, on the water, once in the afternoon, and then again, all illuminated, in the evening. This event only takes place every other year, and is quite a spectacle. As our house backs onto the canal a bit under a mile from the town centre,
Last Wednesday we had the big event in the Hythe calendar, the Hythe Venetian Fete, an evening of the colourful spectacle of illuminated floats on the Military Canal, complete with a super firework display. The council erect rows and rows of benches on the sloping banks of the canal, and you have to buy tickets for numbered bench seating places for the evening’s festivities, and there’s a funfair and lots of stalls selling all sorts of things you don’t need. Luckily for us, as we had a party of twenty-three people at our house for the day, the weather held off for the day: it rained the day before, and it rained later the night of the Fete, after everything had finished.
The House
Our house is about two hundred yards from the sea, and, from the gate at the bottom of the garden, is an easy walk around the end of a golf course, so we regularly stroll over to sit awhile on the seafront. One day last week, while we were by the garden gate, an RAF Hercules plane flew over our heads at about a hundred feet, doing a banking turn out to sea. Most impressive.
Renovation
The renovation work on the house is proceeding quite well. Downstairs is just about finished now, and attention has been focusing on one or two minor problems with drain runs outside. We have the remains of an old stream piped around the end of our garage, and the pipes have filled up with mud, and whatever water occasionally should come down the pipe has been spilling out of the pipe and causing some subsidence to a path round the garage, so up with the concrete and lay new pipes.
Martin in the Garden
I thank my lucky stars that we have a reasonable-sized garden here. I sometimes think it's one of the things that have helped to stop us strangling each other. I continue to grow as many different types of vegetables through the summer, as well as growing cannas in large pots, dotted around the garden. I have a banana plant, called Boris, which was bought in Harmanli in 2019, and is now wrapped up in hessian, to protect it from things meteorological over the winter months. Each year, in the autumn, I remove the canna rhizomes from the pots, clean and dry them, wrap them in newspaper, and store them in a cool dry place for the winter. Then, in the spring, I put an advert on the same Facebook Marketplace and sit back and wait for the punters to roll up.
This spring I cleared over two hundred pounds, which I later used to buy boxes of large compressed sawdust briquettes, to burn on the wood-burning stove, in our lounge. Given that we live in a chalet bungalow, this wonderful stove can pretty much keep the whole house at a pleasant temperature, and, using my sawdust briquettes. A couple of weeks after I had taken delivery of my pallet-load of these briquettes, I saw an advert online from a joinery company near Hastings, who turned their sawdust waste into smaller briquettes and sold them, who, because it was mid-summer, needed to clear a large pile of unsold bags of briquettes, and were offering 25kg bags of said briquettes for 50p. Such an offer was not to be missed, and so we now have forty bags of these as well. So, the news that gas prices are set to rise, dramatically, is of little concern at the moment, in the Jeffes household, as I've probably got enough now, to get me through next winter, as well as this one.
Cannas
I've become something of a gardener, albeit in a small way, this year. I've got a collection of semi-tropical plants, mainly cannas, in pots on the patio, and their glorious orange and red flowers are superb. These thing grow to six feet tall. Also have spinach, courgettes, tomatoes and runner beans, all just coming into production mode, so a ready supply of fresh veggies.
Last spring I had wanted to have a banana plant in my garden, and, eventually, found a man in Folkestone advertising some for sale on Gumtree. So I got in touch and went to see him, and he showed me these two black plastic buckets with what he assured me were the shoots of banana plants sticking out of the compost. So, having handed over twenty pounds the great banana plant quest came to an end. A couple of months later, when things had moved onward and upward a bit, I began to have doubts about my banana plants, and, eventually, it dawned on me that they weren't banana plants at all, but cannas.
Which, of course, wasn't really the end of the world, as cannas are great, quick-growing, tropical plants, similar in construction to banana plants, but with lovely red or orange flowers. Not only quick-growing, but quick self-propagating, and, by the end of the summer I'd had to buy another ten plastic buckets to accommodate the european canna mountain. You have to lift the tubers out of the soil and store them in a cool, dry place for the winter. I had boxes of the dammed things. Just before the lockdown started, I took a load of them to a local Saturday morning farmer's market, and made over a hundred pounds selling them.
Now I'm planting others around the garden in the ground and in pots, eager to get my supplies ready for next spring's farmer's market. Ironically, last September, we managed to have a few weeks in Kolarovo, and, while there, went to an event being staged in Harmanli, involving lots of small tents selling village produce, such as jams, pickles, breads and much more, and, on one stall I spotted a small banana plant in a pot, which I was able to buy for five leva, about two pounds. This we brought back to Hythe, and it spent the winter in our bathroom. Soon, hopefully, it will be evicted and planted in the garden.
Proliferation
It’s another soggy, damp day in the Garden of England; droplets of dew hang from the rosebushes and sweet-peas outside my window. The garden, with its profusion of plants put in by a previous owner, and released from the stranglehold of several years growth of brambles by me, is a riot of colour, helped by the rain that has seemed to fall every couple of days since early July.
I potter about in the garden, which was mightily overgrown. I've just overhauled the greenhouse, replacing twenty-one panes of glass. Now a solitary tomato plant reigns supreme inside.
The garden, at the time of writing, is a mass of primroses, violets, daffodils and crocuses. It’s probably about the right sort of place for a pair of soon-to-be old codgers.
The Garden in Lockdown
This lockdown has to be regarded as a challenge. We started ours a week before it became fashionable. Once it appeared that it was not a good thing for people of our age, the drawbridge was raised at Jeffes Towers, stocks of comestibles stored, areas of the garden turned over to vegetable growing, and the greenhouse put onto a war footing.
We now have beans, broad, dwarf and runner, onions, kale, spinach, chard, carrots, lettuce and courgettes all trundling down a very slow production line. Even if we never get to actually eat any of it, it's keeping me well and truly occupied.
In Cornwall
Along with relatives, we stayed in an old stone cottage, set in the midst of the remains of a tin-mining community from long ago, just outside of a village called Luckett, not too far away from Gunnislake. The cottage was set on the side of a valley with a stream in the bottom, and trees on the other side, and, in the mornings, the mist would roll up the valley and hide all but the tops of the trees, which remained in sunlight. Magical. We did day trips to Dartmouth, care of the Dart Valley Railway, hauled by a small steam tank engine, and to Bigbury on Sea, where, while we were able to walk across the sand to Burgh Island for lunch at the 'Smuggler' pub, we had to rely on the strange, motorised platform cum tractor contraption that carries people across when the tide has come in for the return journey
In Malvern
And so to December, which started with another trip to Malvern to link up with other member of the Jeffes clan in an old house had, at one time, been the local court, and so is called Hardwick Court, still retaining the old court room on the first floor of a very old part of the house. We all repaired to a local hostelry called the Farmer's Arms, a Hook Norton pub, in the village of Birtsmorton, which, in my book, would have to also be on my list of places to show a foreign visitor. A small, black and white timbered building, which must have stood for hundreds of years, it was chock full of ruddy-faced locals, who all looked as though they had spent the morning shoeing horses or mending hedges and fences A simple menu that included such delights as cauliflower cheese made the place even more appealing.
Caught in the Act
Most mornings I scan a local news website called Kent Online. This morning there is a story about a miscreant who was arrested by police, after being caught on the roof of a church in Whitstable, stealing the lead. The reason he was caught by the police was because a member of the public had taken his ladder away, and he had to be rescued. That tickled my sense of humour. Wouldn't be surprised to read in a few months time that he's been nominated to be the next US president.
The Perseids Meteor Shower
Are you going to stay in northern climes for the next few days, which is the high point of the annual Perseids meteor shower. Would you actually be able to see any, if it doesn't get fully dark. There are so many things in life one doesn't know the answer to.
Ought to be a good part of the world to see the International Space Station, though. Look at :- ISS observation
Stars on the Move
Three things have lifted my spirits this morning: the dustmen turned up and emptied our bins; contractors are still working on the beach, moving hundreds of tons of shingle from one end of the beach to the other, to counteract the ceaseless longshore drift, and thirdly, if you look up into the night sky tonight towards the southwest, at 8.58 pm, you may see a string of what appear to be moving stars. These are, apparently, part of one Elon Musk's attempt at global domination, by creating his own chain of communication satellites. They should be visible for six minutes, heading eastwards. So life is still going on, and some people seem to think all will be well one day. Some of us, however, weren't so sure it was alright before though, were we Barry?
The Play
This was Martin’s response to an April the First (All Fools’ Day) playlet we wrote about life on a Static Caravan Park
I was frolicking carelessly on the sunny riverbank that is my life, when your e-mail arrived, and was soon transfixed by the gripping play within, what you rote. A tragedy, you may say, and a lesson to us all, probably, in the cool, calm, measured way that the hero and heroine dealt with Felicity, who is, early on, portrayed as such a sweet young girl, only to be, soon, shown, skillfully by the writers, to be a manipulative and avaricious baggage.
We must have more of this drama; perhaps with a wizard, who could bring down on her head a curse or plague, though I doubt she's the sort to be too bothered with frogs and locusts. Could a modern-day curse affect a mobile phone?
Clearly, the idea of our heroes having to purchase and use an electric mower is ridiculous, given the current cost of power. Maybe they could invent a pedal-powered mower, and, in short order, we'll see them on Dragon's Den securing finance to enable them to move the project forward, and leading to them becoming millionaires. Final act of the play would then be their purchase of the camp-site, swiftly followed by the termination of the employment of Felicity, and her scheming husband, who are forced to go and work for P&O Ferries.
Ah, here's Matron. Time for a rest, now.
Ending
Well, I must close now, my patio-full of cannas, a semi-tropical plant that I grow too many of each year, need watering. I can hear them calling me, and I must go to them.
The following articles can be found on our websites:
The Jeffes Double Land Rover Journey to the UK
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/1966/30/index.html
Muppetry on a Grand Scale
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/295/88/index.html
What is 'MagBaz'? Reflections from an Old and Valued Friend
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/2021/515/index.html
The Wilsons’ and the Jeffes’ Transit of Serbia
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/1293/30.html
Memories of Bulgaria (139 photographs)
http://www.magbazpictures.com/memories-of-bulgaria.html
Land Rovers, Romans and Thracians (52 photographs)
http://www.magbazpictures.com/land-rovers-romans--thracians.html
The answer to 'Whatever happened to Magbaz', could, if one is blessed with a fertile mind, run to volumes, but my answer to the question is 'nothing'. Magbaz is like the wind. It's far more now than you two old codgers, rattling round the countryside on your bicycles, and annoying your neighbours. Not many people get to create something that will stand the test of time, but I reckon you two have done it in spades."
Martin as Train Driver
Sometime around the turn of the century, I ran into a Scottish bloke, one lunchtime, in the pub in the village where our business was located.
His name was Alastair, and from his uniform it was apparent that he worked for our illustrious railway network After a bit of conversation, he informed me that he was a train-driver, upon which I remarked that I had always wanted to drive a train, more to encourage the continuity of the conversation than anything else. Some time later, as I was leaving, he said he would leave a message for me with the landlord, but would not elaborate on this. A couple of days later, when I was, again, in the same watering-hole, having lunch, I was given the message to meet Alastairat a station near Park Royal, west of London, on Friday evening at a given time.
Needless to say, Friday evening found me there at the appointed hour, and soon the slightly furtive figure of our village train-driver appeared, gave me a black jacket to put on, and told me to follow him across several sets of railway lines, before arriving at the great bulk of our electric locomotive, into which we climbed and after a few minutes set off to trundle a couple of miles to Park Royal sidings, where we were connected to a long, long line of wagons carrying containers. I recall we then sat around waiting for 'the off', for about twenty minutes, and, when eventually we did get going, it was almost dark. We were bound for Crewe, with something like nine hundred tonnes of freight behind us. The first surprise for me, my eyes having adjusted to the dark, was when we entered our first tunnel, where everything suddenly became pitch black. In my mind I could see us running headlong into a brick wall that had been built inside the tunnel, but which we wouldn't see, it being so dark.
Somewhere north of the Chilterns Alastair told me to press and hold down a button on the armrest on my right side, which allowed him to leave the driver's seat and come over to stand behind my chair, telling me to go and sit in his chair, which I duly did. I was driving the train. He then gave me a crash course on train-driving, which mainly concerned keeping my feet on a sort of rocking treadle-type foot rest, which, I was told, on hearing the chiming of a small bell in the cab, I must rock this hinged foot rest back and forward with my feet. This is designed to make sure the driver is awake, and, if is not rocked when asked, will cause the power to be reduced from the motor, and the application of the brakes, bringing the train safely to a halt.
That didn't seem too challenging, especially after he imparted the next bit of good news, which was that every time we went past what is known in railway parlance as a 'distant signal', which is an amber light by thyt he has a few seconds in which to press a green button, set in a chromed steel surround, just the sort of thing that used to be used to switch on electric motors, and that failure to properly press this switch would bring the train to a halt. I had no problem with the rocking foot rest, but, try as I might, I couldn't get to press the green button correctly on, at least, three occasions, each time bringing our nine hundred tonnes of train to a standstill, as well as all the trains behind us.
It takes a while to get nine hundred tonnes of wagons up to cruising speed, so, on that Friday night, I imagine a few people were late home from the office that night, because some fool was having a driving lesson in front of them. But I was driving the train, which was a great experience.
Because of my emergency stops along the way, we were a bit late arriving at Crewe in the dead of night. We were supposed to be taking over a train coming south from somewhere in Scotland, but, due to a broken rail near Motherwell, that train was delayed by some hours, forcing us to wait in the unparalleled splendour of the drivers' rest room, lavishly appointed with canteen furniture, flourescent lighting, and a large electric urn full of hot water.
No food, cutlery, plates, mugs or anything other than hot water. Here we sat for about four hours, until Alastair decided it would be better to try and get some sleep in the cab of the train we had come up in. Two hours later, just as it was thinking of getting light, and having found it difficult to sleep, our train arrived, and soon we were on our way, this time with just over eleven hundred and fifty tonnes of wagons behind us.
But it was now past six o'clock in the morning, and, as we soon discovered, the world was waking up and people were on the move. It wasn't long before we were routed onto a slow line, and made to wait for about fifteen minutes, to allow a passenger train to overtake us, and this procedure repeated itself, with increasing regularity, all the way back to Park Royal, which we were not to reach until late morning. The locomotive we were now erratically propelling towards London was one of the freight equivalent of the high-speed passenger locos, and was, compared to the one we had come up in the previous night, superbly luxurious.
It even had two telephone communication systems, which, of course, this being British Rail, were not connected to anything, and, therefore, of absolutely no use, as I found out, when Alastair, having been watching a crack in one half of the windscreen get ever bigger, decided he would have to report it to someone. This involved him in bringing the train to a standstill, climbing down from the cab and, using a trackside phone in a wooden box on a pole, to speak to a nearby controller, who eventually told us to carry on at a reduced speed to our destination. Once there, I gave Alastair back his jacket, promised to buy him a drink next time I saw him, and made my way home.
Life in Hythe
The weather here has been most dispiritng since Christmas Eve, with a hint of sea mist carrying a fine spray of drizzle, that clings to the window panes. From my bedroom window, where, normally, I can keep an eye on maritime traffic heading westwards down the Channel, now I can't even see the sea.
Life in Hythe rumbles along taking little note of the antics of the wider world. We don't have the following:- 'woke', Prince Harry, Muslims, Prince Andrew, hooligans, traffic jams, and many other things that wind me up. Here is the next best thing to normality in this septic isle. Having read your last piece about the ills prevailing here, and the hoped-for red revolution, I thanked the Lord that there aren't any guillotines within reach of Barry. I do, however, think that a return to putting people in the pillory or the stocks would be a good idea, but would we be able to afford vegetables to throw at them.
We have just had the local council elections across Britain, in which the Conservatives did, justly, badly. Here in Hythe, the Conservative-led council have been trying to foist a seafront development on us, against almost total opposition, for some years, with it actually getting underway last autumn. The Green party and Labour both opposed it, but, at the election, we had only a choice of Conservative or Green party, so, now, we have a Green party dominated council. I wonder if I'll get my garden waste collected more often.
The Hythe Festival
Hythe hosts a food festival each year, and this year it is taking place between 26th and 30th July. It's a sort of collection of little tents and stalls all set out on a public field, at which one can sit on a bale of straw, listen to some live music and eat something weird, floating in sauce, and accompanied by stodgy boiled rice. I hope I haven't over-egged this event too much, but it actually is quite good.
The Hythe Venetian Fete
It's a month away from the biggest event in the Hythe calendar, the Hythe Venetian Fete, (Look it up on Google). It's a lovely evening of illuminated floats being pulled along the Military Canal, by rowers in small boats, and is something of a step back in time. The Council seal off a large expanse of the canal bank and erect rows and rows of bench seating, for which tickets can be bought in the town. There is, of course, a brass band, and the mayor, in fully ceremonial garb, presides over the fun. It's a little step back in time.
It' s an afternoon and evening sitting on the bank of the Royal Military Canal, watching a procession of floats, usually about thirty in number, which make their way through the town, on the water, once in the afternoon, and then again, all illuminated, in the evening. This event only takes place every other year, and is quite a spectacle. As our house backs onto the canal a bit under a mile from the town centre,
Last Wednesday we had the big event in the Hythe calendar, the Hythe Venetian Fete, an evening of the colourful spectacle of illuminated floats on the Military Canal, complete with a super firework display. The council erect rows and rows of benches on the sloping banks of the canal, and you have to buy tickets for numbered bench seating places for the evening’s festivities, and there’s a funfair and lots of stalls selling all sorts of things you don’t need. Luckily for us, as we had a party of twenty-three people at our house for the day, the weather held off for the day: it rained the day before, and it rained later the night of the Fete, after everything had finished.
The House
Our house is about two hundred yards from the sea, and, from the gate at the bottom of the garden, is an easy walk around the end of a golf course, so we regularly stroll over to sit awhile on the seafront. One day last week, while we were by the garden gate, an RAF Hercules plane flew over our heads at about a hundred feet, doing a banking turn out to sea. Most impressive.
Renovation
The renovation work on the house is proceeding quite well. Downstairs is just about finished now, and attention has been focusing on one or two minor problems with drain runs outside. We have the remains of an old stream piped around the end of our garage, and the pipes have filled up with mud, and whatever water occasionally should come down the pipe has been spilling out of the pipe and causing some subsidence to a path round the garage, so up with the concrete and lay new pipes.
Martin in the Garden
I thank my lucky stars that we have a reasonable-sized garden here. I sometimes think it's one of the things that have helped to stop us strangling each other. I continue to grow as many different types of vegetables through the summer, as well as growing cannas in large pots, dotted around the garden. I have a banana plant, called Boris, which was bought in Harmanli in 2019, and is now wrapped up in hessian, to protect it from things meteorological over the winter months. Each year, in the autumn, I remove the canna rhizomes from the pots, clean and dry them, wrap them in newspaper, and store them in a cool dry place for the winter. Then, in the spring, I put an advert on the same Facebook Marketplace and sit back and wait for the punters to roll up.
This spring I cleared over two hundred pounds, which I later used to buy boxes of large compressed sawdust briquettes, to burn on the wood-burning stove, in our lounge. Given that we live in a chalet bungalow, this wonderful stove can pretty much keep the whole house at a pleasant temperature, and, using my sawdust briquettes. A couple of weeks after I had taken delivery of my pallet-load of these briquettes, I saw an advert online from a joinery company near Hastings, who turned their sawdust waste into smaller briquettes and sold them, who, because it was mid-summer, needed to clear a large pile of unsold bags of briquettes, and were offering 25kg bags of said briquettes for 50p. Such an offer was not to be missed, and so we now have forty bags of these as well. So, the news that gas prices are set to rise, dramatically, is of little concern at the moment, in the Jeffes household, as I've probably got enough now, to get me through next winter, as well as this one.
Cannas
I've become something of a gardener, albeit in a small way, this year. I've got a collection of semi-tropical plants, mainly cannas, in pots on the patio, and their glorious orange and red flowers are superb. These thing grow to six feet tall. Also have spinach, courgettes, tomatoes and runner beans, all just coming into production mode, so a ready supply of fresh veggies.
Last spring I had wanted to have a banana plant in my garden, and, eventually, found a man in Folkestone advertising some for sale on Gumtree. So I got in touch and went to see him, and he showed me these two black plastic buckets with what he assured me were the shoots of banana plants sticking out of the compost. So, having handed over twenty pounds the great banana plant quest came to an end. A couple of months later, when things had moved onward and upward a bit, I began to have doubts about my banana plants, and, eventually, it dawned on me that they weren't banana plants at all, but cannas.
Which, of course, wasn't really the end of the world, as cannas are great, quick-growing, tropical plants, similar in construction to banana plants, but with lovely red or orange flowers. Not only quick-growing, but quick self-propagating, and, by the end of the summer I'd had to buy another ten plastic buckets to accommodate the european canna mountain. You have to lift the tubers out of the soil and store them in a cool, dry place for the winter. I had boxes of the dammed things. Just before the lockdown started, I took a load of them to a local Saturday morning farmer's market, and made over a hundred pounds selling them.
Now I'm planting others around the garden in the ground and in pots, eager to get my supplies ready for next spring's farmer's market. Ironically, last September, we managed to have a few weeks in Kolarovo, and, while there, went to an event being staged in Harmanli, involving lots of small tents selling village produce, such as jams, pickles, breads and much more, and, on one stall I spotted a small banana plant in a pot, which I was able to buy for five leva, about two pounds. This we brought back to Hythe, and it spent the winter in our bathroom. Soon, hopefully, it will be evicted and planted in the garden.
Proliferation
It’s another soggy, damp day in the Garden of England; droplets of dew hang from the rosebushes and sweet-peas outside my window. The garden, with its profusion of plants put in by a previous owner, and released from the stranglehold of several years growth of brambles by me, is a riot of colour, helped by the rain that has seemed to fall every couple of days since early July.
I potter about in the garden, which was mightily overgrown. I've just overhauled the greenhouse, replacing twenty-one panes of glass. Now a solitary tomato plant reigns supreme inside.
The garden, at the time of writing, is a mass of primroses, violets, daffodils and crocuses. It’s probably about the right sort of place for a pair of soon-to-be old codgers.
The Garden in Lockdown
This lockdown has to be regarded as a challenge. We started ours a week before it became fashionable. Once it appeared that it was not a good thing for people of our age, the drawbridge was raised at Jeffes Towers, stocks of comestibles stored, areas of the garden turned over to vegetable growing, and the greenhouse put onto a war footing.
We now have beans, broad, dwarf and runner, onions, kale, spinach, chard, carrots, lettuce and courgettes all trundling down a very slow production line. Even if we never get to actually eat any of it, it's keeping me well and truly occupied.
In Cornwall
Along with relatives, we stayed in an old stone cottage, set in the midst of the remains of a tin-mining community from long ago, just outside of a village called Luckett, not too far away from Gunnislake. The cottage was set on the side of a valley with a stream in the bottom, and trees on the other side, and, in the mornings, the mist would roll up the valley and hide all but the tops of the trees, which remained in sunlight. Magical. We did day trips to Dartmouth, care of the Dart Valley Railway, hauled by a small steam tank engine, and to Bigbury on Sea, where, while we were able to walk across the sand to Burgh Island for lunch at the 'Smuggler' pub, we had to rely on the strange, motorised platform cum tractor contraption that carries people across when the tide has come in for the return journey
In Malvern
And so to December, which started with another trip to Malvern to link up with other member of the Jeffes clan in an old house had, at one time, been the local court, and so is called Hardwick Court, still retaining the old court room on the first floor of a very old part of the house. We all repaired to a local hostelry called the Farmer's Arms, a Hook Norton pub, in the village of Birtsmorton, which, in my book, would have to also be on my list of places to show a foreign visitor. A small, black and white timbered building, which must have stood for hundreds of years, it was chock full of ruddy-faced locals, who all looked as though they had spent the morning shoeing horses or mending hedges and fences A simple menu that included such delights as cauliflower cheese made the place even more appealing.
Caught in the Act
Most mornings I scan a local news website called Kent Online. This morning there is a story about a miscreant who was arrested by police, after being caught on the roof of a church in Whitstable, stealing the lead. The reason he was caught by the police was because a member of the public had taken his ladder away, and he had to be rescued. That tickled my sense of humour. Wouldn't be surprised to read in a few months time that he's been nominated to be the next US president.
The Perseids Meteor Shower
Are you going to stay in northern climes for the next few days, which is the high point of the annual Perseids meteor shower. Would you actually be able to see any, if it doesn't get fully dark. There are so many things in life one doesn't know the answer to.
Ought to be a good part of the world to see the International Space Station, though. Look at :- ISS observation
Stars on the Move
Three things have lifted my spirits this morning: the dustmen turned up and emptied our bins; contractors are still working on the beach, moving hundreds of tons of shingle from one end of the beach to the other, to counteract the ceaseless longshore drift, and thirdly, if you look up into the night sky tonight towards the southwest, at 8.58 pm, you may see a string of what appear to be moving stars. These are, apparently, part of one Elon Musk's attempt at global domination, by creating his own chain of communication satellites. They should be visible for six minutes, heading eastwards. So life is still going on, and some people seem to think all will be well one day. Some of us, however, weren't so sure it was alright before though, were we Barry?
The Play
This was Martin’s response to an April the First (All Fools’ Day) playlet we wrote about life on a Static Caravan Park
I was frolicking carelessly on the sunny riverbank that is my life, when your e-mail arrived, and was soon transfixed by the gripping play within, what you rote. A tragedy, you may say, and a lesson to us all, probably, in the cool, calm, measured way that the hero and heroine dealt with Felicity, who is, early on, portrayed as such a sweet young girl, only to be, soon, shown, skillfully by the writers, to be a manipulative and avaricious baggage.
We must have more of this drama; perhaps with a wizard, who could bring down on her head a curse or plague, though I doubt she's the sort to be too bothered with frogs and locusts. Could a modern-day curse affect a mobile phone?
Clearly, the idea of our heroes having to purchase and use an electric mower is ridiculous, given the current cost of power. Maybe they could invent a pedal-powered mower, and, in short order, we'll see them on Dragon's Den securing finance to enable them to move the project forward, and leading to them becoming millionaires. Final act of the play would then be their purchase of the camp-site, swiftly followed by the termination of the employment of Felicity, and her scheming husband, who are forced to go and work for P&O Ferries.
Ah, here's Matron. Time for a rest, now.
Ending
Well, I must close now, my patio-full of cannas, a semi-tropical plant that I grow too many of each year, need watering. I can hear them calling me, and I must go to them.
The following articles can be found on our websites:
The Jeffes Double Land Rover Journey to the UK
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/1966/30/index.html
Muppetry on a Grand Scale
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/295/88/index.html
What is 'MagBaz'? Reflections from an Old and Valued Friend
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/2021/515/index.html
The Wilsons’ and the Jeffes’ Transit of Serbia
https://www.magbaztravels.com/content/view/1293/30.html
Memories of Bulgaria (139 photographs)
http://www.magbazpictures.com/memories-of-bulgaria.html
Land Rovers, Romans and Thracians (52 photographs)
http://www.magbazpictures.com/land-rovers-romans--thracians.html