Rudyard Kipling and the Seven Sisters

My journey to the Seven Sisters along the south coast of England, back in 2013, keeps coming back to me. Maybe I'm watching James Herriot working in harsh Yorkshire conditions in an episode of the TV series All Creatures Great and Small, and remembering all that verdant Sussex farmland we walked through to reach the shore that day. Maybe I'm watching a movie like "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," in which Harry and his friends travel there to see the Quiddich world cup. Maybe I'm watching the Agatha Christie's Poirot episode that was set there, or remembering how Sherlock Holmes retires to a cottage there in the movie "Mr. Holmes."  

Maybe I keep remembering it because the day was so memorable.

We didn't have a car that trip, so we took the bus out there from Brighton. We didn't pack a lunch, because we didn't have a fridge in our room. We didn't eat until late afternoon, because after our long walk through the wind and rain, there was nothing but a tea shop and a big carver restaurant nearby, and we wanted something easy but nourishing, like sandwiches of burgers. 

Still, we'd had a feast for the senses. We'd talked to farmers, fellow walkers, and locals giving their dog a good long walk. We'd walked along a muddy path beside blackberry bushes, and people building a fence. We'd stopped to photograph cows. We'd seen this place of wild beauty, collected seashells, and tried to repair an umbrella that broke in the strong winds. We'd experienced more in just those few short hours, than we do in some weeks.

So after boarding the bus for the return trip to Brighton, we remembered our ramble through the fields to the coast, and watched outside as the bus took us through small towns and villages. We were looking for something simple "cheap and cheerful," but saw nothing that appealed. Finally, when we reached the town of Rottingdean, we disembarked. The town was on our itinerary, as we wanted to visit the Rudyard Kipling gardens, which we had heard were beautiful. But first, food!

From the restaurant of a hotel, we watched the rain pelt the outside patio and beat against the windows. We heard the gusts of wind grumble and roar. But we were warm and dry inside, enjoying our plates of fish and chips. We took our time, ordering a second pot of tea, as we were having the second and final meal of the day, a late lunch or an early dinner, or "Linner" as Lionel would have called it, in the sitcom "As Time Goes By."

As we were leaving, we asked a worker for directions to the Rudyard Kipling gardens. It took him a little while to connect the author's name with a nearby park, but we told him the address, and he finally made the connection. Then he said, "Oh, they'd be closed now."

And then it hit us, as we walked outside, how late it was. The streetlights were on, and the drivers returning home after their workday had their headlights on. The bus had been an enjoyable, and social, means of transport, but all the little stops it made cost us in travel time. So we didn't get to see the Rudyard Kipling gardens.

Perhaps some day I'll return to Rottingdean, and see the gardens named after the famous author. I read The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book recently, so Rudyard Kipling, and that day trip to Seven Sisters has been on my mind. It's interesting that the town made such a lasting monument to him, even though he only lived there three years. But then, just as that was a highly memorable trip for us, Kipling's stories will never be forgotten. 

Dragon Dave

Mapp And Lucia And Lifeboats

At the end of Cromer Pier, in the county of Norfolk, England, you'll see a ramp descending into the sea from a large brown building. Inside this branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, you'll find the Tamar, the ship that slides down that ramp and sets out to aid those in peril on the sea.

With its dual, 1000 horse power engines, the Tamar can race off to a vessel in distress. The rescuers inside, clad in their waterproof gear, sit in seats designed to absorb the impact of hitting storm waves at anything up to 25 knots per hour. Once the crew arrive, they can pull a vessel out of dangerous waters, or tow it back to port, even if it weighs up to seven tons. 

Should they need to transfer people to their ship, or pull them out of the sea, they have any number of rescue items easily within reach. Metal arms swing out. Ropes and winches deploy. The threatened are hauled aboard to safety, and either transferred to a helicopter, or transported back to shore. Despite its compact size, the Tamar can hold as many as one hundred people, although passengers might find conditions a little cramped. 

In E. F. Benson's novel Mapp And Lucia, society matrons Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline Lucas are swept out to sea when a storm hits the English seaside town of Tilling. Friends spy the two clinging to Lucia's dining room table amid roiling waves. They send out a plea for rescue to local fishing vessels, the coastguard, and the Lifeboat station. But none of the ships can reach the women fast enough. After awhile, with no further sightings, the ships give up their search for the women, supposing them lost to the sea.

Had powerful and capable ships like the Tamar existed in the 1930s, E. F. Benson would have needed to work harder to convince his readers that the local Lifeboat station had failed to rescue the leading lights of Tilling society. As for Lucia's dining table serving as a short term raft...well, that's timeless.

Dragon Dave

Condos, Pottery, Cats, Squid, and Matt Kindt in Kauai

The plus of owning a timeshare is that it forces you to go on vacation each year. You buy into the program, you pay the annual fee(s), so you make sure that it's worth the cost. It's an investment in yourself and your family. You travel to places you might never visit if you had to justify the entire cost of the trip aside from the need to use the timeshare. But one thing they always sucker you into at these resorts is "Let us give you an update about how the program has changed. We'll give you free money for your time!"

This year's presentation was the most ridiculous I have ever heard. They wanted to sell us points for an additional week, but promised that those points would effectually be worth three weeks. Plus, they would supposedly take care of the car rental and flights for these trips. Well, the Devil is in the details of these arrangements, and usually, after you've bought into the program, you find the details aren't nearly as glorious as the salesperson described.

"But hey, now you'll be a V.I.P. member. Is it better to be a V.I.P.? Don't you deserve to treated like a V.I.P.?"

What really got me was the price of the program. Believe it or not, the salesman wanted us to invest $100,000 so we could supposedly spend three weeks in Hawaii (or anywhere else). Of course, this assumes they don't change their program in the future so the V.I.P. points are really only worth one week, and all the details they promise work out exactly as promised. But then, they wouldn't make any more changes to their program, right? They wouldn't want to sell you anything else in the future, right?

The mind boggles. I mean, you could nearly buy a real condo in Hawaii, that you could live in year-round, for that kind of money.

Anyway, after the presentation, we looked at our vouchers. What could we do with our free money? There were shops where we could purchase souvenirs. There were restaurants where we could enjoy a few nice meals. And then there was a little pottery studio, where we could pick out a project, paint it, and take it home with us. Now, that sounded like fun!

I painted lots of ceramics in my youth, but the pieces had always been completely fired. I painted them, sprayed them with a protective coating, and they were done. This studio gave the pieces an initial firing, that would allow the clay to be painted on. After that, they required an additional firing. Instead of paints, we were given a selection of glazes to use. For our first project, my wife and I each chose a tile. Then we got started.

As it was Kauai, the garden island of Hawaii, it rained several times while we painted. The hours sped past as we painted, and the rain beat down on the thin roof of the lattice-enclosed patio. Several cats strolled past, and one, named Captain Terrible, visited us regularly. He leapt onto the table, stepped over our work, and insisted on regular petting. But hey, you need a painting break now and then, right?

Some of the glazes were hard, while others were liquid. But a drop of water transformed the most solid of glazes back into liquid again. There was no white paint, so any place we wanted to remain white, like bubbles in the water, we left unpainted.

When my wife finished her first tile, she started another. By the time I finished my first tile, she had mostly finished her second. So I opted for a simpler project, a little ornament we could hang on our Christmas tree next year. That is, assuming we spend Christmas at home next year, and don't travel somewhere else instead.

The day we left Kauai, we stopped by the studio and picked up our projects. It was interesting to see how the colors had changed from being fired in the kiln. All our tiles were white after their initial firing, but mine had a tinge more red than my wife's pieces. Maybe that slight difference in the clay accounts for the water in my ocean scene being turquoise, while my wife's stayed a truer blue. Also, despite three coats, my water still looks faded and streaky. "Oh, that's the light shining through the water," my wife suggested. Sadly, the green lettering of Kauai on the tile got burned away, but the fish and squid came out good. 

I didn't see any squid during my snorkels, but I did see an octopus. (Sadly, that was on the first day, before we bought our underwater camera). The squid are cool. They remind me of the giant squid in Matt Kindt's comic series Dept. H, which takes place in a research base seven miles beneath the ocean. The squid in my tile seem more amiable than in Matt Kindt's comic, and unlikely to attack a human observer. But hey, what do I know about squid? If I was smart, I never would have purchased a timeshare, and would never agree to sit through yet another "Let me tell you how our program has changed" presentation.

Dragon Dave