The news shocked me late last night – the pavilion where I shave, shower and… wash up (!) at Brighton Kite Festival has exploded. Over the last ten years that building has somehow become part of my life (albeit an infrequent part). And now it’s gone.
Talking of kites, details would seem to be scarce, but someone would seem to have managed to kill themselves whilst flying a power kite. It would be very easy to speculate on what might have happened: I’ll just gloss over the sad incident with the observation that some years ago I told the British Kite Flying Association and the British Buggy Club about the need for controlling and licensing large kites. I told them that it would be a matter of time until this happened. Both august bodies were rather dismissive. As kite fliers we had the chance to self-regulate. We’ll now have regulation forced onto us.
Something else which is also worrying me is the Prince of Wales. As an ardent Royalist I can see my pro-Monarchist views going right out of the window the moment Her Majesty passes on the reins to her eldest.
Prince Charles has recently made a speech, the text of which is available here. It’s an interesting speech; not so much for the content as for the way His Royal Highness goes from being eminently reasonable to being absolutely away with the fairies, and then back to reason all within the blink of an eye.
For all that I want to be a Royalist, I cannot see myself being able to support a King who is demonstrably as mad as trousers.
This evening was the arky-ologee club: over the summer we go out for walks to places of historical interest. We had some fish and chips whilst waiting for everyone to assemble in the village square in Lenham, and then drove down to Egerton where we had a stroll. We started off by wandering around and over a tumulus. (A tumulus is a small hill: they sound sexier than they actually are). We then wandered about through fields back to Egerton via the scenic route.
Whilst noseying at some of the old houses in Egerton, a chap came out of his house and got chatting with us. When he realised we weren’t a passing bunch of axe-murderers he invited us into his house for a look round. It was a fifteenth century house with a lot of original features including the original fireplace and chimney, a priest’s hole, and what was left of the tunnel from the house to the nearby church.
We ended the evening in the pub. Sometimes the arky-ologee club is dull. Other times, not so…
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