Great Day Out

Today I visited my cousin June and her husband Mick in the Kent countryside. It was windy and threatened rain, so we couldn't do much except chat, something we all enjoy. We did pop out for a couple of hours in the afternoon, however, and ended up at Dungeness, one of the strangest places in the country.

The people who live on this gravelly stretch of coast have unusual dwellings with desert-like gardens. The film director Derek Jarman had a house here with a poem on the side and a garden filled with maritime "found" artefacts. The houses go for a bomb, but I wouldn't live there if you gave one to me.

There is a bird reserve at Dungeness, so obviously it is a site that is good for nature.

This is one of the lighthouses on the site. It is now inland, as a storm altered the coastline. This has happened more than once in recorded history. So why live in such a dodgy place?

Could it be because of the nuclear power station? Who wouldn't love to live near one of these, especially when it's built on such an unstable piece of the landscape? Every day of the year, a non-stop convoy of trucks full of gravel brings back the stuff that has washed away with the tides. It's so attractive a proposition that they are thinking of building a new one there now that the old one has outlived its useful life. Well, there are all those giant electricity pylons marching their way across the countryside, may as well continue to put them to good use.



The power station and pylons the locals are prepared to tolerate. Also the upgrading of the local 2-bit airport to international status.

But they mounted a massive protest about the new wind turbines that decorate the landscape with gentle white whirry blades. Much better to live with the possibility of nuclear meltdown.

During the journey (UK Vixens ought to get this) I only saw 2 Eddie Stobarts and 2 Norbert Dentressangles. The M20 motorway was very quiet, far fewer lorries than previous years, probably because Ashford International Station is no longer the embarkation point for the Channel Tunnel. After spending millions on making it state-of-the-art, the high speed rail link has moved elsewhere, though to add insult to injury, the line runs alongside the motorway for several miles, reminding the locals of what they've lost.

Funny old country. No extra money for the 2012 Olympics but we can throw good money away reinventing what we had that was already working fine.