Lost in the Garden of England
on August 19, 2007
in away
Sunday morning. The bright and breezy weather is perfect for a day trip in the countryside. Others have chosen busy towns on the coast, but we feel like improvising. All we know is our destination, Sissinghurst Castle Garden. We take a shortcut way downhill through the clover-covered meadows to Canterbury West station. Just before the station there is a farmers market, full of local produce and tempting home-made delicacies. On the spot we decide to get some pastries from the two teenage girls. ‘Our mum makes them’, they say. A bottle of cider goes into the rucksack too. We are improvising ahead you see, having lunch in mind, perhaps a picnic. We need to take a train to Sundhurst, then change for a bus. While waiting we watch two happy blokes mumbling insanely and tryig to turn the platform into a sofa, coming down after Saturday night out.
Sundhurst feels like middle-of-nowhere and there is no bus until an hour later. All of a sudden a small car stops and we hear a question, ‘Are you headed for the castle?’ An elderly couple offer us a lift. The wife is Dutch and he is English, now both retired, they moved to Kent after spending their busy life in Rhodesia. The man decides for us to have the most picturesque route as the last leg of our trip and he drops us at the egde of a forest. The improvisation continues. We walk for more than half an hour, stopping every minute to pick ripe blackberries along the path and not having enough of them. With our imagination already spinning we arrive at Sissinghurst.
