When I was travelling recently, I was hit by a longing for the river path that runs between Chartham and Canterbury. Call it a spiritual home. I even shed a little tear in the back of a taxi thinking about it. I imagined falling on my knees and giving the good soil a kiss, trailing my fingers along the cold lengths of the branches, and slapping my favourite walnut on the tummy (you’ll know which one when you get to the pictures). I was pretty homesick.
I’ve been home a few weeks now and, while I didn’t actually kiss the soil, I have been truly in element walking down the dirt track and noticing all that February has to offer along this well-trodden passage. The rosehips are shrivelling, the sweet violets are already peppering the perimeter, and there’a woodpecker somewhere hammering a tree in short, sharp staccato. In fact, as it’s rather mild right now, the birds have returned reminding me of how funny they are with their song. I can’t capture it in words, even when an acquaintance suggested that I write how they sound rather than actual descriptions. Impossible, though I promise you that they are HILARIOUS right now. All chirps, chirrups, purrs and mocking. I’ll record it at some point so you can hear if you like?
Anyhow, I decided to comb through years of photographs to curate the very best of the trees that run from Chartham to Canterbury. For some it’s just a single shot, while for others you’ll see how they change with the season. Some are accompanied by my hasty, short prose, with an extract from Larkin who nailed something I’ve been trying to say about the feeling of new leaf growth for years.
For as long as I live where I do, I will collect these pictures and words and update year by year. If you have any of your own, do send them my way and I’ll include them. This heavenly path deserves its own testament for all to enjoy, whether near or far.
How the River Path Begins
Take yourself back to this morning
You’re walking
Hear the sound of your feet on the earth
And imagine
That they have roots
Boring down into the ground
Tangling with everything
You become the very scene before you
The soil, the light, the trees
The fluttering blossom
The scent of warm honey
And willow’s dripping chandelier
Not Far From Horton Manor
The elderflower bows her lacy bough to the waters edge, gazing at her lovely self in the river’s mirrored looking glass.
Along the Lakes
My Great Holm
Willow Oh Willow
Scarce raindrops clung to the honeysuckle the morning the third willow fell. Her outstretched limbs thrown down, her golden locks caressing scorched grasses, her scant, slow tears dripping to the ground.
The trees are coming into leaf / Like something almost being said; / The recent buds relax and spread, / Their greenness is a kind of grief. Phillip Larkin
Come May, leaves so new they’re acid green thrust forth from willows ribcage.
Come September, marbled drapes flutter softly in swathes of low light.
Come November, damp, tangled braids of bronze hang limply over the river, announcing a glow of lamplight in the morning grey.
When You Get to the Westgate Gardens
Knows not that light will come to reign
So brave, so bold his piercing shriek
The edge of night this sweet proclaim
Echoes down the choral chain
Thrush that breaks the morning bleak
Nature tells me who I am
The hypnotising reeds
Remind me how gentle power can be
As they trace the river’s flow
With their dancing, emerald fingers
Before They Shut the Greyfriars
By the Marlowe & Mill
FIN
(but never really fin for as long as I live with camera in hand and words in head)
Great pics. I love the one with the swans and the mist. So much to see. The cathedral rising up out of the trees in the top left corner with the birds taking a breather on the telegraph wires would make a fab pic on its own.
OMG! 😍😍 this place looks like a paradise, I felt in the same way when I went in Alto Adige and Ireland but this places are gorgeous it’s like a painting.
I was thinking about my next holiday that it could be in Uk, it “could” because my list is extremely long I’m looking for a place in the nature.