East Anglia
Jun. 27th, 2009 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_poppyThis afternoon I'm sitting in a rented chair in a great, shady hat, sketching and snoozing in the sun outside my hostel here at Shingle Street. I've had a busy few days, and tomorrow morning I've an appointment with my old friend Will Giles to see what's new in his extraordinary garden of exotics in Norwich. Then it's off down to Dartmoor for more collecting there, so I'm enjoying the chance to sit still today.
It's been an interesting, successful week on the coast. I've filled my notebooks and my collecting sacks with sea pea, viper's bugloss, and biting stonecrop here at Shingle Street, and bog pimpernel and snuffling sneezewort from the damp hollows tucked around about the heath at East Winch Common. At Titchwell Marsh, I spent a day negotiating with the bitterns for a fine lot of their tawny breast feathers. Then on Wednesday afternoon, I rambled in Thursford Wood near Little Snoring, following the winding path of the River Stiffkey and spelling Fungus Furiosa out of the forks of oak trees; they're found only in old-growth forests, you know, and there are lamentably few of those left in Britain today.
Tuesday and Wednesday nights I spent in the 'new' hamlet of Corpusty, which was a bit too quaint for my taste with all its 'Ye olde' this and that shoppes. In fact, its wee inn was so affectedly fey (with fairy lights around the bed posts and pixie dust on the linens--such nonsense!) that I cancelled my reservation and stuck to my tent out in the caravan park beyond the town. I did rather enjoy the art gallery, but I only had a few minutes at the end of the day to spend there. Still, it had a very interesting collection of what it called 'found object sculptures' made, I take it, of artefacts discovered in the town when it was restored.
And now I'm here at Shingle Street, which is quite the opposite of Corpusty in almost all regards. For all the shady country lanes and darling cottages of Corpusty, here it is windswept and barren, save for a few rugged houses planted above the pebbled shore. For all that's newly magicked and polished up at the one place, this other is a wreck, a relic of a long-ago attempt at forging a wizarding town in a place abandoned by muggles.
I'm not entirely sure of the story as there are no historical markers here and no museums, but as I understand it, the place was evacuated in the 1940s under an agreement between the muggle government and our Ministry whereby we promised to protect the East Anglian coast from attack by German muggles in exchange for a long-term lease of several islands and towns in this vicinity. But it wasn't a success. Apparently the developers built up a sufficiently charming coastal village out of the ancient fishing cottages and shops of the town (rather like Mevagissey out in Cornwall, you know, only much smaller). They went to great lengths to discourage muggle visitors, spelling the place to appear ruined--I'm told that amongst other things, it was widely bruited the muggle military had bombed the Lifeboat Inn (which remains quite a comfortable old pub to this day) and left it a rubble. But this was their mistake: instead of dissuading curiosity, the place became the focus of wild, persistent stories of wartime bombings and government secrets and attempted invasions and bodies on the beaches. So by the mid-1950s, the notion of a wizarding holiday coast was abandoned; the investors lost their robes and cloaks, too, on the deal. Even today, it's not much to look at, though there are obviously no muggle mystery-seekers scouring the dunes for abandoned bombs and secret burial pits these days.
I got the story from the owner of the one little tea shop in town. Mrs Pritchard-Carr, she's called, and she's run the business for over fifty years. It's a charming tea room, by far the most welcoming place I've found on the whole of this trip. I was especially taken by a small, tattered clipping she keeps tacked up in a corner by the till. It's a poem, and the proprietress says she's no idea who wrote it: she simply read it in a paper or magazine one day and clipped it out. Several of the lines seem determined to stick in my head:
It's been an interesting, successful week on the coast. I've filled my notebooks and my collecting sacks with sea pea, viper's bugloss, and biting stonecrop here at Shingle Street, and bog pimpernel and snuffling sneezewort from the damp hollows tucked around about the heath at East Winch Common. At Titchwell Marsh, I spent a day negotiating with the bitterns for a fine lot of their tawny breast feathers. Then on Wednesday afternoon, I rambled in Thursford Wood near Little Snoring, following the winding path of the River Stiffkey and spelling Fungus Furiosa out of the forks of oak trees; they're found only in old-growth forests, you know, and there are lamentably few of those left in Britain today.
Tuesday and Wednesday nights I spent in the 'new' hamlet of Corpusty, which was a bit too quaint for my taste with all its 'Ye olde' this and that shoppes. In fact, its wee inn was so affectedly fey (with fairy lights around the bed posts and pixie dust on the linens--such nonsense!) that I cancelled my reservation and stuck to my tent out in the caravan park beyond the town. I did rather enjoy the art gallery, but I only had a few minutes at the end of the day to spend there. Still, it had a very interesting collection of what it called 'found object sculptures' made, I take it, of artefacts discovered in the town when it was restored.
And now I'm here at Shingle Street, which is quite the opposite of Corpusty in almost all regards. For all the shady country lanes and darling cottages of Corpusty, here it is windswept and barren, save for a few rugged houses planted above the pebbled shore. For all that's newly magicked and polished up at the one place, this other is a wreck, a relic of a long-ago attempt at forging a wizarding town in a place abandoned by muggles.
I'm not entirely sure of the story as there are no historical markers here and no museums, but as I understand it, the place was evacuated in the 1940s under an agreement between the muggle government and our Ministry whereby we promised to protect the East Anglian coast from attack by German muggles in exchange for a long-term lease of several islands and towns in this vicinity. But it wasn't a success. Apparently the developers built up a sufficiently charming coastal village out of the ancient fishing cottages and shops of the town (rather like Mevagissey out in Cornwall, you know, only much smaller). They went to great lengths to discourage muggle visitors, spelling the place to appear ruined--I'm told that amongst other things, it was widely bruited the muggle military had bombed the Lifeboat Inn (which remains quite a comfortable old pub to this day) and left it a rubble. But this was their mistake: instead of dissuading curiosity, the place became the focus of wild, persistent stories of wartime bombings and government secrets and attempted invasions and bodies on the beaches. So by the mid-1950s, the notion of a wizarding holiday coast was abandoned; the investors lost their robes and cloaks, too, on the deal. Even today, it's not much to look at, though there are obviously no muggle mystery-seekers scouring the dunes for abandoned bombs and secret burial pits these days.
I got the story from the owner of the one little tea shop in town. Mrs Pritchard-Carr, she's called, and she's run the business for over fifty years. It's a charming tea room, by far the most welcoming place I've found on the whole of this trip. I was especially taken by a small, tattered clipping she keeps tacked up in a corner by the till. It's a poem, and the proprietress says she's no idea who wrote it: she simply read it in a paper or magazine one day and clipped it out. Several of the lines seem determined to stick in my head:
When the owl in the darkness cries,That's exactly what it's like here: ghosts and wind, shingle and marsh. I will surely, surely return here one day.
Out of the grave I shall hurry and fling
Careless wings to the winds that sing
Over the marshes, until my feet
Dance to the shore at Shingle Street.
Order Only: Norwich
Date: 2009-06-27 06:55 pm (UTC)As I've said above, I am going to Norwich tomorrow to meet Will Giles for a look at what he's added to his place since I was last there. Yes, yes, I know to be cautious with him. I know he's got to have dodgy connections within and without the Ministry to have such an apparently free hand in importing things. Still and all, Will and I go back a very long way, and it seems a good idea to go and listen to whatever he might say. He's a great one for boasting, is Will, and one never knows what one might learn--or be able to obtain--from him.
Is there anything else I should see to in Norwich? Arthur?
Ah, and before I forget. Miss Granger: I drew a small sketch for you in my notebook the other day. Whilst I was camped by the caravan park at Corpusty, I had a visitor who reminded me very much of your Crookshanks.
He marched into my camp, bold as you please, settled himself down, cleaned himself (as you see here), and then turned and looked expectantly at me until I shared a saucer of milk and a bit of salmon with him. It reminded me that I should tell you that I left Professor Sprout with instructions to look out for Crookshanks and to see that he has a bit of cream now and then. Of course, he can take perfect care of himself, but I thought you'd like to know that there's someone keeping her eye out for him all the same.
Re: Order Only: Norwich
Date: 2009-06-28 03:11 am (UTC)I have no idea what you'll find, but play it by ear: perhaps their stock really is bad. Or if it looks good and valuable, perhaps if you drop a hint or two about black market interest, they'll take the bait--in which case we might get a clue why the supplies the Ministry has been purchasing have been disappearing before delivery. I can then pass along the information to Knight, and I'm sure he'd be appreciative.
Re: Order Only: Norwich
Date: 2009-06-28 03:22 am (UTC)Are you well, Arthur? It seems you've been working terribly long hours for much, much too long. (I can say this now that I've finally had a break myself. It would have been entirely hypocritical before to have told you that you are pushing yourself too hard, but now that I've taken a whole afternoon and evening entirely to leisure, I can say it with confidence.) You ought to take a day and spend it with Molly or with the boys and Ginny. Take care of yourself, Arthur, so there's enough of you left to care for others in the long term.
And do give them all my best.
Order Only: That apothecary you asked about...
Date: 2009-06-29 01:48 am (UTC)Given that he also knew me, I took advantage of that as an angle into our conversation and told him all about my collecting trip. It took scarcely a hint from me before we were both lamenting the difficulty of getting hold of necessary ingredients in these days of quotas and shortages.
'Oh,' he said, 'You needn't tell me. Everything now is either impossibly dear or completely unattainable. And when something I've ordered does arrive here, I've no sooner compounded it into something my customers need than I receive word from the Ministry that I'm to sell it on to that blasted camp.'
'Well,' I said, 'That must be excellent for business--a ready demand for apothecary goods there, I should think. How lucky to be tapped as supplier to such a steady population.'
His look turned quite sour at that. 'Oh, well,' he said, 'I suppose it would be very good business if they offered anything like a reasonable return to me. But, no! I'm to sell it on virtually at cost.'
'So,' I said. 'You wait months and months for the Ministry to approve your order, and then as soon as it arrives, they want it back again?'
He beamed at me as though I were the first person ever to understand his plight, and then he was off on a tear, telling me how the Ministry's various departments have no idea what other departments have ruled or ordered. He feels absolutely harassed by MLE's oversight of his handling and sale of anaesthetic compounds, not to mention anything it considers 'mind-altering'. I had to stop him showing me the cupboard in which he keeps the mountains of parchment documenting every receipt and outlay. (I assured him that I have that mountain's twin in a cupboard in my hospital wing.)
Order Only: That apothecary you asked about...
Date: 2009-06-29 01:50 am (UTC)I told him I'd expected to be able to find at least one colony of Bright Wave moths as I travelled in East Anglia, but that I'd been entirely disappointed. So I'd thought I might stop in at a local apothecary or two and see if any of them had a supply they'd be willing to sell on to me.
He gave me a very odd look then, and said, 'You know, I believe they've become quite rare of late.' He looked as though he were considering for a moment and then leaned in close and said, sotto voce: 'I've heard said that the Department of Mysteries has found a use for them!'
'For something other than nervous tummies?' I asked.
'Indeed,' he said. 'They've gone right off the market, they have. Rumour is they've been banned! Though I haven't seen anything official yet about that.'
And then, Arthur, if he didn't offer that he might be able to find me some if I really had need of them. For a price, that is: he asked if I hadn't perhaps collected something I might be willing to give him in exchange, something rare that he would have difficulty getting from dealers and hadn't time to go out and collect for himself. As you might imagine, I had no intention of entering into a black market negotiation with someone I scarcely knew and had no reason to trust. I explained that I had been sending everything I collected straight off to the school and really had nothing at all to trade, and then I did my best to bring our conversation to a quick and neutral close. I did have to promise him that if I failed to find my moths elsewhere, I would keep his offer in mind.
I didn't like a bit the way he seemed to watch me go, and I was exceedingly glad that I was on my way to lunch with a person as well known as Will Giles. (And that's another thing: when I mentioned where I was headed, it seemed to give our Mr Turnstone pause. I'm not sure at all how to interpret that--whether it stands to Will's credit or against it, but I know to be cautious with him, so I've simply filed it away as a point of interest.)
Re: Order Only: That apothecary you asked about...
Date: 2009-06-29 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-27 08:33 pm (UTC)I do hope we'll see some in August, mind you - but not near our campsites, please.
(Speaking of which, I did a day jaunt with one of the Ministry staff who are coordinating to look at sites for the Tintagel stay, and I believe we've found a lovely one, but there were a few plants I wanted to check on to make sure they weren't going to cause horrid reactions or anything. I took
cuttings to Pomona, but she hasn't had a chance to look at them properly yet.)
Shingle Street sounds remarkably restful, or perhaps it's just that I've been buried in paperwork this week. I've an invitation from a old friend to go star-gazing up in the north in early July, and believe I'll take it up, just for a change of pace.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-27 08:46 pm (UTC)I trust Pomona will be able to give you all the information you need about Cornish flora. It's good to be prepared. Of course, there are certain things in the landscape that require caution, and it's as well that the students learn to respect them.
Oh, I absolutely endorse the idea of your getting out of that castle for a real stretch of holiday time. (And I don't mean simply time visiting family. That's all well and good, but not a true break from the things that tie one to duty, if you see what I mean.)