imaginary gardens

One lost, one found, one buried in the ground …

The pandemic has blown our plans for a family holiday in Tuscany, so we’re staying on the Suffolk coast. The holiday home we’ve rented is right on the front, on Crabbe Street.

Sam and Deborah go for a swim before breakfast, across the road, over the pebbles; then back, still dripping, north sea cold. I go out too, but only to take photos, crunching along the shingle beach that stretches out to the Martello tower in the distance.

A lonely place for a death.

Later, we all walk to Thorpness. On the way out, we stop at the Scallop: “I hear those voices that will not be drowned”, a line from the opera (if not The Borough). On the way back, we find ourselves passing through the churchyard, as did Paxton and the others in very different circumstances.

Just down from the church is Wyndham House, where James would holiday with his grandmother. Behind high walls and wooden gates, it’s another holiday let now, which sleeps 13.

Somehow that seems appropriate.

Read: Sarah K Marr’s Annotated Warning to the Curious (PDF) Read: James Thurgill’s Extra-Textual Encounter (PDF)