The actual motivation behind the weekend was to celebrate the temporary return of the lovely Karin Jose, visiting Brighton on a sojourn from her normally steamy Philippines but I thought, why not enjoy some of what this lovely country has to offer whilst we're at it? Coincidentally, I have also been reading 'James and the Giant Peach' with my year 7s at school and if you know this delightful book, you may remember that at one point, the enormous peach rolls down a very steep hill leaving destruction and a flooding chocolate factory in its path, as well as two squished villain aunts, before leaping to freedom over the side of a very tall, very white cliff into the ocean, where it bobs around before getting chomped on by sharks. This is where we are up to in the story and we are all having a rompingly good time with it so far, in true Roald Dahl fashion.
Imagine my lightbulb moment, therefore, when I realised that my lesson on writing a post card from inside the peach coincided exactly with my very own holiday to a white-cliff'd coastline! When I tell them, year 7 will literally think I planned it this way because I have no life other than to serve their educational needs, but really, I am still uber cool and have my own life, and this was just chance good luck!
So, where were we. Oh yes, zooming down an A road with Frenchie peering suspiciously at the sky wondering why it was so blue in England in January when actually he had heard from very reliable sources that the sky remains a constant middle-grey tone for 97.4% of the year (his sources are very precise, but apparently not accurate). There was a moment of struggle when the little put-put car wasn't sure if it was going to make it up one of the South Downs, but when we topped the 'up' and began our ascent, I obviously broke into jubilant strands of 'Jerusalem' at this very green and pleasant view:
At this point, after asking for an exact definition of 'pleasant' (lovely, agreeable, nice) Frenchie McFrencherson decided to scoff quietly and ask me if 'green and pleasant' was really something to become patriotic about, whereupon I assured him that, yes, it was. That's what it is to be British, sometimes, I insisted, and what better way to be than green and pleasant. If more people were green and pleasant then we would have less need for swords of burning gold and arrows of desire and more time for pleasant pastures and mills and lambs of God and stuff.
When we finally arrived and drove the car into a National Trust bollard (oops), we were greeted with a whole array of bearded, dog owning, wooly jumper wearing Roald Dahl characters in the NT Cafe and a car that was surely straight out of one of his short stories. I'm thinking 'The Hitchhiker' - thoughts?
Very quickly, as we huffed and puffed up pne of the Downs' 'ups', Frenchie quickly decided that the British landscape is not actually flat, but rolling, as I have told him many times, and in fact there was 'a certain magnificence' about the coast and the light, and that we must go and see the film 'Turner' at once. Now I'm quite okay with 'green and pleasant', but I'm not going to refuse a 'magnificence' when it's offered.
Very pleasant, I think you'll agree!
We continued the weekend in the marshland around The Seven Sisters park, reminiscent of another Roald Dahl short story - a sad one about two bullies and a swan - and as we drank tea in quaint villages, squelched through the mud by the river and stuffed ourselves full of roast dinner in a traditional pub overlooking the estuary, Frenchie could even be overheard mumbling that the walk had been 'beautiful' and the village of Alfriston 'quite pretty'.
Obviously, I did not show my delight at his conversion to walks in the British winter countryside, but obviously, I've had to transfer my smug excitement to a blog entry to save myself from exploding with Jerusalem Joy. And did the HOly lamb of GOD in ENGland's PLEASent PAStures SOMETHING?! Yes. I think He did.
I came home to discover that 'James and the Giant Peach' is probably actually set in Dover, and Beachy Head is not 'The Most Famous Cliff in All of England', but I'm not convinced my students will question this, and I, for one, am not interested in being the bearer of factual information. There's no place for that in my classroom: only interpretation, opinion and your own special angle on life. Or rather, my own special angle on life.
Tara for now. The next blog should be coming to you from a very cold, but very romantic Salem, MA, US of A!
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