The park in Tunbridge Wells called Calverley Grounds consists of a u-shaped dip or small valley with steepish slopes, where paths, flowerbeds and shrubberies following the rising contours. It is not surprising to learn that the park used, in former times, to contain an ornamental lake. After the heavy rain, a large spreading puddle in the grass, recalls how the park must once have been; on this rather murky day the lake and the past seem to be reasserting themselves.
From a high point in Tunbridge Wells, I watch a wild, soapy sky that would have appealed to Turner. Grey, silver-edged clouds ride against a lemony sky, while sunbeams descend on the distant heathland of Ashdown Forest; in the folds of the heath hangs a misty glow.
A square of black polished granite today takes its place set into the white work-surface of the kitchen. There, in an absent minded a moment, a few months ago, I burnt a hole with a too hot saucepan. Function and appearance have met in the replacement. Something better and more functional has come from a mistake.
3 comments:
you and king alfred .... as played by mel gibson ?
Yes wild soapy skies - we do get our fair share - do you thinks its all that pollution :-)
Polution didn't occur to me. It was the sort of sky that Turner would have painted. But who knows? He was painting, after all, at the bsginning of the age of steam
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