Rye observations

This post represents something of a departure from our stated methodology, but if my co-writer is going to start using this space to comment on the lower-classes' response to warm weather I suppose anything goes...

Rye is a small, ancient town in South East England which, through the magic of engineering, lost a beach and gained a marsh. This swap happened long enough ago that Rye's denizens seem to have come to terms with what seems, to my mind, like a pretty uneven trade. You don't see anyone sitting forlornly at marsh-edge with a beach towel and an optimistic tube of sunscreen the way you might on a beach or inner-city housing estate.

One does notice that Rye isn't willing to surrender its long-lost maritime heritage completely without a fight, though. For people of an aquaphobic but nautical bent, Rye seems to represent a kind of non-sailers' yachting paradise, forever free from motion-sickness, or motion of any kind for that matter.

Beyond the unjustified obsession with the long-departed sea, Rye projects a carefully burnished timelessness - an essence of carefree country life painstakingly distilled and reapplied as necessary.
















There are sweet-shops and coloured doors and ancient stone walls and ancient stone pubs with darts and Fosters. There are cobblestones and kippers and cream teas and families up from London 'how's the serenity'ing their way through the lot.

It's all delightfully England-through-English-eyes, and it tells you as much about nearby London's own receded, re-engineered past as it does about English village life. The easy accessibility of places like Rye, with their B&B's and bacon and eggs and Suffolk Best Bitter, are the reason the English don't feel very much need to take in alleged culture of the continent. The old stones and new greenery that so excite Australians abroad are available here for a fraction of the price and without the need to do battle with Johhny-Foreigner and his unusual gastronomic proclivities.


Mine's a pint, and a big piece of black pudding, if you please barkeep.







Bonus content: The Paulisario Front prepares for combat

Thanks to its then seaside status, Rye played a near starring role in the Norman conquest of England, and continues to style itself as "1066 country" which is a bit like French tourist board running with "the home of the Maginot line", but there you go.

The Paulisario front decided to strengthen its quest for nationhood by making use of the tools that made William the Conqueror such a successful, well, conqueror. I, for one, will be "pretending" to run away like an enraged French infantryman at every opportunity, and my co-leader has a nice, new, Norman hat shown here in backwards and, after some consideration, forwards modes: