The Cricket Pitch

English Village Cricket is part of the fabric of England. The view from the back of the cricket pitch has the village in the background with St Margaret of Antioch church prominent. Last year saw the 50th anniversary of the St Margaret's Cricket Club and 126 enthusiasts consisting of past and present players, including some of the original team, their wives, partners, supporters and friends, attended a celebratory dinner at St Margaret's Hall on the 24th November. By all accounts the club is in good shape and looking forward to next season.

The Fire Station

This is the Fire Station at St Margaret's. I had had a look at the information about Kent Fire Stations and this is what I found.

St Margaret's Station number: E17 Station

Commander: Jason Lahaye

Crewed: Retained

Address: Reach Road, St Margaret's, CT15 6AE

Telephone No: 01304 852782

Drill night: Monday 19:30

These firefighters have other jobs and serve the community as "part-time" firefighters. I noticed that there is a recruitment campaign at the moment and it reminded me of what an important part these people play in the area. We hope we don't need them but when we do it is re-assuring to know someone is there for us. The recent tragedy in Sussex at a fireworks factory made it seem all the more poignant.

Who was St Margaret?

I was looking at the Village sign yesterday and wondered who she was? According to the legend, she was a native of Antioch, daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. She was scorned by her father for her Christian faith, and lived in the country with a foster-mother keeping sheep. Olybrius, the praeses orientis, offered her marriage at the price of her renunciation of Christianity. Her refusal led to her being cruelly tortured, and after various miraculous incidents, one of which involved getting swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive, when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards, she was put to death in A.D. 304.
She is pretty busy. this is a list of her patronages: against sterility; childbirth; dying people; escape from devils; exiles; expectant mothers; falsely accused people; kidney disease; loss of milk by nursing mothers; Lowestoft, Suffolk, England; martyrs; nurses; peasants; people in exile; pregnant women; Queens College Cambridge; Rixtel, Nederlands; safe childbirth; women; women in labour. That seems like a lot of work to me.

The Smugglers

Although we're a small village, with just one shop left, we're well off for watering holes and places to eat out. There are around six (one is being refurbished and not open at the moment)pubs within easy walking distance of the village centre and the Smugglers is right in the centre. The bar is quite small, but the beer is good and the service friendly. The resturant at the back is excellent with a great Mexican menu as an alternative to the equally good English dishes. Smuggling has a history in this area and I'm sure that the Smugglers has a history to tell. Ill return to this topic later after some more research in the bar. With several other pubs to research it should be an intersting area of self education.

The Straits of Dover

The Strait of Dover or Pas de Calais is the narrowist part of the English Cannel. Cap Banc Nez is, just visible, immediately over the anchor, which is set in front of the Dover Patrol Monument. It is here that there is a similar obelisk on the French coast. The Strait is one of the busiest international seaways in the world, regularly used by over 400 commercial vessels daily. This has made safety a critical issue, with HM Coastguard maintaining a 24-hour watch over the strait and enforcing a strict regime of shipping lanes. The Strait is believed to have been created through erosion. At one time there was land where the Strait is now, being a southeast extension of the Weald, joining what is Great Britain to continental Europe. The east end of this old longer Weald can be seen as the Boulonnais chalk area in the Pas de Calais . The predominant geology in the region, on both the British and French sides and on the sea floor between to quite a depth into the earth's crust, is chalk . Although somewhat resistant to erosion, such erosion of the chalk can be seen on both coasts as impressive sea cliffs, the famous White Cliffs of Dover, and Cap Gris Nez on the French side of the Strait.

Little Egret

The sight of two Little Egret on the beach is not that unusual now-a-days. Not many years ago it would have attracted a lot of birders, however the milder climates we now have in winter has meant that Little Egrets have spread through Europe and now breed in reasonable numbers in the south of England.

Lush Grazing in January

These sheep are grazing just about where the Royal Flying Corps took off from in 1914. Looking at this scene a few things occur to me. The extremely mild weather means that the growth of grass is amazing, you should see my lawn. Presumably this is an affect of Global Climate Change (often called, wrongly in my opinion Global Warming). The reason I say this is, that although the overall world trend is up, some areas may be much colder in winter, the British Isles being one, if the Gulf Stream conveyor is turned off by the melting polar ice. We will wait and see, or rather future generations will. In the background of this picture you can see the thin line of the Thanet coast, around Ramsgate, this is about 21Km or 13 miles away, and in between is Pegwell Bay. The sheep are all following each other which could be perceived as a metaphor for a group of people in Westminster!