Saturday 24th February 2018

I did sleep. And sleep well, though waking in a fit of coughing, and with each gasp for air, my very bones ached as though I had been run over by a bus. That this was an improvement on Friday, even if only a light one, showed how ill I had been and still was. And having seen nothing but the ceiling of my hotel room, or of the bedroom back home, except for the time I travelled back home on Friday, I was persuaded that maybe some fresh air might do me some good.

Outside it looked fabulous, but those looks were deceiving, it was bitterly cold with the wind set in the east, blowing in from The Steppes, it is unusual these days for the wind to blow this way, it used to every year back in Norfolk when I was growing up, the flat lands of East Anglia doing nothing to break the gales from the east. Granddad used to call it a lazy wind, it was too lazy to go round you, went through you instead. I can remember those vast East Anglian skies, full of leaden clouds, ready to snow, but usually, the wind just blew.

This week the wind is set in the east, and the eastern side of England from Humberside to Kent is expected to see some snow. Might be a few flurries, might be more. Almost certainly won't be as bad as the winters of 1963 and 1947, then both years had sex weeks of temperatures plunging to minus twenty, snow every day for weeks on end. Trans got stuck in drifts, crops could not be harvested and ferries were confined to port as the Channel was full of pack ice. It won't be that bad.

Denmark is going to be whiter and colder.

But for now, I will try to get some sunlight. Jools had been shopping, so no need to go out too early, but on my radar had been the source of the Nailbourne. For the last few weekends I have been revisiting churches which all happen to be in villages along the course of a winterbourne that eventually turns into the Little Stour. Having researched the river, I found that its source was under one of my favourite Kent churches at Lyminge. On the way I would see of Ss. Peter and Paul in River was open, what with it being a Saturday and I hoped that people would be in cleaning, the best chance to see inside a church all week, especially urban ones.

I drive us down to River, past the old flat on Crabble Hill and along Lewisham Road parking a street away from where Nan passed away, now nearly two years ago. I walk down the narrow street to the church gate, along the north side of the church, only to find the main door, and new entrance through the church centre, but that was locked too. All I had to do was walk back to the car up the short hill.

By the time I got back to the car, I was out of breath and unable to speak.

We drove to Folkestone then took the Elham Valley road, passing two places where lesser winterbournes had flowed down the road, pooling at the bottom of a dip, the passing traffic splashing the water over the hedges and branches now coated in nearly an inch of clear ice.

Lyminge is a large village, the church along a narrow lane from the valley road, and just to the south of it is a meadow. You can get to the meadow through a gap in an ancient stone wall, halfway along was an unusual timber-framed shelter, built up on a ten foot tall plinth, which, as it happens, the spring came out. This was the village pump, so locals did not have to climb down to the spring for fresh water. This is St Etheburga's Well, named after a 7th century English saint to whom the church was originally dedicated, and to this day, her relics are still housed.

And even in this dry winter; well, fairly dry winter, the spring bubbled clear and cold from the bank and weaved its way across the meadow. This is the infant Nailbourne, but within a mile the riverbed will be dry again, but the water still flows out of sight, underground, and would surface again the other side of Littlebourne.

I take shots, and I am done. It is cold, I ache and stupid for having come out.

We return home, and I take to the shower to warm up some, coughing all the time.

I take to the sofa, listening to the football laying on my back, then sitting up at five to watch the Scotland v England game. Egg chasing can be exciting, and it was for Scotland who run in three first half tries as England fail to find the intensity they had so far played with. There was no coming back, so another season ended with a defeat, though a win against Ireland next week could see England still crowned champions. Norwich played well, but could not score. The game petered out to a 0-0 draw, summing up the day for me.

We watch more Altered Carbon in the evening, which was for me a delaying of when I went to bed and I knew the coughing would start up again.