Grass snake

Sweltering heat. No wind. I break off from my tale of adventure on the high seas to bring you briefly back to today, 24th July, when Dad has a day off and we are treated to an early walk in Challock Forest, where it's still reasonably cool under the trees.

Even so we're glad, after a hour, to arrive at one of the man-made ponds in the forest. Most of these are the result of the Friends of King's Wood prying money out of Ashford Borough Council's "Community Chest" grant scheme and then paying contractors with beeeeg diggers and lorries to dig holes, and puddle in 2 feet thick of locally-sourced clay.

This particular pond, though was given to us free by the Stour Valley Arts project, who get oodles of money to make environment-sensitive sculptures and art out of bits of forest. There's one, for example which is a clearing in the shape of a double-sized B52 bomber "aimed" along the flightpaths used in the US bombing of Afghanistan (or possibly the former Yugoslavia - we can't recall).

Another took the form of three huge (30' by 30') baskets woven into the living, outer trunks of old coppice chestnut (that one was superb and very popular; many a Mum used to frighten their kids by saying they were Giants' picnic baskets. Sadly they are all part of the living (and in this case dying and rotting) environment, so eventually they fall into derilection, become unsafe and have to be "de-commissioned").

Anyway, this pond is a bit of such art - intended originally as a round earthwork with a wooden structure at it's centre (adopts pretentious arty voice) ... " making a statement about the super-imposition by man of a geometric shape upon the natural chaos of the living world etc etc". Didn't quite work - the wood had to be removed when the local kids decided it made a great stunt-jump for their mountain bikes and there was a risk they'd impale them selves. Also, in the first winter the natural bowl-shape of it filled with rain and it became a great dog-wallowing pond, filled with thrown sticks and bits of tree.

An excellent free pond then, for "us" and the local Fallow Deer, not necessarily great "art".

Now then, at risk of sounding like Ronnie Corbett, I digress. Back to our arival , hot and gasping at the pond for a wade, where-upon a big (say 3 feet?) grass snake uncurled from a half-sunken log and charged for the bank and safety. I had not seen one of these before, so I was round there, "bouncing at" the nose end and woofing at it to stop. The snake stopped, swung round and baled back into the pond, heading for the too-deep-for-westies water in the middle and another half-sunken log. Impressive sight. Eventually though, when we couldn't get at it, and it wasn't about to move, we all got bored and left each other alone.

More narrow boating later.

Deefer