Sheppey Fish and Chips
Food for the soul, food for the heart.
We travelled to Essex for the funeral of our friend Gary in early October, a part of the country we’d never visited before. He was a motorcycle racer, a champion, and since we learned of his passing it had been a long stretch before we were all afforded the official moment to mourn our loss. It is strange to feel grief and to be surrounded by people you would only see with the person you are all missing. It is stranger still to grieve with a sense of guilt—that he died doing what he loved is a consolation, but to continue enjoying that sport while he no longer could felt dark. It took some time to consolidate those feelings. I still am.
After the wake, and after sleeping in the van on a hotel car park, we travelled to a random pinpoint on the map, a campsite I had found by the sea on the Isle of Sheppey, whose owner boomed welcomes down the phone at me with the singular joy of a man who enjoys his life. We needed that, I decided. I plotted the route and we headed south.
When I told people later that we stayed on the Isle of Sheppey, the response was unanimously: “why?” As someone from various areas of the UK that illicit the same response when visited, this has made me like it even more. The north of the south, I’ve deemed it. And I’ll tell you why.
We were at the start of what was meant to be a break for us, me and my husband, despite the sad beginnings of it. The closure of the funeral would be followed by our slow adaptation to life after Corto (our bar which closed in September) and a week harvesting apples for Nightingale Cider would bring us time to think, to breathe, and to hopefully sleep properly for the first time in months. So, we arrived at our campsite overlooking the Swale, and sat quietly in the evening sun as dirt bikes revved out of site on the beach below us, and I imagined the sand spraying up from their wheels, a race to the end of the shore.
We headed into Queenborough for fish and chips on our host’s recommendation. The queue winded reassuringly out of the door, and as we waited we heard people ordering fish pie, which wasn’t on the menu. Every person waiting for their dinner talked to us at one point or another. People joked amongst themselves, called each other “darlin’”, had a saveloy breaded in salt while they waited. It felt like normality, but nicer. Even walking through town to the harbour we only saw smiling locals, beer gardens full of people, brightly-painted parks and posters for community events. We sat on the sea wall past the flood defences and ate our chips, watching the orange sun sink below the flat and distant landscape of Essex. Seagulls circled us, but never landed. Perhaps they felt a bit compassionate. Perhaps they’d already stolen somebody’s tea. Vinegar and salt, and cans of pop. We sat mostly in silence, leant tightly together, strangely at home in this alien, liminal place. The sound of the dirt bikes carried across the water.
Other Stuff
There is something about miniature buildings that sends me into an imagination daze. These sculptures of Tokyo buildings by Christopher Robin Nordstrom are realistic, rusty, and litter-strewn. I love them.
The Adventure Queens Grant is an annual grant offered to women who have a solo trek, trail, or other grand adventure in mind but need some help financing and organising their dream. Winners receive kit and mentoring too. I’m going to apply so you should too.
I found Popp-Hackner’s photography through searching for images of swamps (I really like them at the moment.) Their landscapes are so dreamlike without straying at all from their natural beauty. I love.
David Nilsen on Tripel van de Garre is a wonderful piece of beery escapism
My Stuff
It’s been difficult to put my thoughts into actual writing recently (although I’ve been writing a lot of poems that I don’t know what to do with) but I’ve completed a couple of things that will be published soon in the usual places.
My book, The Wine Almanac, is finally being released into Glug subscription boxes this month! I’m so very proud of this collection of wonderful wine stories based on the seasons, and if you’re a new subscriber you should be getting it soon. It also looks like you might be able to buy it on the Wine52 website for a short time.
If you are interested in motorbike racing at all, please follow the Kibosh Instagram account. I am part of this team in a very small way and there should be some team announcements coming up relatively soon for next year’s TT races.
