On Monday 6 April, we should have been setting off for Istanbul. On Saturday 25 April, we should have arrived. Today we should have been flying to Malaysia...

All not to be.

But I've had a really rewarding three weeks' worth of novelty-filled pseudo-travel.

Yes, absolutely, I would have preferred to be doing the real thing. And yes, absolutely, I'm REALLY looking forward to the time -- whenever that is -- when things are not like this. I'm definitely not one of those who appear to be enjoying the pandemic...

But given the circumstances, I feel immensely privileged to have been able to experience so much. Embarking on this little campaign of New Things has been psychologically very helpful.


Since I last posted, I/we have:

1. Watched Emily of Emerald Hill. Singaporean theatre company Wild Rice temporarily made available this moving and thought-provoking monodrama by Stella Kon, in which the part of Emily is played by Ivan Heng. There'll be a more analytical Velvet Cushion post coming along shortly, but for the minute I'll just note that it was a poignant reminder of one of our former homes. (POSTSCRIPT 28 April: Here, in unwontedly timely fashion, is the VC post.)

2. Got nostalgic for another former home while listening to this Anzac tribute from the Modern Maori Quartet. The combination of the music, the Maori language, the Queenstown backdrop, and the memory of being here (and in Australia) for many Anzac Days meant I was unable to listen dry-eyed... (More soberingly, here's an instructive take on the original events at Anzac Cove.)


3. Made progress with the low-carb chocolate mug-cake experiment. Adding the juice of two tangerines definitely lifts the flavour, and (as we split the mug-cake between the two of us) adds only marginally to the carbs. Not my all-time-favourite chocolate cake, but it's definitely risen to the way-better-than-nothing category. Next time, I'll try secreting some dark chocolate in the middle...

4. Walked to Thorpe Market, a village whose name has been tempting us on signposts since our bright-red tern feet first reached Northrepps.

We set out at 6 am on what might fairly be termed a peerless Sunday morning, the air cold and sparkling, the fields agleam with dew. The countryside was alive with the scurryings of pheasants and partridges, rabbits and hares. Every so often, the piccolo trills of the song birds would be interrupted by the crash-thrash-flop-flap of a wood pigeon. All sorts of wild flowers are brightening the hedges now. There are lakes of bluebells in the shady areas. The flint cottages are abloom too. Clematis. Wisteria. Lilac. The first stirrings of rhododendrons.

What a season. What a season.






Before we reached Thorpe Market, we came across a bit of a surprise: a trio of flagpoles, a group of graves, and an avenue of trees -- the "Southern Rhodesia Memorial Avenue", in fact. The ensemble is sited opposite Southrepps Hall, and it's the manorial family there who apparently had the connections with the former colony, and established the memorial.

Needless to say, opinions are divided on this extraordinary remnant of empire.

For some, it's all capitals and respect: "The trees, Tilia Cordata, a small-leaf lime, are grown as a Living Memory of those who helped to make up the Colony of Southern Rhodesia... The British Flag was raised in Salisbury by the Pioneer column on 13th September 1890. Southern Rhodesia was made a Self Governing Crown Colony in 1923. Rhodesians loyally and proudly supported the British Empire and our monarchy. Many served and fell in the Boer War and the World Wars of 1914 and 1939 for their King and Country. Britain dissolved the country and lowered the Flag in 1980."

Others point to a worriesome lack of awareness: "It is the history of Rhodesia as a violent white supremacist state which makes the flying of its flag in rural Norfolk so very concerning... Flags are incredibly powerful symbols -- particularly when those associated with oppression and racial violence are flown by privileged elites. The presence of this flag in Norfolk is shameful -- as is the public memorial to a pariah white supremacist state. Its presence demonstrates the lack of education about the British Empire and its legacies within Britain... [M]ore troubling than the memorial itself is the flag-raising ceremony which takes place around the 13th September every year, commemorating the same ceremony which took place in Salisbury, Rhodesia from 1890–1980 to celebrate the arrival of the first settlers... The high-handed, moralist language of the neo-imperialist pressure groups behind the flag raising event in Southrepps speaks to a particular tendency within British conservatism to extol the British Empire as an honourable civilizing mission and by extension create a ‘special place’ for Britain within global history... This is what happens when a critical conversation about the British empire and its legacy -- at home and abroad -- does not take place."

Innocuous or pernicious, the complex makes a nice quiet place to eat your second-breakfast ham sandwiches...






Thorpe Market is another of Norfolk's delightful flint villages. There's a green with some old almshouses. There's a hotel with origins back in the 16th century. And there's another church dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch, this one interestingly towerless.







As always, the advancing season gives our repertoire of walks constant freshness.

My "replacement journey" might be over, but I can guarantee that our everyday life will continue to be beautiful.