Monday 17th December

DAMP, DARK, COLD & STARLESS:

Perfect day for a train ride.
Last Friday we drove from Barking Creek in Dagenham, to Coalhouse Fortress
& the Old radar tower at East Tilbury, had a puncture in the rain on the A13.
saw a giant painted banner of Jagger’s head circa 1970 hung from the walls
of an abandoned warehouse, ate a bacon sarny in a back yard cafe, 80’s
videos on a tv bolted to the wall, bars on the windows, Tyres wedged in the
cracks between spray shops. Manicured graveyards, marshlands, marsh
gasses, bird sanctuaries, silver bearded twitchers from Dusseldorf dressed
in black, abandoned shoe factories, purpose built housing estates for
workforces, empty hairdressers waiting for customers, the convergence of
traffic held high above the marshes on concrete legs, J.G. Ballard country,
frontier towns, a dead end road leading to an old Fortress across the river
from an oil refinery, the smell of chemicals, the smell of sewage, ditches
between lowland fields, flood plane, home made shrines, plastic flowers,
children’s teddies, tiny wellies left out in the rain, park benches with beloved names inscribed on them, the smell of the river, the sound of the river, crazy wind blown hawthorn sculptures, succulent red rose hips & the old radar tower, shuttered concrete & rusting steel watching the far shore,
lest we forget.

(K)