Recently whilst clearing my loft<\/p>\n
I found a faded watercolour<\/p>\n
That I had painted some years ago<\/p>\n
It was a rough view of three oast houses<\/p>\n
Along with a barn and a few outbuildings<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jane and I were strawberry picking<\/p>\n
At a farm some miles from Maidstone in rural Kent<\/p>\n
I can remember its creation as if it was yesterday<\/p>\n
The long walks in the high summer fields<\/p>\n
And the natural swims in the nearby river<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was reminded of the broken lock on the washroom door<\/p>\n
Which I guarded when Jane was in the shower<\/p>\n
The ancient church at the bottom of the narrow lane<\/p>\n
And the cricket pavilion built in the nineteen fifties<\/p>\n
But looking as if it had been built before the two wars<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I can recall my future wife watching cricket in her black bikini<\/p>\n
And the extraordinary number of dropped catches in the outfield<\/p>\n
These were the days of orange teas and bumble bees<\/p>\n
Of quiet afternoons spent under shady trees<\/p>\n
Which still linger fruitfully in our recent memories<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The oast houses and the outbuildings are now residential<\/p>\n
And they look quite splendid within this once active farm<\/p>\n
The barn like the fields have seen better days and are now resting<\/p>\n
Perhaps asleep as much has changed during the passing of the years<\/p>\n
But little has really changed here in this soft but forgotten Kent valley<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
West Farleigh\u00a0 August 2020<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently whilst clearing my loft I found a faded watercolour That I had painted some years ago It was a rough view of three oast houses Along with a barn and a few outbuildings Jane and I were strawberry picking At a farm some miles from Maidstone in rural Kent I can remember its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9812"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9819,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions\/9819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}