27th July 2026 年7月27日
👉🏼 In June 2023, The house across the road from The Towers was demolished and a huge hole was dug. This lovely aquatic addition to the charms of Langen remained there for one whole year…..
But fast forward to 2026 and a smart block of appartments has finally appeared…..
…giving me a new view from my front gate…..
….and changing the landscape of the main street….
自宅の向かいの建設現場（2023年～2026年）
Time moves on.
👉🏼 Enough of Langen. Anybody would think it was a famous town, given how much I write about it.
I need to get away. This interminably long hot summer is getting on my nerves. And the fact that everything seems to shut down in Germany in the summer. Customer : ” can you have my violin ready in two weeks? We are off to the Pyrenees. Thank you.”
We’ll, I’m off to Essex.
Essex? “…….what the…?”
“where the..?..”
“why the…..?”
👉🏼 Ok. So to answer the “where the….?” bit. Here’s a map. Essex is the bit inside the red dotted border, A county east of London. The two green flags are the pivotal points of my journey to this neglected corner of England. Essex Airport (otherwise known as Stansted, the home of Ryanair), and Bradwell Marina (home of Polliwiggle, a sailing boat owned by a friend of mine)
👉🏼 Now we all know what Ryanair looks like. As long as you maintain the mentality of a dumb sheep 🐏 you will cope with being herded around, fined and parted with your money in the wink of an eye. It operates on the far borders of legal capitalism, even charging you if you attempt to recline your seat ( Ed. I must fact-check that last statement ).
But Ryanair does bring me to Essex . I had sat rather nervously next to a window, expecting it to shatter at any moment (see recent news article).
👉🏼 Now I have always had a rather negative view of Essex. The road to nowhere. caravan sites. amusement parks. a flat muddy coast. And now the MP for Clacton-on-Sea. Enough said.
Being only a sheep, you don’t get very well fed on Ryanair, so the first stop is The Queen’s Head Inn in Maldon, a pretty little port on the coast. Here I notice a lot of national flags (the Union Jack ) flying, which I assume is to celebrate the opening of the BBC Proms festival. Wrong, Nigel.
👉🏼 Well, let’s get local. Much as a traditional German restaurant would do Schnitzel und Pommes well, this pub does fish and chips rather well…..
Crunching through the batter and poking the chips into the tartar sauce, our attention is drawn to the quayside. Old boats are moored here, resting on the mud at low tide……
My companion had even sailed on one across the channel to celebrate the D-Day landings (what’s that? google it)
…..these are old Thames barges, lovingly restored…..
…..their distinctive brown sails visible from the nearby medieval church..
Note: I have added a link to this article at a later date……It is directly relevant here on this blog!
👉🏼 Ultimately our destination is the marina on the Blackwater Estuary…….
A marina which is attached to a boatyard. We walk amongst some hopeful vessels waiting to be sold….
…..and past more humble craft…
……until we reach the aforementioned “Polliwiggle” …Here she is – all 26ft of her, sloop rigged and built in Poole, Dorset in 1989…..
👉🏼 Let me introduce RDS, the skipper……..
…who knows every rope…er, sorry….line…and winch ….
…and here is not-so-able seaman, NWR…….
Once all the charts have been checked and the trip logged…..
👉🏼…..we cast off, being careful to not as so much touch the gleaming yacht alongside….
Now sailing out of an estuary is all about tides and wind. We are lucky with the tide, but the wind is minimal….
Which means using the engine for a while…an option no sailor really enjoys…..
👉🏼 But then comes that magic moment. You rig up the sails and switch the engine off. An immediate quiet calm descends. You are alone on a vast expanse of water with only the gentle swish of the hull pushing forward…………….
and the occasional clack of the rigging…..this is happiness….
👉🏼 When I was at school...that was a long time ago…The BBC and the record companies had the monopoly of broadcasting popular music. It was then that the pirate radio station Radio Caroline captured our imaginations. It was founded in 1964 by the Irish businessman Ronan O’Reilly. I mentioned earlier that Ryanair (also Irish!) operates on the borders of legality. This set-up had a few ships around the UK, moored just outside territorial waters, operating more on an idealistic platform than its airline cousin of today.
👉🏼 One of these ships was an old Icelandic trawler which had been involved in the cod wars of the 1970’s. Named the Ross Revenge (after the Ross fishing company) it had a colourful history. Scuffles with Dutch and English coastguards. Running aground on the Goodwin Sands…..It now acts as a sort of orientation point, moored in the middle of the main channel…..
Out of pure curiosity we sail past it…….
it is now a curious relic…….
👉🏼 Later, back on land again, I wonder to myself why this eastern fringe of England is so fond of voting the way it does. Does it feel neglected? or is it some sort of in-built historical insecurity stemming from its geographical situation? The low-lying coast with the threat of Dutch, French or German invasion? And going back even further, the Romans. Indeed, it was on the ruins of the Roman fort of Othona that the missionary Cedd built a christian church. Around 669 AD. It still stands today, having survived as a useful barn for long periods of its existence. The chapel of St.Peter-on-the-wall, an Anglo-Celtic church for the East Saxons. Rather like Einhardts’ basilica near Michelstadt in the Odenwald.
It’s a lonely spot…….
right next to the shoreline……
..which reveals its own treasures…..
…..vegetation on hard, compacted mud….
….even some Roman brickwork….
The interior of the church reveals a mish-mash of building materials…
👉🏼 Eventually I have to say goodbye to Essex. My lodgings at the The Star at Steeple……(yes, there is a village called Steeple!)…
……and head back to Hessen.
👉🏼 I leave with a new impression of Essex. True, I didn’t go to Clacton-on-Sea, but I saw a county rather like Sussex, but without the traffic and with wide open countryside and unspoilt villages. You may think that hopping over to Essex from Hessen is not a big deal. It is actually. The two cultures and landscapes are very different.
So, my friends. That’s all for now.
Bis demnächst…. またね….. see you………
ps. no post is complete without a food clip….taken during a final tacking manoevre…..
THE END 終わる 🙋🏼♂️
- July 2026
- June 2026
- May 2026
- April 2026
- March 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
.
The View from the Towers 塔からの眺め 