River Len, Maidstone

Tremendous rain overnight, thunder and lightning too. That’ll do the garden good. I could hear the plants sucking up the moisture.

This morning we went to the rehearsal for our performance at the Edinburgh Fringe. There’s 11 songs to learn and we spent half the time of the first song and only covered 4 other songs. A lot of awful practice needed between now and then.

Music of a more rumbustious nature in Mote Park continues today as the annual Ramblin’ Man Festival https://www.ramblinmanfair.com entered it’s second day. Those poor people camping must have had an exciting night. We’re down wind of the Festival meaning it’s as loud here as in the site itself.

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship with events in Mote Park, especially music events which spread their sound far and wide. We understand these events bring much joy and pleasure to many people, indeed we enjoy folk festivals, and generates money in the town. On the other hand, Mote Park is a lung of tranquility and countryside within an urban area and it would be nice to protect that as much as we can. Too many people seem disconnected from the natural environment as it is and these events distract even more. Prevented any work on installing the new fence.

Talking about tranquility, you’d never know that today’s blip is in the heart of town, a few metres away from a busy and noisy main road. The River Len enters the Medway just behind the location of the photo, a stream that rises east of the town and flow west along the foot of the North Downs, through several lakes and ponds including Mote Lake and the Old Mill Pond featured on my blip of 16th June.