The Hay Wain - 30th September 2025 (excerpt)

A landscape, at noon. A man jogging with his dog, and man and woman chatting on the bench next to the Field Studies Centre, the mill pond has been cleared of weed and algae, and most of the vegetation has been trimmed making it easier to see the path of the water between the trees, spider threads drifting and glinting in the sun, Moorhens running on the water, the chatting pair heading back, about three minutes where I could hear no people, no engines, just the occasional bird in the stillness that accompanies a hot blast of sun, as near as I can imagine it might have sounded like in 1821, minus workings from the Mill. - A mill pond where all the fiscal solutions gather to stagnate. A woman on a mobility scooter says ‘I want to take a picture!’, a man taking photo from the same place as the mic but doing so carefully, I’m waiting for the coach load of tourists I saw earlier to arrive and in a few minutes they arrive, following their guide, two ladies ignoring the history lesson and having their own conversation, an airplane overhead, a dragonfly, too many conversations from splinter groups to make out the tour guide. - The cold breeze of authoritarianism across one's face. The perfume of photographers, ‘Grapes on the vine there, look!’, an Amazon delivery driver with two parcels for eat FSC, a lady with pink coat, stockings, scarf and hair getting her phot taken sitting o the wall, a cheeky remark by her friend, ‘We haven’t disturbed your peace, have we?’, ‘No, you’re fine’ I reply, jackdaws on the chimney of Willy Lott’s House, the tourists slowly dissipating, a moments peace before a bunch of students pile out of Flatford Mill, a couple taking in different views bump in to each other, table and chairs being dragged across floorboards, a dude with a Stetson, ducks ducking. - The hard sunbaked ideologies of mainstream media. With all of the activity it hard to tell the position of the hour as it’s gone to the head and not now in the body, a screaming child, a growling dog, a Chiselhurst and Sidcup Grammar School bus, a bush full of orange berries, a Buzzard Calling, student wheeling suitcases, a new party of tourists with a different guide, a lady apologising for the intrusion, I ask another lady for the time, and she says ‘Twenty five past 12’, so I got to 55 minutes again, the students walking back again dragging their suitcases, a cormorant flying overhead, a woman walking past the ‘PRIVATE’ sign. - Erosion of societies fundamentals falling in to the sea.