sheep and more sheep

A visit to Rye – to the dentist  – just by the church. Amusing comments from others in the waiting room – “it’s just the thought of the dentists that makes one feel nervous” – ” I’ve never really been hurt” –  ” I dread it”. Fortunately, for me, it’s never a bad experience as luckily my dentist is brilliant. I wander down through the town walls feeling mellow rather like the sheep grazing on the marshes by the river Rother. Back on the road home – the Royal Military Road at the junction with Sea Road at the base of the Winchelsea hill, temporary traffic lights provide an opportunity to pause and view down the stretch of land carved out by the construction of the canal. Beautiful tones on the rushes – but no sheep.

Having negotiated the hair pin bends around the base of the town and started to pick up speed on the down hill run after Rectory Lane, a large flock  came into view captured in the geometric areas formed by the network of ditches and streams . . . .

. . . quiet and ‘nothing to shout about’ willows line the stream . . . .

The ancient mounds that hold the ridge of Monks’ Walk form a spectacular background.

Off they scuttle – across my idea of a seventh heaven landscape.

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,

Hooves, dolorous bells –
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,

A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.

They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water. Sylvia Plath  A Sheep in the Fog

Another post more related to the poem and another about sheep and I’m not sure if Romney Marsh sheep had bells – but I do know who might know.