Caesar slept here too
Tea and history on the coast of Kent
I fulfilled one of my goals for “England 2025”—to return to Deal on the Channel coast, a place that thoroughly charmed me during my 5-day stay in 2023.
Deal’s most obvious draw is its sloping, peach-pebble beach. Great Britain has a ridiculous amount of coastline. Much of it is so convoluted that the island exemplifies the infinite coastline paradox in fractal geometry, wherein the length of the coastline increases to the theoretical point of infinity as the unit of measurement decreases. (Picture measuring the coastline with the length of your thumbnail vs. a yard stick vs. a telephone pole. The smaller the unit, the more crannies and jags it can tally. ) Most Britons have favorite places along the coast, and places like Deal, where the convolutions straighten open out into long, open beaches, are much loved.
In London Calling I described my 2023 visit to Deal, including an encounter with Julius Caesar and the perfect tea hut. Here’s how Hut 55 looks now, on a mild-’til-blustery, sunny-’til-cloudy day: largely unchanged since my last time. I.e., perfect.
Tea still strong enough to grow hair on your chest, but as this is a civilized nation, decaf tea as well, a host of non-dairy milks, coffee of course, and essential hot chocolate. Cold bevs in the cooler out front—the full range needed for the day’s skittish weather. Plus carbs: cakes, scones, biscuits, muffins, and “tiffin”—a no-bake rocky road bar whose calorie content, like the fractal coastline, approaches infinity if you measure it too closely.
They were out of ginger and walnut cakes this time so I chose a biscuit (aka cookie). I was so hungry that I probably looked like one of these dogs—as alert and focused as they, but hopefully a bit more intelligent.
A short distance farther on, tea still warm and biscuit half eaten, I revisited the spot in Lower Walmer where Julius Caesar landed long ago.
This paragraph in the lower left tickled my sense of history and absurdity. History, because, well, yeah:
“Julius Caesar first landed in Britain just north of here in August 55 B.C. He encountered strong resistance from the native Britons and stayed only a few weeks. Bad weather had prevented reinforcements and resupply. Despite one more abortive landing one year later further north, it was nearly 100 years before Emperor Claudius [forever Derek Jacobi] managed to make Britain a part of the Roman empire.”
(“Managed to” is nicely passive-aggressive, don’t you think?)
So much for the history bit. The absurdity bit was that I kept picturing Caesar and his lieutenants, scruffy and bilious from their sail (or row?) across the windy Channel, clambering up the pebbled beach to the queue at Hut 55, being admonished by the locals to await their turn before sheepishly ordering tea and toasties. In Latin.
Because of my perpetual weirdness, that got me thinking about time and space. “George Washington slept here” is nothing compared to standing where ole’ Julius got his hat handed to him by the locals two millennia ago. But what was that compared to the long history of the Britons he encountered? And who were they compared to the history of the island itself? Through how many eons had the earth risen and fallen and the seas rolled, roiled, and shifted to create the countless pebbles that cover this stretch of coast? What is human history to any of that?
We’re not the only Earth species that laughs. But how did the universe unfold so that an organism capable of pondering time that way and imagining Caesar queuing up for tea could come along?
What happened in the whole of consciousness the first time a self-aware, biological being imagined unlikely or impossible juxtapositions and laughed out loud?
(Hmm….if you remove the word “biological” from that sentence, might I have just described what triggered the big bang?)
Anyhoo…here’s a 2023 photo from the trail along the chalk cliffs beyond Walmer. I’m well past the end of this year’s English sojourn. I didn’t walk as far this time, but I hope to on my next visit, perhaps even all the way to Dover. I’ll bring tea in a flask, maybe mutter a bit of high school Latin, and ponder the history of the chalk.
Post script:
One of the late great George Booth’s cartoons for The New Yorker, of a Roman legion meeting a lone shepherd, was captioned General Varus’ compliments. Which way to Teutoburgervald? That image and caption have been rattling around in my brainium since the 1980s and likely inspired my vision of Caesar queuing up for tea. Human memory—another unfathomable strangeness!
Paid subscription option coming soon and bold request #1:
It’s been a year and change since Travels of a Gregarious Hermit launched. I plan to keep going, so I’ll turn on Substack’s paid subscription option with my next post—option being the key word. You’ll still be able to read the posts whether or not you subscribe. Please consider pledging a small monthly amount to this project if you enjoy what I’m doing and are feeling flush.
To everyone who has already pledged, thank you! I’m not sure whether Substack will notify you or whether your pledge will simply start showing up on your credit card statement. The latter seems a bit brusque, so I hope you’ll see this message.
Bold request #2:
Please share Travels of a Gregarious Hermit or your favorite posts. Elevate it on Substack, mention it on Facebook or BlueSky, tweet it on X, send it to your besties, dance about it on TikTok, distract your colleagues with it on LinkedIn, do something(?) with it on Instagram—whatever appeals to you. Thanks!
And leave comments if you’d like to. I love reading them!
Shameless promo:
If poetry nourishes you, you might enjoy my book, Pluck Another Apple, Eve, And Finish It. It’s available in print and ebook formats and you can sample its poems for free on the book’s Amazon page. (Yes I know, Amazon—Jeff Bezos, etc. Sigh. This Christmas Eve I hope the ghosts of Bill Gates’ generous parents will visit Jeff and say “Listen up, young man…..”)