Peppering Roads

[Image from Pixabay]

Potholes predate the car as the potters used to dig holes in the roads in the search for easily accessible clay. Other road users had to learn to look out for them even back then. Now Winter is upon us once again the little blighters have woken from their summer slumber. For many months they have snoozed beneath the tarmac blankets the council roadmenders popped over them, but now they've cast off their layers and have emerged hungrily smacking their lips at the prospect of their first taste of car tyre. How do I know this....my social media feed is full of those who have fallen foul of their night time antics when they fill up with water and pretend to be puddles, now desperately in search of those who can replace their shredded rubber wheels at short notice. To avoid the same pitfall I must be mindful when driving over the next few months then. 

However, bad road conditions in Sussex are not a new thing.  Thick clay can be challenging when wet and the county was infamous for its oft impassable routes. Edward Lear visited the county in  1829 and whilst staying at Peppering House he  recorded his experiences in this witty poem below😄 

Peppering Roads

If you wish to see roads in perfection

A climax of cart-ruts and stones

Or if you've the least predilection 

For breaking your neck or your bones

If descents and ascents are inviting

If your ankles are strangers to sprains

If you'd ever a penchant for sliding

Then, to Peppering go, by all means.

Take a coach some dark night in November

A party of four with inside

Ah! I once had that jaunt, I remember

And really I pretty near died!

First across to my neighbour I tumbled

Then into the next lady's lap

For at ev'ry fresh rut we were jumbled

And jolted at ev'ry new gap!

So that when we had finished our journey

The coachman who opened the door

Found us tangled so very topturvy

We rolled out all in one bundle all four

And then we were so whisped together

Legs dresses caps arms blacks and whites

That some minutes elapsed before ever

They got us completely to rights!

If you go in a gig you are sure to

Get lost in a mist on the hills

There's a gibbeted thief on the moor too

Your mem'ry with murder that fills

And besides if you ride in what fashion

You will you are sure to get splashed

Till you get quite incensed in a passion

And peppery like mutton that's hashed.

Or if on some fine frosty morning

You make up your mind for a walk

Oh! ere such be your project take warning

For sunbeams will liquify chalk

Step by step you get clogged so for sartin

With chalk round your shoes like a rope

For to comfort eke Day and Martin

You might as well walk upon soap!

From one end of the walk to the other

It's one awful bootjack to feel

One mighty pedestrial slither

For Christian like progress unmeet!

Oh! The peppering roads! Sure 'tis fit there

Should be some requital at last

So the inmates you find when you get there

Amply pay you for all you have passed.

Have a great weekend folks.

Arilx