Saturday 10th March 2018

You know, with each dawn, I feel a little better, a little chipper, a little more perky. It is the weekend and there is wildflowers and churches to explore and snap.

We have to go to Tesco first thing, and somehow I manage to forget the clubcard, so we cannot scan and shop, instead have to do it the old fashioned way in loading up the cart then waiting in line at the till. It took several minutes longer! There are churches waiting for me, dontcha know?

We are back home for breakfast and put the shopping away. I am loading the cameras in the car when Jools tells me we have to go into Dover first. More time lost for churchcrawling!

So the car is loaded, we drive down past the castle and park on the side of Castle Street. We are in town to buy Jen a birthday present, so I stand outside the jeweller as Jools goes in to pay for the chain we decided upon, then she sneaks past me and leaves me standing like a spare part on Biggin Street. I realise I am waiting for no one in the shop, so go back to the car where Huey has begun his show. Time passes in the company of some very cool chunes.

Jools comes back, now we could go to do some churchcrawling.

I realised I have missed out one church in the valley of the Nailbourne, so we would visit Elham first. I like the Elham Valley, and Elham is a delight, the church situated on a neat square off the main road. I was last here in 2012 (where does the time go?) and I suspected I missed many details back then, doubly so as I was having trouble with the then new nifty fifty and its sometimes very shallow DoF.

At eleven in the morning there was plenty of parking in the small square, had it have been later I might have been tempted to go in for a pint in the Kings Arms, where a certain NZ friend of mine had his first pint of English Ale 9 months ago.

St James was open, and being decorated for the Mother's Day service the next day. The wardens and volunteers gossiped as they made flower arrangements, and I went round getting shots, seeing so many things I missed last time here. Lots of very old glass too, and good enough to need me to to go back outside to ge the macro lens for some close up shots.

The plan from Elham was to cross over the downs to Densole to a garden centre, then through Wingham to Preston, call in at the butchers and finally arrive at Stourmouth, the final church beside the Nailbourne/Little Stour. It seemed straightforward, head east and soon find a place we recognised. We took the road down across the bottom of the valley, over the dry bed of the Nailbourne and the trackbed of the Elham Valley line and up the other side where, annoyingly, at each junction, there was no signpost, so we guessed which way to go.

We drove for ten minutes until we came to Acrise, past the hidden church then onto to Densole, the roads little by little getting sider and more used. We came to Densole, and the garden centre, full of nice things obviously. But too early for bedding plants, as we suspected.

At Preston the butchers was heaving, apparently people realising it was Mother's Day and so deciding to cook steak of roast some beef for their parent was in many people's mind. Best of all for us is that they were producing the first batch of wild garlic flavoured sausages, which obviously we had to buy some so to do a quality check on; I am a quality manager after all.

From Preston it is a mile or so out onto the marshes to Stourmouth. Half a millennium ago this was the edge of the land, a wide channel, the Wantsum, separated East Kent from Thanet, then a real isle, and Stourmouth, as the name suggested is where the Great Stour, or the Little Stour, or both, emptied into the Wantsum. Even now, it is land, and not quite land. During the last major flooding along the Nailbourne, it seemed that Stourmouth might sink back into the mud. But it survived. And now is solid land again. Until we have the next wet winter.

All Saints sits at the end of a long dead end lane, Church Lane, and is not under the care of the Church Conservation Trust, so is open every day. I park outside, and am struck again by the two huge buttresses supporting the simple tower. It was nearly ten years since I was last here, a week before Jools's and my wedding I brought Mum here, she did not get out of the car, and probably slept as I went into the church for the second time in a couple of months. So a return a decade later was very much overdue.

I agan noticed man more details, in All Saints' case, wonderful medieval tiles, I take many shots, of course.

At half twelve I was done, and we were both hungry, so we return home via Preston and Sandwich, getting home after one. I make filled rolls; rolls filled with honey and molasses cured ham. Very nice.

There was football on the radio, I sit on the sofa with Molly as I digested lunch. My eyes grew heavy......

I wake to hear that the three o'clock games had kicked off, I follow Norwich on Twitter, 1-0 down. 1-1. Then two penalties EACH brought it to 3-3 just after half time. By this time I had snoozed again. Hull scored a winner, 4-3 to win the points, and end our season. Oh well.

We both have a shower, and I watch England play France at egg chasing. France win. Bah.

But it is cards night, I decide rather than drinking beer or wine, I would use the rumtopf as a cordial in sparkling wine, so almost not alcoholic at all. Other than the 12% wine and the at least 40% rumtopf. It made a mighty fine drink, and i made a bottle of Prosecco and the half bottle of rumtopf disappear by eleven. By then we we had played two rounds of Meld, and were about even. We played Queenie, and we had run out of money, but yours truly scooped the run pot and a couple of quid in pennies.

Yay us!

We also all planned our next adventure, which we hope to be able to share with you in due course, but for now, think among yourself as to where we might be going on our holibobs later this year.

Half eleven, and we were done. Or I was. Jools takes us back home, and I fall into a slumber.