Sunday 18 December 2022

Saturday 17th December 2022

The days drag and the weeks fly by.

It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.

The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.

But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparrison.

Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.

We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.

Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.

There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.

We won't starve.

We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.

Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.

Also, Jool picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.

What to do with the day?

Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.

First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.

No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.

Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.

Ash is a large cillage that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.

The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.

Three hundred and fifty one Indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, reveally an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.

Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the chuch there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.

And it was.

The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.

St Mary the Virgin, Wingham, Kent I got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.

We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rools, four small pork pies and two cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told oursleves) and finally found the peppers.

Three peppers cost £50!

Then back home, along the A2.

And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.

Yummy.

There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.

At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.

And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.

Oh dear.

Oh dear indeed.

We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.

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