Friday 10th October 2025

Man flu: day three.

Coming out the other side.

Or so I hope.

I woke at nearly eight in the morning. Jools had put all the bins out before going to yoga.

I just had to get myself up and make coffee.

Which I manage.

Just.

So much for going to the gym this morning. Too much sleep, and soon the coughing restarted.

Bugger.

I make a second brew, and as usual, Jools has heard the kettle boiling and arrives back home.

After breakfast, Jools does some gardening, while I have a shower ready to go out.

It was the second visit of my churchcrawling group, and I would be taking the group to St Augustine's Abbey before walking up the hill to St Martin.

I had been honest with the members about the ten minute walk from the car park to the church, and then several steps up to St Martin, so half the group said they wouldn't be attending, then two more bailed during the week. One that morning, so I hoped the two remaining would turn up.

Back into Canterbury, but this time sticking to the speed limit, parking opposite the Abbey entrance.

There was time to find a place for a snack, but the café we usually went to had closed in August. But one thing you're not short of in Canterbury is a place to eat.

Two right turns brought me back to Longport, and a cafe offering 12 choices, at least, of set breakfasts.

I settled for sausage and bacon baguette and a mug of builder's tea.

I looked at my watch, eeek, I should have been at the Abbey.

I pay and walk out, and there is a lady pacing up and down. She sees me a waves.

Her husband is there too, which means the whole group, the three of us, had arrived.

We go into the Abbey and we look at and through the ruins of the Abbey church, before walking over to the ruin of St Pancras, a church built from recycled Roman bricks, though just one wall and the east wall of the Chancel still stand, though the brilliance of the craftsman could still be admired.

On the wall of the Apse of the Abbey, traces of wall painting could still be made out, having lasted almost 1,000 years.

We were done in an hour, so had a drink from the shop, then sat outside talking, which was al very pleasant.

At quarter to three, we walk up the hill to St Martin, as beside us rush hour traffic built.

I had arranged a tour, which I didn't realised meant that the church closed, and we had the church to ourselves, along with our guide.

After entering, the gates to the porch were closed, and the church was ours.

For an hour.

Our guide talked us through the history of the Kentish Saxon Kings, and that of Queen Bertha and the return of Christianity to fair Albion.

We swapped bits of history and features the other didn't know, which was a surprise.

A small window in the west wall was described a a "squint for leppers".

As there was a large lepper hospital the other side of the city, I thought this unlikely, and perhaps was a window for an anchorite's cell, a thing the guide had not heard of before.

We walked round the church, features and stories pointed out, and so in an hour we were done.

A walk round the outside of the church, seeing the Roman bricks that were used in the church's construction.

And we were done.

We walk back down to the car park, say goodbye, and we leave.

In order to avoid the traffic on the Old Dover Road, I went left the city on the Sandwich Road, but encountered yet more roadworks and roads closed.

I thought i would go via Deal, and find a chippy with parking outside, so I could get tea.

On the Strand there were parking spaces, so I nipped over to buy battered sausage and chips for two, the scuttled back to the car and home.

Jools had made brews, so we sat down to eat, getting through barely half the mountain of chips.

Jools now has the cold/flu, so we went to bed early full of drugs in the hope we might sleep.