Guess what I calls it?
Anyway, weekends are still special, as Jools has two days off and we can be together all the time. Aaah, etc. And we try to make the most of that time, trying to balance my love of going out taking pictures with the need to do some serious stuff lie housework and shopping.
So, in these leaner times, a trip to London is out of the question, and we stay mostly in the local area to visit or re-visit places and not have to eat out too much.
As I said last week, one of my cameras died on Friday, and after much distress I found we had a whole week of the warranty left, and all we had to do was take it back to where we bought it and they would sort out the rest; all for free.
The camera shop is in Canterbury, and although Canterbury isn't far, we don't go very often. There is a good reason for that. Canterbury is a very old city, it's Christian roots date back to the 6th century, it has a large cathedral, a ruined abbey, a network of mediaeval street, city walls; it also has many wonderful shops in the centre and in retail parks. In other words, it's gridlocked with traffic, doubly so on Saturdays, and so the only way to beat that was to be at the shop at nine in the morning when they opened, and hopefully most of Kent would still be in bed, and then head for somewhere less hectic.
We had to forgo the early morning ramble around Deal which we had been looking forward to all week. Probably because it ended up on Deal pier where the cooked breakfasts are just wonderful. And also the fight in Tescos, as going any later would involve families with their feral kids and raised blood pressure and a road rage fuelled trip back home.
We set off, and being out of milk in the house we went to Chaplin's Cafe, under the shadow of Dover Castle for breakfast. Amazingly, we both just had coffee and toast, and not the huge full English that I had intended to have.
We headed out through the quiet streets and onto the old main road to London and onto Canterbury. Thankfully traffic was still light, and we arrived at the shop and waited for nine.
I was a little breathless as the assistant filled out the forms, as were it not covered a new shutter mechanism would be at least a couple of hundred quid. 'Sign here,' she said. And it was done. All sorted, just have to wait four weeks for it to be sent to Canon and back.
What to do now? I had seen some shots a friend took in Herne Bay on Flickr that week, and a quick conversation with Jools and it was sorted, and out of Canterbury we zoomed, dodging the increasing traffic, and through leafy lanes we soon came, up and down quiet valley, over chalky down and through sleepy villages to the coast we went.
Finding a parking space, I was straining to go out and snap away with my other camera, lest the light change and the pictures not be so good.
Herne Bay is a typical Victorian resort; all pim and proper houses, once hotels and boarding houses, a neat and tidy formal garden lining the prom, and a truncated pier that has about a hundred yards on the land, and the remains of it's head a mile offshore; now just a home for gulls and something to use to jazz up dull seascapes.
We found an Italian coffee and ice cream shop in the grand bandstand building. We sat down to coffee and scones, and looked up at the bright blue sky and felt the warmth of the sun. We had looked at the luxurious hand made ice creams, and the waffle cones to put said ice cream in. And decided that we probably didn't need ice cream, but then who does?
We walked around, I took pictures, getting some strange looks as I used the side angle lens to get real close to a rubbish bin and some railings (see my Flickr stream for these), before we had exhausted the fun and photogenic nature of the town.
I thought a drive through Margate would be good, parking proved to be difficult and families sat on the beached building sandcastles, and older people walked round eating ice cream and jellied eels and other disgusting seafood. We went on to Whitstable and then on the Tankerton to a shop Jools wanted to visit.
We parked up and I wandered around taking shots of a couple of art deco buildings, and beach huts built on the side of the shallow cliffs. Jools sat on a bench whilst I wandered around, camera in in hand. I returned with ice cream. And we watched the world go by, or the part that was in town with us.
And having eaten our ice creams, we headed off for a leisurely drive home, through more leafy lanes and sleepy villages.
Our Sunday morning ramble was also scrubbed, this time to unforecasted heavy rain showers; and so we made good of our time by putting up curtain rails in the bedroom, as the shutters that were there let no air in. So we have bright red curtains hanging, which show up the rest of the white room very well indeed.
There was no getting away from the fact, we had to go shopping, and Tescos really wasn't a pleasant thought, and so we convinced ourselves we could go to Waitrose and not spend much.
I had been looking on a tourist website and found that there was a Knights Templar chapel in the town, or the remains of one. And so we set off into the hills overlooking Dover to find it. All that is left is a ring of flint walls, but it has history and is indeed a Knights Templar place. In another town such a thing would be a main attraction; in Dover it's a small area next to a former borstal with no signs leading the visitor to it. It's just there with a small plaque.
I snapped it anyway, and we went off to Hythe and the supermarket.
As the Brits amongst you will realise we spent lots more than we intended, and I think that it will be our last visit there for a while, but we have stocked up on Otter's Noses and Ocelot's Spleens, so that will last us a while. We had some lovely things for lunch; and fresh raspberries and cream for dinner; we were happy.
And, that's about it. No lottery win, no visit by the Queen, although the house is clean.
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