January 2nd

And so life returns to something like normal, and so we wake up on a cold Saturday morning, defrost the windscreen and head off to Tesco to get the week's shopping, and allow us to have some milk and so have breakfast.

The weather had other thought, the forecast was for thick cloud, and instead we got azure blue skies, no wind. Although it was cold.

We headed off to Folkestone, to take a picture of one of the oldest consecrated sites in Britain, where there is still a church.

We park down by the harbour, the car park all but deserted and walk up the old High Street, which the local council is trying to turn into an artist's quarter. A shame then, that on a fine day we are just about the only people around, and those shops, now studios, are closed fast.

We skirt around the main shopping area and head to the church, St Mary's and St Eanswythe's; she was one of the first Saxon saints in England. Inside a coffee bar had been set up, and I spoke to a couple of parishioners before going round and taking pictures. The church has old parts, but is mostly a Victorian reconstruction, and the walls are decorated with fine paintings, which the damp are slowly destroying. The ceiling is fine, wooden beams in places, with more paintings.



We leave the church and head into the main shopping area to Argos; a strange shop that has a catalogue where you choose what you want to buy, and they fetch it from the warehouse behind. It seems to work, but is really quite chavish. We have to buy a new iron, as ours went bang the night before.

And then out into the bright sunshine, down the winding path down the cliffs back down to the harbour. The sky was deep blue, I took pictures of the harbour and the rail bridge in the background and the cliffs stretching to Dover behind that.



We walk round past the fresh fish stalls, the smell of fish lay heavy in the air, and everywhere hungry gulls wait for discarded food.



We head home for lunch, and this turns out to stretch into an afternoon in front of the radio, listening to the football, and keeping an eye on how Norwich are doing via the internet. Norwich win again, and rise to second in the table; still too soon in the season to be excited about it.

And then for dinner, curry and beer! Yay for English food.