OK, nothing about the creation of earth and trees and puppies and Starbucks. So, anyway. Where were we? Oh yeah, spring.
Tuesday we decided to go to Canterbury. Beep breath. On the bus. Da da DAAAAA! Yes, the bus, like a car, but red and larger and carries not just you but other people, and you pay for this. And the bus goes in mostly not a direct route, but might go through the occasional village on the way. Or, go to Deal, then back to Walmer, round the back of Walmer, under the railway, round an estateand back to Deal again.
And there we changed buses, and waited and then set off towards Canterbury. Via Great Mongeham, Northbourne, Betteshanger, Eastry, Woodnesborough, Sandwich. (Pause for ten minutes) And then, Ash, Staple, Goodnestone, Wingham, Littlebourne, and then via many outer parts of the city, Canterbury itself. The 18 miles, which the AA website tells me that it is 18 miles or so, the bus took two hours and ten minutes. Yay!
We were glad to arrive in the city, as we were about to lose the will to live, jammed into seats with seats with little or no legroom, but we did get to see over the walls and high hedges of houses along the way.
Anyway, we got off, and were very thirsty, and we took ourselves down the narrow streets past the cathedral gates to Palace Street to the Mayflower Cafe, where a few hundred years ago, the owner, a Mr Robert Cushman chartered a ship to sail some puritans over the ocean, which went quite well in the end, because they had turkey for dinnner when they got to Virginia, or was it Plimoth? Anyway, Canterbury is where he had his shop, and it is very good; the do a good line in smoothies, panainis, coffees and yummy cakes.
Our good friend Matt had come over to meet us for a while, and maybe take some photographs. Matt has just moved into a new flat with his fiancee, dadi, they are to be married next month. Anyway, he is a great guy, and I'm not just saying that because he may read this, I mean it.
I wandered around the city with him snapping away, we passed many churches, timber-framed houses and the like, and many, many tourists. It was a fine spring day, and wonderful for photography.
And then it was time to squeeze ourselves back onto a bus and head back to Dover. This time it went the direct route, which was just as well as I couldn't actually move my legs, it was more than a relief to reach Dover and move seats so the circulation to my legs. And then the bus headed up the hill and along the cliffs to St Margaret's and home.
Time enough to be home, put the coffee machine on and tuck into the Norfolk Shortcakes I baked the day before. Wonderful.
Wednesday, we had agreed to take Jools' Nan over to Folkestone; and so on another fine, warm and sunny spring morning we headed out.
It's not far to Folkestone, and after dropping her off at the bowls club, we carried on down the coast onto the Romney Marsh and out towards the oddness that is Dungeness. Dungeness is an artists commune cum fishing village, made of shacks built on a wide stony beach with a couple of nuclear power stations thrown in. Yeah, it's odd for sure.
The wind was blowing hard, nothing unusual for down there, and so we did not stop, but headed further round to coast to Camber. Camber is a holiday town, made up almost entirely of caravan parks and grim prefab pubs. We parked up and walked up the dune to look at the wide bay heading down to Rye. It was high tide, and so no wind or kite surfers were out.
We drove on.
Rye is just inside East Sussex, and the old part of the town is on a cliff overlooking the marsh and the river's mouth; it has a castle, an imposing church, and a network of narrow cobbled streets lined with timber-framed houses. It really is quaintly English with a capital K.
We walked around, mixing it with several parties of French schoolchildren and rich Japanese tourists being chauffeured around in a huge limo, which was having a tough time getting round the tight corners and narrow streets of the town. We passed the car outside the Mermaid Inn, an old coaching in with a courtyard, with the Japanese asking if he could get the limo in the courtyard, a feat which would have meant the car being bent at a 45 degree angle to get it down the alleyway. He parked in the middle of the cobbled street and blocked the road.
We walked on.
I snapped the town into submission, and then we found a cafe and had lunch; well, I had a scone with jam anyways. And then we decided to head home beck the way we came.
Today, I had to go along to the job centre for a meeting; turned out to be a group session, where everything I had been told up to that point by the job centre staff was royally contradicted. I wasn't surprised. I booked myself on a couple of courses and after an hour and a half of death by powerpoint, was allowed to leave.
And so for the rest of the day, Jools did the garden and I kinda helped. And so the week passes.
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