Monday 1st October 2012

So, after the excitement of Wednesday, with the tractors, horses and free bacon butties, it was back to normal on Thursday. I say that and yet thinking back I can’t recall that we did anything much at all. I have no shots taken of the day, so either must have rained or we were kidnapped by aliens. Saying that, we did head to Ashford in the afternoon to see Killing The Softly, the new Brad Pitt film.

We were a couple of maybe ten people in the cinema, and rather wonderful it was too. If by wonderful you mean a brutally honest depiction of low-life crime and the damage drugs and guns can do.

Friday was a rush to get stuff done before our week off was over: it is funny how quickly time flies by when you’re not at work. Friday already and time to head to Tesco as it was pay day. And then off to Folkestone as Jools had a beading class, which left me with a couple of free hours whilst I waited for her to bead away. After looking at the A-Z I remembered another church on the edge of the Romney Marsh which I could visit, and so with the map beside me, I set off along to Sandgate and onto Rye.

The traffic was horrendous, but this turned out to be a suspicious package found in a petrol station on the seafront; but we did get past, and I headed into the countryside.

Bonnington is a tiny village overlooking the marsh, and down the hill on the side of the military canal is the 12th century church. It is not marked on our maps, but I knew a Flickr friend who had gone there and snapped it. GSV revealed it to be the other side of a field from another church I visited a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, it seemed easy enough to find, and indeed there was a sign in the village.

So I head down the narrow lane and almost onto the marsh, and there on the left, behind a high hedge is St Rumwolds. Named after a 7th century English infant saint, it is a simple 12th century building, still without mains electricity, and divorced from the village it caters for by nearly a mile. It is surrounded on two sides by farmland and the road and canal on the other two, it is possible to think that the town it serves no longer exists.

I park the car and try to get a shot of the church from within the churchyard, but it’s not quite right, and promise myself to walk along the canal later to get a decent shot of the church and its surroundings. I try to door and find it unlocked, so I go in and step back in time. I snap the church and it’s fittings before signing the visitor’s book and dropping a donation the box before leaving. I walk along the canal, look back and snap the church with the graveyard, but have to wait for 5 minutes for the sun to emerge from behind a cloud.



I set off for Aldington, as I had seen a church tower and had more than enough time to visit that one too. I head back towards Ashford then make for the tower. After parking up, I try the door only to find it locked fast and only open for services and for Wednesday coffee mornings. I make do with shots of the outside and a few of the graves, before getting back in the car and heading back to Folkestone. I had noticed an interesting pub in Sandgate, so headed to The Fountain and a pint whilst I waited for Jools’ course to end.



I pick Jools up and we head to Ashford, getting there in 20 minutes and having an hour to kill before the film, I snap the new footbridge of the M20, and then see the sign for cocktails in a Mexican chain restaurant, so we head in for some liquid refreshement.



Looper is a new sci-fi film, and very good, but ignores a couple of conundrums to instead dazzle us with flashy images, but the two hours pass in a flash, but whilst we wait for our meal in Frankie and Benny’s, the doubts about the film start to form and questions begin to be discussed……