Saturday 13th January 2018

Welcome to the weekend.

We have waited for you all weekend to come round, now that you're here, let's make the most of our short time together.

We spend the first seven or so hours of Saturday snoozing away. Waking up at some point after seven and dawn is nearly here, I get up and go to feed the cats, hearing Jools moving about upstairs, I make coffee.

After a while Jools takes Molly's breakfast up to the bathroom, and deliberately leaves the door open to see how Molly would get on being reintegrated into the household. Slowly as it turned out. At first she stayed in the bathroom, then walked out along the hall before sheltering under the spare bed. And that's where she stayed for over an hour.

I got dressed and went to Tesco, getting a few essentials for the weekend and beyond, and getting the heck out as soon as possible and home.

By this time Molly was now lying on the bed, and a little wary as though she might be thrown back in jail at any point, but we both laid with her a while and she seemed settled enough and fell into a contended sleep.

Jools and I go out, or rather I take Jools out with a bootfull of camera gear in order to try the twin body attack on a church. Or two. I didn't really want to travel too far, so thought of some of the early churches I visited back in the early stages of the project, and came up with Wingham..

Wingham is a nice looking small town, on the main road between canterbury and Sandwich. But these days it is the road that most remember, as it doglegs round the church. There are other fine buildings there, including three pubs, so what's not too like?

We park by the church, and walk along the tree lined path to the porch, finding the inner door open, and we're not alone. There is a warden there, tidying up, but he is somewhere under the belfry, so I go about getting my shots. Looking on my Flickr stream, I see I had taken about ten shots last time I was here, I think I could do better than that. And I do, as I saw so many more details and unusual features, that come with experience. I rattle off a hundred shots with both cameras, before the warden engages me in conversation.

When I say we now live in St Margaret's, he is thrilled as he is from martin so knows the area well, and his father kept the Old Lantern when it was the Wheatsheaf before the war, and his Grandfather kept the Swingate before the Great War. All interesting stuff, but eating into my snapping time. So I make my excuses and go, get shots of the exterior and then walk along the main road to the third of the pubs before returning.

We drive to Littlebourne, the next large village, to visit St Vincent, another church built along the shallow valley of the Nailbourne. According to my records, I had been here before too, but I remembered nothing of it, least of all where in the village it was. We follow a sign but end up in the fields heading towards Wickhambreaux. I consult a map, see where it is, and so we find it straight away, and indeed, I remember nothing of it. The door was stiff, but opened on the third attempt, and we stepped inside.

Again, I go round getting my shots, increasing the half dozen shots taken before, and clearly of better quality.

We go back home for lunch, as it was now one and we might go weak from hunger. And we need to check up on Molly. She is still on the bed, so I pick her up and take her down the stairs, give her some kibbles and stell her she must go and explore. She listens and goes to the back door, goes through the flap and checks around outside.

Half an hour later she is back, and none the worse for being out, and wanting food.

We have lunch too, then it being the weekend meaning there is football, so along with listening to the commentary, I edit shots and generally try to stay awake. Not sure why now, but just after lunch I get the urge for a snooze, maybe just getting old?

I follow Norwich on Twitter as usual, we were playing at Bristol City, near conquerors of Citeh in midweek, and would be a test. But Norwich were resolute and score midway through the 2nd half and hold on to win. Funny old season, all in all.

As we were to go to Jens for more cards, I make sausage rolls for dinner, then we can go to pick up John on the way and be there for the first hand at seven. We play Meld and Queenie. And drink wine and eat party food. Its all very enjoyable, but I am struggling to stay awake by half eleven: Jools wins the final pot so we can go home, Jools driving of course. The cats are fed again before we go to bed, and half the weekend has gone, just like that.