Saturday 15th October 2022

Nearly halfway through the month, and it's the weekend again, and the the good news is that the sore throat I had on Friday went and did not return.

Which is nice.

Jools's cough, however, which seemed like it was getting better, returned slightly on Friday evening, and would again on Saturday. We had tockets to see Public Service Bradcasting again, this time in Margate, but our hearts were not in it, if I'm honest, and in the end we decided not to go in light of her coughing, but also as I said, we saw them a month back, though this would be a different show.

And Norwich were on the tellybox, what could be better than watching that?

Anything, as it turned out.

But that was for later.

We went to Tesco, a little later than usual, as we had slept in rather, then back home for breakfast before the decision on what to do for the day. Jools decided to stay home to bead and read, I would go out.

There are three churches near to home that I feel I needed to revisit, St Margaret's itself I should be able to get the key from the village shop at any time, but St Mary in Dover hasn't been open the last few times I have been in town, and Barfrestone was closed most of the year due to vandalism.

But Saturday morning there is usually a coffee morning in St Mary, so I went down armed with camera and lenses to take more shots of the details, especially of the windows.

This is one dedicated to the search and rescue pilots and the MTBs that rescued ditched pilots during the Battle of Britain. Very colourful.

Many more shots to come, I took some 150 shots here.

But that was nothing compared to how many I took at Barfrestone.....

There was a small group with the Vicar, talking in one of the chapels, so I made busy getting my shots, just happy that the church was open. I left a fiver with the vicar, and walked back to the car, passing the old guy supping from a tin of cider sitting outside the church hall.

A quick drive through town, Buckland and up Crabble Hill past our old flat and onto Lydden before emerging onto the A2, doubling back to go through Coldred. Finding the road to Barfrestone from there would be easy, no?

No.

Roads started heading in the right direction, or signposts promising the bright lights of Barfrestone and leading nowhere near. Or quite near, I have no idea.

After passing through Elvington, I resorted to the sat nav, and take the left turn, it said, I was less than a mile away.

The micropub, The Wrong Turn has closed, sadly, I saw as I drove past, then turned left down to the middle of the village, and parked beside the old phone box.

Everyone has a favourite church, or every churchcrawlers, either by county or in their experience. I am now at about 370 Kent churches, and St Nicholas is my favourite, and the most interesting. There is none other like it in the county, or the south east of England.

A simple two cell church from the 12th century, with the lower halves of the walls of flint, but the upper parts of Caen stone, and mostly richly carved, or with window arches or blank ones. A line of grosteque heads line the corbel on the outside, and insode there is a decorated dado that has geometric pattern at one end, and a monkey smoking a pipe at the other.

On Saturday, I took 432 shots here, redoing many shots from previous visits, but with now a better camera and lenses.

St Nicholas was closed earlier this year due to vandalism, but it open again now, though parking is difficult, but should be one every churchcrawlers sees in their lifetime.

I see from Hasted that the dedication at the beginning of the 19th century was St Mary, but is St Nicholas now.

I walked back to the car, and drove back through Eythorne to Waldershare, then via the back lanes through West and East Langdon, up onto the Deal road and to home.

It was just gone midday.

We had a brew sitting outside in the sun, and munched on a slated caramel Twix as we watched the birds feed in the bushes.

But at three I was sitting beside the wirelss, listening to the football and watching the scores come in on the BBC website, still relaxed as Norwich did not kick off until quarter to eight. And once that was over, there was live football on the telly, with Spurs beting Everton 2-0.

And then Norwich.

And.

Well. By the time Norwich started to play like they can, we were 2-0 down, pulled one back at half time, and probably deserved a point, but lost 2-1.

Not good enough, so I went to bed at ten in a grump.