Wednesday 25th March 2026

Wednesday. Again.

No phys.

A lay in.

And for a change my brain and body let me lay in to quarter past six, and hearing no sounds in the house assumed Jools had gone swimming.

But there was a cough, so Jools was there, and had bailed on the swimming and wanted a slow morning instead.

She did have a class later, but that was half nine, so we could laze around, drinking coffee and having breakfast.

I went upstairs to take a shot of the sofa in the bathroom, only to find Cleo asleep, so managed to rattle off a couple of shots before she ran out.

Another fine, if cool day, with wind building through the day as temperatures dropped.

Nice.

I mentioned it was going to be a quiet day, but then Jools reminded me that there was churchcrawling in the afternoon.

Oh yeah.

So, Jools went into town for her class, while I stayed home, did chores, messed around in the garden, topping up the ponds and checking for spawn.

It was just warm enough to sit in on the patio underneath the kitchen window, where both Mulder and Scully sat close or on me, just to show they car. Care where their next meal was coming from.

Jools returned home with sticky buns for lunch, which we wolfed down with a brew.

And then it was time to go out.

Once upon a time, Deal and Walmer were once considered dens of iniquity in the middle of the 19th century, though as Bradshaw notes Deal was becoming genteel with bathing available, along with large villas looking onto the coast.

These days, Deal and Walmer are among the most Godly town in Kent, with new churches and chapels found by me most years. St Mary Old Church is indeed old, sits about a mile from the coast in what is now called Upper Walmer. Later in the 19th century, it was considered too small for the congregation, so St Mary New Church was bult the other side of the Dover Road.

Another reason for visiting St Mary Old Church is that it the only place in the country where the funerary hatchment of the First Duke of Wellington, who saw out his days as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, residing at Walmer Castle, until he died.

I had arranged for the church to be open at two, so I arrived at half one, looked around and took shots, before going to wait at the lych gate for the group and warden to arrive.

Two members of the group arrived, then a third after she found her way from the wrong church, but there was no warden.

The promised heavy rain shower arrived, and so we sheltered under the lych gate. The wind picked up and it went from chilly to downright cold.

We gave it to quarter past two, then we agreed to go home before we froze.

I drove back home, where upon return, cooked dinner of fishcakes and stir fry with noodles, which was rather good.

And that was it for the day. No football again, so to bead early to read and get snoozy.