We left Monday afternoon, only about two and a half hours after we had planned! It was close to dinner time when we got near Broadstairs so we stopped at the grocery store to get a few supplies. We found dinners of Indian food complete with rice and nann bread in the fresh food department. The English have a fondness for Indian food that we acquired years ago. You know, we have found that the longer we stay in the grocery store the more likely we are to get into trouble and get things we shouldn't - like Eccle cakes and really good bread. Eccle cakes are one of the joys of coming to England. They can be found fresh in bakeries or prepackaged in the grocery. They are usually round, flaky pastries filled with currants and raisins and made with real butter. They melt in your mouth with the succulent and tingly taste of a mince meat pie and either you like them or you don't. Unfortunately, we do. Oh, we are going to pay for all this with days of dieting, I am sure.
Off to the flat. This lovely little spot that Ellen and Phillip decorated in oranges and golds, lilacs and purple looks out over the beach of Broadstairs and the English Channel. The history this little town has seen is just a microcosm of the histories of England. There is a dock area that juts out into the water and if you could go under it you would see the original foundation that Henry VIII ordered built.
You know, if you took a map of England out, closed your eyes and put your thumb down on it, that little bit of area you covered - no matter where your thumb landed - would keep you busy exploring for at least a week. Love it!
However, there are times when your exploring just doesn't pan out the way you planned! For instance, we decided that we wanted to go to Margate and explore the Margate caves that are featured in the town brochures. Margate is the town north of Broadstairs and also on the coast, so expecting of course another charming seaside village, we were visibly disappointed to find a town of grim and dirty streets lined with houses of little charm and no visible beaches. When "Gertrude",our GPS, got us to the location of the caves, there was only a dilapidated shed, a stone wall that someone had painted "SAVE THE CAVES" on, an alley way leading who knows where that even John wouldn't go down, and no indication of any caves anywhere.
Then I wanted to go to the Shell Grotto which had been discovered in 1948 when a child and his father explored a hole in their garden, or some story like that, and found this grotto covered in shells. No one has ever discovered who did it or why which I think is amazing. However, John said he wasn't interested in going and being a good wife, I relented and we skipped it. Now I'm kicking myself for not telling him to go do something else and drop me off there. Let that be a lesson to you, all you good wives out there. You'll both be happier if you do your own thing and tell the other one to go away for awhile and do theirs while you do yours. That's what we usually do! I mean, that's why we each have a cell phone so we can go off and do our own thing and stay in touch. What was I thinking??? Picking my battles? Not this time; I just gave in and resented him for not handling it differently. Now I'll always wish I had been the one to handle it differently and resent the fact that I didn't assert myself because I doubt we'll ever pass that way again. For more information on what we missed, take a look at this article from its website: http://www.shellgrotto.co.uk/pdf/twymanarticle.pdf . This researcher believes that all signs point to it perhaps having been a hidden and secret worship area in the 1200's for the Knight Templars!! Maybe John will even be disappointed after reading this! All in all, though, one disagreement in 8 weeks of 24/7 is pretty exemplary, don't you think?
We decided to do some driving around trying to follow the coast line by car. Margate has the good fortune to be located on top of the chalk hills but in turn that seems to prevent people from easily getting to it's natural beaches and bays. John followed my directions of "Turn left, turn right, etc." as I tried to get us closer to the coast (probably thought he'd better at this point!) and we eventually came down a hill and saw off to our right and down the horizon the prettiest spot in the cliffs - an arch carved out of the wall by millions of years of tide erosion. (You could almost hear John breathe a sigh of relief that he had found something I liked!)
There was a pub up on the cliff road above the arch with a parking lot but we found out that they charge £10 for beach goers to park there, walk down the road off their property and down a flight of stairs to the beach near the arch! So we drove about a half mile up the road to a "Paid and Displayed" car park for another beach(that is a parking lot where you go to a machine, put in your money and display on your dash board the permit it prints out; they are all over the place, there's even one on our street for non-residents) and walked back down the hill passing a castle on the way that is now private apartments.
This is a view of it from the road as we peered through the gates. It is Kingsland Castle and has been remodeled and divided into expensive rental apartments.
The beach was secluded by cliffs on either side with only a few families enjoying it, the others being at the larger beach next to the car park. John took some great pictures and I picked up a few chunks of chalk that had fallen off the cliffs. It really is chalk!! Writes and everything.
We headed on back to Broadstairs, looking forward to our dinner at Eddie Gilbert's in Ramsgate. You might remember in a previous blog when we got caught in the tides that the ladies on the beach who told us to hurry up and get out of the tides had recommended EG's for the best fish and chips in the area. We had visited our friend Patrick on his boat Tuesday and he recommended calling right away to make a reservation for the next day. His and Julie's schedule wouldn't allow them to meet us for dinner but we were looking forward to meeting them afterwards at "their" pub. EG lived up to its reputation fpr the best fish and chips - cooked in beef fat, the old fashioned way before the days of healthy eating! Now, if you can believe that any fried fish and chips can be healthy than you haven't been keeping up with the times, and most nowadays are fried in vegetable oil. Unfortunately, we have eaten our share on this trip and there is a definite difference that you can taste. EG's was well worth the trip (and they were fully booked so we were lucky to get in, thanks to Patrick!) but I'm determined that that was my last fish and chips for a long while. The belt is getting tighter and there are no holes left!
After dinner, Julie and Patrick picked us up in their Jag - whoa!, nice car... and we enjoyed a pint at their pub. Well, the boys did. Julie doesn't drink and after that meal I had with wine and OOOKS ( a local brewery's barley wine which was more like a beer but served like a glass of wine), I had a deep desire for water! With ice and a slice as they say! It was an interesting discussion as we talked about the contemporary politics in our respective countries, the difference in our governments, what the English think of Obama vs. Bush (and in respect to my Republican friends, I won't pass it on) and some of our respective zany customs. They insisted on driving us home in the Jag and who could refuse, especially since we had come by bus! We gladly accepted their offer and hope that their dream of motoring their boat down the coast of the US some day comes true so we will see them again. We will certainly stay in touch.
Thursday morning was our last day at Broadstairs. Of course, it was bright and clear for the first time that we had been there and we could really see the windmill farm. The beach was beginning to fill up with families and all their paraphernalia (school's out this week) making the view a jigsaw of colorful pieces. I took this picture the day before when it was cold and rainy. The beach was empty and the children you saw were looking very sad.
After dusting and cleaning and vacuuming and, oh, yes, changing those sheets, we took out the garbage, packed up the car and took off down the road for - not done yet - one last destination. Chilham!!
Years ago, maybe our first trip to England, we found by chance a treasure of a little village with a castle at the end of the main street. I'm pretty sure it was in the county of Kent where Broadstairs is located, but I couldn't remember it's name. If I had spent the time before we left going through the suitcase and bags of brochures I've collected from our 13 other England excursions that I have in the attic, I might have found it. But the attic was hot at home and our time was short, so I didn't; somehow, with Google or something, I can't remember, I read about Chilham and it was described as a village that had all the characteristics of a medieval setting with a castle and the homes of the residents who provided a workforce for it coming right up to the grounds. It sounded good whether it was the right place or not and we found it after following Gertrude's meanderings through the countryside. She's always right but sometimes you wonder where the heck you are going because she takes you down roads you can't find on the maps and some of them are NARROW! We drove up a little wooded road casually marked Chilham and all of a sudden we were in a village square surrounded by black and white timber buildings that must date from the 1400s; shops, pubs, tearooms, a church at one end and a "castle" at the other.
Absolutely charming - the church looks like a castle and was reportedly built for Henry II. Wikipedia says that Thomas Becket is reported to have been buried there but I know his burial site became a shrine in Canterbury and eventually Henry II had his body moved. I'm not sure, it would take hours of research to get this right for you and I can't do that today but this conjecture might be one of those points in Wikipedia that should be disputed. Of course, we had no idea at the time and I had no notion of this until today, but if we had, we probably would have looked around the cemetery for some evidence (which doubtless would not have been found) and asked some of the locals if they knew anything.
On the other end is the "castle" which really is a manor house built in front of a castle keep that you can't see. The house is brick, built in 1616 supposedly by Inigo Jones, is privately owned and not open to the public. It is called Chilham Castle, however, which is certainly misleading. If you want to do some research on that, it's present owner is Stuart Wheeler and a nationally known figure in politics. If you read about him, you'll know why he needs privacy!
(You know, it's not easy writing a blog about England! One thing leads to another which leads to another and I'm conscious of the time my readers have and the amount of time it takes me. I could go on all day which would probably lead to boredom so those of you interested in these sidelines will just have to go off on your own with them!)
Here's the interior of the room we were in with the ghostly picture on the fireplace and the required dog at our feet.
We arrived home around 5. It's now the next morning and John has gone off to a tour of the Fuller Brewery not far from here. My left foot (ha, wasn't that the name of a movie?) has something wrong with it and I can barely walk on it, so I am still in my bathrobe at almost noon hoping that the pain will go away. We have a lot of plans ahead of us in the last 3 weeks we have including the WWII American airfields in East Anglia, 4 days in Paris and another canal boat trip with Ellen and Phillip. No hobbling allowed!!
.
No comments:
Post a Comment