maidstone redux

dinner with auntie lily

to auntie lily's

train luck?

We got up at 4:30 this morning in order to get to the airport at 5. Good thing we were there early because it was BUSY! Got to Heathrow by 8ish and my colleague and I parted ways. She went to meet her partner and go to Oxford and I returned to Paddington, then Victoria to catch a train back to Maidstone. Somehow I got on the wrong train. I think I might have mixed up the 10:24 to Canterbury East with the with the 10:42 to Canterbury West. Or vice versa. Or not that at all. I blame the early rising. I started to notice I was in an unfamiliar landscape but there was noone on the train to ask. I leaned out the door at Rochester and called to the signal person. He was most helpful. He told me to go to Gillenbury and then get a train back to Strood and then get the train to Maidstone. Okay then. When I disembarked, a young woman came up to me and said, "You are Canadian, right?" Wow! She gave me some more good train advice and told me that after 10 years in England she still misses Calgary and the wide, open spaces.














Strood was quite desolate and windy on a Sunday mid-morning and there was something squeaking rhythmically ... I started to feel that Lee Van Cleef might saunter up any minute. Lee Van Cleef in the wilds of Kent.














Everything worked out fine and I was back on Belmont Close only an hourish later than originally planned.

train luck

After lunch I left Belmont Close to head back to London. When I got to the train station there was a sign that read very simply 'No Trains'. Wha?!?!











I had to take a bus to Sevenoaks. It was kind of great to go bashing through the winding country roads on this great big double decker picking up all the train passengers between Maidstone and Sevenoaks. I called LondonBuddy to tell of the change in arrival time and he said to try to get a train to London Bridge rather than Victoria as that would be easier. When I got to Sevenoaks station there was one train waiting there and the only place it was going was London Bridge! We met up effortlessly and he treated me to a fantastic dinner and debate at La Petite Auberge in Islington.

home for lunch

Who says
Friday the 13th
is unlucky?

visiting fred

afternoon in the garden

early morning on belmont close

maidstone, kent

On June 11 I took the train to Maidstone to visit my Auntie. Her house is one where I have spent many happy days in her company. She moved here when I was a small girl and we lived in London. In those early days, the estate was new and the gardens were un-landscaped. My parents used to take us to visit and the grown-ups would work hard laying sod and patio stones and planting flowers while my sister and played about. There were walks in the woods, barbeques, a rocket in the playground, drives down country roads and pub garden lunches.