walking
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I have always been very attached to Ramsgate, maybe because it is somehow rooted in my DNA. My maternal great grandparents used to holiday in the town every summer, travelling from their Lambeth home with their six sons (one of whom was my grandfather), on the steamer from London Bridge. The steamer would stop at… Read more
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During their very short blooming season, I like to take every opportunity I can to walk where there are bluebells. I can’t get enough of them, and a swathe of that glorious bluey/violet makes me quite giddy with happiness. This year, my son and daughter in law took me on a trip to Hole Park… Read more
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Despite being a neighbouring county that you can see from Whitstable on a clear day, and despite the fact that I actually spent three years of higher education living in Chelmsford (though I hated every minute and came home almost every weekend, leaving no time for exploration), Essex is not a county that I am… Read more
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I caught the train back to Thanet Parkway to finish off what, in ideal circumstances I should have managed to achieve in one go. I was the only person alighting, and in about 15 minutes, I was back on the coast. The first thing that I saw was the sand banks at the mouth of… Read more
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This is the first year in a decade when I haven’t been suffering from a CFS relapse, or struggling to stop myself slipping into one, and to celebrate this fact, my daughter decided to take me on a Mother’s Day mystery day out. She co-opted one of her brothers to accompany us (with the advantage… Read more
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This is the part of the Kent Coast Walk that I have been dreading, knowing as I do that it involves not just a significant amount of rood walking that’s well away from the coast (because of a river and a nature reserve), but also a section along a very busy road. I was keen… Read more
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(A long overdue post for a walk completed last summer!) I’d been putting off this walk as, according to my Kent Ramblers Guide, it came in at 11 miles, and since my last big CFS relapse in early 2025, I had only managed to build back up to about 5. After looking at the map… Read more
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My daughter and I love Midsomer Murders, especially the older episodes with John Nettles as DCI Tom Barnaby, so back in the summer when I saw that there was going to be a touring production of The Killings at Badgers Drift (the very first episode), with Daniel Casey who was the original sidekick (Sergeant Troy)… Read more
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After the success of our summer Wingham walk from our Year Round Walks book by Michael Easterbrook, we determined that we would try and do one new walk from the book each season. The walk that we selected from the Autumn section was a 4 mile circular in Headcorn, a village in the Low Weald… Read more
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Living in the part of Kent that we do, we are surrounded by orchards – mostly apples, but pears and cherries too – and many of our local walks take us through them. I think I like them most in the spring when the trees are smothered with delicate pink blossoms, but there is something… Read more
A Little Kentish Magic 