After a surprisingly comfortable night’s sleep I was wide awake by 7am and looking forward to breakfast. Karen on the other hand woke up grumpy complaining about whatever she could find to complain about, especially the hotel room
Breakfast was interesting.
It was in a large, clinical, featureless room and being run by 2 ladies with a rule of iron. We were told exactly where to sit and informed to help ourselves to drinks and toast. Other guests tried to choose their own table but were chastened and told to move even if they had already started eating. It all had a feel of Fawlty Towers about it.
The offerings were slim. Our hot breakfast order was taken. When delivered it was spartan on the plate. Graham would not have approved as he still laments the demise of the Little Chef Olympic Breakfast. I thought though it was well cooked and tasty. Karen didn’t and sneered her nose up to it. We didn’t linger too long after having a second cuppa.
Todays’ plan was to visit Canterbury that we hadn’t been to for over 30 years. It was an easy 35-minute drive through the Kent countryside and thankfully finally in some sunshine.
My research had suggested that utilising the Park & Ride was the most economic method of parking and we headed to the Wincheap site. It had the narrowest entrance ever. It was obviously built before the advent of larger cars. I squeezed through with just a centimetre to spare on either side of the wing mirrors.
A bus was waiting for us and after paying the £4 fee for the day we hopped on for the short ride to the City Centre.
After alighting from the Whitefriars stop in the centre we came across a Café Nero and of course Karen needed her first proper caffeine stop of the today. This purchase was courtesy of Octopus energy and their free voucher we now get each week. We sat outside enjoying the Canterbury ambiance and sunshine whilst we watched everyone bustling about their business.
Finally, we were ready to explore, or so I thought. Instead, Karen had spotted M&S on the High Street and simply had to check if this small store had anything for sale that the much larger Norwich didn’t have. I waited outside shaking my head in disbelief.
Then we were allowed to wander towards the Cathedral. I swallowed hard at having to pay the £17 entrance fee each but I knew Karen was keen to go inside. I still don’t think it is right to have to pay to go inside a ‘House of God’ even if their annual running cost exceeds £8 million. Without paying for a ticket though, we could not even have accessed the equivalent of ‘The Close’ area in Norwich which did strike me as particularly mean. It was only by going through the entrance that we discovered that much of the Cathedral was covered in scaffolding for running repairs. Actually, the boards surrounding the ongoing works did a good job of explaining what was being done and why.
The cathedral inside was vast and felt similar to both Norwich and Lincoln. The sheer size was impressive. My first impression was that the church in its day had too much money to be able to construct such a building.
They made a great deal about having the tomb of the Black Prince but there was no sign of poor Baldrick anywhere.
We found the slot where Thomas Becket was martyred and the place where his shrine had stood before being destroyed. It was also good being able to walk down and around the crypt below.
Apart from that it was just like a typical cathedral, or perhaps it was just I was becoming all ‘cathedraled’ out as we worked out it was at least the 4th one we have visited in the past 5 months.
We tried to peer into Justin Welby’s house but he was either busy or just ignoring us.
After walking all around the building we made our way out in the Disney style by exiting through the gift shop.
For lunch Karen wanted to get some sandwiches from M&S as she had some offer on her Sparks card. We found a nice bench in the sun on the High Street and ate our lunch whilst listening to 3 students busking. They were quite good and were collecting lots of money which surprised me as I didn’t think people carried cash with them anymore.
Then we both thought a cuppa was called for and went back to Café Nero and both had a drink this time courtesy of our weekly vouchers from Vitality.
We walked along the length of the High Street and a short way through the very pretty Westgate gardens watching some boats being punted along the Great Stour.
It was then time to head back to the bus stop and again one was waiting for us and we were quickly back at the car.
Our next destination was about 12 miles away – Ashford Designer Outlets, which Karen had been told by one of her friends were not to be missed. I expected something like Springfields but this was on another scale. The shops were all covered by an O2 type canopy. The sky was blue and it was lovely walking around in the sunshine. The place was quite deserted and with some warmth in the air had almost a Florida feel about it.
As to be expected Karen headed to the M&S outlet and ended up with a few things. After this we walked to one end of the complex where we had a drink from Starbucks sitting outside.
Continuing our walk around we went to our first Colombia outlet store in the UK where I bought a much-needed T shirt.
For dinner tonight Karen settled upon going to another Pizza Express restaurant that was located in-between the shops as tonight she fancied a Pizza rather than a salad. I had the same and again we managed to take a large chunk off the bill using the vouchers on the app.
It was then time to head back to the Hotel. Tonight, the car park was busy and there were also 2 coaches from Netherlands taking up a lot of space. We went straight up to the room after first collecting my Amazon delivery from Reception. Last night I discovered the new spare charger for the MacBook I had brought had a Macsafe2 connector rather than a Macsafe3 as advertised and needed. After much swearing I had ordered a replacement to be delivered direct to the hotel.
After sorting out the blog and other admin it was time for bed. It had been a long but full and good day.
