Friday 1 May 2015

A trouble free day

The Ibis hotel at Thurrock was surprisingly comfortable. An early start, furled by coffee, soon led to the Allhallows peninsular. An oddly remote and sparsely populated area close to the Medway towns. This is Home territory for me, but it's not a place I know well. Today was bright and springlike. In winter this place is bleak, but today it was welcoming. Orchards coming into blossom and plenty of green hedges.
In the distance the cranes of Medway Port and the chimneys of Kingsnorth Power station are a reminder of how close one is to the overpopulation of the South East of London.
As I entered the Medway Towns I took a short break with Steve my brother who works for Agregate Industries at Chstham docks

I still don't have the teqnique for discrete use of the selfie stick, but I can crop photos.
Too short a time later and I'm on my way to Thanet. I thought that the traditional Hop field was gone from Kent, and certainly they are far from the ubiquitous crop evident in my youth but I did see one
While I never picked them, I remember the summer school holiday being referred to as "the hopping holiday" because whole families used to camp out in the fields to bring in the crop essential to he local and national brewing industry.the holiday extended later into September than the current holidays to suite the ripening of the hops.
In Margate I was surprised to see absolutely no sighn of the regeneration of Dreamland as described at www.dreamland.co.uk the site talks about an opening party in June 2015. All I can say is they will have to get a move on. It looks like s derelict site to me.
Dreamland was one of the original leisure parks, the Blackppol pleasure beach of the Soith East. When I was a child it was considered to be the place to go or to avoid, depending on your view of lout entertainment.
My continuing search for compromise with TomTom led me inland a little before dropping into Dover from the White Cliffs. If you look hard you can see Calais behind the Trophy.

I think I know what to do to tempt TomTom into working with me, but it is no Garmin.
It's less than s week to the general election. I have seen some evidence, mainly large posters of well scrubbed Tory candidates in the fields of natural landowning supporters. In Thanet there were a few prominent UKIP posters but not as many as I expected given the prominence their leader, who is standing there, gets in the media. 
I am staying in the Pier Hotel Eastbourne tonight. A formerly grand establishment right opposite the pier. It's grandeur has passed and it needs a refit, but the bed feels comfortable and the view over the sea is lovely. I have had to leave the bike in the road so I have some anxieties about its security but it's well locked and resting on its stand...

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