On The Island

Has the world gone mad? In Thanet alone 17,000 new homes. The effects are being seen now. They have no water in so many areas of Kent and I heard today that all the restaurants in Whitstable High Street are closed because they have no water and Southern and South Eastern Water are blaming us, the consumer.  The utilities can not cope with so many new houses and the water companies have spent nothing on improvements for years. We never ran out of water in Cyprus! Makes us feel like a third world country.

Sandwich town is a lovely medieval town with masses of tourists. The council has now put a 3 hour restriction on parking! I should imagine that will kill off most of the businesses now.

A walk around the orchards early morning. There was quite a breeze and so Ellie seemed much more energetic. Lovely views around the orchards.

From there we called into the farm shop to buy some more John Innes compost and of course lots more of their home grown Jazz apples.

I potted on most of my tomato plants in the afternoon.

Another early morning walk. I went on my own, Mal was still asleep! I can’t say Ellie was that energetic either.

I went to have my hair cut in the afternoon. Becky now has her own shop in town. She is such a lovely girl. She does talk a lot though.

Mal managed to get her installed at the Jubilee Centre a long while ago and as Mal discovered and Becky found out, the committee are not nice people. So, good to see her with her own place.

Pleased to see Springwatch back on the TV!

Another very early morning walk with Ellie.

Paula’s birthday today and so I phoned her and she said she wanted to spend some time staying near us with Gilly. So, I spent quite some time researching nice places for them to stay. Her eyes are not good anymore and she has been registered partially blind, so doing all I can to help.

By the afternoon she had chosen a place in Deal and booked it!

A walk around the cornfields in Minster, Ellie saw plenty of dogs even though we left home at 6am. We tried to keep her in the shade.

The weather saying it was the hottest night last night. It didn’t seem as though it was but then we had the fan on for Ellie. Mal watered all the garden and then went to the allotment for more watering. There are a lot of strawberries and also peas and broad beans.

Time in the garden. Everywhere around here, the beaches, will be chaos because of the sun. Much better at home. Coming back from Eastbourne we avoided Dover as that was chaotic as well. Not the best place to live in the holidays.

We were up at 6am to walk Ellie before the heat. We then went into Ramsgate, leaving Ellie at home in the cool. We had our breakfast in Spoons – eggs benedict, very nice and sitting next to the beach.

It was then quite humbling looking at all the Little Ships from Operation Dynamo and also the Standing with Giants display.

They had also managed to move a Spitfire model on to the harbour.

I understand it was borrowed from Manston.

There was also a Submariner association stall there (along with other forces) but we had to have a chat there!

The afternoon in the garden, being entertained by our little blackbird who wakes us with the dawn chorus at 4.30 in the morning!

A little alcohol to help us on our way.

A tense time later in the afternoon as it was the relegation battle between Spurs (my team) and Hammers (Mal’s team).  Spurs managed to survive and stay in the Premier League. Talk about down to the wire!

The rest of the evening we were out in the garden.

My sister’s 80th. She has rented a house in Bournemouth for the weekend with all her family.

An early morning walk with Ellie and then a quick shop for some fresh food. it then started to get hot. I planted out some courgettes but the stems are so flimsy. I do much better with tomatoes! The tomatoes are now potted on, half of mine have already gone to the allotment. Some down there and the rest in pots in the garden. Of course more watering.

Virgin TV went down in the evening but we were out in the garden anyway.

Our hotel…

We took Ellie for an early morning walk along the seafront in the sunshine.

Back to the hotel for breakfast. We packed our things up ready for the drive home. Again we stopped in Ham Street Woods and Ellie had a long walk. The woods are shaded and so quiet.

Then on to the garden centre for lunch.

They have so many offers on there and a club you can join to get discounts. We just had the jacket potatoes which were so good!

They also had some amazing gifts and plants , I think we will have to come back here another day!

As it has been so sunny and warm it was back home to do a lot of watering and at the allotment.