Had a GREAT Christmas break in Folkestone, quite a lot of sitting in and relaxing, playing dominoes, watching DVDs (lots of series one1, why did Doyle2 leave? He's WHAT3???) and remarkably not eating out once. Normally a trip there means restaurants for every meal, but we managed ten days or so feeding ourselves mostly healthy food1. Christmas dinner was a success, the first we cooked ourselves with some help from Deano in the meat department. A fairly dull cashew roast for me, but all the trimmings made up.
Normally I would recount all our nights out here, but I can't remember exactly what we did on each night. Christmas Eve, I expect we went to to Chambers, and we did again on Christmas day night. Not been out on xmas night before, but it was ace. Free drinks all over the place and a big quiz, with many prizes, that we completely failed to win. New years eve was a bit of a wash out in Folkestone, the aforementioned pub cancelled their NYE party at very short notice so we went to La Vue and it wasn't very good... I kid myself that Folkestone is the super cosmopolis already, but it's still getting there, very much provincial winebar feeling and not worth the 15 quid entry fee... I guess it had been set to keep out the riff raff, but it made it too quiet.
Not thrilled to be back in London, but three months today the lease is up and we're heading to Folkestone and commuting... a travelcard to reach that far is going to be about 330 quid a month, each, ouch, we'll see how we get on with that. Still trying to figure out the best trains to get in, Clare needs to be at work before me, so hopefully there's a clever change-at-Ashford or direct to Cannon Street or something that means not having to leave before 7am.
The Flat is coming along nicely, we got ourselves a table from Laura Ashley with vouchers we received as christmas presents, our new blinds are being fitted the day after tomorrow, and coffee table chest thing should be arriving soon.
Few more things, got a great book More tales from the taproom, a revision of Tales from the taproom1 by Martin Easdown and Eamonn Rooney that is long out of print... It's a history of the pubs of Folkestone, and it's great. Also read Exile's return1 in just a couple of days, very good. The book, and my reading skills, I have a certificate you know. Also great, we went to The Goods Shed in Canterbury, a farmers market by the West station, ace, will return.
On a less great note, the tsunami. You can give money here1.
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Paul Clarke's weblog - I live in Hythe in Kent. Married + father to two, I am a full stack web developr, + I do js / nodejs, some ruby, other languages etc. I like pubs, running, eating, home automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, + TIME TRAVEL.