Kent – Page 2 – Fooyah

April 29 2018April 29 2018

Godwin’s Goodwin Sands

I made it to the South Foreland Lighthouse yesterday in weather that can be described as atmospheric [as can all weather, literally]. There was sun, rain and some haze. France could be seen at times but not all the time. I don’t have a picture here of the light house so you’ll have to imagine what it’s like but the tour was interesting and, once again, I find myself amazed at how ingenious we humans are.

The lighthouse was built to warn seafarers of the dangers of Goodwin Sands where over a thousand ships lay wrecked. It is also the first place that an international radio transmission was made, by Marconi, of course.

The light turns by the use of food to human energy turned into potential gravitational energy. A large mass is raised by hand and the energy contained within that turns the 3 tonne light system as it drops. The lighting system floats on a tub of mercury, this reduces the drag to manageable proportions. Remarkable.

There is a tea house and also a cottage attached to the lighthouse. The guide mentioned that the place was quiet and normally they are very busy and the lighthouse is packed.

Being here made me realise just how busy the Dover Straights are and how much traffic moves through the port.

And so, as we prepare to leave the EU, this fine town of Dover voted OUT but will find itself fucked over as our incompetent Government fails to secure the best deal for the security and economy of this country.

Also, I managed to get this far without mentioning Nazis.

February 28 2018February 28 2018

Winter Views

The weather over the last few days has been stunning. There’s a load of snow around and the whole of the county looks stunning. It has rather messed with my professional plans but, hey ho, I’m sure I’ll figure it out. The opportunity of being at home in daylight has meant that I have been for a couple of tentative runs since fucking my right Achilles. I am still walking and the Achilles seems intact. Not sure when I’ll next have a run but I’m pleased with the results so far.

So, these are the details of one of my runs. While I have been out I’ve taken many photos. I think they are gorgeous:

The countryside is stunning and I think that a couple of sub-zero temperature runs is just the way to celebrate the gloriousness of the whole thing. Ever wanted to know what snow does to trainers? The trainers are old, but waterproof and actually reasonably warm. I did notice today though that the sole is coming away so once they are dry I am going to glue them (again)!

I’m not too happy with having the heating on full time but it is the only way to keep my house warm. I guess I’ll have to pay for it over the rest of the year.

I also took some photos with the DSLR. This morning there was mist over the valley and it all looked just bloody gorgeous.

There was a dog walker out in the chill.

This concludes my winter pictures, until next time!

September 16 2017September 24 2017

Recent Running Routes

Sometime back I started using the Strava app on my phone as some friends were using it and they weren’t on Map My Run. The Strava app has the ability to use a photo taken as the main picture in the saved area rather than a map. I think it looks quite good and I have been trying to take a photograph whenever I am out running.

Here’s what it looks like shared to twitter:

Check out my run on Strava.https://t.co/nmtRAJoImU pic.twitter.com/Ojw23jbJZ3

— Ian Parish (@iparish) September 10, 2017

So, here’s a collection of photographs taken while out exercising.

July 27 2017February 18 2020

God’s Covenant

Because it’s not like me to be controversial but apparently there are people who believe that the rainbow is a direct sign from god reinforcing his promise not to kill everyone [again].

Anyway, here’s a rainbow from this evening.

March 2 2017October 18 2017

Contrasts

Saw a lovely part of London today when I walked along the Regent’s Canal today. I was learning some maths in town and I had to walk from St Pancras to the venue and rather than walk along the main roads I took the tow path. I’m glad I did.

I also saw this exquisite book shop. There was music playing from loud speakers as I walked past and plenty of vinyl on display.

I also saw a lovely old industrial building that, if I had loads of money and the relevant experience I would turn this into a music venue.

It’s a shame I don’t have money, the contacts, the experience or any industry knowledge at all!

When I got back home I went for a run and jogged past this quality piece of Kent countryside. I think this is the second burnt out car to grace these pages!

But, there is good news: This lovely view over the Medway and Tonbridge and Malling Borough.

February 11 2017October 18 2017

A Smattering

This morning I went for a run through some of the Kent countryside. I would embed a map of the route from my running app but it crashed after about two miles. So, here’s a map from Google Earth.

It was a good run through a gentle fluttering of snow. I enjoyed it and listened to the Cognitive Dissonance podcast from Chicago. The paths were particularly pretty at times and I took two photos.

December 29 2016January 4 2017

620 nm

I took a jaunt out into the local countryside yesterday and it was good.

The weather was cold and slightly misty which made the whole Downs to Medway area look lovely. Here’s a photo over the vineyard looking south.

While running down the Downs I noticed the lovely view of the sun reflecting off the new bridge which I have mentioned a few times within these communications.

There were some lovely scenes where the sun reflected off the river Medway the whole vista was calming and stunning. Later on there were some wisps dangling from the clouds. Now, like most of my photos the thing I am looking at isn’t always the thing that ends up being the focus of the photo. That’s probably what separates me from a proper photographer, that and I used my iPhone!

December 12 2016December 12 2016

SMP

Recently had a good weekend at SMP near Folkestone. It was a training weekend giving skills to the CCF so they are ready to get on and enjoy some of the activities we do. On the first full day the weather was pretty poor and although warm [ish] it was overcast and drizzly. The second day was much better with brilliant sunshine and a glorious sun rise. There now follows a gallery of some of the best shots I took.

One night at SMP I had to accompany someone to hospital. Arriving at 23:00 we finally left the minor injuries section at 03:15. Given that reveille was at 06:00 this was harsh, got into bed at 03:45. The following day was quite hard although I did manage a kip in the drone training room.

October 1 2016October 13 2018

Hidden Signs

While I may have gone on about the new bridge and road system around here a little bit that might indicate just how much the bridge changes things for what used to be a quite isolated part of Kent sandwiched between two major conurbations. I do think the new bridge will change that.

Part of the road changes that happened also mean a number of road speed limits have changed to reflect the expected increase in traffic and to reduce the risk of accident [I assume].

Here’s a map of the roads that had a previous limit of the national speed limit:

previous speed limits — Previous National Speed Limit

The newer safer speed limits have reduced the 60 zone down to the following:

This has kinda taken the “fun” out of driving these roads but I guess they are safer now and quite often people would dawdle along at 40 and then NOT slow down for the villages to 30 because they are wankers.

The construction company have put in new road signs but the one at the end of Bull Lane is obscured by branches until you get quite close. This picture shows the BEST view of the sign you get.

It’s only a safety thing. Let’s not worry.

September 17 2016October 13 2018

Northwest Passage

The title of this communication does not refer to the more frequent sea passage in the Northwest of the globe. The fact that this passage is becoming a more regular occurrence should scare the fuck out of all of you. Anthropogenic Global Climate change is happening and the speed is increasing. The biggest problem is that all the damage has been done already. Because the effects are long term and not pleasant and will cost a fucking fortune to sort out it’s not the sort of thing politicians really want to talk about. As far as I can tell this planet is fucked. It isn’t going to get solved and our grandchildren will be suffering as a result of this. Fuck the self-interested assholes who “govern” the countries. Fuck them and the short-termism of politics.

The bit in the middle of the map, bounded by the river, the A229 and the two motorways is a lovely area to live in. I have written about it before see this communication. To get to Snodland, which the Post Office thinks is the best place to take my parcels, is a 9 or 12 mile journey ONE WAY. This is largely because of the river and the location of bridges over the river.

A new village is being built on brownfield site in the three villages area. There will soon be four in the valley. While I understand the need for more housing I do think the character of the valley villages is going to be ruined. Currently the villages are largely working class Victorian homes built for the workers of Burham Brick Works. There’s a certain look and feel to the villages. The brand new village will be large, expensive homes. My chip on my shoulder is back! I have found myself getting annoyed recently at the stratification of society and the problems that causes. Anyway, back to the journey to the post office lest this writing become another rant about the uselessness of politicians and the social engineering they mess with [along with fucking the planet].

Part of the deal for these new houses was a new bridge to be built. This will allow most of the traffic of the new village to not go past the junction to my village. But in reality that’s bullshit. What may happen is that the local country roads become over run with people cutting through along the bottom of the Downs. We shall see. My village is already planning a zebra crossing because of the expected extra traffic.

The new bridge is in place and opened recently. I drove over it this evening and took a photo. Already the road seems busier [anecdote and confirmation bias]. I will run that way tomorrow. Normally running along that stretch I would be passed by about 3-4 cars during the mile I am on that road. It will be interesting to see what happens. While I like the idea of the bridge I am not happy about what it means for those who live around here.

So I now have to spend the next few months behind non locals who think the road [at the split] is two way because they haven’t paid attention. My patience could be tested.

I will keep you chaps updated about what happens. I predict a serious crash at the Bull Lane / Pilgrims Way junction within a year and then traffic lights or a mini roundabout will be installed.

September 16 2016March 11 2017

Tracking

There’s nothing on at the cinema I want to see tonight so how about a picture of the aircraft I am currently tracking?

tracking

I don’t think it’s too bad. I’ve been working on port forwarding and things to try and see stuff outside my home network and it’s getting there.

This isn’t all the aircraft my receiver is getting signals from but it shows the aircraft with known positions, the ones that broadcast their GPS location.

July 26 2016July 26 2016

Kentish Garden

Took a trip out to Sissinghurst in deepest darkest Kent. It’s a National Trust garden and although billed as a Castle Garden, there wasn’t much of a castle.

It was a nice few hours spent wandering around and see stuff. As someone who isn’t that bothered by plants I guess some of it was lost on me at a deep level. There were plenty of people stopping and smelling and touching the flowers but I didn’t. Yes, they look nice but I’m just not interested.

Here’s a gallery of green.

On a walk around the lakes there was a little door in the bank. How strange.

There did seem to be quite a few German visitors and this pleased me, the Germans coming over and spending their money, although granted it’s not as much money as before the referendum.

July 8 2016October 13 2018

God Reaffirms His Commitment to the UK

Last night I had a few drinks at The Red Bull, a pub in my village. I say “my village” but really I mean the collection of dwellings in which I reside. The pub is nice, except it was expensive. I say “expensive” but I don’t really know, I don’t often drink in pubs although £8-50 for a wine and a bottle of beer seemed expensive.

Just as the sun was going down a very beautiful double bowed rainbow appeared in the east. It looked fantastic. I took some photos with my phone but they don’t really do it justice. I wish I’d had a better camera with me and time to play with the settings.

After a while it went weird. It looked as though the two rainbows had merged for form one large rainbow. I should point out it wasn’t raining and I couldn’t see any around so maybe it was cloud stuff or ice?

As I said, this picture doesn’t really do justice to it. The rainbow looked wonderful.

As for the west. It also looked truly wondrous.

The person I was with said that the rainbow was god’s covenant with Noah for the future of mankind. Well, that’s a nice little story. I’m not convinced he can do a great deal about the UK because we seem pretty much fucked.

I have seen that the titles for the last two posts seem a little like Daily Mail headlines and so I promise to change back to something more my style soon

November 12 2015February 13 2017

Kent By Car

I have some good friends. Back in the summer a good friend, AG, leant me his Mazda MX5 for a weekend. I think I picked it up on a Friday evening and then returned it late afternoon on the Sunday. I would have to say that it is a great little car, really fun to drive. Sally and I explored the countryside around Kent and also took a trip into London.

So, we bombed around Kent. I drove the car out and about and we went to Scotney Castle. It was pretty good weather while we were there, but we didn’t go into the Castle itself as we would have to pay around £14 each. We did walk around the grounds and suffered a short while with fine rain.

It was soon lunchtime and so we drove to the Three Chimneys pub near Biddenden. The Mazda looked good in the car park. Lunch was nice, I had Welsh Rarebit and Sally had a posh sausage roll.

After that we visited the Biddenden Vineyard shop to purchase some of their fine cider. I had been persuaded to try some of this by Sally. I’d never really enjoyed cider before, especially from the pub, I just didn’t like it. This real cider from a decent maker was really tasty. When leaving the car park for the vineyard I *may* have wheel spun and also handbraked a turn a little, you know, just for kicks.

From there we drove through the fine countryside of Kent towards a hairdressers shop in Parkwood, Maidstone. Sunday morning was going to be interesting and Sally wanted to make sure her hair looked awesome.

Sunday was a special-get-up-early day. We had to get ready for a photoshoot in London. For some reason, mainly my exhibitionism, we had met a photographer at a club night and she wanted to expand her portfolio and offered us a free photoshoot. This took a while and plenty of emails to arrange but organise it we did. We dressed, did make up and checked hair before driving in the Mazda to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. We had to keep the roof of the car up for most of the journey else hair would have been blown around and looked bad.

We found [free] parking and met Marisa, our photographer. We then spent about 2 hours posing in various locations around the square. Onlookers aplenty were staring and some cheeky fuckers (mostly men) even took photos of us (or mostly of Sally) as we posed in the street. The results of the official photos are stunning and we are both really happy. We will be ordering some for the walls.

As the photos were now complete we decided to tour around parts of London with the roof down. I had sunglasses on so my make up didn’t show too much and Sally wore extra clothes to keep warm. We toured around the Embankment, Trafalgar Square but we couldn’t get to Buckingham Palace as The Mall was closed.

After wandering around London we drove home and got changed. It wasn’t long until it was time to give the car back. It was great fun to have and drive around. I want to do it again, or maybe buy my own.

We plan to explore the Midlands and Cotswolds and so a Mazda would be very good for this. I’ll have to ask AG if I can borrow it again! Maybe even for a week!

March 15 2015March 15 2015

East Kent Coast

Some pictures from the East Kent Coast.

December 20 2014December 20 2014

Blue Bell Hill

As I ‘ve mentioned before in this forum I do feel lucky to live here. My normal running route now takes in part of the North Downs Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This is a photo I took from the top of Blue Bell Hill overlooking the valley of the Medway.