Kent and SE England

After 6 nights in our apartment in London, we caught the train to Ashford, Kent. We did this because we were leaving from Ashford for France at the end of the English trip, and because my family used to live nearby, also I did not fancy driving in London!!!

We picked up the car (I have mentioned elsewhere how much we loved the car, not), and set off for Margate and Ramsgate, where we had a lovely late lunch by the sea. We then drove around the coast to the town I grew up in, Lydd. The annual fair, called Lydd Club Day was starting the next day and so there was lots of activity in town and the kids really wanted to stay. I spoke to someone in the general shop about Lydd and found that our old GP was still in town and still as cantankerous as ever, the clinic where my mother worked had long since closed. We went to look at my old school, it was tiny compared to what I remembered it to be. We drove past it once, as it was not as big as I had thought. Our old house seems to be a Bed and Breakfast place now and I plan to stay there next time we go - funny to rent a room in your family house. At the back of the house we had a huge garden and we loved the apple orchard. Now the back half of the garden has been subdivided off and has a new set of houses running across. It was good to catch up on almost thirty years of history.
Information on Lydd

We then headed for Dover - got lost in Dover and had to reverse for the first time. It took a while to find, so we spent quite a bit of time in someone's driveway and very glad that this was not being attempted on a busy road. We got a b&b in Dover. We were on the top floor of a tall building, with very narrow stairs and no lift. This was to be a theme of b&b's all over. The woman who ran the place was pleasant, but was not keen on the children. We ate in an Italian restaurant that seemed to be full of people waiting for the first ship to Calais in the morning.
The next day we headed for Dover Castle - amazing. We checked out the tunnels underneath as well, and they had been in continuous use up until the mid 1980's!
Dover Castle
We parked at Dover Castle and went in to see how much it cost, ended up buying an English Heritage for os visitors pass. At one point my larger handbag was put back in the car, and we went off to check everything out. If you get chance to visit, please do.


We were heading off from the Castle and had gone about an hour down the road, when the mobile went off (strange as almost nobody knew the number, we had an English sim) and when answered we found that it was the visitor centre at Dover Castle asking if I was missing a handbag? On searching the car and further conversations with the visitors centre it seemed that I had put my bag in the car next to our car (all cars look alike?) and the owners had come back to check the locks and had found my bag in there and handed it in. We went and retrieved the bag and thanked everyone profusely and went off again.