My daughters return and St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury.

My daughter got back to the UK safely a couple of weeks ago, it is lovely having her home and being able to talk to her face to face again, even though the house looks like a bomb has hit it!! A small price to pay! We also have Alice’s friend Tash staying with us for a few weeks, so life is very interesting right now.

I thought it was about time for another blog about my camera’s adventures so here goes…Way back at the beginning of June, when it was summer (?!) my son and I had a day out in Canterbury. Nothing unusual about that, but it was nice to think my son who is 16 didn’t mind being seen out with his Mum!! We did the retail therapy bit first, and I wanted to re-visit St. Augustine’s Abbey, a place I haven’t been to for a very long time. Joe (my son) now has my old camera, and this was my first outing with my new camera, so we walked to the Abbey, which is only about a 10 minutes away from the city centre.

There has been buildings on the site since about 598AD, with various alterations and rebuilding over the centuries. Henry VIII was responsible for the destruction of the Abbey although part of the site was rebuilt as a Palace, which was used by Anne of Cleves on her arrival in this country. It is a large site, with the remains of many buildings, it must have been an amazing sight in its heyday.

Joe and I had a lovely hour or so wandering around taking photos, of course we had to compare his photos with mine when we got home. I think mine had the edge, but Joe had managed to climb up places which I couldn’t, so he actually took the best photo of the day – with my old camera.....another photographer in the family?? Competition? Oh Oh!! Only joking, I am pleased that my old camera has found a good home.

We had a lovely day out, my son said he thoroughly enjoyed it, and he would come out taking photos with me again sometime, which is great.

Woohoo!!!!

 

Still trying to get seagull pictures, typical I can only get them from the back!!

Woohoo! Later this afternoon we are travelling to Gatwick airport to meet our daughter and her friend! My husband hasn’t seen Alice for a year, and although I saw her in April when I went out to China I am really looking forward to seeing her again too – lots of mummy hugs to come I think!!

Walmer beach with the boats

The Royal Hotel on the seafront

Middle Street, the cream coloured house on the right was my Grans house, right opposite the Fish and Chip shop!! We lived further along this street to the North, there are some lovely houses all along this street, but at one time it was considered a slum area!

A small part of the seafront

I am not sure when I will be able to get another blog done, which I think is understandable, so I thought I would leave you with some very recent pictures of Deal in August! I had to take my car into the garage last week as I had a slow puncture, so I took the opportunity to leave the car and have a lovely walk in the sun, complete with coffee and a piece of cake in the cafe on the end of the pier.

Wonderful window boxes along the seafront on the houses……

………and the pub!

Deal is a lovely little town one of its strengths is that you don’t have to go through it to get anywhere, which is wonderful.

Lovely day for fishing

Wonderful views from the pier

Middle Street again, you can see Deal Library at end of the street!

Queen Anne House, Middle Street, a beautiful building.

And finally St George’s Church in the sun.

Nearly time to get ready to leave, I think we are in for a busy but happy couple of weeks, take care everyone, I will be back soon  

Wingham Wildlife Park

Although the China blogs took a long time to sort out I have still been taking photos, so it is time to catch up a bit on things here in the UK. I ought to point out that all the China photos were taken using a Canon Powershot G9, complete with a cracked screen...oh and there are six tiny screws missing from it too!! I did look for a new camera whilst we were in China, and found an official Canon shop, but they didn’t have the G12 that I wanted so I waited until I got back to this country. I got my new camera at the end of May, and I am busy finding out how it differs from my old model.

I was still using my G9 when the photos for this blog were taken, we had heard that there were tiger cubs at Wingham Wildlife Park (formerly Wingham Bird Park) so, as we had not been there since the children were small we thought we would and see how things had changed there. Wingham is near Canterbury in Kent, in case anyone is wondering!

 

It was a beautiful day, a lovely sunny May Sunday afternoon and we all thoroughly enjoyed our visit, even though we did not get a good view of the tiger cubs, they were asleep when we found their enclosure!

There are meerkats, parrots, otters, reptiles and a whole host of other animals to see, as well as birds, ducks and even a wombat and a black swan. The whole park is beautifully kept, the animals well looked after, all in all a lovely place for the whole family.

Once again I find I have too many photos for the blog, it is always hard trying to decide

which photos to include and which to leave out!

Too cute for words, but a good way to finish the blog!!