Backblip #3

On Monday we went to Canterbury. We had pastries and drinks in a teeny little French cafe and admired the photos on the walls - lots of beautiful women in beautiful Parisian cafes. Robert Doisneau, we decided. Or maybe Cartier-Bresson. Or maybe Willy Ronis.

We had two aims in Canterbury, other than having general super fun times obviously: find Zara, find Whittards. Zara we managed, but they didn't have what we went for. And Whittards turned out to be so elusive that we gave up. A walk by the river (I nearly fell in at one stage) and through some rose gardens. It started raining so we escaped in the Oxfam Bookshop. I got a book about Cecil Beaton.

The sun came back out so we went to the cathedral. I spent most of the time moaning that it wasn't as good as Winchester:
"Yes it's nice... but has it got the longest nave in Europe? No!" was fair enough, but "well... it doesn't have an Anthony Gormley sculpture does it?!" was immediately proved wrong, as we turned a corner to see an Anthony Gormley sculpture. What are the chances.

Got the bus back to Whitstable. We were sat behind a 7ish year old girl and her French mother, both effortlessly switching (often mid-sentence) between languages. What I wouldn't give to be able to do that.


Our evening walk took us down Squeeze Gut Alley, by far my favourite alley name ever, and a very fitting one. It was possible to walk down it normally, but the walls brushed both my shoulders so for someone slightly bigger it would be slightly gut-squeezing.