A Folkestone Foray

Today's weather was set fair again and it was a beautifully sparkling early autumn morning when we took our run along the riverbank in the village. It felt so great to be out in such glorious conditions and by the time we got back home we had decided on setting out on another trip back to the coast to make the best of the advantageous meteorological outlook.
Our chosen destination was Folkestone and on this occasion we decided to change our usual route via Canterbury and take in the delights of the unique landscape of the Romney Marsh, a sparsely populated wetland area which covers about 100 square miles in Kent and East Sussex, as the road twisted and turned through small villages and towns such as Appledore, Brenzett and New Romney until it joined the coastal road which took us through Htyhe, Sandgate and then on to Folkestone itself.
By the time we arrived we were absolutely ravenous and made a beeline straight for one of the food outlets at the Harbour Arm called Brewing Brothers, housed in a converted shipping container, where we chose a pint of local pilsner and shared a mouth-watering pizza overlooking the pebbly beach and the glittering sea beyond (which is where the first extra image was taken from - with the silhouetted figures and palm tree taken through a gap in the perimeter wall made of old railway sleepers). It felt more like summer than the first week of October! 
Our hunger and thirst satiated we were heading towards the beach when I came across the scene in my main image - I literally sprinted across the adjacent car park to make sure I captured the two dog walkers on the horizon just as they appeared at the crest of a line of what looked like bright yellow stepping stones (although I never did find out what they actually were) and a UFO on stilts!
I later found out that the 'UFO' is actually a pavilion in the shape of a jelly mould by the British artist and curator Lubaina Himid. She has collected jelly moulds for years and so for this pavilion she imagined a particularly large one upturned on twisted golden poles. Seats under the canopy of the mould provide a wonderful place to sit and stare up at the shell design swirled into the ceiling, which is said to reflect on the amusement park that once stood on the site.
We then strolled along the upper and lower Harbour Arm before heading back into town and ascending the steep and cobbled old High Street. My second extra shows the view from almost the summit of this vertiginous street back down towards the harbour with the side wall of this particular shop boasting of its quite eclectic range of stock - cards, stationery, gifts, games, snacks and apparently stuff and nonsense!
My last image was taken where the old High Street meets the rest of the town and I just loved how all the people walking through or standing in the image seemed to fit within the framework of the scaffolding and the shop front and bollards on the opposite side of the street with the wet paint sign in the foreground!
It was then time to descend back down into the harbour for one last look out to sea before we took the coastal road back home via a detour through Lydd, Camber Sands and Rye.
We even managed to fit in a quick drink at The Plough in Langley, to let the rush hour traffic dissipate, before completing our journey. A lovely day!