I've Escaped!

I got my walking papers to-day, and believe me it is one of the better feelings known to man-kind to leave a place where you are surrounded by sick people, some of whom will be there a lot longer than I was. Got a new appreciation of how fortunate we are sometimes.

Cab over to Victoria for the ride down to my sister's place by the seaside, in Kent. Being the end of the week, and the summer, I should have planned ahead a little more and left earlier, as the train was crowded with people getting away for the week-end. Warm here in London, about 68 or so. The journey from London to Kent ("The Garden of England") is one of my favourites. It showcases the South of England at it's best.

You leave smokey, black and white London with its crowds and hustle and bustle behind you, and before you know it, your rolling through some of the most beautiful country-side I think in the world. While the light greens and yellows of spring are now gone, the colours of the hedges, the sky and the early wheat fields being laid for hay are like nowhere else. The other big change you have to get ready for is turning the clock back or not really even caring if you have a clock, 'cause no one round you cares too much. It's either out-side time, pub-time or meal-time. I think life in the country is much the same anywhere you are.

This view is from the Southern Railway Stone in Oxney viaduct, and gives one of the best views anywhere in the south of the English country-side.

As the train speeds down Ashford Bank from Rye towards Hastings (yes, the Hastings, 1066 and all that....damn Frenchies....) when it's not raining, you get a good view across the fields towards my sister's place, which unfortunately, now has no closer rail service than Hastings, about 8 miles away. Ellie's house is beyond the far hedge row you can see there but this is as close as the rail line gets these days. No pub-time for me to-day, as there's still to be no alcohol in me, but that will change by the middle of next week. El's got no high speed service, so I will post this when I go to dinner with some friends in Ashford on Monday.