27 October 2012 (Saturday) - Chartham to Canterbury

The weekly weigh-in. Another pound gone. Having held constant for a couple of months I now seem to be losing weight again. I'm thinking that it must be a consequence of all the extra walking I'm doing with Fudge. Nothing else has changed recently.

We got ourselves organised and made our way to the train station. I t must be a year since I last got on a train, and today eight of us took the train to Chartham. It was only twenty minutes late leaving. The journey passed off uneventfully enough, and once at Chartham we met up with the ninth member of our party, and walked along the river path into Canterbury.

Amazing! I drive along this way to work, and I didn't realise the river was there; nor how pretty the area is. It was only a shame that the weather failed to live up to the forecast. We went expecting a sunny, if cold, day. We got rain. But the rain wasn't that heavy. I was surprised how quick the time passed. It only took just over an hour to walk from Chartham into Canterbury (and that included finding a crafty geocache on the way).

One in Canterbury we soon we at the Foundry where we had a table booked. Excellent food with beer brewed on the premises. A pint of the porter slipped down very nicely, as did a pint of black lager. You don't often see black lager. The menu spoiled me for choice - I eventually settled for a half rack of ribs followed by banoffee pie.

There was a time when we would eat out every weekend, but in this new era of austerity eating out has become the treat it should really be. It wasn't cheap, but what is money for if not to worry about?

I would certainly go back to the Foundry. In fact the only fault I could find was the dog at another table was rather loud. I didn't so much mind the volume as the fact that the dog was there at all - I'd phoned earlier to ask about dogs and had been told that they had a no-dogs policy. I have a hound that would have liked the morning's walk that had stayed at home because of the supposed no-dog policy.

We then had a little pootle round Canterbury. I went into WH Smiths and wasted my voucher on some lego. I like lego, but I would rather have had cash that I could have spent anywhere rather than have had credit in a shop which doesn't actually sell anything I want. As we pootled back to the train station I slipped in another cheeky little cache find before dozing on the train home.

Once in Ashford we said our goodbyes and we popped into HomePlus. It was on the way home and they sell fireworks. I bought the rudest shaped large rocket they had. It's called "The Destroyer". I hope that lives up to expectations when the thing goes off next weekend. We picked up the pup (who was fast asleep) and took him round the park for a walk. It was sheer co-incidence that our walk went past three recently activated geocaches.

Steve and Sarah came round to collect the banana beer I'd made for next weekend. I do hope that stuff turns out OK. Whilst they were here they took "The Destroyer" with them. Soon after they left, "er indoors ^TM" went off to watch films. Fudge had been alone all day so I didn't want to leave him. I'd recorded "Platoon" onto the SkyPlus box during the week, so rather than going out I slept though that instead...