Another bank holiday weekend and a Sunday which offered a bit of sunshine and great company.
Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to reconnect with someone from my childhood, someone I haven’t seen in more than passing for 20 years.
This part of Kent has a strange pull on the people who grow up here. Somehow, eventually we all end up moving back. I got home just a couple of months ago and am still figuring out who is here, and who is not. A couple of weeks ago I bumped into one of those returnees’ at a party, someone who used to travel on the same school bus, it was a long time ago. This someone might also have been the subject of a small teenage crush. Back then I was way too terrified to even strike up a conversation; these days people struggle to shut me up. Kinda.
During the party, the subject of my continued efforts to take a decent picture drifted into the conversation, along with my quest to spend a bit of the summer rediscovering the Kent countryside. It turns out the young lady in question is, “of farming stock”, now lives next to the family farm and loves stomping around in the woodland near her home. Did I want to bring the camera over for a stroll sometime? Hell yeah!
The day got off to a cracking start, cuppa at the farmhouse, a long walk across fields, climbing over gates (I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to be in at least two of the fields) and some stunning views. All complemented, of course, by catching up on our lives over the last God knows how many years. What a lovely day!
On our return; the discovery of my idiocy was to be revealed. On leaving for the walk, I’d decided it was too warm for a jacket and had casually thrown the damn thing in the boot of my car, shut the door and walked away… It locked.. sorry, DEADlocked itself…
What followed was approximately 6 hours of embarrassment; A lift home, a scrambled and failed search for the spare key, A lift back to the car, An AA recovery man (very nice man) and eventually a locksmith, who nearly got a hug when he eventually picked the lock. Assuming the young lady, who was late picking up her kids and had to put up with me hanging around until nearly 7pm, ever talks to me again.. My suspicion is that those conversations will involve a level of piss taking, that I very much deserve!
Still, despite all that, this weekend I have made a new friend, discovered a bit of beauty on my doorstep and have taken a few photos. I have no doubt this Bank holiday Sunday will be remembered and talked about, for the lovely bits as well as the stupid.
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