Tuesday 26 November to Sunday 1 December 2024

Johnny and Emma Louise are with us for two days before they head off to Chile and we are busy doing the handover tasks. We are back in the cold and rain of England and surrounded by floods and storms sweeping eastwards across the UK and Europe. We are not expecting much rain however in Kent but there are 2C mornings, light drizzle and frost occasionally.

We went for a little drive with Johnny and ended up at the post office where he collected a parcel. Across the road was a typical English country pub, complete with sleeping dog and an open fire. As it would be rude not to support the landlord, we had a pint  of Kent's best ale.

Luckily, we have a warm house and an Aga stove that is on 24/7. Thursday afternoon, Lady P drives the Mercedes Smart car to Heathrow to drop off EL and Johnny while Flashy looks after Truffle, who is now on homeopathic drops for stress and as a result is much calmer.

The weekend brings no change to the weather, so we head to the little hall next door to buy some vegetables and back to cook up some soup and beef casserole. The fish van arrives at the front door and we get some Dover Sole which we have on Saturday night. The smoked Haddock will be used for kedgeree later in the week. 

In a sign of the times here, the meat in the supermarkets is packaged with either an alarm chip or a GPS tracker and often needs the check out chick to deactivate it on purchase. A bit like an upmarket clothing store. Some of the high end booze also has those locked tops requiring removal before purchase. We understand this from visiting bottle shops back in OZ in dodgy neighbourhoods, where a half of Bundy is locked up and tagged but a bit of a surprise in a Tescos in Kent. Petrol here is GBP1.49 a litre.

We are in Kilndown, a small village of around 500, situated south of Royal Tunbridge Wells. It has no  shops or pub but is home to A Small Holding Restaurant just across the road. This is a Michelin listed restaurant and a visit is being considered, when we have time. Apparently, they come far and wide to it but as you can probably guess, they have pissed off the locals - it's not a pub you see.

The rest of our stay here is pretty well locked in with two visits to London for Ogilvy lunches and Lady P to the Wimbeldon Pantomime with the girls.

Pint of Kentish Ale on the way.