Whitstable

I took Offsprogs One and Two to Whitstable yesterday afternoon, where some Friends are house-sitting. We had a lovely windy walk along the beach, each finding something of interest amongst the stones. There were lots of little crabs, some dark green, some beige and some pearly white, some grossly mis-shapen oyster shells and of course, lots of flintstones, which suddenly appeared as strange letters from a stone alphabet. Once I started looking, however, there didn't seem many; but walking away from the beach, there were hundreds. Just like buses, in fact.
I made two words- vocal and guitars. Everyone helped me find more letters, but we all had different ideas about what looked like a letter and what didn't.
Joan was finding stone seals, but some looked like slugs and some like chickens, depending on whose eyes were doing the looking. We did all agree on a finger-rest that everyone's pinky fitted into very neatly.
The beach was lovely, covered in wild sea-flowers and rimmed with precarious-looking clapboard houses. We sat outside a pub, the Neptune, and the wind blew beer and lemonade all over the place; under the table, their dog Millie burrowed down to find cold sand under the pebbles.
Later, we walked down Harbour Street. I went in a lovely shop called Pearl and Hemingway Vintage where they had some great hats, but not in the size I wanted unforchly. And a shop over the way had replica vintage ladies swimsuits in a frilly modest Fifties style.
The poor fish and chip man was having trouble remembering the orders; his assistant had an eye on the TV and didn't find it easy to wrap chips in paper at the same time. They couldn't hear the deafeningly loud body language of Mr Friend, who was building pressure by the minute to exploding point. After more than 30 minutes we finally emerged with warm soft bags of booty and went back to scoff them before home time, when we were blessed with a picturesque lazy glowing gold and red sunset to accompany us as Australian Satnav Man guided our journey.

It was Martin's birthday yesterday- Happy Birthday Martin!