I'd never been there before although many years ago I only visited the museum itself. I don't recall a café!
On the way up I set the Yamaha My Ride app and decided as I had wasted too much time hunting for the keys to unlock my TomTom security mount, that I would forego the GPS instructions and use my own memory.
This involved a "making progress" to arrive as near to 1030 as possible. I didn't want to be late. I chose the quickest route, not the shortest, but the quickest. Up to the M20, the A20 into |Dover, the A2 and then the A256 all the way just inland from the coast to Sandwich. Then up the "new" Cliffsend bypass to join the A299 "Thanet Way".
I didn't make it. The clock on Vera's dash said 1033 as I turned in. Had I not taken a wrong turning earlier into an new trading estate I would have been on time.
Across the shared parking is the Spitfire & Hurricane Museum.
There were four Meldrews in attendance. A pretty average turnout.
The breakfast was really nice and a plate full. As I am still on Slimming World I had coffee! I bought Cal's breakfast as I owed him one pre-SW!
After a long chinwag we were off our separate ways.
On the way back I forgot to start the Yamaha My Ride app until I was a a bit down the road. I had detoured of the A299 into Minster where my father in law used to live. His house used to have wisteria at the front. Not now. Once back on the main road I stopped and kicked off the app.
I then took some country lanes back. Some of them narrow and winding, plus the centre of the left lane covered in farm debris, horse shit and gravel. This is not some farmers lane, this is a main road!
With building going on all over the south-east I wasn't surprised to see villages like Preston will have probably doubled in size with all the new builds.
None of them looked that "affordable" to locals on local wages. More likely aimed at Londoners selling houses for highly inflated prices and then coming to the "country" to ruin it and price out the local indigenous Kent people.
It's not just a Kent problem. It is happening all over. Devon and Cornwall are similarly affected with "Down from London" (DfL) types buying up all the property to use for holiday homes or for renting via sites like Air BnB! These parasites are ruining the local economy.
It's happening in Hythe where I live. Apartment blocks going up that local can't afford to buy. We are 70 miles from central London but locals don't earn London wages! Rant over. For now.
As a result of the slower country lanes average speed dropped quite a bit. It was a nice afternoon and there were other factors to consider. Not just the farmers that spread mud all across the road, the horse shit on bends, the gravel but motorhomes on road too narrow and that carry a warning about wide vehicles and prohibitions for trucks!
Once back on the coast at Seabrook I stopped in he petrol station and filled up. The panic buying for the last month seems to have abated a little but if you see a station open and pumps not locked down, then fill-up!!
Considering the "making progress" on the way up to Manston, I got my best ever mpg! Fuelly calculated it at 54.6 miles per gallon! This is the bigger UK gallon not the 4/5ths US gallon. I still haven't broken the 50mpg average though. Maybe it needs more "making progress" or "spirited riding" to get it up......?
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