The day Margate became 'MarGAYte.'

Saturday (29th September) saw Margate become MarGAYte.
Not by typographical error, but by Thanet Pride having its Gay Parade, all the way from up at the Lido, right along the seafront & along to the station.

It's not been a easy ride for the principal organiser this year, a major supporter pulling out with resultant funding short fall, hence the intended 'Thanet Pride' was pulled, though happily continuing with the 'Parade,' in which hundreds participated.

Unintentional promotion of Margate Pride, came in the form of some irritating little snot rag (I do hope she / he comes to terms with his / her sexuality some time) posting hate mail through letterboxes.

For every 1 person who dropped out from coming along on Saturday because of this hate campaign, another 5 seemed to have come along in support of it.

As for the police who attended; they seemed to be there as much for the fun as any traffic control or troubles. They were brilliant. Thank you.



Parade snaking its way towards the sea front.
 

On the green opposite the station, where Peter Tatchell spoke.
Pleased to see the LibDems had come along to support the parade.

I can't say I always agree with political campaigner; Peter Tatchell, but his speech at the end of the parade was commendable. Condensed into five words; 'Don't let hatred oppress you.'
Too right, Peter!

I could have done with these balloons to take the weight of my legs.
We must have walked miles...

The Herne Bay Air Show, and more...

I dare some would question writing about the Herne Bay air show which happened almost a fortnight ago, as old hat. Well, it may be, but it's worth mentioning because of its magnitude and numbers attending; 70K!
Here are just a few pictures of the event; some are mine, but I used a load from Julie Blackmans catalogue. She's good, very very good, and worth looking at.

 

 

 

Luckily a bribe stopped the storm trooper from annihilating me.

The trouble is we have both been busy>
Chris, along with work, recently organised an LGBT disco organised at the Labour club, which was a great success.
"When's then next one?" seemed to be the mantra as he left the building.
Quite a compliment in itself.

LGBT by the way stands for 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender.'
Some people think there ought to be an 'i' on the end to encompass 'inter-sex,' covering those people half way between one thing and another.
Quite frankly I think 'LGBT' is already long enough, but there's always some one trying to push the envelope further..

We've had a couple of dinner do's, (which always seem to occupy the day before to prepare,) along with having two lovely guests stay for a couple of days.
Luckily we had found a bed for one of them to use, only the day before they came!

I'd better explain 'finding' the bed, before anyone thinks they'll never want to step foot in this house again, let alone ever sleep here. Even we have standards!

It was in fact the same base we'd seen on the way back from the club a couple of nights previously, after the disco, commenting to ourselves, 'that won't be there long.'

Walking the dog a few days later, I was surprised to see it still there; a virtually new, tubular metal frame that slotted together, then just screwed into place.

Despite looking clean it still underwent a thorough scrub down and spray with antiseptic spray, then once dry, assembled to make sure it was ok.
Bingo!

With a small mattress we already had, we now have a second guest bed. (though of anyone has a three foot single mattress that needs a home????)

Some what more expensive; we have recently had to contend with builders swathing the house in scaffolding to repair bits of roof and repoint the chimneys; the scaffolding alone cost £400!

Photogenic stuff; scaffolding.
And bloody expensive!

Some thing I did manage to save another small fortune on, has been a bit more painting of the pebbledash above the windows at the front of the house,


Dogs have featured heavily too; August's school holidays, so we look after doggies whose owners don't like kennels.

This is our favourite baby.
In love with him?
You might say, 'just a little.'

To Kiss or not to Kiss...

When your abroad, you know the problem; to kiss or not to kiss?

Then there's the problem of how many kisses? and which side first?

France complicates things; around Brest one is sufficient, while in Calais and Dunkerque, two is generally the norm, though four is not too uncommon.
In Montpellier & Marseille, the limit is strictly three.

As for Paris, just watch the natives for guidance; no non Parisian quite knows what they get up to.

Italy is easier with kisses tending to be the preserve of friends.
But there is one thing I can say with certainty; don't go 'Moi Moi' as you kiss.


Tonguing is some thing entirely different, and usually the preserve of intimate partners; and Molly!

Molly and I have  known each other for about three years. She has always been an over exuberant character, never anything but beautifully turned out, with the blackest flowing hair, enhanced by woven red ribbons that makes many women jealous.


Yesterday, while saying 'hello,' she French kissed me!

The understatement of the month would be to say I was 'gob smacked.' Literally!

Her mother was aghast at the impertinence. All for about three seconds before her uncomfortable silence was rent asunder by falling into hysterical laughter.

Still 'gob smacked,' I'm afraid I didn't quite see the funny side of things for another couple of seconds after which we laughed until we were breathless.

Molly joined in, of course, barking ecstatically...

What had happened was, I bent down to stroke Molly, just as she jumped up, and her friendly lick turned into an unfortunate French kiss.

One piece of advice should the same happen to anyone reading this; rinse you mouth 'asap' with some very salty water.


The only other time I'd ever encountered an amorous animal was on new years day, when Chris and I were being shown round the Bed and Breakfast's owners smallholding,

'Did you know cows horns are warm?' she asked; adding 'feel them, they're lovely and she like people stroking them.'

It's true, cows horns are warm, and this particular highland cow seemed to enjoy me stroking her horns.

Embarrassingly she seemed to enjoy my attention to the degree that she gave me an appreciative lick that whipped out my top false teeth, which fell with a plop into her cow pen.

Happily both myself and my teeth survived, but that holiday is another story in itself..........


Oh yes; to save people wondering; Molly is a welsh sheep dog. Truly loving and she really is as beautiful as I tried to portray her just now.


By Folks, See you again soon.

Weekends just don't get any better

We have both decided to reduce our calorie intake.

Suffice to say my waist band demands it, some thing echoed by Chris, who has asking me to do smaller portions for ages.

The cause of the diet, (having cheese cake for breakfast this morning was a necessity) is a result of the weekend just gone.

Friday evening started, with a large class of Pimms thrust into our hands by Maureen's niece, Deborah, at 18.47 precisely.

The celebration was Maureen's eightysumthingish... birthday.

Canapés and conversation flowed, both deliciously lubricated in part by what seemed an endless stream of Pimms, with canapés and titbits of salmon or asparagus appearing ceaselessly, all benefited from 'just a drop more Pimms dear?'
And so the evening and weekend flowed; celebration, companionship, epic consumption, and of course busses.

Saturday was a friends (Nigel) birthday celebrations at the Westgate-on-Sea Pavilion.
It wasn't his age that was the shock; it's that in almost forty years of living as an adult it Kent, I never knew Westgate had a Pavilion!

One fly in our planning, was 'Trainline,' trains to Westgate it professed to be hourly, with two an hour returning.
I did think strange but then thought; oh yes, at busy times they have more trains running.
jotted the times down, and off we went.

Arriving as planned, Nigel's do was a reall family and friends affair; great fun with live music, a good spread, a bar, best of all though, the chance to sit with a very dear friend.
We felt quite privileged to have been invited. Thank you.

How's that for a Birthday Cake!

With the evening quietening, we sauntered to the station, missing the 18.05 by moments, but never mind, we can get the 18.22.

Oh no we bloody couldn't! it went through the station at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour.
Chris was peeved.
I was Peeved at Chris being peeved, but I knew what I had read, and on getting home, instantly checked I hadn't miss-read Trainline's advice.

Nope, there it was, Westgate to Whitstable 18.05 and 18.22. Vindicated! (ish)

What was not plain was that while you could get to Whitstable on this spurious 18.22, the 18.22 was in fact the 18.22 to Margate where you would change to the fast train to Whitstable.

No doubt a frequent train user might have understood this, but for me, Trainline name was mud.

Never mind, it was a nice day and we're both glad we went.


Sunday was the crowning glory.

By 08.30am Chris was running for the door to grab a game of tennis with Michael in Herne Bay, and ninety minutes later, me, Mark C' & Peter H' were standing at the bus stop like a gaggle of little kids  going to the cinema in the 1960's.

Herne Bay Bus Rally has been running for years, some times it's bigger than at others years, some times smaller, but it's not the size at Herne Bay that makes it great, it's the diversity.

Peter and Mark both admit to being anoraks,' while Chris and I just like old busses.
Yeh ok, maybe we're a bit anoraky too.
Whether we're anoraks or not, we were all glad we went; especially when another David we're friends with asked us along for a ride on his and Brian's bus on a mystery ride. Ting Ting.

First, here's just a few general shots

One of David & Brian's busses

This was the best bit of rally, Brian and David's single decker ride to The Reculver Towers

David, one of the proud owners

They even ran it on the original route number; Reculver 003,
I know it sounds daft, but we really really enjoyed it.
See, I said it sounded 'daft.'

Shaky Shaky fish and chip shop in H-Bay do the best Gluten Free chips anywhere around with the possible exception of VG Jones in Harbour street Whitstable, we just had to have some.

Trouble was, made late by indulging on chips, we thought we'd missed our two friends who asked if they could pop over to see us for a word about some thing.

Ringing their mobile to say we were running late, we could only apologise when everything went to message...
We were genuinely sorry we'd missed them, we'd make it up to them with dinner, it'll never happen again, KnockKnock!

Happily they were even later than we were, and although we only had half an hour together, it was nice to see them.

Ben and Maria with Chris - I'm sure she only came over to test my chocolate cheese cake.

Liz & Wes's garden party was the final act of the weekend; the grand crescendo.
The company was just right, Wes is a mean hand at the bar-b-q, Julia and Tracy brought along salads, Liz did a Raspberry Roulade, we'd made chocolate and pineapple cheesecakes, and I'm sure the threat of explosion was the only thing that stopped all of us eating.

It was a lovely conclusion to a wonderful day; in fact, a pretty wonderful weekend.
We just hope everyone enjoyed them selves as much as we did.

Oyster fest' carnival, & Classics on the slopes

The second Saturday of Whitstable Oyster Fest' is always Carnival day.

This year's was better than ever, and with spare change gathered over the year in pots for friends to drop into a myriad of collecting buckets, everyone joined in the fun.

Being with friends always helps festivities

Some of the actors involved with Whitstable's local theatre, originally called 'The Play House,'

Kent School of Performing Arts. Perhaps future 'Lindley Players;' the Playhouse's resident actors.

 

This 'Baltan' designed to look a bit like a Rolls, was made from spare parts and bits, by local mechanics.

 

As for the real 'classic cars' on Sunday, that was a real joy. With some thing like six hundred entrants, there literally was everything from the basic Austin A35 from the nineteen fifties to cars you could simply die for.

Funnily enough I got one of these going for a friend years ago, who managed to flog it for just a few hundred.
Strange how things change?

You could either park a Smart car in the boot or land a helicopter on the boot lid.
I think I need CPR

If it came in a brighter colour, maybe, but, nahhh...

Drool

Not sure of how many of these we've ever had

My first car, though mine was a different colour

It surprised me and demanded a second glance to realise this is in deed an estate

The last car I ever owned; a 1300 Maestro.
Mine did 0-60 eventually, 40MPG, and I loved it.

Oh yes, almost forgot this bit. We also saw what we think was a Gloster Meteor flying low towards Herne Bay, where on 15th August 1945 a Meteor broke the Air Speed Record, hitting over 600mph.