#131 Nomad Diary. 22-28 April 2023. Final Week 4 in Bells Yew Green, Kent. Hastings. High Brooms Church. Cream Tea.

 

At the Frant train station waiting on the train to Hastings, about a 40 minute ride.

View of Hastings from the Old Castle Hill. Castle ruins to the left in picture.

Darrell on the park near the Hastings Castle ruins. The sky is over the English Channel.

Unusual local fish huts. The beach side of the street has loads of these.

Plenty of fresh fish and this eel bar. 

Having a pastry in town.

Saturday. 22. Today the sun is shining. We took off on the train to go to the coastal town of Hastings. The big draw of English people to this town, I think, is the many fish and chip shops along with other fresh seafood offerings including eel. There are also amusement areas for families to enjoy their day by the sea here. We climbed the hill to the old castle ruins, but it was unexpectedly closed with an issue. We enjoyed the grassy top of the hill next to the sea and there were loads of pathways. We eventually took a path down the steep hill into the old town.

We walked through old town streets with different shops and restaurants mostly for tourists. We found a bakery and bought a couple of treats including an Eccles cake which I had seen on food network as a regional treat. It was sweet like a cookie and filled with small raisins. I liked it. We did have fish and chips for lunch even after looking at all our options. It was done so well as it should be in this town. We enjoyed two free museums and the unusual fishing huts along the walkway.  

Darrelll took this picture at Church

Sunday. 23. Coffee and lunch with Jeremy and Logie at their flat in Tunbridge Wells. Logie invited us for coffee but then she wanted to cook lunch and we accepted! She made a pot of spaghetti bolognese and a salad. It was nice to eat a meal and visit for several hours. I was getting very tired by 5pm and Jeremy and Logie drove us a few miles to our apartment. 

Talking to grandson Owen 1 yr 7 months

Beautiful scene on our country walk from Bells Yew Green to Tunbridge Wells.

We attended a Bells Yew Green Tea and enjoyed visiting with the locals.

That cake is a Victoria Sponge.

The organizer of the tea, Susan holding Mya with her brother standing by.

Monday. 24. 3pm Cream Tea at Bells Yew Green Community Center. Invite by volunteer caretaker, Clive to tour local Abbey on Thursday morning if there’s good weather. 

Our friend Margaret at her care facility. She's looking down and commenting on my hands.

Tuesday. 25. Train to Maidstone for new dentures adjustment. Sunny morning. We looked for a lunch restaurant to try and found and amazing one close to Maidstone West train station. Funky Feast. It is located in a food court inside a larger building. We arrived, looked at the menu and decided on our food order. The food came and it was amazing! Great quality, complex flavors, clean presentation and comfortable seating. On the train journey back, it was easy to stop and visit with Margaret in Tonbridge. We enjoyed our evening online Bible study with the church group here and our current teacher is 93!! Mr. Sewell Hall teaching on godliness. It’s amazing. 

View of part of Knole House from the front tower.

Knole House.

Walking the road inside the fence toward the Knole House.

One of the amazing halls and completed spaces inside this astounding property.

Wednesday. 26. We spent the morning in our cozy apartment. After breakfast I cleaned my bathroom. Read some. Darrell spent 2-3 hours writing on the computer. Finished Spanish on Duolingo for today. We had lunch and thought about where we could go today. I suggested Battle but we went there last year. So Darrell did a search for National Trust properties near our close train stations, and he found a great one at Sevenoakes just a few stops away. The property is Knole House. We went and it is amazing! Since we are National Trust members, our tickets fee is waived. This house had several rooms set up for the constant tourists who come and walk through. So many tourist have come to tour this house that it has a 400 year history of letting people come in and look around. Now the property houses one of the largest National Trust conservatories which we were able to see into with the preservationists at work on their projects. It was very impressive. The grounds are several acres that are available for walking around with easy views of the wild deer roaming about inside the fence. The town of Sevenoakes looked interesting and clean. We stopped and bought chocolates on our way back to the train station. 

Clive telling us about the Abbey

Cool tree growing into the Abbey walls.

Thursday. 27. Clive came in his car to take Darrell and I to Bayham Abbey. He’s a volunteer there. It’s a quick drive of less than 5 minutes to the ruins. It’s so difficult to walk to from Bells Yew Green that we have not done that. The road is busy with cars on narrow lanes sided by high hedges most of the way. So now we arrive and Clive spends a full hour giving us centuries of interesting history of this Abbey. The land is beautiful and we enjoy our time with Clive, and learning more about England’s past. In the evening we take the train to Tunbridge Wells to have dinner and then plan to ride on to High Brooms for evening Bible study. While we are having our meal, Paul calls to let us know that we will be online for Bible study tonight. So after dinner, we go back to Frant. This is a really good option for us because it is cold and raining. We do like being inside on a night like this. Online class went well. It is our last time with this church and at the conclusion we exchanged good-byes and affection for each other. We don’t know when or if we will return here. For now our calendar is built out through April 2024 when we are to return to the US from our New Zealand trip.

Once more walking into Tunbridge Wells and resting at the park for a few minutes.

Friday. 28. We are up by 6:30 with the sun up and lighting the new day. Today is the day before our moving day. The laundry is done and dry. We have been practicing at having just enough food to get us through Saturday breakfast! It is a game that we like to play and we are doing well to have just what we need to eat and a small overage of a few items. I’m thinking that today we will try to call Darrell’s Mom and Dad and also Quinn. We are 6 hours and 5 hours ahead of their time zones, and timing our calls takes some planning. There will be some cleaning and check-out items to get in order as well as our packing. I have our friend Margaret on my mind and whether or not we will have the opportunity to visit her in Tonbridge once more before we go. We have also been in contact with a person in Cambridge for church on Sunday and with our friends in Newcastle at the church there. I’m planning to be a part of the Newcastle kids Bible class with Katy, and Darrell has been asked to preach two of our four Sundays in Newcastle. 

This morning we reviewed our four night reservation in Cambridge and Darrell bought our train tickets to get there. We check out at 10 in the morning and our train is at 10:30 from Frant to London Bridge. We change trains and go on to Cambridge with the last 20 minute segment on a ‘rail replacement bus’.  

Nomad Notes. Jeremy and Logie have been here from South Africa since 2014. It took them a full two years to get all their paperwork completed and accepted before arriving in 2014. When they did arrive they had to look for work. They lived on savings mostly in a boarding house. Then they skimped and saved once they did get employed so that they could move into a flat by 2016.  Logie told me that because apartheid had flipped in South Africa so that the whites were out of favor and the Indians weren’t faring any better, she wanted to leave the country to provide a better education opportunity for their young daughter. Jeremy had a grandfather who was from England and moved to South Africa, and this ancestral connection gave him a ‘foot in the door’ to immigrate here. Logie is Indian and Jeremy is white making them an interracial couple. Logie told me of times they have faced prejudice because of this status. Jeremy told us how hard it is to immigrate and find work and learn how to function in a whole new country. Their daughter is now in a University and is doing well living here as she has lived here almost 50% of her life. They still long for South Africa and the life that was dear to them there. They also realize that they are here and have made their home and their work here for now. They save now to make trips back to South Africa.