Some of us are clearly born idiots. Fancy setting off camping with a pair of shoes so split across the sole that they were very unsafe to wear and a pair of sandals where the whole bottom was unglued – even more unsafe to wear. T meant my options on footwear were, really, the walking boots or the shoes, just.
So, we moved to Ashford to look for a shoe shop. Members of the family remember the last time I went shoe shopping. I thought it might have been ten years ago and I bought four pairs of shoes in a shop in Salisbury. The sandals were newer – from a French hypermarket.
Ashford didn’t impress much, but then I didn’t expect it to. I am not a huge lover of towns, and road works, which made the entrance to town a crawl, didn’t help much. In the end we found one shoe shop, which I thought might do, and I bought two pairs of shoes. We did a little walk around before escaping.
Here is the pargetting on what is an old building. Ashford was an ordinary market town before the railway company effectively took it over.
A quiet section of the main shopping area. What a shame it was bin day. Too bad that there was scaffolding and with a football world cup imminent, the St George’s flags were out in force.
Around Ashford Church – all is quiet. Many a relative lived in the Ashford area, but mostly they lived in the railway village, which is in Willesborough parish. I know of no family significance for the Ashford parish church. But I did enjoy the paths around the old building.
Ashford Church. It is odd, but urban churches rarely seem as pleasing architecturally, as rural ones. That, of course, is purely my opinion. Others can feel free to totally disagree with me and rest assured, I won’t take offence.
I’ll finish with the Man of Kent. I have so much Kentish blood in me – but can never remember whether my mother was a Maid of Kent or a Kentish Maid. It all depends which side of the River Medway you were born on.
And that, for us, was Ashford
