The Day After

I had expected to be ill today.  I'd known quite a few folks who’d been ill after their covid jab and I'd even bought myself some Lucozade for my “sick bed”. However I've really been quite ok.  My arm feels as though somebody has punched it and I have a slight sensation of lock jaw but that's been it. I'm still going to drink my Lucozade though...

Chris doesn't work on Mondays and so we often go for a walk somewhere.  This morning I could see that the mist was going to clear away and that the sun would eventually make an appearance.  We hadn’t been to Westgate since June last year when we met both my brothers and their families for a picnic and beach day. I really fancied a change from the woods and from the beach that lies 2 minutes from our house.

Westgate is about 15 minutes drive towards Margate so is still local to us but it was soooo good to have a change of scene.  The air smelt very salty as the estuary is wider here, the tide was out and there are small, chalk rock pools visible. I felt a bit like we were on holiday as its been so long since we've been anywhere.

We walked past the cafe and around the white chalk cliffs until we could see the sandy beaches and Margate in the distance.  We decided to head up the grassy slope above the cliffs and sit in the sunken gardens.  It is incredibly sheltered there and it has its own microclimate.  Birds were singing to each other, fat bumble bees were buzzing in the flowering rosemary and the sun came out as we sat on some steps to drink our hot chocolate. I was in heaven, letting the sun wash over me, the warmth of which I haven't experienced since maybe September last year.  I could have sat there for an hour if the hard steps had been a comfy chair instead.  Alas I'm getting a bit old to sit for more than half an hour on a cold, hard surface.

We turned round after that and walked past the cheerful beach huts and the queues of people getting takeaway coffees, (feeling pleased that we had brought our own).

When we got home I heated us up some leftovers of this most fabulous recipe I tried from Anna Jones’s Instagram feed on Saturday evening.  It is called Patates Yahni and it is basically a bowl of Mediterranean sunshine.  If I had ever been to Greece it would take me right back to a taverna, but as I haven't, it took me back to restaurants in Spain, Italy and Fuerteventura where a delicious bowl of garlicky tomatoes and potatoes are served with feta, parsley and black onion seeds and lashings of olive oil.  It was even better as leftovers as we had it with some crusty olive bread.

This afternoon, Chris is in the garden, doing what he enjoys the most - planting seeds and pottering in the sunshine.  I've spent an hour working on my Vanilla Latte sock heel flap and now it's that time in the afternoon when I need to do some jobs and get organised for the teens returning from school.

It's good to write on here so that I have a record of a really lovely spring day.