Today, it was threatening rain (again!), so I decided to hop on a train and go explore our county town of Maidstone. I chose the train because bike parking in Maidstone is not easy to find.
All the years I worked on the edge of the town, I've never really explored it. The town centre is not too badly off for shops, and there are some lovely old buildings, in various states of repair. There's also some interesting history.
The town grew up around the confluence of the rivers Medway and Len, and there's a lovely walk along the banks of the Medway. The archbishops' palace is lovely, and the parish church of All Saints next door, is an imposing edifice
Sadly, I didn't have time to visit either the local museum, or the Tyrwhitt-Drake museum of carriages. So I will probably return in the winter time, when I'm looking for warm places to be.
For those who don't know, most of the traffic revolves (literally) around the river. The town centre is largely pedestrianised and all the vehicles are forced to go round the perimeter via a dual carriageway and a gyratory system which goes over Maidstone Bridge, and back via St. Peter's Bridge. The volume of traffic is horrendous and they only slow down when they're forced to.
And then there are ducks. To be precise mamma and 3 babies - intent on crossing 6 lanes of nose to tail traffic to get to the pond by the old Rootes building. And there was a workman and myself trying to hold the traffic so that she could cross safely, and then shepherding them along the railings to find a point where she could access the water. And we only got yelled at once! Most people were content to wait and had their phones out recording the little flock and its' human sheepdogs!
Just waiting for the camera to finish uploading, and then I'll add them to the Kent1 page. I probably won't get around to the words though until Sunday. I still have a lot of research to do
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