A Valentine's Wish

We've just exchanged contracts on a house in Faversham, needing a major renovation, but overlooking the creek and with bags of space and character. Expect photos of rotting timbers and piles of rubble, but for now we're focusing on its potential as the settling down home. Here's hoping!

This delightful card seems to be appropriate for us, and is lovey enough to work for Valentine's Day too.

Ignorance is Bliss

Another piece of Edwardian whimsy - at first sight this is another romantic card, suitable for the approach to Valentines Day, but wait - open the flap, and there inside are 12 pictures of Ramsate at its finest.


The first 6 show the Inner Harbour, Victoria Pavilion, Harbour with Gates Open, the Marina, the Wtaerfall and the Westcliff Promenade.


The second group here shows Ellington Park, the Sands, East Cliff Promenade, General View Ramsgate, Madeira Walk and New Undercliff Promenade.


Those were the days... not quite sure which ignorance is bliss here - the courting couple ignorant of the young audience, or maybe one of them ignorant of the other's brood of children? You decide...

An early Valentine

A little treat fo rthe scrap people out htere - if you can't make something lovely with this, you're not trying hard enough! This delightful Valentine is unused and undated, but I guess comes from the 1910s or 1920s. Maybe someone can date it better than that...

It opens out to reveal the poem, sent by the girl in the picture who pleads to be saved for the tedium that is her fate if she doesn't get her man. At least I think that's what she's saying.

Ramsgate 1929 - Legless

Sent to Wally Brown in Reading in 1929, this postcard bemoans the lack of leg in this garter. Still, it raise the hope of finding the bare leg somewhere I suppose...

Horse business

I seen Manston airport is about to become a horse-importing airport, according to this story on the BBC site.

Ostensibly to offer a service for the Olympics, the £250,000 investment seems to be expecting a lot from a few short weeks next year, so maybe there's other expected uses - Chinese live Panda imports perhaps... 'Normal' meat for food brought in 'on the hoof' can't be economic as air freight can it? Maybe it's about horse racing... Still, the management team at the airport must have a good idea of potential clients for the new service. Mustn't they?

Ramsgate 1920

Kids and dogs both look a little worried when faced with this monster crab, but it's mostly harmless, lifting to reveal a strip of photographs of Ramsgate's delights.

Ramsgate 1914 - just a line . . .

"Dear Sister, just a line to let you know we are spending 8 days in Ramsgate had lovely weather returning home tomorrow Sunday love to all from all yours and Ada is very brown from the sun". Obviously punctuation wasn't too important when at the seaside... and the picture is of some highly acrobatic young ladies dancing along the planiking, with one twirling a very flimsy line to some chap who is clearly just pretending to require a rescue. Cunning. Still, they seem to find it funny.

Postcard time . . .

After a long pause, it's time for some more cheerfulness, courtesy of the classic seaside postcard. Today's dates back to 1910, and was sent to Foley Street in Maidstone with the brief message "Arrived safe, it is fine down here". All fine as long as you don't find yourself unexpectedly trouserless near a donkey...

Fibre Broadband for Faversham, Sandwich and Sheppey

BT have announced that Faversham, Sandwich and Sheppey are among 41 market towns to receive fibre broadband by Spring 2012. This technology offers download speeds of up to 40mbps (and upload of 10mbps), easily enough to access the most exciting bits of online media, although resellers may supply only at speeds of up to 5mbps - still an improvement on copper wire connections on the whole. Either way, it's generally good news, meaning that the big city connections won't get an unfair advantage over small town businesses.

See the story in ZDNet and Computer Weekly to get a bit more detail.

Standard Quay, Faversham

Not often you see your local area featured across three pages of the Guardian - we've only been living here a few months, but we appreciate the creek and its heritage of boat building and the long commercial history of the quayside. Today's article highlights the uncertainty facing Standard Quay as the owner declines to renew leases and generally adds to the uncertainty about the area's future.

Obviously as newcomers we know we're not qualified to comment in detail, except we do like the essentially scruffy nature of a working quayside, next to the more modern attractions such as antique dealers, upholsterers, garden centre and other delights. Hard to see what will happen, and very hard to see how attractive it will be if it's over-developed, but we'll keep our fingers crossed that it's not destroyed in the pursuit of profit and modernisation. The article talks about ideas for a wine bar, restaurant and other amenities - hmmm... well maybe, but not at the expense of what made the town what it is, surely.

Judging by the comments, there's some local opinions similar to ours too.

Absence makes the blog last longer

Almost a year since my last post, time to pick it up again. New Year's Resolution #36475. So much to do, so little time. Well actually plenty of time, just poorly organised.


Here's a picture to start me off again - a picture of a dragonly taken at the Albert Kahn museum gardens in Paris last Summer.