Somethingest

June 30, 2026

"Every day has been the somethingest", remarked Kate, today.

It's true. We've had the hottest, the windiest, the longest, the trickiest. Today was the hilliest. The hills at the end of yesterday's ride turned out to be north downs. We carried on doing north downs today - although it was the north ups that made more impression on us.

First of all we had the A25 to contend with. It was early on a Monday morning and it was rammed with fast cars. There are so many more high performance cars down here. Why? They're lucky if they get a stretch of road where they're able to reach the speed limit!

But apart from speeding drivers, we have both been struck by the kindness of so many people on our travels. We encountered more kindness this morning as we stopped outside a coffee shop and the owner dashed out and insisted on moving tables and chairs so that we could lean the tandem across his window so that we could see it from inside.

At the end of our A25 stretch, we turned off to Ide hill. I suppose we should have taken more notice of the 'hill' bit of the name. It was the biggest and longest hill of this trip. I was looking forward to seeing what Strava had recorded in terms of our climbing today. Alas, Strava failed to record the ride. There is a saying that 'if it isn't on Strava, it didn't happen'. So I won't bother telling you that we climbed a million feet because nobody will believe me.

Today was a trip down (or rather, up) memory lane for Kate, as we cycled through the weald of Kent. It's very picturesque with huge amounts of 'unaffordable' housing. The little lanes were often deep and steep with twists and turns as well as steep hills. We were often up high on a ridge but vegetation is such, in Kent, that we are usually denied anything but a glimpse of impressively big views.

We reached Tonbridge, a fairly big town complete with a plethora of supermarkets from one of which we bought an apple and a banana. We also stopped at an old fire station for coffee. Funnily enough, we visited this coffee shop last year when we were house sitting in the area. We have visited many places lately that we would never have been to, if it wasn't for house sitting.

We are now booked in to a very old hotel/pub in the very pretty village of Cranbrook. It was built in the 1300s and everything is very wonky.

We're feeling pretty wonky ourselves. That could be something to do with the steak and ale pie and pint of bitter I've just had downstairs but I think our 'get up and go' is threatening to get up and go.

One 50 mile ride tomorrow is all that remains in our quest to travel from the other end to the other end.

But this evening, we have walked round Cranbrook, looking at it's various claims to fame, such as a posh school (not Benenden, that's down the road) and the tallest smock mill in the country. So called because apparently they look like smocks worn by the workers of the time. (They were obviously into octagonal dresses...)

It is still fully working and, judging by the notice stuck on its front door, very noisy. The notice expressed a desire for the windmill not to function properly.

Well, we have one more day to function properly ourselves. We have booked a place in Ashford, which we cycle to having arrived at Dungeness then, all being well, we pick up a one way van to drive back home.

Don't worry, I won't reflect on our endeavours until the last blog. Which is tomorrow...