Day 6 Harrietsham - Ashford & TT#3

The skies look a little cloudier today but it’s still hot and I’m off to Lenham and its church with
Norman roots remain and a 15thC Tea rooms ! Next to the trackway has a huge chalk war memorial cross cut into the hill.
Then its a large green track with barley , wheat , peas and corn which rises to Charing Hill and Charing. Charing has several medieval houses and especially the impressive Palace Great Hall and it was a pilgrimage site in its own rite - supposedly holding the block on which John the Baptist was beheaded on, now lost, after Richard I brought it back from Holy Land. It dates back to the 8thC, but most of current building relates to the late 13thC with later additions and rebuilding but the tower is from 1500 - it had visitations from Henry VII and VIII ! The green track continues along the edge of woodland past Westwell and Eastwell again past fields of corn and wheat and then its north to Boughton Lees and Flying Horse Inn and then onto Boughton Aluph church .
Tonight’s last stop is close to Ashford not Bilting - but you’ll have to talk to google maps to argue that !!!! grr!

Travellers tales# 3
Prior to her nursing and raising a family she was born and lived with her parents and younger brother in the middle of nowhere on a tea plantation in Ceylon. She was a keen walker. He , in later life , was also very keen walker and had walked Hadrian’s wall , the canals of the West Midlands ( where unfortunately he got mugged!) and also many an old steam railway line like the Settle- Carlisle route.
He had always had an aversion to bees and wasps as he was very allergic ! Once in Ireland , a wasp stung his arm and it became so swollen it looked like Popeye’s arm muscles !
Once on holiday in Austria they were both fascinated by the flowers (beautiful fuchsias ) at a particular stop ......but flowers attract ....wasps! He suddenly shouted out that there was a wasp IN his shorts ! Quickly , she took him behind a large bush and tried to get his shorts off to free the wasp before it was too late! Luckily the wasp was released and did not result in great balls of fire ! They were the good Wife and Husband of Farnham aka Mum and DadLeia mais