st augustine's abbey, canterbury

every year, kent tourism hosts a weekend where people in kent can apply for free tickets to see kent tourist attractions. this year, we applied and got tickets to go to st augustine's abbey, in canterbury. i've never been - it's outside the main walls, and not on any of my paths through the city, and for years i didn't even know it was there.

the abbey is all ruins now, but interesting for that. there's ruins from the romans, then from the first abbey in 597, then anglo-saxons, then normans (those pesky normans!).

the red bricks below are roman bricks. i read somewhere that although romans built with bricks in britain, when they left they took the knowledge with them, and it was centuries before bricks were made and used again.

these tiles were on the floor in one of the chapel alcoves


unfortunately all this peace and tranquility were given short shrift indeed by the necessity of having to go shopping while we were in canterbury. ghastly. however, we persevered, and are making progress on the whole "get the house looking ok" thing and the "oh my god we actually have to organise this whole wedding party" thing and the "argh why won't wedding clothes just buy themselves" thing.

from the sublime to the utterly prosaic - such is life.