Folkestone the Red Arrows photos, Rupert Annuals, Watercolour Painting and the usual stuff

The Photos of the Red Arrows along with all of the photos we took today can be seen by clicking on the
Link to today's photos

Folkestone is one of our favourite towns within an easy drive of Thanet, reasonably good for bookbuying, art galleries, and shopping.

It's the shopping side that really makes the difference, if you have children and young adults with you as the normal chain shops form part of their leisure day, a bit like some watercolour painting forms part of my day.

 I bought three Rupert Annuals, 1947, 1948 and 1949, these were still wartime economy editions so paperbacks that now sell in the £15 to £100 ball park, depending on the condition they are in.

and a Monster Rupert

hard to find in dust jacket without the cut outs, cut out.

Part of today's books to keep Michael's Bookshop, where I work, here in Ramsgate stocked up
Link to the books we put out yesterday
for the dedicated bookshop followers.

I did a bit more to my watercolour painting of Folkestone, while enjoying a late breakfast at Chocolate Cafe.

Finally a few Thanet photos foe my local history enthusiasts

 Red Arrows at Manston in the 1960s

 float planes in Ramsgate Harbour at the start of WW1

Folkestone today, Chocolate Café a bit of a ramble some pictures

One aspect of secondhand bookselling having a bookshop and publishing books about East Kent is that I visit most of the other secondhand bookshops in the area. I collect books, so I buy books for myself, I buy books for my bookshop and I buy copies of out of print and out of copyright books about East Kent to copy and reprint.

Having children who like shopping towns and the school holidays having started, I pretty much let them choose where they want to go and as I am allergic to shoppin, apart from bookshops where I engage in an activity called browsing which is different, I spend most of the day sketching in cafés, receiving whatsapp messages containing pictures of wonderful clothes and shoes.

It is surprisingly difficult to find cafés with the right ingredients for sketching, which is some sort of view, drinkable tea, the tea I like is called Yorkshire Tea (for the most part English Breakfast tea often seems to be the cheapest one at the cash and carry and is probably mined from the European Tea Mountain) Yorkshire men, sorry people mine the best tea and put it into teabags, conformable chairs, table service, air con, the sun behind me… As you see I don’t want much.

For lunch though we will all put ourselves out for a decent Italian pizza and Follies in Folkestone have a pizza and drink for a fiver deal on Thursdays which is an added attraction.

I sketch the décor in here and the pizza sets me up for Marrins Bookshop which is almost next door.

I like the creative quarter in the Old High Street and so had a good look at the art in the galleries there and a pot of tea Yorkshire outside at Big Boys Fine Burger Co, the have a sort of canopy thing and a cool breeze come up the hill.

The sketch went a bit wrong, but there you go.

Some particularly good pictures at Liford Gallery, Lora Zombie who I think is a grunge artist stole the show for me.

How Folkestone has managed to retain a reasonable shopping centre I think boils down to not having a Westwood Cross clone.

We were just heading home when we discovered that Eleto Chocolate Café my favourite Canterbury Café has just opened a branch in Folkestone.

Not very long to try out the view from there

The content of the camera card i.e. today's pictures of Folkestone, links

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/717/id8.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/717/id9.htm

The links to the recent books that gone out in my bookshop

http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/revolting-rhymes-in-bookshop.html

http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/mathematical-carnival-in-bookshop.html

       

Folkestone Creative Quarter Steep Street Coffee House watercolour

I went Folkestone today and was pretty much amazed by the pace of transformation of the old High Street into a creative quarter. This is best expressed by wanting somewhere to sketch part of it from and Steep Street Coffee House being full at about 3.30.

I hung about until I was lucky enough get a widow seat, where I sat for about an hour sketching the buildings opposite, drinking tea eating chocolate cake and wondering about how the creative innovations were panning out in the Thanet towns and if a creative quarter somewhere in Ramsgate would be viable.

Margate Old Town is another example although it hasn’t got the density of galleries, studios and working artists and Ramsgate has got a fair few galleries but they are scattered around the town.

I suppose Harbour Street in Ramsgate would be the prime candidate and I suppose given our councils it is difficult to think that this would happen.

 For the dedicated followers of my bookshop here are the latest book acquisitions http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/gargantua-in-bookshop.html

The three speed hub explained in old money, a visit to Folkestone and the books I bought, a quick sketch in Canterbury

 Perhaps one shouldn't judge a book by its cover

 political correctness was a long way off in 1866

 I started my day at Folkestone by thinking it would be a good idea to park in the harbour area, it was a bit bleak this series of photos I took by rotating so it's a sort of all round view.

 another one by the water's edge which is better, but not one for me to sketch.

 there was a very impressive seagull

 then another rotational view and i decided to leave the harbour car park

 only to be confronted by the mother of all parking machines

 much better at the top of the cliff

 lunch at Googies, town centre, very good

 the sketch was pretty awful though I was hungry when I started and rushed because of another parking problem, you can only pay for three hours parking on the cliff top and then you have to move.

 The Leas Lift

 The remains of The Leas Pavilion

 got a bit sucked into this bit of modern architecture

 Here are some of the books I bought there

 The 1936 Cyclist's Handbook being one of my better buys.

Finally a quick sketch when stopped in Canterbury on the way home for tea and chocolate cake