Day 8. Canterbury. A special day.

Today was meant to be a day of rest, an opportunity to visit the Cathedral and get our pilgrim stamp, and attend a service…and do laundry. It started with a £13 taxi ride two miles to a laundromat, Terry admittedly having a hissy fit over there not being any loadable cards and struggling to finally download an app to get a QR code, asking for £10 of laundry time and being charged £20, and then the machines not working in the end because the wifi was not strong enough to actually run the machines, just steal your money! So we stormed..okay, Terry stormed, Ken sauntered out…but I worked out my frustration on the quick march back to our hotel. And then rest of the day was…so good.

The doors are small
and crooked…shall we just call them quaint?

Our hotel (Cathedral Gate) is an odd w
arren if hallways and stairs going every which way. Ken would never find his way home from the pub on his own!

My three candles at top for our parents and Ryder.

This is Chris, the only other pilgrim we met…and we were the only ones he had met. He had walked from Winchester. We had actually crossed paths with him about 2 days earlier(on the frosty lets walk 2.4 km for nothing day 🙂). We spent much time talking and ended up seeing each other multiple times during the day, culminating with sitting together during Evensong. So pleased for you, Chris, that your pilgrimage was meaningful for you and we are grateful to have been able to meet you. Congratulations on your upcoming university graduation!

We met up with Chris in the Cathedral which connected us to Reverend Emma P who in turn gave us a pilgrims blessing standing right at the candle lit for Thomas A Becket. This site is normally closed to the public so it was a very moving and emotional moment.