Being removed

I enjoy traveling. The unusual the wonderful the fascinating.
Not much of that in the last few days but it distracts as well so blogs get forgotten.
I figured out that a great grandfather of mine, the one that became a remittance man, would have been walking in the places I am walking 150 years ago.
He was sadly a rather indigent chap who loved to gamble all night and walk in the summer holidays and no doubt was totally shocked when hi father said, be gone to the colonies ! And he was gone lock stock and barrel with wife and kids.
My Grandfather, Francis Kent, was at the time articled to a Lawyer with Chambers in Lincolns Inn. I envisage Chambers was pretty much a Rumpole type of affair. What I did not know was the apprentice Lawyer PAID for his tuition from his boss. I guess that was just one more cost that his grandfather preferred not to have to meet.
He the family head was as I am informed a merchant in south London.
So off they went on ship complete with furniture to New Zealand. So to have that memory of the old chap wandering Britain and some of the best walk in Europe challenged my imagination.
I only hope that if he did walk the South Downs Way which has been a walkway for 8000 years that it was in better condition than it is now and the weather was better than rain every day.
The walk starts in what was once the Capital of England, Winchester, which also has a fine Cathedral and an organ that I love to hear played, even poorly as it was on Thursday.
So I find myself in a place called East Meon which is so bereft of about everything except I hasten to add an old and admired Church. They date back to the 1600's round here. Why then I do not yet understand.  After Henry went about dismantling distributing and even dismembering the churches and occupants. I found a place where I stayed last year with an extraordinary history of monarchs Churches and insurrection. 
All jolly good fun. 
What is not good fun is the state of the English walkways. Bloody terrible. Unemployed locals unemployed immigrants, homeless people that may as well be homeless doing something in preference to sleeping in doorways, should all be out there cutting the grass and weeds and doing them selves and the walkers a great favour. 
To add insult to injury the signage is abysmal. The signs say, Bridalpath, Walkway, even a named Walkway like South Downs Way but do not say to where or how far it is !  So it is a matter of good fortune where you end up unless one has an electronic map.  
However whether I am walking Greatgrandfathers journeys or not I am doing it and slowly recovering from the carnage caused to my poor old body by a surgeon replacing a knee after being struck by a Ram. Of course as ACC pays less this was degeneration and therefore not ACC. 
It is a damn shame that professional morals are determined by financial considerations. And they are. 
So I can not report on the state of the nation. I don't see TV and when I last did it was preoccupied by the tweets of DT and the length and cost of Mrs Mays dress. All vital stuff. 
But otherwise 2 Men and a Boy, the same US comedy NZ gets, plus the Chase, and the one with the sliding tokens,  in fact I wondered if we just rebroadcast UK re-runs. Seems like it. 
Well I walked yesterday from Winchester for about 11miles, and today from East Peon, for about 8 miles and it feels like it as I sit on the couch with my feet up. 
Having a good run with Air BnB people. Air BnB actually sucks, greedy US financial model that makes communication like a contest in obscurity. Anyway the people are good. So many of them it is a very significant economy.
Sorry no pictures, thanks google ! I wanted to show some shots of a concert site for the "Boomtown" open air concert. Good luck with the weather. But the site is huge. Massive structures stages Marquees, walls fences and rows and rows of multi coloured dunnys. Fact of life I guess. I spoke to a guy that has been working it for 5 years. He reckons it doubles each year. Must be the best business in England!
Back to Google I guess it is my fault trusting them to provide a service free, when if they mess with the users, they will pay. I guess they will too, but why should I pay when they Google  are giving away (or selling) my uploaded photo's.
I am upset because nothing in the clever tech business that I invested in  ever paid me a cent !
So that is the story of Thursday spent on the road from Lewes to East Meon and two days walking in the rain and I do not feel very Fred Astair at all.