We had such a wonderful time in East Anglia on our last trip that, with four days between matches on this trip, we decided to spend some time in Kent. The regional train system is a bit different there from East Anglia. Instead of a pass you can use any three days over a seven-day period, you can buy a three-day pass. That worked well for us given the relatively shorter time we would have in Kent versus East Anglia.

On Wednesday morning we got up relatively early to get on a train from Charing Cross. As we waited for the track the train would be on to be announced at Charing Cross, some workers were handing out samples for an immunity drink called Moju. In contrast with other samples I’ve seen handed out around London, this one seemed very popular with the arriving passengers. I saw very few decline the small bottle. My husband decided to give it a try. He was unimpressed. “Unimpressed” is the wrong word. He seems to think that rather than being given this spicy mango juice for free at the train station, people should be paid to drink it. Hopefully, he is now immune to whatever it is that Moju will guard against. After his critique, I decided to take my chances with the germs that be.

We ultimately boarded the train and rode to Swanly, changing again at Sevenoaks to ride the rest of the way to the Canterbury West station. The weather was brisk as we waited for the train changes and I was glad I had my hat and gloves.

We were expecting rain the next day, Thursday, so we designated Thursday as the day we would spend time in Canterbury. After arriving in Canterbury on Wednesday, it was our plan to drop our luggage off at our hotel, aBode Canterbury, grab a quick lunch, and then take the train to Sandwich.

Canterbury city center is roughly in a circle, like Chicago’s Loop but a thousand times smaller. (That may not be a factual representation of scale.) aBode is on High street, which cuts the circle in half, quite well located. One of the things we noticed right away on our way to the hotel was signs for punt boat operators in Canterbury. Since we had just done that in Cambridge, it was not in our plans for this trip.

We completed all the steps of our actual plan, returning to the train station to get the next train to Sandwich. What he had planned to do in Sandwich was find the Saxon Shoreway trail that allows you to walk South along the coast for seven miles to a town called Deal.

We successfully found the trail but took what I perceived as a detour on the part of the path that went through The Royal St. George’s Golf Club. I’m not a golfer, have golfed maybe three times in my life excluding the decidedly not-real golf activity of mini golf. My husband, on the other hand, is a prolific golfer and also loves to watch the sport. As an insomniac, I watch the sport when I desperately need to catch up on sleep. In retrospect, my husband was doing the navigating at this point, so I suspect the “detour” to the golf course was not quite as unplanned as I may have initially believed.

I think golfers and non-golfers can all agree that most golf courses are quite lovely places to be. As we arrived on the public foot path at the edge of the course, I could see that the Royal St. George’s was something special. Undulating hills, amazing shadowy bunkers, grassy roughs and the sun shining just so on all of it. The pubic foot path goes right through the course on its way to the Sandwich Bay. At the edge of the course we stopped in the Pro shop which was open to the public and my husband reviewed some gaudy shirts, which he appeared not to be tempted to buy. Then we followed the path over the course and across the street to the Bay.

I gave my husband a chance to review this before I published it and it was very important to him that I make sure you understand that this course was the host of 15 British Opens and that he merely hoped to be able to see it from the path. The fact that he got to walk across this hallowed ground was both a surprise and a life experience he treasures.

By the time we reached the bay we had hiked quite a long way and I was ready to find a bathroom. We had seen no bathroom options since leaving the train and there clearly were none along the path to Deal. It was also getting to be a bit late to start a big hike and we suspected it might be dark before we arrived in Deal. So we made a decision to turn back toward town and see what there was to see in Sandwich.

As we left the golf course we saw two golfers starting a round with their dogs. What a place to walk your dog.

In Sandwich we stopped at the lovely Bell Hotel near the water and had a drink and an early dinner on the porch. I had wild mushrooms on toast and a tomato pepper soup along with a gin & tonic.

While the patio was bathed in sun, it was lovely. As the sun went down, a cloud of mosquitoes emerged so we closed shop and headed to the train station. Even the train station, which was pretty far from the water, had a lot of mosquitoes. We kept moving up and down the platform until the train came to avoid them.

Upon arriving back in Canterbury we were able to check into our room. The backstory of our hotel selection in Canterbury was that after we returned from our last London trip, the one in which we traveled through East Anglia, my husband did something he had never done following a trip to London. He counted up every expenditure we had made and worried about it. Not having a paycheck coming in has been a real mental challenge for him and, in a life that did not include me, I think he’d be tempted to live on his Social Security check.

As I mentioned before, my job before I was retired was helping my employer create financial planning software for planners employed by our firm. The software could complete a monte carlo analysis to understand, based on assets and likely expenditures, what is the probability you’ll have enough money to live on for the rest of your life. I used software many times to run our own projections. To be clear, I have some guilt about using money in this way in a world that has so many needs, but I know we can afford these trips for a while. It would be ideal and better for our financial future if Arsenal could just go ahead and win the Premier League this year.

In any case, I realized that the hotel price point we originally set when we started this going-to-London-to-watch-Arsenal thing had slid upward a bit over time, maybe more than inflation would suggest, and it’s been a long time since we had anything but a great hotel experience. To give my husband greater peace of mind, I suggested that we could downgrade our preferred price point and save a bit there and take a bit more risk that maybe every place we stay is not delightful. So this trip, that’s what we tried to do. We could not do it for the first weekend in London–hotels were just too tight due to what seemed to be Diwali celebrations and a literature convention–but we did it for our hotel in Canterbury and for our hotel after our return to London.

And on this backdrop, I can tell you our hotel in Canterbury was maybe not the luxe experience that you long to reach at the end of the day but was just fine. Our room was spacious, had wooden floors which I like, and nice lighting that made it appear to have more character than maybe it actually had. The bathroom was fine and had a combined shower/tub combo. It had a very functional towel warmer that like all towel warmers, it seems, was not quite close enough for you to be able to reach from the tub. You have to either remove it first and place it closer (no longer warm) or not remove it before your shower and stand dripping on the floor to retrieve it (beautifully warm). Or, what I did at the aBode, call my husband to deliver it. This warm towel became especially important, as I’ll explain.

But first, some context. On the train ride to Canterbury we had been reading in sports news that on the day before the match we had just seen, Atletico Madrid had held a practice at the Emirates. Upon arriving they noticed that the hot water was not functional in the visitors’ locker rooms and had complained to the club. They ended up having to shower back at their hotel and made an official complaint against Arsenal. Arsenal was ultimately forced to apologize. Arsenal’s side of the story was that upon learning the hot water was not working they managed to restore it before the end of the scheduled practice, but Atletico had ended their practice early. Both an excuse and maybe a bit of shade against the team Arsenal just beat. Maybe practice a bit longer and you’ll have both hot water and a win.

In any case, when I woke up on Thursday my husband informed me I was about to get a lesson in empathy. Our room, which had very warm towels available assuming appropriate steps were taken, had no hot water.