Archiving again

No time to hang around this morning. I rise at 8 AM. Heading down for breakfast a little later.

I paid for the buffet breakfast. Which, for me, is egg, bacon, tomato, toast, coffee and orange juice. Hopefully enough to keep me going for a while. There won’t be much time to eat today.

After I’ve checked out, I embark on the walk to the archives. At least it’s downhill into town. It’s not a huge distance to the archives. But it isn’t the most pleasant walk, alongside a busy dual carriageway that follows the river.

Part way, the pavement disappears on my side of the road. So I have to cross it. Which takes ages, as the lights seem reluctant to change for the benefit of pedestrians. A few hundred metres later the same fun repeats when I need to get back to the other side again. This town seems very dominated by cars.

The Kent Archives are housed in the main library. A bright, modern building. I spend a few minutes on formalities and then off I go. I pre-ordered five volumes and I can get started snapping immediately.

I find it best to enter a trancelike state when doing this stuff. Otherwise, it would be disheartening to contemplate how many hours of drudgery lie ahead.

I have 34 documents in my hit list. At four an hour, I’d get through 24 documents. Which is the minimum I’ll be happy with. Let’s see how it goes.

You’re allowed to hand in three request slips at a time. Whenever you feel like it. By submitting a new set of three slips when I return the penultimate document, I have almost no waiting time. Perfect.

The staff are dead friendly and helpful. When they bring me the wrong document*  by mistake, they quickly fetch the correct one.

I brought along a couple of sarnies for lunch. But I never quite get around to stopping to eat. I’m just in the zone. In a rhythm of collecting documents, snapping, returning and submitting new request slips.

It makes the time go quickly, at least. And my back isn’t aching, as it sometimes does after an hour or two of snapping. That’s a win.

Looking at the clock, I notice that it’s 15:50. Fuck me. Where did the afternoon go? I’ve just time to put in three more slips before the cutoff at 16:00.

I get through the last three brewing books pretty quickly. As I need to be done by 16:30. I’ve a train to catch at 16:59. My ticket is only valid for that train So I’d better not miss it.

I’m leaving from Maidstone East, as it’s closer to the archive. It’s a suburban third-rail service. Not particularly fast. It takes over an hour to get to Victoria. Despite being rush-hour, it’s not that crowded as we’re headed into town.

Unlike the tube. Which is pretty busy. I still get a seat, though. Bit of a wait for a train to Terminal 4 at Kensington South. I arrive in Heathrow at 19:30. And quickly check in. Then pushing-in security. Where . . . my bag is picked out for inspection.

“Do you have cheese in your bag, sir?”

It seems an oddly specific question. Are they worried about cheese smuggling? 

“Yes.” I say, bravely.

The security man has, it seems, other concerns than an illicit dairy trade. He swabs my cheese. And then seems happy.

I think I remember now. Cheese looks the same as plastic explosive in the X-ray images. The palaver takes up valuable minutes.

“Do I want to get duty free?” I ask myself. After much deliberation, I reply “Yes.”

The cheapest malt whisky I can find. 42 quid for a litre. Now where’s the lounge? By gate 10, they said at check-in. While I’m looking, I drop my duty-free bag. The bottle is in a cardboard box. No harm done.

The lounge has moved since I was last here. Oh, look! A self-pour bar. I sloosh out about a quadruple or so whisky. 

I haven’t even had chance to sit down when there’s an announcement. My flight is boarding. Fuck. I quickly down my whisky. Standing up.

Boarding has, indeed, already started. I walk straight onto the plane.

When I put my bags in the overhead locker, I notice something. A smell of whisky. And a jangly, broken glass noise. Fuck. The bottle did smash when I dropped it. Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck.

The flight isn’t very full. And is just up and down, really. 

We left a bit early. But it’s still getting on for 23:00 when we disembark.

At least I’ve no luggage. It is quite a walk from the gate, though. Through a deserted landscape of closed shops. I dump my dripping duty-free bag in the first bin I come across.

The only place that isn’t empty is passport control. Where the electronic gates aren’t in use. Great. Just when I get to the front of the queue, they open them up. The fuckers.

A taxi gets me home well before midnight. It’s too late for tea. And Dolores is already in bed. Alexei, too. Andrew is up, obviously. Sadly, I’ve no whisky for a nightcap.

I managed to photograph 30 documents in total. Taking just over 1,300 photos. That’s a photo every 17 seconds or so. Not bad. Though it will take rather longer to process all those pictures.
 

 

* Which turned out to be interesting. A square book from Whitbread’s brewery in Wateringbury from 1963-64. A brewery I have very little information about. Other than it brewed bottled beer for export.