Medway Valley Walk - 16 miles between Tonbridge and Maidstone

Long-term readers may know that whilst I am poor at organised sports, I am very fond of being active and being outdoors. In a day-to-day and week-to-week sense, this translates to family walks in the Kent countryside and runs both in London, as part of my commute, and in Kent, on the weekend. (No prizes for guessing which gives the nicer scenery.)

In a bigger pictures sense, I harbour dreams of doing a long-distance walk, the type where you either camp out overnight or find accommodation along your route.

Medway Valley Walk, a few miles out from Tonbridge

I have never done a truly long distance walk and my only experience of walking, camping out, and walking some more was as a 14-year-old working towards the Duke of Edinburgh award. I have done a variety of long single day walks but even those have been fairly rare since we had Mini Bite two years ago.

Last week I managed to rekindle my walking enthusiasm by covering half of the Medway Valley Walk. This is a 28.5 mile route from Tonbridge to Rochester in Kent. Maidstone is roughly half way and I did the 16 mile stretch (25.5km) from Tonbridge to Maidstone.

Locks over the Medway River

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In my kitchen - September 2018

I am linking this into the monthly In My Kitchen round-up, hosted by Sherry of Sherry's Pickings.

After missing a few In My Kitchen posts, it is nice to be back for September. Here are some recent highlights from my kitchen, from new products to old staples.

A new product and an old staple comes in the form of tinned barley by Napolina. I love barley, but don't always love the time taken to cook it. Having a tin on hand is excellent when I need a quick meal (which is often).

Tinned barley

Every work day I buy a coffee from the coffee shop at my local train station. (I know this is a luxury). While they are making my oat milk latte, I ponder the cabinet with pastries and muffins. It has been years since I had a Danish pastry, but recently, they have been taunting me and making me wish a vegan alternative was available. I'm not aware of any vegan Danish pastry offerings so I made a version myself with Jus Roll puff pastry, Alpro custard, stewed apples and strawberries. I can't pretend these were authentic but they were tasty.

Vegan 'Danish pastry' variants

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