We awoke to rain and cloudy skies and, according to the weather forecast, that is how the day will remain. As Storm Francis continues its vagaries, we can expect strong winds as well.

This is the view from the hotel window at 8:20am. Let’s see how the day shapes up…

We had a lazy start to the day and so decided to try the hotel restaurant for breakfast. They have a reasonable cafe style menu with a full vegetarian breakfast.

After breakfast, we caught the Margate bus opposite this fine old Royal Sailors’ Rest, built 1904 and now a Grade II listed building.

Aboard the bus and on the way to Margate. As on London public transport, face coverings are required on buses in Thanet.

We left the bus at Westwood Cross Shopping Centre. It was quite busy but everywhere was carefully regulated with arrows to mark paths to follow. Some shops had an assistant at the door allowing customers to enter only as others exited.

The general rule was Keep Left and while some people followed this, others seemed oblivious to it.

We caught the bus again and travelled to Broadstairs. We left the bus a little too soon and needed to walk down the hill to the town centre but, never mind, as we probably need the exercise!

The main beach of Broadstairs is Viking Bay. In fine weather when the tide is in, the beach is crowded. Today, with the bad weather, it was deserted.

We stopped for coffee and cake at Aqua 43. We have been here before. The cake was served with cream and was delicious!

Because both the hotel and Aqua 43 are participating in the government’s “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme, we paid only half the bill in both places.

There seemed little to be gained by wandering the streets of Broadstairs – pleasant a town as it is – in the rain and so we made for the bus stop. We narrowly missed one bus and jumped on the next without checking its route. As luck would have it, this was the bus taking us directly to Ramsgate.

So here we are, back in Ramsgate on a grey and rainy day. We returned to the hotel and will stay here until we need to go out for food.

As we lounged at our ease in our hotel room, Tigger saw that the sun had come out and so took some photos from the windows of which the above is one.

Even though the sun is shining, there is a strong gusty wind blowing, courtesy of Storm Francis.

At about 8pm we decided to go out and look for supper. This is a view over the harbour looking back from the hotel.

There was a Turkish restaurant that we had spotted yesterday but when we reached it, we could see that it was packed out.

Our second choice was a pub called The Goose, where we had eaten on a previous visit to Ramsgate.

On arriving, we found we had to wait at the door until someone came and led us to a table. We were placed in a corner from where I took the above photo.

On the menu was a dish called “Fake Steak” (with inverted commas). This was described as a pie containing Quorn mince, served chips or mash, peas and a vegan gravy. So that’s what we chose.

The wind, which had been gusty before, had gained in strength by the time we went out this evening. I attached my hat to my coat collar with the “hat lock” but, given the force of the wind, didn’t really trust it. (It consists of a cord with a clip at either end, one for the hat brim and the other for your coat collar.) I held onto my hat with one hand. This made it difficult to take photos!

As last night, the moon was shining over the harbour but tonight the sky was clear. Tigger (who was not wearing a hat) took the photo for me!

The wind is expected to continue tomorrow until mid afternoon but at least it will not rain. (If you believe weather forecasts, that is.) Best wait and see and adapt our activities to the weather conditions.