Day 9 Shepway – Meeting Kas

It broke down, already. Josh’s rack decided to let us down under pouring rain. I heard

‘Tink! Tink!!’

I didn’t really want to stop, I was already quite wet and was looking forward to finding a nice dry place for the night. Reluctantly, I turned around.

‘What’s up?’
‘My Rack broke’
‘No??’
‘Yeah, the bolt’s gone’ he said ‘we need to find someone with tools.’

We looked around us, nobody was out and about with this weather.
There was just an older lady walking two large dogs. Josh shrugged and shouted from across the road:

‘Hi there! Do you happen to know someone with tools? She looked surprised. He got closer and added:

‘My rack broke, I need some tools to replace the bolt, do you happen to know anybody who could help?’

She seemed to think, unsure, then said:

’My son’s got some tools, but he’s not here.’

She paused again, then added:

‘Come with me, I think he can help you.’

We followed this lady to her house, where she invited us in for some tea to warm ourselves up. Our mood instantly brightened up when we took our wet clothes off and started sipping on warm tea. Her name was Kas, she explained she was vegan, and a farmer. She was now retired but had a lot of lands. ‘Land’, she explained, is precious. She said something like:

‘Regularly some folks come around and ask to buy it, but I’m not selling. I’m keeping it for my horses. They can run around, it makes them happy.’

She talked about preserving the land from development and how important it is that some of it stay this way.
She told us how this house we were sitting in was hers, but she usually stayed in a caravan parked on one of her fields, so she could be closer to her horses. She liked to draw them, it was the joy of her life.

Kas’s son arrived, and he and Josh started working on Josh’s rack. It was not the easiest of tasks, the old bolt was broken, stuck into the frame, and had to be taken out.

In the meantime, Kas told me that she was happy she got to raise children, but although she’d had a few men in her life, it never worked out, and she was happier alone with her horses. I felt like she was looking after me. We’d only met an hour ago.

We talked about maybe stopping in Bulgaria for a while, getting a place, make a bit of money before getting on our way again, she said she knew people in Bulgaria who lived the same way she does, and it gave us some new dreams.

When we got ready to leave again, she realised my jacket was not really waterproof, and I’d gotten soaking wet. I joked that I was not looking forward to getting back into the rain, but hey, we’d find a hotel soon enough.

She said it was no good, opened a closet, took a coat out and gave it to me.

‘I’ve got a brand new one now’ she said ‘but this one’s still good, it’ll keep you warm and dry.’

I was shocked and said I could not accept, she kept holding the coat to me. It was a decent coat and I felt it was too much for her to do, but she insisted I needed it and she didn’t, she wanted me to have it and would not take no for an answer.

We thanked her and her son for all the help they’d given us.

I put on the coat and immediately felt how warm it was. We wrote her name and address down on a piece of paper, patted the dogs and left without even thinking of taking a picture, feeling profoundly grateful.

This evening, we took a hotel room and hung up our clothes to dry, but my jumper was not even wet.