The Beany reopened in Canterbury plus Pumpkin's antics

Hello everyone. We had a glorious summer day here in Canterbury. Mike took a day off work, and I took a half day off, and we went to 'town', which means the old city centre (about 13 minutes' walk from our home). The main purpose was a visit to The Beany House of Art and Knowledge, previously known as Beany Institute and library. It had been repaired and refurbished for several years at a cost of £14 million. It was reopened two days ago, and tomorrow will be the official opening day. So before it gets crowded, we decided to go to take a peek.

We had grocery to do, so we parked our car at a super and walked along the river. Tourists were on a boat.

Guided tour over the River Stour

What else could make you feel more peaceful than watching a boat?  Summer is still with us. I found beautiful berries on the river side. They look like some kind of currants to me.  There is also a large fig tree growing as well, although I have never see fruits on it.

Pretty orange berries along the river

There is an old disused synagogue, and once you turn it to the left, you can see the top of the Cathedral over the old disused church. Canterbury has lots of old buildings decorated with flints stones, just like this church, which was founded in the Middle Age.  

St Alphege Church

We walked Palace street. Locals and tourists were chilling out.

Palace street

 It was such a nice day to wander around the city. Look at the blue sly. Just looking at it made us happier!

Cypriot baklava cafe had refurbishment. Four cyclists were looking at the menu for lunch. 

We finally reached to the High Street. Here is The Beany House of Art and Knowledge, formerly known as The Beany Institute and library. They had a small Henry Moore exhibition. Moore used to live in Kent before the WW2.

Entrance

1st floor windows 

We had looked at every room, and had coffee in the 'Kitchen', a brand new cafe.  There are various collection of paintings, ceramics, taxonomy, a small Egyptian cat mummy, as well as some archaeological objects including a Roman gold jewelry and 17th century salt glazed tankards; both were found during construction of an extension to the Beany. If you dig anywhere in Canterbury, you are most likely to find old objects. It could be as old as Roman, or just Victorian. This is amazing to me!

Whilst looking at paintings, I found one of them was a scene of a rose nursery. Lots of beautiful pink, orange, coral red roses are painted. There is the Cathedral behind woods. The rose nursery used to be close to where we live. I have heard it a long time ago from an old man who used to work there as a casual hand when he was child. I don't remember clearly now, but the oil painting was painted about a century ago. Now I found how beautiful this area used to look in early summer.  

Mid afternoon. More people were sun bathing in the ancient orchard, now park. 

We wanted to go to another gallery, but it was closed. So we headed back to the supermarket. It is very unusual for me to do grocery (Mike's job), so when I accompany Mike, we ended up buying much more that usual. As usual, I added my types of food (salty kind) into the trolley.   

Back home, we took our dogs out. After that, I played with our greatest chicken, Pumpkin. Well, actually I was picking some beans, and she insisted that she would help. So I gave her overgrown beans. Then she noticed that I was holding some tender ones in my hand, So she jumped up and ate some of humans' one. She was very quick!  Do you know we never scold chickens? Nobody can scold chickens, especially Pumpkin. I sighed, and held the remains of humans' beans higher.    

Mike is feeding Pumpkin, our greatest chicken. 

She is our greatest chicken. We have only one, but she knows she is a special one. She rules the roost and lays eggs for us, so that Mike can make delicious lemon pies for me before I wake up. Heavenly!

She can find bugs and crawlies by her self, but loves to be fed. Then she makes irresistible cute prrrrr sound.  We humans are conditioned to feed her by hand to hear prrrr sound!