Whenver I go back to Dartford I thank my lucky stars that I moved when I was 5. For a town so near to London, it really should have more going for it, but it doesn't. Admittedly, things did look a little better today though. There's a very old coaching inn in the middle of town called the Bull and Victoria and years ago it was the place to go for a special occasion. I even remember trying oyster soup there when I was a precocious 10 year old but lately it has gone downhill. The window frames were in a sorry state and it looked the sort of place where you wiped your feet before you went in...
Today, though, it had been smartened up considerably and looked much much better. Maybe the rest of the town will follow and all the £1 shops will go out of business. There's a huge new Tesco planned for the outskirts of the town and even though it will kill any remaining character, it has to be an improvement on the boarded up shops that now welcome you as you drive in.
I think that Bluewater has had something to do with the demise of poor old Dartford and it's ironic that I now no longer like my adopted home town of Northampton and prefer to shop in smart, spolit-for-choice Milton Keynes and small towns such as Market Harborough which have a wealth of small specialist shops.
We had a good day, though but as always I sigh with relief when I head back down onto the M25!
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