Naphthalene!

Ailz read somewhere that mothballs repel rats so we bought some.

You could smell them through the packaging.

The kitchen- where they rested over night (still in their boxes, still in the plastic they were wrapped in for the post) now smells like an Edwardian lady's armoire.

As a child I liked the smell; I associated it with my grandmother. Now, I'm rather less enamoured.

Boughton Monchelsea

There are several Boughtons in Kent. We passed through two of them on Tuesday- Boughton Malherbe and Boughton Monchelsea. Ailz did some research while I was exploring churchyards and was able to tell me that Boughton means something like "settlement in a beechwood".

The second part of each place name relates to the Norman families that once owned the land- the de Malherbs and the de Montchensies.

Boughton Monchelsea sits on a ridge between the North Downs and the Weald. The view (from vantage points where it isn't screened by beech trees) is tremendous.



The big field in the foreground is part of a deer park belonging Boughton Monchelsea Place.