I had a sandwich in Sandwich

The Earl of Sandwich enjoyed a good gamble. He enjoyed it so much that he prioritised it higher than regular meal breaks, and was often known to request people bring him a slab of meat in between two pieces of bread, so he could munch during his game. His fellow gamers approved of this idea, and took to asking for the “same as Sandwich”.

The name stuck, and this is why your tuna-filled bread is called a sandwich; why your BLT is called a sandwich; why it’s called a Subway Sandwich and not, for example, Subway Southampton. (This Earl of Sandwich story is not pure fact, but it is the likeliest story out there.)

One of the most famous foods in the world, named after a quaint little English town featuring an earl with an affinity for money games.

So when I found myself visiting one of my dearest besties, Nicola, in Folkestone, I couldn’t miss a daytrip to Sandwich. This is despite Nicola’s sincere comment of “Why?” after I proclaimed my plans to her, as Sandwich doesn’t have much to its name apart from, er, its name.

I jumped on the 10.30 to Sandwich, and kept myself entertained on the hour’s train ride by alternating between giggling at my train ticket and chortling at the train announcements listing the train stops.

Sandwich itself was rather empty, and I’m pretty sure I walked the long way round to the town centre. The signs were fun.

I was especially taken by the destination of one of the buses, which was headed for Sandwich, wishing to comment the fact it goes via a town slightly to the south of it. Therefore the display said ‘Sandwich Deal’. It will be my dying regret that I missed getting a photo of that.

I had a lovely cappuccino in a Sandwich café, and had a browse through the Sandwich charity shops, as charming as, if not more so than the ones elsewhere in Britain. The shops had a decent amount of Canadians around, and the shop keepers were a notch more cheery than the British norm – well, I would too, if I worked in Sandwich.

One of the hidden corners of Sandwich is the Holy Ghost Alley, which I first reckoned to be an alley leading to someone’s house. Well, perhaps the House of the Holy Ghost, except ghosts are obviously see-through even when reprimanding trespassers, so I encountered no problems as I made my way through the narrow alley to find myself on a road on the other side. Quirky, charming!

I went back and lingered for a few moments in front of the opening to the Holy Ghost Alley, trying to evaluate the worth of the effort of asking a random stranger to take a picture of me in the alleyway. I concluded it was not worth the effort, a muse I regretted for a few minutes afterwards, but that was before my next, actual Worth the Effort of Awkward Encounter with Random Person to Take Picture of Me. (more about that in a moment…)

I’m sure the bizarre No Name French Delicatessen Shop would have done an indescribably yummy salad, and I’m sure the fish and chips at the Mermaid Pub would have been codpletely divine, but obviously there was no question about my choice of lunch for today.

A long amount of time was spent standing at the Co-op sandwich aisle, wondering whether to obey my taste buds or aesthetic eye when it came to sandwich choice. I finally obeyed my taste buds and went for the chicken and stuffing. In the end, it seems a bit pointless to pick a sandwich with a bit of lettuce in it purely for picture-taking purposes – OBVIOUSLY I do not reach such levels of superficiality.

I had a dream. And that dream was a picture of me eating a sandwich in Sandwich. Obviously selfies were easily accessible with a bit of acknowledged foolishness and accepted mockery from other people, but I had a dream which involved it not being a selfie…

 

Historic Sandwich signs were abundant, and I knew my picture had to involve this sign. The first Historic Sandwich sign was on a road full of cars, with unattractive surroundings. The second Historic Sandwich sign had nicer surroundings, but a family of three generations had decided to park themselves in front of it to have an argument.

The third Historic Sandwich sign… made me want to sing a song of sandwichial praise, as it had both a sign, and a handy sign, and it was in a quieter area, and it even had a fence in front of it, perfect for self-timer pictures! (You know, those things you may or may not have taken, depending on the level of… interestingness of your life, about ten years ago. When you wanted a group of you and your friends but the Selfie had officially not been invented and, besides, you can’t really do funny bodily poses in selfies.)

I took a few mediocre self-timer pictures, pretending to eat my chicken and stuffing sandwich while studying my Sandwich town guide…

…until a group of three ladies ambled over to read about the Bulwark of Historic Sandwich. I had a quick conversation with myself (it was Courage & Yolo vs. Introverted & Mature), evaluated the happiness, niceness and non-busyness levels of the ladies, and then shyly asked if one of them wanted to take a photo of me, please.

Of course, of course! I expected good-natured laughs and sympathetic smiles as I politely asked her to refrain from taking the picture immediately (I think my exact words were “wait wait”) while I placed my props, but they all took their newly-appointed photographer job very seriously. I showed her the button on my camera and requested the Historic Sandwich sign were included in it, and posed.

Two pictures later, I gave them my best chicken and stuffing-filled smile and was inwardly leaping for joy as I now had My Photo.

The rest of the day was spent inanely wandering and taking pictures of signs and sandwiches, as one does, and then it was time to catch the 14.12 from Sandwich.

Thanks for being a gambler, Earl.

PS. This was experienced about ten months ago and written about six months ago, but hope it’s still not too out-of-date!