Trying to get coordinated

It rained almost all day today, a cold, soaking-into-the-bones, not quite sleety sort of rain.  I hoped it might blow over, but the longer it went on the less I felt inclined to cycle into town again.  In the end I drank about four cups of tea, ate chocolate, and read my book for ages.  I was cold by then so lit the woodburner in earnest.  This was possibly just as well because having had tea just a couple of hours later, somewhere to the west a Scottish Power facility gave a tremendous show of three bright flashes and our electricity went stone dead for a good 45 minutes.  Everyone here is quite well prepared for such things these days.

I spent the evening Holiday Plotting.  When Borders Books had its closing down sale many years ago they had some remaining OS maps, so I bought a few that I thought might be useful one day.  One of them covers the Dover and Folkestone area, and I think I bought it mainly because it had the Channel Tunnel railway terminus on it, and was therefore exciting.  I distinctly remember us visiting as a family when they were still building the place – I seem to recall that the grand breakthrough, that first handshake, was quite recent then – and there was probably a visitor centre with a slide projector and Channel Tunnel keyrings and car stickers and things.  It might have been the same holiday in which we took the hovercraft to France for a day trip, but I'm not sure because my memories are a bit patchy.  I remember the hovercraft especially well, though.

The trains however are still there to watch from the hillsides, and indeed to put your motorbike on, so perhaps one day I'll give this map a proper airing.  It has much to do however in becoming as dog-eared as my equivalent map of York.