Bearing in mind how good the weather has been lately, it was rather cold this morning. I woke about 7am, bursting for a tiddle, and lay in bed in pain rather than getting up to face the cold morning. When I did get up it was to find a very indignant first fruit of my loin. Overnight someone had put a crash helmet on our garden wall; and he had taken this as a personal affront (for no adequately explored reason).
Normally at the weekend I browse the Internet over a spot of brekkie: today I had the laptop on, but I must admit it didn't hold my interest. Instead I listened to my stomach rumbling. Perhaps is was excessive crisps at the film night or the visit to Nandos; whatever it was, my innards had never rumbled so noisily before.
And so on with the business of the day. To Folkestone where we met up with the Folkstonians, and then on to the car park below Dover Castle. The original plans for the day had a lot more people coming along, but what with one thing and another, today had quite a high attrition rate. But six of us (and a dog) were soon at the Bleriot monument. I thought that this would be in some way connected with the Battle of Britain monument; it turned out that Bleriot was the first man to fly across the English Channel. I never knew that.
We then wandered on to the coastal path and the magnificent views across the English Channel. There was a dodgy five minutes when Sid was eating horse poo, but we managed to overcome such adversity.
Regular readers of this drivel may recall that on previous excursions round the coast we've managed to find our way into disused military installations left over from the last war. Today through the wonders of Sat-Nav technology we had six such targets mapped out to be investigated. the first target simply wasn't there, and the second two targets had been deliberately covered over and blocked up. Blocked beyond even our ability to trespass; and we can be quite determined when the mood takes us. So we admired the recent landslide and moved on to the fourth target.
Fourth time lucky! there was a hole in the ground at which most people wouldn't look twice. I was in it like a rat down a drainpipe, and was soon making my way down a rather steep staircase in pitch blackness. We checked the tunnels out, and found a blocked staircase before scrambling back out.
Having tunnel-ratted we were now much happier, and having found a sunny spot sheltered from the wind we sat down and pic-nic-ed. It's amazing how good it is to have a ham roll in the sunshine with some muckers. And so, having scoffed, we made our way onwards. We found another military-looking installation which we looked at. Some local teenagers appeared and told us to be careful of the deep hole inside. Deep hole? That was all we needed to hear. In we went and found that hole. The hole in question was a trap door to a lower level. A trap door complete with ladder. The drop was about five metres, but the ladder looked up to the job, so we descended. The local teenagers were amazed. They'd been looking down that hole for years without being brave enough to climb down.
We had a good scramble about, Stevey cracked his head open on a low ceiling, and we clambered back up again. A quick dose of first aid, and we were soon on our way. pausing only briefly to photograph a baby horse we found another set of tunnels to explore before making our way into St Margarets to find a a bus stop. We sat in the sun and enjoyed the view across the channel before getting the bus back to Dover. The bus was only fifteen minutes late, and we did get off two stops too early, but all too soon it was time to come home. An excellent day out - there are photographs of the day here.
And so home, and having gathered up the last of the catalogues that I didn't collect yesterday we had tea. And whilst cooking that tea, the microwave oven packed up.
That's all we need....
Normally at the weekend I browse the Internet over a spot of brekkie: today I had the laptop on, but I must admit it didn't hold my interest. Instead I listened to my stomach rumbling. Perhaps is was excessive crisps at the film night or the visit to Nandos; whatever it was, my innards had never rumbled so noisily before.
And so on with the business of the day. To Folkestone where we met up with the Folkstonians, and then on to the car park below Dover Castle. The original plans for the day had a lot more people coming along, but what with one thing and another, today had quite a high attrition rate. But six of us (and a dog) were soon at the Bleriot monument. I thought that this would be in some way connected with the Battle of Britain monument; it turned out that Bleriot was the first man to fly across the English Channel. I never knew that.
We then wandered on to the coastal path and the magnificent views across the English Channel. There was a dodgy five minutes when Sid was eating horse poo, but we managed to overcome such adversity.
Regular readers of this drivel may recall that on previous excursions round the coast we've managed to find our way into disused military installations left over from the last war. Today through the wonders of Sat-Nav technology we had six such targets mapped out to be investigated. the first target simply wasn't there, and the second two targets had been deliberately covered over and blocked up. Blocked beyond even our ability to trespass; and we can be quite determined when the mood takes us. So we admired the recent landslide and moved on to the fourth target.
Fourth time lucky! there was a hole in the ground at which most people wouldn't look twice. I was in it like a rat down a drainpipe, and was soon making my way down a rather steep staircase in pitch blackness. We checked the tunnels out, and found a blocked staircase before scrambling back out.
Having tunnel-ratted we were now much happier, and having found a sunny spot sheltered from the wind we sat down and pic-nic-ed. It's amazing how good it is to have a ham roll in the sunshine with some muckers. And so, having scoffed, we made our way onwards. We found another military-looking installation which we looked at. Some local teenagers appeared and told us to be careful of the deep hole inside. Deep hole? That was all we needed to hear. In we went and found that hole. The hole in question was a trap door to a lower level. A trap door complete with ladder. The drop was about five metres, but the ladder looked up to the job, so we descended. The local teenagers were amazed. They'd been looking down that hole for years without being brave enough to climb down.
We had a good scramble about, Stevey cracked his head open on a low ceiling, and we clambered back up again. A quick dose of first aid, and we were soon on our way. pausing only briefly to photograph a baby horse we found another set of tunnels to explore before making our way into St Margarets to find a a bus stop. We sat in the sun and enjoyed the view across the channel before getting the bus back to Dover. The bus was only fifteen minutes late, and we did get off two stops too early, but all too soon it was time to come home. An excellent day out - there are photographs of the day here.
And so home, and having gathered up the last of the catalogues that I didn't collect yesterday we had tea. And whilst cooking that tea, the microwave oven packed up.
That's all we need....
Perhaps you need to download something for that microwave. :o)
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