A reasonably decent
night's sleep for a change. I got up fairly early and did the
morning's weigh-in. No weight loss, but no weight gain either. I
mucked about for a bit with silly Facebook games, then spent a bit of
time fiddling with my phone. I've downloaded Google Sky to use as a
star atlas, but will need to use it in the dark (when it's not
cloudy) to be sure it works.
I noticed that somehow or
other my phone knew about the planned outing to Dover today. I wonder
who told it? Perhaps it reads the "Dates for the Diary"
section of this blog.
Steve's arrival prompted
me to get dressed, and after a quick visit to the cashpoint machine
we set off to the clifftop café in Capel for a bite of brekkie. It
might cost, but you can't beat the Full English, and Capel has such
wonderful views too.
Just as we finished, the
Brightonians arrived, and over a cuppa we were treated to a magic
show. Rhiannon might only be small, but she's got quite a talent for
magic tricks, and a few of them had me stumped as to how she was
doing the tricks.
With brekkie scoffed and
cuppas drunk we made our way to the Western Heights car park to meet
up with the rest of the crew, and a dozen of us mooched round the gun
emplacements as the rain started to fall. I had a look at the
entrance to the deep shelter. Someone had replaced the gate with one
that I couldn't climb over. I wasn't happy about that.
We made our way to the
Grand Shaft. Built over a hundred years ago, the Grand Shaft is a
triple spiral staircase going from the top of the cliffs at Dover
down to the sea front. Going down is easy enough - going back up is a
killer.
As we eventually
struggled our way to the top so the rain really got heavy, so we went
into the Drop Redoubt. Anyone who's ever been to Dover will have seen
the majestic castle overlooking the town from one of the hills. Maybe
one person in a hundred who's been to Dover will have heard of the
Drop Redoubt on the opposite hill. Because it's not given the same
priority as Dover Castle by it's owners (English Heritage) the
Drop Redoubt is the poor cousin. But, to my mind, the Drop Redoubt is
every bit as good as Dover Castle. Today the Western Heights
Preservation Society had an open day, and the Drop Redoubt was opened
up. Which was good - it gave us somewhere to get out of the rain.
Last year when we went to
this place's open day we had a great time. There were things to do
and see, there were re-enactments going on. This time there was
torrential rain, and everyone was huddled inside hiding from the
rain. We made the most of the day, and saw and did what we could. The
pic-nic was interesting; normally we'd lunch in the sunshine. Today
we lunched in a draughty corridor of a two hundred year old fortress.
It was such a shame: most of the events and activities were
cancelled. We were all soaked through. But it was a wonderful day
with wonderful company. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
And then back to the car.
In the meantime the rain had gone from medium monsoon to completely
torrential, and we all got soaked during the two minute walk back to
the car park. We said our goodbyes and went our various ways. As we
drove home Tony Blackburn was on the radio re-running the top twenty
from 1978. There were some good memories there - John Travolta, The
Boomtown Rats and the Smurfs to name but most of them. Once back in
Ashford the Brightonians (having bought dry socks) came home
with us for a cuppa, which was good. The sixty miles which usually
separate us can be a nuisance.
Saturday night - film
night. Tonight we watched "Underworld Awakening"
which frankly made no sense whatsoever. I'm told that if you've seen
the three films which come before it, then it becomes somewhat more
understandable. The second film of the evening was "Journey
to the Centre of the Earth II" which went nowhere near the
centre of the Earth. Instead it went to Atlantis (which was on dry
land) and had more than just the occasional plot hole. But it was
still quite watchable.
I've not been to a
Saturday film night for some time - I've quite missed them.
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