Lordy lawks, what a bloomin’ week!

I haven’t been keeping up with blogging, to be honest I haven’t been able to put my mind to it. I should have done a post last Sunday but I was too knackered and sore so I thought I’d do it on Monday instead. bad idea as I was in more discomfort than Sunday. Why, I hear you ask, was I  so ache ridden. Well the reason is that on Sunday I went back to the Western Heights in Dover, this time there were more bods coming along and I had set myself a personal goal of accessing a part of one of the places we saw on our previous visit.

On arrival at Saint Martins car park we learned that some of the chaps were already in the deep shelter, this was a relief as I was sure that it would have been sealed by now. We spent some time exploring the shelter and accompanying Gun batteries before heading down to the Grand Shaft. Whilst exploring the gun placements it was noticed that Saint Martins Battery was running alive with the most annoying creature known to man, a beast so foul and toxic that the mere thought of them sends a shudder down my spine, my hair stand on end and my stomach churn. What vile animals could promote such feelings of dread and repulsion? Children! Don’t get me wrong, not all children are evil minions from a hell dimension, I actually do know a handful that are quite pleasant to be around and I can stand more than ten minutes of. The children that were out in force on Sunday however were the worst kind. CUBS, I assumed that they’d been taken there for a day of history, it seemed as though they’d actually been handed blue smarties and cheap cola on arrival and told to run free like little apes released from a zoo. There were some adults who were alledgedly supervising the little “darlings” by supervising I mean sitting on the floor scoffing cucumber sandwiches and nattering about who’s doing what to who and when*, whilst ocaisionally shouting things like “do be carefull” and “mind you don’t fall”. So wanting to put distance between us and the horrors we headed down to the grand shaft. After walking down a 200 year old flight of steps our ears were assaulted with the yelps and screams of yet more cubs. It transpired that the walk down may not have been in vain, the gates to the Grand Shaft were open, Woo Hoo! We made enquiries about the possibility of going down the shaft, only to be told, by a very glum adult cub that the shaft was only open for the cubs. I looked around at the 40+ kids who were running here and there in a pattern that could only be explained using the chaos theory. It seemed clear to me that they were more interested in playing “hit the small kid with a stick” than the history of their surroundings. So having no luck with Captain Grumpy we headed away from the Grand Shaft and I led the party in search of a Tunnel that I half remembered, sadly my memory painted a better picture of the tunnel so we  made our way towards the engineers tunnel via a route that was last trodden by Raptors, or so it seemed. Fortunately it turns out that badgers are excellent path finders and he soon had us back on track. As we were walking through the early Cretaceous forest I noticed that an access door to the Drop Redoubt was open, my heart stopped. I absolute do not condone vandalism and I would not damage a property to gain access, but if someone else has chosen to make access possible, I would certainly take advantage of it. I mentioned To the Badge that if we could get in, we would go for it. Further along our walk we saw a group from the WHPS (google it) on one of their work days. When we got to them we enquired about the chance of a walk round the redoubt, we were politely told no as there was already a tour in progress and the next one, at 2pm would probably be full, of cubs, and Health and f*****g safety wouldn’t allow us to just wander around on our own. We decided not to wait and headed off to the North Entrance. After scrambling through a very small hole into the drawbridge mechanism pit we tried to find a way of getting up to the top of the fifteen feet wall to further explore the place. We managed to get a fair few of our number up and it was so very worth it. during the explore of the system I took a picture of a hole that I fell down in my now distant youth and we eventually headed out and on to the Detached Bastion where we finished a brilliant days exploring.

That’s about it, no painting or astronomy this last few weeks as Smiffy’s been away with work and family commitments and the sky’s been rubbish.

Hopefully there’ll be something a bit more exciting over the next few days. but before I go I would like to bring something to you attention.

Please visit the website below and read the info then sign the petition. Lets work together to save the little chaps life.

http://www.savelennoxpetition.co.uk/

Thank you

Lazy days and getaways!

Here we are then, actually the end of a week off work and the beginning of being back at work. As mentioned in the previous post I was covering at the shop for Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday morning I was greeted by a rather impatient 40k player who had left a book behind on Saturday, I was half tempted to walk straight past him and let him fret for a bit longer but there was also two coach ticket customers waiting so I opened up, handed him his book and ignored the little toe rag and dealt with the people who would be spending money. I think my main sales for Tuesday and Wednesday were coach tickets but I had a few gamers drop in to make purchases and chat about the game so that was cool. Thursday was a was a quiet day, I had a lay in and then had the opportunity to veg out in front of some mindless tat as herself went off to pup sit for a friend so I kept ours entertained whilst enjoying stuff that herself isn’t overly keen on. Friday was Trudys turn for a slumberous morn, I’d promised her on Thursday that I would rise early and take the wee fella down with me, there was benefits to this plan, first was the fact that I totted up a few brownie points for my thoughtfulness, I got to watch a couple more hours of stuff that herself either doesn’t enjoy watching or simply thinks it stupid. Four episodes of Futurama later and herself arose so a mug of tea was in order before she set off to Canterbury with her friend; this enabled me to absorb more tat TV, the likes of Ghost Hunters, Faked or Fiction and other mad stuff where people get all jittery because one of the production team threw a stone. Later in the day the guys arrived for a spot of AD&D, I didn’t want to have too late a night as Saturday was an early start.

I got to bed shortly after midnight and couldn’t get to sleep; this was rather annoying as I didn’t get much sleep the night before as Ronnii was being a little diva. I think I may have had a couple of hours. The alarm went off at 06:00 and I snoozed for ten minutes before springing into action. Up and sorted and ready to go I gave Ronnii a quick stroll and head down the road to meet up with Lukey boy. I decided to go via the new Tesco express so that I could withdraw funds for the day; the ATM was out of service. Over to Casa Luke for a quick cuppa before heading off to the train station via the post office in an effort to get hold of some dosh. That worked and we got to the station to await the arrival of Smiffy. When he met up with us we were soon on the train and nattering away. Two hours later we got to Charing Cross and walked to the Embankment tube station. When we got to Kensington we went in search of a bit of nosh as we were famished, a rather tasty and reasonably priced brekky later and we set of to the museum.

I’ve been to the Natural History Museum many times over the past few years, and it never ceases to impress me. I could go there every day for a year and probably still not see everything and always discover some treasure hidden away in a long forgotten corner. The main reason for our visit was the Age of Dinosaurs exhibit. Although it was impressive, with animatronic dinosaurs and some beautiful fossils it was much over hyped, it was billed as travelling back in time to the late cretaceous and beyond. If that’s the case the cretaceous era smelled like dry ice and rubber. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy it, but I was a little disappointed. I think the price was a bit hefty but the revenue raised goes into the museums coffers so it’s all in a good cause. However the gift shop stock is mainly over priced tat and I was hard pressed to find something that would be a suitable souvenir of the day, I settle on a small Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton model. I really did feel that the main Dinosaur gallery was better presented and much more informative. But I saw exhibits that are, for me, astoundingly brilliant and I always leave the museum wanting to go on a serious dig and find something spectacular, one day maybe!

After the museum the three of us set off for the station and the train home via Buckingham Palace. What would normally have been a forty five minute to an hours walk took well over two hours, mainly down to the fact that my feet didn’t cope to well with stomping around the museum and I’m not as young as I once was. So having missed our train we nipped in to a pub for a crafty pint and then back to the station for the return journey. Two and a bit hours later and we were walking to Smiffys car as he kindly offered to give us a lift home, I was extremely thankful for that as I don’t think I would have managed the walk home.

I got home and took little Miss Diva pants for a short stroll, oh joy, more walking.

Sunday was quiet and restful

I’ve spoken to T J every evening this week, except for Saturday, she’s off to an Anime convention soon so I plan to have a nice long chat with her the night before, bless her she’s already excited and went all high pitched and sqealy during our phone chat tonight.

So that’s about it, other than idiots at virgin mobile and a selfish twonk at Asda today has been rather good.

 

Pictures of the day can be found in the usual places

Photos from the trip