Christmas Tree Walk
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Christmas Tree Walk, including christmas tree walk in my blog, and christmas tree walk in Folkestone.
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Dec31
No I've not been out on the larry-large every day over christmas, been a bit under the weather actually, though that's not what's kept me off the computer. When I'm not at work and Clare's home too I never get to sit in front of the computer, she's playing Spider Solitaire all day, and that's the truth...
Had a fairly active weekend, I was working the last two days of last week (when did I last write anything?) and went straight to Hythe after work on Friday. Met the wife, Jenny, and Emma in The Butt Of Sherry for one, then off to meet others in Everest for a splendid early curry. This was Kevin and Guiselle's last night before heading back to the USA so we were replete with friends and family. The food is pretty good there, it's probably my favourite of the local sit-in curry houses. After, on to Earl Brownes. Not sure what it is but I can hardly be bothered with that place. Maybe it was just me, but they didn't even seem that keen to serve us.
Sort of a normal weekend for me, working the Friday and the Monday, and not just running it into one huge festive holiday like everyone else, but not quite normal - no trip to Wagamama. We saw Kev and Guiselle off about lunchtime, then took our festive recycling to the tip, plus some other bits that have been cluttering the house up for ages. I had a broken flat screen monitor that I wondered about getting fixed, and a spare kitchen cabinet that have been sat in our hallway for a year or more. I did intend to freecycle them, but never quite got round to it. Now, they are gone! We have some spare space for a wine rack or something - the hallway would be just about the right temperature, but I can't be sure who'll be coming and going past our front door, especially while the flat upstairs is about to be re-let... Can't find it online, but it's reassuring to see our street is at the top end of rental values, good to know for when we want to rent out, but also not so good to see there's quite a lot of competition out there... maybe renting the flat out with the pool table in-situ will give us that edge?
Enough of the future plans, back to the weekend. Almost walked to Dover yesterday. I got a GPS thing for my camera for christmas, so our entire walk is logged and plotted, and I took some photos along the route, and they look good on my desktop software, I'll figure out a way to plot the route and the pictures easily here on the blog, without having to use www.everytrail.com or anything else like that. I say "nearly walked" because we didn't set out until after lunch, and it was starting to get dark by the time we'd got to Capel, so we went for a cheeky half in The Lighthouse and headed back. You'll be able to see all this when I plot the map later. As soon as I've uploaded my pictures you'll be able to get a nice map view of them, because the coordinates of where each picture was taken are now stored in the meta data of the image file itself, but to combine this with the route of our walk etc I need to convert a data file like this:@Sonygps/ver1.0/wgs-84
$GPGGA,124840,5104.7582,N,00110.0559,E,1,03,06.8,00037.1,M,047.0,M,,*43
$GPGSA,A,2,03,18,19,,,,,,,,,,06.8,06.8,00.9*08
$GPGSV,3,1,12,03,82,280,42,08,12,330,29,15,08,033,29,16,39,178,35*7F
$GPGSV,3,2,12,18,42,073,44,19,49,288,49,21,22,061,32,22,45,131,35*7B
$GPGSV,3,3,12,25,15,285,33,26,07,023,00,27,16,304,29,32,30,158,00*74
$GPRMC,124840,A,5104.7582,N,00110.0559,E,003.3,059.7,301207,,,A*76
$GPVTG,059.7,T,,M,003.3,N,006.2,K,A*02
$GPGGA,124900,5104.7572,N,00110.0835,E,1,03,06.7,00037.1,M,047.0,M,,*41
$GPGSA,A,2,03,18,19,,,,,,,,,,06.8,06.7,00.9*07
$GPGSV,3,1,12,03,82,279,48,08,12,330,29,15,08,033,33,16,39,178,42*78
$GPGSV,3,2,12,18,42,073,51,19,49,288,46,21,22,061,50,22,45,131,41*77
$GPGSV,3,3,12,25,15,285,29,26,07,023,00,27,16,304,30,32,30,158,00*77
$GPRMC,124900,A,5104.7572,N,00110.0835,E,003.5,081.1,301207,,,A*7E
$GPVTG,081.1,T,,M,003.5,N,006.6,K,A*03
into just the latitude and longitudes, and then javascript them up to put them on to a map like this.
Looks like it will be quite easy, strangely there's no date info in there that I can see, maybe it's in the file name, but if I just use the lines beginning $GPGGA like so:$GPGGA,124840,5104.7582,N,00110.0559,E,1,03,06.8,00037.1,M,047.0
124840 is the time (12:48:40), and the location looks like roughly 51 degrees 4 minutes North and 11 minutes East and I can ignore the rest. Except, there's a spare zero in there, I need to investigate this NMEA format further... I need to revisit my maps generally, I've changed the way I store a lot of things, I bet they're broke.
New year plans? I'm in work today, and we're staying in tonight, quietest new year EVER! A big chilli pie feast for tea, fingers crossed something good is on TV, then a quiet day tomorrow too I hope.
2007 :: Comment / reply
Nov12
Pictures
Well I say full, full of pubs really. Friday night we stayed in, so as to have more energy for going out on Saturday. We had a trip to Canterbury in the day (and you'll never guess where we had lunch), no actual christmas shopping, but we went in a couple of different pubs for a change, the Cherry Tree and the Buttermarket. Both are nice enough, the Cherry Tree feels a bit dated and rough really for Canterbury, there are plenty of better places to go but it was worth checking out for a change. The Buttermarket is much nicer, no decent beers on unfortunately but we sat and had coffee and read their newspapers until it was time to head off for the bus.
Saturday night we went to Hythe for the first time in a long time, and it turned into a bit of a crawl. We decided to make the most of our Canterbury bus tickets (an "Explorer" ticket is the same price as a return and takes you all over Kent and Sussex, as if you would have time to go very far in one day) and get the bus out to Hythe, the timing of which meant time for one in Folkestone. We tried Keppels, but it was shut for a private do so we tried out The Bay Tree (the bar underThe Burlington) for the first time ever. Deathly quiet, but very nice, and really no quieter than any of the hotel bars nearby (like The Clifton or Keppels in The Grand), I'd go back again.
The bus to Hythe was full of kids, being kids, actually being quite awful kids. They were skaters and of some indeterminate alternative youth cult, and Clare and I would both love to believe that this makes you OK and a better person than if they were more mainstream in appearance, but it's just not true. I suspect that alternative is the new mainstream now, or something. They weren't just annoying and loud and spread over several seats making other people stand (though they were annoying and loud and spread over several seats), I forgave their youthful high spirits until they made racist remarks about another passenger, very poor.
Hythe was quite good, we looked in The Globe which was dated and working-mans-club-like like The Cherry Tree was earlier, but it gave it a feel of traditional pub. Then on to Earl Brownes to meet people, nice to sit around and chat, but that bar closed early, not because of us I'm sure, t seems to have declined in popularity since it first opened. A couple of other pubs along the street also stopped serving when they saw us coming, only The Kings Head was brave enough to stay open, and I think that's where all the pictures are from.
Sunday didn't do much, but did spend a stack of money. Booked a hotel for Brussels where we're off to in December for a christmas market weekender. Thought at first that we could easily get a five star hotel there at a knock down price, but on a second look it seems all these cheap places are in the EU district, half an hour's walk from the town centre, so we've gone for a Novotel right in the centre of town instead. Also booked tickets to see the Magic Numbers at Festival Hall in a couple of weeks. It's a midweeker, but I think I can do it easily leaving right after work, as it's so handy for Waterloo. Will be bleary eyed the next day, but what's new.
Got lots lined up before christmas now, we are busy bees...
2007 :: Comment / reply
Events:
Christmas Tree Walk Hawkinge Village Hall 17 Dec 2006 A gentle family walk to learn about the history and winter wildlife of the trees and woodlands, whilst searching for the Christmas Tree in Reinden Woods.
o Meet: 2:00pm at Hawkinge Village Hall, Canterbury Road (TR 216396).
o Distance: 3 miles
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