Christmas Treats

It started well by bagging a trig on Christmas Eve whilst out for a run in Basingstoke.

Not the most attractive of trigs but there you go.

Great excitement yesterday as I unwrapped my presents. There was a bit of a theme - aided and abetted by my Amazon wish list - but it was lovely to open so many map related gifts. Look at these beauties...


I should add that I love doing jigsaws so a double whammy. [Note to John - sorry but can't photograph your jigsaw as girls have already hijacked box]. And my Dad surprised me with this gorgeous book that I hardly put down yesterday.

And if you thought that was all a bit geeky look what Rog, my husband, bought for me.

How absolutely wonderful is this?! I've never owned my own theodolite. For sure, not terribly practical - I have little need to pop out and do a round of angles - but from the sheer fun point of view, what a treat. I am very rusty on all things theodolitey and seem to have lost the vertical clamp (is there one?) but I'm hoping that my mate Ken Hall will swing by one day and explain the finer points to me. I spent the rest of the day, when I occasionally took my nose out of my Dad's book, to mumble "I've got a theodolite" with a big grin on my face. I think I'm truly sad.

Another One Bites the Dust and Educating Cheltenham

It was going to be impossible to travel to the RICS Governing Council with Ken Hall and not bag a trig. We detoured off near Chichester and logged a nice easy find.
Finding the trig was the easy bit. Sorting out my belt and the brambles was a tad more problematic.

Gov Co went well. I enjoyed my 5 minutes of fame by providing the Vote of Thanks to Vanessa Lawrence, CE of Ordnance Survey, after her talk. Received some positive comments afterwards but suspect it may have had a lot to do with the brevity of my speech. I was between Vanessa and dinner so knew my place ('stand up, shut up, sit down'). Ok, perhaps I rambled for just a tad longer...

Gov Co info all here.

I was in Cheltenham with some friends on Sat and showed them their first ever Benchmark. "Oh," exclaimed one, "and there I was thinking it was a masonic mark". You live and learn eh?

Just seen that the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep has been remeasured. Apparently to a greater precision than before. I don't like that phrase - I'm far more nterested in the accuracy of the measurement than precision. It may well be precise but could be 10km wrong!