“The identification of Canterbury Cathedral as successor to a henge monument has been confirmed by a second trip to Canterbury. My earlier analysis (1) was based upon published plans and descriptions, in which it is difficult to know what peculiarities of a plan are drafting errors and what values may be relied upon. For example, the azimuth of the nave varies by as much as 50 from one plan to another. On these surveys the amplitude of the nave was 50 south of east, giving an azimuth of 950. The East Kent grid at the position of the Cathedral is 2024' east of true north, thus the true azimuth is 971/½ 0. Large-scale plans of the Cathedral show an angle between nave and choir of 1°40’.”
Our own second trip to Canterbury Cathedral was going to be undertaken next month as a little side excursion to the one would confirm that Ralph and Jenny’s little brood were all thriving and had no doubt had grown in size as well as number since the last time we’d seen them in one place, more than a decade ago.
As a result of the events of the past week sadly we had to rethink that visit and live with the hope that our reunion could be postponed for one more year.
Due to an alignment of the stars perhaps not dissimilar to that described above (which no doubt could be confirmed by Dr Lyle B. Borst, astronomer and author of the above paragraph were he still among us), we received a message quite out of the blue, to the effect that they were holidaying in Utrecht which is quite nearby, and would it be alright if they popped in on their way back to the cross channel Ferry on Sunday?
Would it be alright??!! With Ron and Robin lending a hand, all of the waking hours between then and this afternoon we spent cleaning and tidying and putting things out of sight and generally pretending that the boat was not the home of four people.
The other two disappeared for the day, off to the town of s’ Hertogenbosch to become intimately equated with the life and work of Hieronymus Bosch, whose paintings seem only a little less surreal than our life at the moment,
And there we were for the afternoon, alone except for the other five, the boat once again living up to its name, filled with happiness, all of us eager to make what we could of the precious few hours we had in each other’s company.
2 comments
What a wonderful and fortuitous visit we enjoyed with you both, an alignment of the stars indeed! So pleased we could see you and we were so glad to find you in good spirits despite the unfortunate ankle incident! Lots of love from us all xx
Alignment of the stars indeed! That is the best kind of serendipity, and as always you tell it so well. Will you still be in Dordrecht this coming weekend or next week? I will be back in NL and would love to come and visit.
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