I must be slipping

Geography was always my favourite subject at school, especially the map-reading bit and the interpretation of the Ordnance Survey maps. (Did we do that in geography? I know I did it somewhere and I can't think it would have been in any other subject.) No, that's not quite true. There was just one year when a different subject was introduced to the timetable - survey. This involved all sorts of things to do with maps like undertaking triangulation. That was even better than geography - while it lasted, which was, I think, for only one year.

Maps have always fascniated me. They've even fascinated me! Indeed, there was a time when my highest ambition was to be a navigating officer in the Royal Navy, although I always knew that was just a pipe dream as my health was never good enough for the Andrew. I can pick up an atlas and spend almost as long just looking at the maps as I would reading a good novel but the old 1 inch to the mile Ordnance Survey maps were probably the best. They covered enough ground to provide a range of interest but they were sufficiently detailed to provide good reading matter.

What with maps and my general interest in geography, I should have realised that Skip lives way further south than I do. But it needed him to point out to me when we were talking about comparative temperatures that he lives about 1000 miles further south than I do. I've checked it out since and I'm sorry to say he's a bit out. Anderson (where he lives) is at latitude 40.43N whereas Brighton (my home town) is at 50.83 (or 50.51 or 50.84 depending on where you look). With each degree of latitude being approximately 69 miles, that makes Anderson about 730 miles south of Brighton. For some reason I had always had a mental picture of Anderson and Brighton being on about the same latitude whereas Anderson is on much the same level as Naples and Madrid. That puts the whole thing into a better context for me and now I understand much better why the temperature is so much higher in Anderson.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the temperature here will be a little higher this weekend. The forecast is for highs of about 25 in Brighton tomorrow (that's 77 Fahrenheit) with no rain. As Brighton Lions have their annual fun day in the Royal Pavilion Gardens that will be just about right. Last year we managed to hold the event on the hottest day of the year and the day when England played Germany in the World Cup! Tomorrow's event is all in aid of Help for Heroes.