Nice day today so we took a picnic to Maunsel Lock, on the Bridgwater-Taunton canal. If the tsunami ever comes, the Somerset Levels will be scrubbed clear, so admire this charming Somerset construct while you can!
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| Maunsel Lock |
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| Notice the pillbox machine-gun emplacement on the right; me neither ... |
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| Jupiter |
At Maunsel Lock you are in the centre of the famous
Somerset Space Walk, (so famous I had not heard of it until today). The sun is located (scaled down a little) near the
tea shop; the planets are marked canal-side at their appropriate distances and to scale. One pace equates to about 400,000 km (Pluto is 11 km away).
Ambling along at three miles an hour (8 paces in five seconds) I calculated we were walking at just over twice the speed of light. Light is real slow, you know, for getting around the solar system.
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Trivia: I'm re-reading Alastair Reynolds'
Chasm City. I'd forgotten how intricate and cleverly constructed this novel is. While slow to get started, it's gradually becoming somewhat addictive.
