Category Archives: around home

Chislehurst Caves

They’re not actually caves, but old chalk mines underneath the nearby suburb of Chislehurst. We’d been meaning to visit for a while, as I’m leaving to go south for work this weekend I was pleased when Trish reminded me that we hadn’t been yet. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting, perhaps just a few big caves with stalactites & stalagmites. But it was a huge network, 22 miles worth, of mostly-short interconnected tunnels – pretty low & skinny in places – with a very interesting history. The network was divided in to three sections – Druid, Roman & Saxon – named after those that had allegedly dug each section.

As it was mid-week, our guided tour was only four strong. Our knowledgeable guide, with a wonderfully warped sense of humour, gave us a couple of hurricane lamps & off we went descending to about 40 metres below the surface. The most famous part of the caves’ history is its use as a WWII air-raid shelter for local families. There were up to 15,000 sleeping in triple-bunks; some families had to stay there for years as their houses had been destroyed. There were facilities (kitchens & bathrooms) on the surface. Underground there is a still consecrated chapel (just one birth & christening underground – the unfortunately named Cavena) & as well as the remains of the hospital. The network of tunnels is incredibly stable & there were no collapses. It was incredible wandering around thinking of the thousands trying to get a good night’s sleep in such cramped & damp conditions.

It was strange wandering around a tourist attraction that had absolutely no electric lighting, but our guide knew his way & soon had us completely disoriented by all the tiny side tunnels that interconnected. We saw a few altars that were allegedly used by the Druids for animal sacrifice & then we spent a fair amount of time by one discussing how often there might have been human sacrifices there. It was at this time that we were herded in to a small alcove, the guide took our lamps & we closed our eyes as he wandered off down the tunnel counting down from ten. The echo in the place was just fantastic, it went on & on (on & on, on & on, on & on…). When the counting was over, we opened our eyes & the darkness was incredible. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust, but there was no hope of that with absolutely no light around. In the meantime, our guide had given an almighty whack to an old steel water tank – if the speech echo was loud & prolonged, this was another level completely. We were pleased to get our lamps back.

Other interesting parts of note included the old ammunition store used during the first war – storage of munitions from nearby Woolwich Arsenal, it took them two years to empty after armistice. Close to this was a small concrete stage that was used for what was literally an underground music venue. Some quite big names played here in their early days – David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones & Jimi Hendrix (before he was ‘Hendrix’). From the ’50s on there was also a challenge to sleep overnight alone next to a small pool (it was mostly filled in to stop sheltering kids falling in during the war) that was supposed to be haunted. Of the 270-odd that tried, only one guy managed it. In the ’80s two employees of the Caves tried to do so, separated by a couple of caverns – they didn’t make it through the night. One guy screamed & the other found him unconscious on his bed – he was carted off to Queen Mary’s Hospital & had a badly dislocated right shoulder. I thought I’d end with a personal link. Sorry for lack of pictures, but there wasn’t much opportunity.

Little Dover drive

Around the MRI last week, I was looking around for a little cheap & cheerful car to buy. I had tried to see if I’d be able to get away with living without a car, but work is just a bit out of the way to commit to riding every day (especially through winter) & moving is difficult without a car. I looked at a few cheap little hatchbacks from some rather dodgy dealers not far from home. I went private in the end & found a guy that gets part-exchanges/trade-ins from a local dealer – this one had a good service history & I was really just after something small & reliable that would swallow my bike (wheels off). So even though I really wanted a car with five doors & a smaller engine – I wasn’t keen on hunting around any more, so got this little car. Dad should be pleased I finally got a Nissan – hopefully it’s much more reliable than the Outback, time will tell.

So keen to see how it would run on a trip out of town, Trish & I went down to just north of Dover for the day to see Trish’s sister, Jan. It was great to finally see Jan again – it had been so long since my return to the UK that I forgot to take all my Canada & US photos to show off. We had a nice big walk along the top of the cliffs through numerous, surprisingly dry, fields & then down to St Margaret’s Bay. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite clear enough to see France this time.

Shoulder MRI

Thanks to my gammy shoulder I’ve spent a lot more time visiting hospitals (for me) than any other time since my best attempts to get a new face (it wasn’t a well thought out plan – 1st & 2nd degree burns don’t go hand-in-hand with such things) in 2007. Today was finally my turn to go in & get my shoulder filled with dye & then have the MRI done – nice & early too. As I was first up for the day & they knew I was coming, it all went very smoothly. First there were a few needles – two or three locals in the back of my shoulder. After the second deep local I didn’t have any idea how many needles were going in & eventually the 12 mL of gadolinium (the dye) was in & I was sent down the corridor to the MRI room.

After confirming my name & date of birth for the umpteenth time & assuring the radiographer that I had no metal in my body (the closest I’ve come to metal infiltrating my eyes would be all that ironsand that I had washed & scraped out back at NZ Steel), I was fitted with some sort of cuff around my shoulder. Then it was just a case of lying back on the table, putting on the headphones (so I could hear the radiographer & not hear the MRI itself so much) & taking hold of some sort of “abort” button. Gradually the table slid me back in to the throes of the instrument. As my right shoulder was the target, I was right up against the wall of the tunnel on my left side staring up five to ten centimetres at a rather uninteresting grey surface.

There were a fair few images taken, the first three only took fifteen seconds each; the last four were six, six, five and a half & four and a half minutes. But after having to stay completely still & listening to various operating sounds – varying from a jack-hammer, to muted beeping, & to chirping [that was the cooling pump] – for almost half an hour, those last four minutes felt more like ten. By then I had an annoying itch on my chin & my right elbow was doing its best to spasm itself sideways. If you’re bigger than me & claustrophobic, it can’t a fun experience. Apparently they have methods for getting obese people in – that’s good, so long as they have ways of getting them out.

No side-effects, I managed a good little 30 km ride out in the Kentish countryside this slowly-warming afternoon.

Colchester

I played the part of bad-son this weekend past & went off up to Colchester to distract Mum from her university studies. It took me a few trains & hours to get there, but it was a nice day on Friday to stroll through the City. Another bonus of living in London – in a short time I’d strolled past St Paul’s, the Royal Exchange, Bank of England, the Lloyd’s Building & the Gherkin, all architectural masterpieces in their own way, before eventually finding Liverpool St station.

Colchester was the Romans’ first capital in England (before they moved to the more central Londinium) & is the oldest settled town in the country. Later on Friday afternoon we had a pleasant wander, checking out the Hollytrees Museum which gave a good outline of the last few centuries in Colchester, then enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine in the extensive gardens nearby, crossing the old Roman wall (also the oldest in the country) & checking out a large water-tower which could only be Victorian in its splendour.

The water-tower, Jumbo, through the old Roman wall (first century AD)

Colchester Town Hall

After a surprisingly good sleep on the floor of Mum’s room, I settled for watching the first Rugby World Cup semifinal online – Wales vs France. A game that had a lot of the occasion taken out of it by that careless & dangerous tackle. I’m not completely surprised that the French made such hard work of it, but I was disappointed that the Welsh didn’t have the nous or skill to put at least one more kick over – they missed so many penalty & drop-goal opportunities. We popped over to campus in the afternoon for Mum to get some books out of the library. Most importantly, this was my first opportunity to see & ride a Paternoster Lift – I had not know that they existed until the previous day when Mum told me about this example. Basically, it’s a continuously moving chain of small boxes (two person) that you can hop on & hop off at any floor you want (there are no doors – so watch you don’t have a go at self-amputation of an unwanted limb). All good fun – especially when you go in to the dark & over the top through the loft.

Mum about to disappear into the unknown

Late afternoon was spent in the charming little riverside village of Wivenhoe, a short bus ride away. With little winding streets, houses & shops doing their utmost to stay close to upright, plenty of small yachts & boats docked & more bright autumn sunlight slowly sinking away it was nice pottering around.

More rugby on Sunday morning with All Blacks playing very well indeed in an intense semi-final to end up utterly outplaying & dominating the Wallabies. Once again, many missed kicks – but enough went through that it was a comfortable margin in the end. I might have to find some Kiwis to watch the final with next week – shouldn’t be too hard in London. We had a good long visit to the Colchester Castle (a Norman one built on the remains of an old Roman fortification). Curiously, the castle has been a museum for eighty-odd years & a visit there is more about the museum than the castle itself. The museum mostly dealt with the Roman period of Colchester’s history & was very good. After that I endured the perils of travelling by rail in the UK during the weekend, on my way home three separate rail journeys were disrupted by that scourge – Planned Engineering Works. Great to spend the weekend with Mum – hopefully she can now not be disrupted for a little while & settle down to the study at hand.

And Now For Something Completely Different – I’ve had to choose between two different process engineering jobs last week. In the end I went for the role just out of Southampton at a good [£5K+better benefits] less as Hereford is really so much further from an airport & London & all its travel options – travel is the main motivator for being here, after all. Also, I wasn’t too keen on being told when to take three of my five weeks of annual leave a year (mandatory plant shutdowns). I feel like a bit of a wally turning down a much-better paying job from people that were really keen to employ me – but there you go. At this stage, I should be at work at the start of November – I’m looking forward to settling down to life for a while & having some money coming in so I can plan brief & not so brief trips to Europe & north Africa. The biking will be a lot flatter around Hampshire, but I might just have to build up a single-speed, come touring machine, & satisfy myself with mid-week rides in the New Forest & so on.