Being 42

Thursday 26th January 2012, 11.50am (day 154)

From Mike Parker’s book, Map Addict (2009, Harper Collins):

Page 3: “I’m the one who will annoy anyone I’m sharing a flight with by repeatedly jabbing at the window and telling them which town we’re flying over, just because I recognised its shape and road pattern from decades of map scrutiny…”

Page 81 [referring to Spurn Head]: “Driving down this tiny thread of land is like walking a tightrope in a gale. The concrete road is poor and rutted, with drifts of sand blocking the way and sea spume whacking your windscreen like a scorned lover. At times, the road is virtually all there is between the two banks of angry, choppy sea falling away on either side. There is no safety net…. It is one of the ugliest, rawest places of beauty I have ever experienced. And it is quite wonderful. Twenty years it had taken from running my eager finger along my first Ordnance Survey map to standing on the point itself, but it was worth every minute of the wait.”