CHERTSEY

BOATS, BRIDGES, BOILERS ... IF IT'S GOT RIVETS, I'M RIVETTED
... feminist, atheist, autistic academic and historic narrowboater ...
Likes snooker, beer, tea, rivets and solitude, and is strangely fascinated by the cinema organ.
And there might be something about railways.
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Monday 8 February 2021

Globe

Another childhood object, this time something on mine which has survived more or less intact - a cheap tin globe that I am inordinately fond of. I do recall my father trying to teach me a bit of geography on it, and being amazed by the tinyness of England. It seems so big when you're actually living in it, especially as a four year old.

Photographing it for, probably, the first time in its fifty-year existence, I notice that when looked at in close-up, there's something a bit odd about Scotcland:

Not to mention that the whole of the Midlands - nay, of England, and, indeed, Wales - is called London. And I never noticed that before.

The globe is held in its plastic frame (I bet that thing must have a name) by little plastic lugs. Or it was. Very early on, the lower lug broke off. This was repaired by my father using a technique he deployed in a variety of situations:

By holding a nail, using pliers, in the flame of the gas cooker until it was red hot, then sticking it into the plastic that melted around it. This must actually have required a pretty steady hand. The same technique was used to make holes in yogurt pots to turn them into plant pots. It got quite fumey when he was on a roll. The gas flame would also be used to sterilise a needle (never a pin) for the removal of splinters from fingers. I still have a number of needles turned blue by this (because I do the same thing, not because I have very old needles).

Cups of tea so far this February: 76
Online meetings so far this February: 17
 

1 comment:

  1. Sarah, I think it might be called a 'Meridian', The metal band that encircles half or the entire globe, normally attached to the globe on both poles and the base.

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