This week I'll be mostly not seeing the wood for the trees

Mizaru

[Warning: boring alert. I appear to have written 600 words. Sorry about that.]

I've been sitting out on the terrace (I think we've decided to call it the terrace), trying to work out where I actually am. There aren't a lot of landmarks. I've got trees to the left of me, and trees to the right ("and here I am, stuck in the middle with you"). The only giveaway to where I might be is the smattering of building tops to the southeast, the field on a steep rise southward with a line of trees either side, and those 4 tower blocks over the hill. Past that there's the sea, possibly the Minquiers on a good day, then the coast of France. It's difficult to tell exactly though.

Now here's what I know. Obviously, those four tower blocks are the ones at Le Marais. They are slightly to my right, so working out my line-of-sight from them, it is more obvious that I'm not quite looking due south, but more likely south-south-east.

And what about those trees to the left of me and the trees to the right? The trees to the left run in a straight line up the hill and down the other side to Longueville Manor. The trees to the right run in a straight-ish line up the hill parallel with Les Varines for a bit, then and down the other side to the back of the Derek Warwick Honda garage. Those two lines of trees frame my view of the sea. On the horizon is the French coast.

If you sit here at 8:45 on a Saturday morning, the St Malo ferry heads out across the channel from right to left before it disappears out of sight behind the Longueville trees, then it appears five minutes later heading left to right. So St Malo is over there somewhere.

I'm going to take this opportunity to have a look on Google Earth.

Now here's the science bit:  I'm sitting outside at 49°11′17.56"N 2°04′56.58"W. The brow of hill is 250 metres away. The width between the trees at the brow of the hill is 100 metres. So the viewing angle between the trees is: tan-1((100/2)/250) x 2 = 23°. The French coast is 35 miles away. So the length of coast I can see between the trees is: tan(23°/2) x 35 x 2 = 14 miles. The right-most trees are almost exactly due south. The left-most trees, then, are almost exactly south-south-east.

So it turns out that the right-most bit of French coast I can see is St Malo, or thereabouts. The left most bit of coast is probably around about Cancale. If that's the case, then I can't see Les Minquiers out at sea - those pesky Derek Warwick trees are in the way.

Over the top of the trees to the left, those buildings are at Grouville. Judging by the lie of the land, those buildings might be on La Rue de Grouville. But there are cars going past quite frequently, so it might actually be La Rue a Don. We drove down there recently trying to recognise the buildings from the road, but couldn't work it out. Can't quite work it out from Google Earth either. Will have to look into that further.

Of course, as you're not sitting here with me, taking in the view and feeling the warmth of the September morning sun, you've got nothing out of this other than having been bored senseless. Sorry about that. I've enjoyed it though.