By: Blonde Two

The household Blonde Two has recently inherited a rather thrilling cupboard. Cupboards, you might be forgiven for suggesting, are not usually exciting but this one has a rather Blondish history as it has always been known as “The Map Cupboard”.  In its heyday The Map Cupboard was stashed full of maps of all shapes, sizes and ages.  Most of those maps are now in the loft, they are not very useful but to me, throwing a map away seems akin to using the family bible as a garden shed doorstop. The Map Cupboard is slowly being restocked by a new collection for a new generation.The Map CupboardIt doesn’t look very full yet but that is partly because my five current Dartmoor maps (all with varying numbers of holes in them) live in strategic “in case of emergency” positions around the house.

One day Blonde One and I will have a Map Room furnished with carefully indexed map cupboards, a large map sized table, a Dartmoor map on the wall showing all tor conquests, a few select walking books (including Langmuir which I have read from cover to cover twice) and useful hooks to hang compasses on.  It will be warm and have excellent lighting, the windows will open onto Dartmoor and we will be able to hear Skylarks and smell peat.  It will be lovely and we will invite you all to visit (although maybe not all at once).

The Map Cupboard is just the first step on the journey towards The Map Room. Tomorrow I am going to tell you about one map that was allowed to stay in the Map Cupboard.