Hexagons and other shapes

Hello, friends, it’s me, BOB, the chaotic, happy-go-lucky labrador who lives with Tom and Kate. Today I’m here to tell you about hexagons, and some other shapes.

I can honestly say I had never given hexagons a second thought, until I went to stay in this place. Why? Because this place is called The Hexagon, and that’s because it is hexagonal – a building that is also a shape with six different sides!

The Hexagon is a very cosy and well-appointed modern self-catering property attached to a hexagonal tower that was built around 80 years ago. During the second world war, the tower was used as a radar station, monitoring activity in the nearby Blackwater estuary. But the tower is now mainly used for spotting birds, sunsets, and other things of interest to humans.

Thus the hexagaon is, in fact, the hexagons: not only are there two, interconnected, six-sided buildings here, but the general environs have an interesting polygonal vibe. Note the shape of the patio – a sort of half-hexagonal extension – and the way the shapes of the buildings are echoed by the garden boundaries within which they are enclosed.

I find these lines and boundaries intriguing. Where we live in Scotland, the terrain is rough, undulating and largely unenclosed. But Tollesbury is a place that seems to be defined by many different kinds of straight line, all criss-crossing and intersecting!

Some of these straight lines mark the boundaries of fields and property, others of the sea wall. But the long, straight line which you can see here, running alongside The Hexagon, is a disused railway line, which was also once known as the crab and winkle line. I was very excited when I heard this, as crabs and winkles are rare delicacies which I very much like to eat. But imagine my disappointment when I was unable to find either tasty crab or munchable winkle anywhere along this line, despite careful checking every day! Kate told me later that the name actually referred to an old seaside train, rather than to a canine coastal smorgasbord. Ah, well.

The whole landscape abounds with interesting geometry, as you can see here from one of Tom’s overhead photographs illustrating the angular divisions between the sea wall, borrowdyke and salt marsh – environments where, you will no doubt be pleased to hear, I DID find the occasional winkle to chow down upon.

When Tom came back and showed Kate this photograph, she became very excited. “Another hexagon!” she exclaimed, “all the wartime coastal pillboxes and gun emplacements must have been hexagonal too, just like the tower!” So we all returned to this concrete block, just so that Kate could verify its geometry.

We had a surprise! Though on Tom’s photograph it appeared to be hexagonal, here, Bran and I illustrate that the concrete block was, in fact, a PENTAGON – a shape that has five sides, rather than six!

It turns out there’s an awful lot that you can learn about geometry while you are in Essex. Here, for example, is an equilateral triangle and two cubes.

Here is an isosceles triangle . . .

And here are some receding arches.

I am not sure how to talk about the shape and geometry of these windmills. Are they triangles? Are they lollipops? Are they are best defined by the circle that’s described by their three rotating blades?

So many lines and shapes to think about! But Kate says that the best lesson that I learned while we were in Essex had nothing to do with geometry at all. Because I also learned that not eating something dangerous, suspect, or poisonous meant that I didn’t have to introduce myself to yet another veterinary surgeon! Thus our time in Essex involved no trips to the vet! The holiday received a zero BSCAD ranking! Hexagonal hurrahs all round!

Yours, as I continue to try my best to be a Very Good Boy

BOB x