30 March: Cheshire Day

Today is Cheshire Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about the English county of Cheshire:

1. Cheshire is bordered by Wrexham County Borough, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire. The area of Cheshire covers 2344 square kilometers (905 square miles).
2. The name of the county derives from the Anglo Saxon name for the area, “Legeceasterscir”, which means “City of Legions.” The Romans lived in Cheshire for approximately 400 years. Their town and fort at Chester was known as ‘Deva Victoria’, and they allegedly wanted the capital of Britain to be here.
3. It’s believed to be the first place in England that Vikings coming over from Ireland settled in.
4. The Domesday Book records Cheshire as being mostly ‘wasteland’. After the Norman invasion, many people fled the area, so a lot of the property and land was abandoned.
5. Britain’s oldest sporting venue in continual use is here. It’s Chester Racecourse. The first race was held in 1539. It was set up to provide the people with an alternative to Football, a very violent game at the time. This was the brainchild of one Mayor Henry Gee, which is possibly the origin of the slang “gee-gees” for horses.
6. The largest working Salt mine in Britain is at Winsford. It uses the world’s largest underground digger, weighing in at 130 tonnes and produces 1,000,000 tonnes of salt per year.
7. The highest peak in Cheshire is called ‘Shining Tor’, which is 1,834 feet above sea level and located on the Derbyshire/Cheshire border between Macclesfield and Buxton. Also worth a mention is the second highest, Shutlingsloe, at 1,660 ft, located to the south of Macclesfield Forest. It has a distinctive shape and is nicknamed the "Matterhorn of Cheshire".
8. The county flower has been the cuckooflower since 2002.
9. Famous people from Cheshire include Gary Barlow, Harry Styles, Daniel Craig, Tim Curry, sailor Ben Ainslie, cricketer Ian Botham, marathon runner Paula Radcliffe and authors Elizabeth Gaskell and Lewis Carroll.
10. In Macclesfield there is a flight of 108 steps, and according to local legend if you can make it all the way up without taking a breath your wish will be granted.

Character Birthday

Cassiopeia, a young woman from Classica, Infinitus, who, when her betrothed, John Bladesman, fails to return from a quest, goes in search of him. She follows his trail to Bird Island, and concludes he has gone through the rapidly shrinking hole in the sky. With the help of Multi-girl and the Constellations, she travels through the wormhole to Earth. She teams up with Multi-girl who is also seeking someone she loves. When Multi-girl finds her man, Cassiopeia leaves her to continue her search alone. In due course, she realises that marriage and a family were never her destiny; so she joins the Constellations to become a space adventurer. Her story is told in Over the Rainbow.

Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

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