An Epic Backlog of Images

Some hints of what is to come on this blog when I have edited all the pictures I have from my holiday in the Lake District.

After yesterday’s boat trips around Windermere and today’s visits to Brockholes, Grasmere (“The Grasmere Grudge” for my fellow Tope fans) and Keswick (where in Tope’s lake mysteries series main protagonists Persimmon ‘Simmy’ Brown’s other half Christopher Henderson works as an auctioneer) I have a huge number of images to edit and prep for showing on this blog. However, I though this was a good moment to signpost some of the many forthcoming posts about this holiday.

AMBLESIDE GENERALLY

Ambleside is a fine little town in its own right, and since every trip starts with a walk to some part of Ambleside or other (my parents car has remained parked just below the cottage in which we are staying since our arrival on Saturday and will do so until Thursday morning when my journey home begins) opportunities for taking photographs in and around Ambleside have abounded.

A clue as to why the car is not needed once one has arrived in Ambleside – services are frequent.

ON WINDERMERE

The atrocious behaviour of the local water company notwithstanding (they have been polluting Windermere by pumping raw sewage into it) Windermere remains very scenic, and the boat trips I have taken have been exceedingly enjoyable.

BIRDS OF WINDERMERE

Windermere is home to a considerable quantity of birdlife (I have am not close to editing all my bird images yet), and I have managed to capture a not entirely insignificant fraction of it.

BOATS OF WINDERMERE

For very obvious reasons there are tight speed limits on Windermere, but nonetheless a considerable variety of watercraft make use of it.

A STEAM RIDE

One of the boat drop of points for the big Windermere Cruise is called Lakeside, and is one terminus of a heritage railway which follows the line of Windermere’s exit river towards the Irish sea. It travels a short distance to a place called Haverthwaite, and then back to get another boat onwards, and is a fun little journey.

CASTLE WRAY

The last place for which I have any edited images is Castle Wray, which I captured from afar a number of times before we actually landed at it’s boathouse on Monday evening. The close pictures are among the unedited at the moment. It is not a real castle – it was built in the 1840s for a wealthy doctor.

Scotland 2022: The Crossing to Eigg

Continuing my account of my Scottish holiday with a look at the crossing from Arisaig to Eigg.

I continue my account of my recent Scottish holiday with a look at the boat trip from Arisaig to Eigg. This post picks up where yesterday’s left off.

THE BOAT TRIP TO EIGG

Though not by any means a large craft the boat taking us to Eigg was considerably larger and stouter than the one on which we travelled between Alderney and Guernsey earlier this year. Additionally, the presence of so many islands so tightly clustered together means that the Sound of Arisaig is not by any means as savage as one might expect of sea of the coast of Scotland. Finally, there was very little wind about, which further contributed to the crossing being a smooth one.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the pictures between Arisaig and Eigg…

Channel Islands 15: Homeward Bound

The final post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands.

This post will conclude my series about my holiday in the channel islands.

A BADLY TIMED FERRY

Our ferry back to England was scheduled to depart at 13:10 (had originally been 11:10, but was put back two hours before we even went on holiday), which was a very inconvenient time in two ways – it meant that I had to travel from Poole to King’s Lynn as a car passenger rather than as I had intended doing so by public transport, and it also meant with a lot of waiting around.

A SMOOTH FERRY JOURNEY AND A SLOW CAR JOURNEY

Once we were aboard the ferry an ensconced in our seats the journey was smooth and comfortable. Poole Harbour is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, meaning that there is plenty to be seen as the boat approaches land.

The journey from Poole to King’s Lynn was slow, and it was well past 11PM by the time I got home.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my pictures from that final day…

Channel Islands 10: Farewell to Alderney

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands. This post finishes the Alderney segment.

THE FINAL FULL DAY ON ALDERNEY

The final full day on Alderney ended up being a very quiet one – the events of Wednesday, covered in the seventh and eighth posts in this series, had taken a lot out of me and I was not up to the walk to the nearest point from which I could have looked at the gannet colony.

THE BOAT BACK TO GUERNSEY

Our boat back to Guernsey was leaving at 8AM on the Friday, so we had a taxi booked to pick us up from the fort at 7:30AM that morning. The voyage back was rougher than the voyage out had been, and we were all pretty relieved when we alighted on Guernsey.

I end this post with a final look at Fort Clonque…

Cornish Winter Break 17: National Maritime Museum Cornwall Ground Floor

Starting my coverage of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my latest post about my Cornish Winter Break. In my last post in this series I paved the way for a series of posts about the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. I now commence with the ground floor.

BOATS THROUGH THE AGES

The ground floor of this museum contained a wide variety of boats, with accompanying detail about their history.

Cornwall for Christmas

An account of journey from King’s Lynn to Cornwall for the festive period.

INTRODUCTION

After a very quiet day yesterday, following a day of travelling the day before I am settled at my parents place in Cornwall, where I shall be spending Christmas and the New Year. This post details the journey down, before ending with some photographs.

KINGS LYNN TO CORNWALL

On Friday night it was the sensory friendly Panto performance at the Corn Exchange, King’s Lynn, which was excellent fun. On Saturday morning, with my packing accomplished I got the 9:20AM bus from just opposite my bungalow to the town centre (my baggage was heavy, so walking would have been very tough), arriving in good time to board the 10:13 train to London. Almost precisely two hours later I arrived at King’s Cross, with 45 minutes to get from there to my pre-booked seat from Paddington to Plymouth. The Hammersmith & City line (the district/circle line station is Paddington in name only) played ball for once, and I was at Paddington in good time. There was a warning that all was not necessarily well on the GWR when the platform information for my train did not come up on the departures screen until 10 minutes before it was due to leave. Ensconced in my seat I poured a cup of coffee from my cheapo travelling flask (it proved up the job) and waited for departure…and waited some more, until an announcement came through that our driver had been delayed on an inbound service and that we would be at least 20 minutes late getting underway. At this point I phoned my mother because even with no further delays that was likely to prove enough to prevent me making my connection at Plymouth for an onward journey to St Germans. I therefore arranged to be collected from Plymouth instead. In the event, it was fully 40 minutes after our scheduled departure time that the train finally got moving. We lost no further time on the journey, although the last section between Totnes and Plymouth felt like it was taking a long time. It would have been about eight and a half hours after I had left my bungalow in North Lynn that I finally got to my parents place.

CORNWALL

A combination of tiredness from the previous day’s travelling and some fierce Cornish weather ruled out doing anything much yesterday. However today we will be going to Looe. In the bad old days of rotten boroughs the two villages of East Looe and West Looe were both recognized as parliamentary constituencies, and each returned two MPs. These days it is well known as a seaside resort.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

P1280959 (2) — A present from Karan – a London Undeground themed storage box.

P1280966 (2) — Now Assembled (three pictures)

P1280971 (2) — Pictures from the James & Sons christmas lunch – which took place at a Thai restaurant near HQ in Fakenham.

P1280989 (2) — Christmas lights in King’s Lynn

P1290008 (2) — Waiting for the panto to start (three pics)

P1290012 (2) — Shots from the living room at Fort Picklecombe, showing some fairly dramatic weather.

P1290019 (2) — Waves crashing around the lighthouse.

P1290022 (2) — Sailing in these conditions is either very brave or very foolish.

A Grockle’s Eye View of Cornwall 6: Historic Plymouth

Continuing my account of my most recent visit to Cornwall.

INTRODUCTION

Yes, Plymouth is Devon not Cornwall, but my visit to the town was part of my stay in Cornwall, so it belongs in this very spread out series of posts.

THE WAR MEMORIAL

This particular memorial honours those lost at sea as well as those killed in war, because Plymouth is very much a naval town.

Memorial - distant view — A first, distant view of the memorial

Memorial base — A series of close-ups – each vertical bronze panel around the base is a list of names.

OTHER PICTURES FROM HISTORIC PLYMOUTH

There were plenty of other things to see around the sea-front…

Circualr paving pattern — A quirky pavong arrangement…

Eddystione Lighthouse — …and an explanatory plaque

AN ITEM OF SHERLOCKIANA

It will be no news to followers of this blog that I am a fan of the world’s first and greatest consulting detective, so it was pleasing to acquire a photograph with a connection in that direction:

One of Holmes’ most famous cases takes place on Dartmoor, not far from Plymouth.

THE RETURN CROSSING

It was now time to recross the county boundary into Cornwall, one again on the Edgecumbe Belle.

A Grockle’s Eye View of Cornwall 3: A Visit to a Seal Colony

INTRODUCTION

My previous post in this series covered the journey from St Germans to St Ives and hinted at the feature of my time in St Ives. This post picks up the story. The Cornish Maid has produced posts giving a more local take on St Ives in her blog.

SERENDIPITY IN ST IVES

From the station I headed in the general direction of the sea front, taking photographs along the way.

Old phone box, St Ives — This olde-worlde telephone box caught my attention, while the attached clock had all the appearance of being an old railway clock…

Old GWR clock — …soon confirmed by my zoom lens.

Panel set into wall of RC church — This panel is set into the wall of the Roman Catholic church

St Ives Guildhall, a handome building, though not quite in the class of King’s Lynn’s 15th century masterpiece. It is home to a tourist information office but they evidently have staffing issues as it was closed and locked that day (a sunny friday in July)

Church — This is the main Anglican church

As I hit the sea front area I encountered a man selling tickets for boat trips to a seal colony. Knowing that I was operating to a time limit (the connections back being less good than those for the outward journey I needed be back at the station around 3PM to be sure of getting back to St Germans at 6PM as I intended) I made enquiries about departure times and the length of the boat trip. I benefitted from being a natural born singleton – there was exactly one seat remaining on the Sea Horse, which was departing at 12:00 and would be back around 1:15, and that was the decision made (there is a seal colony at Blakeney Point in Norfolk, but this seemed likely to be an improvement on that).

One takes a small boat out to the main boat one is booked on, and at low tide (as it was for my outbound journey) one has to walk out into the sea to about knee depth for the first pick up. The water was cool but not shockingly so, and it was actually very pleasant standing in the shallows.

OUTWARD BOUND

I managed to board the small boat taking me and others out to the Seahorse (a 12 seater boat, so still not huge) without incident, and the transfer to the Seahorse also passed without incident.

rocks in the sea — The rocks in the background of this shot are the near edge of the seal colony.

AT THE SEAL COLONY

I will let the pictures tell their own story…

seal waves a flipper — Some of the seals, like this one waved flippers at us.

BACK TO ST IVES

The start of the return journey featured the bumpiest sea of the entire trip (fortunately there was a breeze rather than a serious wind blowing, so the sea was choppy rather than actually rough). I imagine that in a winter storm (I encountered Cornish winter storms and their effects in 1989 on a christmas holiday when we stayed in a Landmark Trust cottage. I believe that the enitre village was actually owned by Landmark Trust, but the perimeter fence of RAF Morwenstow was within walking distance for those looking to place it). Fortunately the tide had risen to the point that the transfer boat could get right up to the quayside, so no further paddling was required.

Standing tree stump circle — This put me somewhat in mind of Seahenge, now on display at The Lynn Museum.

England One Day International Record

Some stuff about the ODI at the MCG, a neurodiversity quote, a mathematical puzzle and some photographs

INTRODUCTION

After the horrors of the Ashes test series it makes a change to write about a winning performance from an England cricket team in Australia. I also have a few other things to share of course, including more of my photos.

RECORDS GALORE AT THE MCG

The pitch at the MCG for the first of five One Day Internationals (50 overs per side) was a vast improvement of the strip they had produced for the test match, and the players produced a match worthy of the occasion. England won the toss and chose to field. England;s improvement in this form of the game since their horror show at the 2015 World Cup has been such that even before they started batting an Australia tally of 304 seemed inadequate.

England got away to a quick start, although Jonny Bairstow did a ‘Vince’ – looking very impressive for 20-odd and then giving it away. Alex Hales also fell cheaply, but Joe Root came out and played excellently, while Jason Roy produced the major innings that England needed from one of their top order. When his score reached 124 Roy had an England ODI record for the MCG, and that soon became an all-comers MCG record, to match Cook’s all-comers test record score for the MCG. When he went from 171 to 175 Roy establish a new England ODI individual scoring record. His dismissal for 180, with 200 just a possibility was a disappointment but by then the result was not in doubt, and even the loss of a couple more wickets in the dying overs served only to reduce the final margin. England won by five wickets with seven deliveries to spare, and it was a much more conclusive victory than those figures suggest because three of the wickets came with the outcome already settled courtesy of Roy. Joe Root also deserves credit for his support role to Roy’s pyrotechnics, a selfless display that saw him finish just short of his own hundred when the winning runs were scored. The Test squad has a lengthy shopping list of new players needed (two openers given Cook’s age, at least one new batsman for the middle order, a couple of genuine quicks and a serious spinner at minimum), but the ODI squad is in splendid fettle.

A CLASSIC NEURODIVERSITY COMMENT

This comes courtesy of twitter:

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE

A PUZZLE

Those of you who have read Alison’s response to my nominating her for a Blogger Recognition Award will have noticed that she specifically mentioned enjoying the puzzles that sometimes feature here. Here courtesy of the mathematical website brilliant is another:

PHOTOGRAPHS

The colony of muscovy ducks that I first saw in late 2017 are still in residence along a section of the Gaywood River that is close to where it enters The Walks en route to becoming the Millfleet, in which guise it flows into the Great Ouse…

Ships

INTRODUCTION

This brief post is dedicated to the various ships that I have seen while down here overlooking the sea. Yesterday was a bonanza, with many warships in evidence.