Heritage Open Day: Post Lunch

The conclusion of my series about Heritage Open Day.

INTRODUCTION

This post completes my account of this year’s Heritage Open Day in King’s Lynn.

A HOUSE, A CLUB AND A FERRY

On way out for my afternoon’s explorations I poked my head round the door of the Rathskellar, but decided not to go in. Queues and crowds notwithstanding I decided that my first port of call of the afternoon would be…

CLIFTON HOUSE

This house is the residence of the current head of English Heritage, and featured rooms open to the public on five different levels, and viewing area on yet a sixth (basement, ground floor, the four intermediate floors of the tower and the roof of the tower). The first part of the building that was opened up featured the cellar, the kitchen and a couple of rooms which could be viewed but not entered. I started by going down to the…

CELLAR

When the house was first built the cellar had been accessible direct from the river (which is now about 50 yards west of the house), and a system of ropes and pulleys was used to offload cargo…

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The first three pictures were taken en route to the cellar.

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Note the vaulted ceiling of the cellar.
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Three iron rings through which thick ropes could run enabled cargo to winched from boats into the cellar. I am not certain if all three are visible in this picture, but I tried to show them all.

After the cellar, it was time for the rest of that part of the building, and on towards the tower by way of…

THE KITCHEN

There were some very interesting things to be seen even though this had the feeling of being merely on the way to somewhere else, because of course what everyone was really interested in seeing was the tower.

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These canons were in a reception area just outside the kitchen.
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The remaining four photographs were all taken in the kitchen.

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Apart from one last major queue because of limitations on the number of people being allowed in there at any one time (for obvious safety reasons) it was now time to venture the…

TOWER

There were interesting things to see on each level of the tower…

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These antique maps and the model of the house were on the first floor of the tower.

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One floor up was a room set up for a Jacobean supper.

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This room was a further floor up

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The ‘Prospect Room’ is one floor below the roof.

The views from the roof were amazing. Conscious of the number of other people who were waiting to savour the views I restricted myself to a few minutes taking the view from all angles, before heading back down.

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Looking towards The Wash
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The Lower Purfleet from above

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The view focussing between St Nicholas Chapel and the docks.

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My humble abode viewed from the top of the Clifton House Tower.

Leaving Clifton House I headed for Ferry Lane, where I paid a call at the premises of

THE OUSE AMATEUR SAILING CLUB

This establishment, which has about 5o sailing members and somewhere around 500 ‘social’ members had opened its Ferry Bar to the public for the day. I consumed a pint of a splendid beer brewed in Lowestoft (just into Suffolk, but possibly close enough to count as local, especially as the other featured brewery is based in Southwold, a little further away). Having purchased my drink I took some photos inside…

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I then went outside on to the balcony overlooking the Great Ouse, and took some photographs from this great vantage point…

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It was at this point that my attention was caught by something downriver, which turned out to be…

THE ARRIVAL OF A FISHING BOAT

Given the role that fishing, and indeed the sea as a whole has played in the history of our town this was a particular splendid sight…

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The first glimpse.

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Turning into the docks and therefore presenting a side-on view.

After finishing my pint I headed for the

FERRY

I finished my day by taking the special ‘Heritage Open Day’ trip on the ferry, which involves a small amount of travel along the river as well as across it. This was my first trip on the new ferries, which are equipped with caterpillar tracks for crossing the exposed mud at low tide. The King’s Lynn Ferry has been in operation for over 800 years.

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The other historic bus (my second post in the series featured the one put on by Towler’s), this one a routemaster.

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Gamla Stan

The latest post in my series about my holiday in Sweden.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. Readers of my previous post will recall that I alluded briefly to a waterside walk that started and finished at Gamla Stan. This post tells the story of that walk. I also included some pictures from the city of Stockholm in the first post in this series.

AT GAMLA STAN

Although it is on what is classed as an underground railway the station at Gamla Stan is actually slightly elevated, so that you exit it by going down to street level. It had always been in my plans to do some exploring around Gamla Stan and the sight of the waterside was enough to decide exactly what I would be doing…

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THE WALK

I crossed the water and was delighted to find a waterside path on the other side, which I duly set off along it.

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The bridge in the distance became my target – I envisaged crossing it and heading back along the other side.

Another facet of Stockholm well shown up during this walk is how many cliffs there are.

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Approaching the bridge that I had marked out as my first target I found the water narrowing…

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As you will see from the next set of pictures the view from the bridge gave me reason to believe that I could fulfill my plan of walking back along the other side of the water.

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Although I located this path without difficulty it soon swung away from the water, and not long after that it became plain that the only waterside route was the one I had already taken, so I crossed a small pedestrian bridge to head back along that path. I paid close attention to the boats this time round, rather than picturing just a few…

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I crossed one last bridge and headed back to Gamla Stan station to resume my travels, having thoroughly enjoyed my exploration of the heart of Stockholm.

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How’s that for making the bridge accessible?

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Exploring Malmo

The latest in my series of blog posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden.

STARTING THE DAY

Once I had followed instructions for ensuring the cleaners knew that my bed was reserved for another night and made sure that none of the stuff I was leaving in the dorm room would get in their way it was time to set off to explore Malmo, although my first photograph of the day was taken before I had left the building:

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HEADING TO THE CENTRE OF MALMO

The first major building I spotted on my way towards the town centre was the public library (Stad Bibliotek in Swedish):

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Arriving at the first of many waterways I took a brief walk in the opposite direction along it to the one I was ultimately going to be headed in (deliberately so)…

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Then I faced a choice between staying with the road or going by way of the Gamla Kyrkogarden (old churchyard – gamla = old, kyrko has the same meaning as the Scottish kirk, and the g in Swedish is usually pronounced as an English y, giving ‘yarden’ or removing the last two letters, yard), I naturally chose the latter)

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This building, spotted as I was leaving Gamla Kyrkogarden was very impressive:

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It was at this point that I got my first sight of a notable feature of Malmo…

BRONZE SCULPTURES

I have not seen anything quite like these elsewhere:

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At this stage I was heading towards the station, to visit the supermarket to buy food before continuing my explorations. However, I was not by any means hurrying, and was still getting plenty of pictures…

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This remarkable clockface is in the covered market adjoining the station, by way of which one can access the supermarket.

Leaving the supermarket I headed for more water, deciding to see as much waterside as I could contrive…

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Still envisaging being able to make this a circular walk, avoiding retracing my steps, I continued on, sticking as close to the water as possible.

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I was not ultimately able to stay at the waterside the whole time – I soon found myself in a light industrial development and obliged to temporarily head away from the water, but I got back to a waterside location to eat my lunch…

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I began to head in the general direction of the hostel, although my day’s photography was by no means done…

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My first photo of the day was taken at the hostel, and so was this, my last photo of the day.

 

 

Pictures From The Stockholm Archipelago

The first post about my travels in Sweden, with lots of photographs.

INTRODUCTION

This is the first in what will be a series of posts about Sweden, where I am currently on holiday. If you enjoy this post I recommend that you make Anna’s blog your next port of call.

AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES

Although I have only been in Sweden since Friday night, I already have a huge number of stunning pictures to share. For this first part of my stay I have been in the company of a cousin and his Swedish fiancee Ida. My cousin met me at Stockholm central bus station (Skavsta airport, where my flight landed is too far out of town for him to meet me there, so I got the Flygbussarna into town on Friday night. On Saturday we travelled to an island that has been owned by Ida’s family for some time. This journey entailed a bus to Stavsnas, a boat out to the nearest island reachable by commercial boat, and a walk across said island, on the other side of which we met Ida who rowed us across the sound to the island on which we would be staying. Here are a few pictures from this part of the stay…

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These first couple of pictures were taken through the window of an aeroplane from high above.

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The remainder were taken either from the bus to Stavsnas or the ferry.

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The Island

This Island has no flushing toilets, and save for the main house no running water. It only got electricity in the 1940s. The sea is lovely to swim in, as I can attest from personal experience. We start with the house itself…

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Here some pictures from inside the house…

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I will be looking at more detail at the insect life I have encountered in a future post, but to whet the appetite here is a rare butterfly whose English name is Apollo…

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Now, some general pictures taken while on the island…

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As a lead up to the next section, here is a map of the Stockholm Archipelago.

SAILING THE STOCKHOLM ARCHIPELAGO IN AN OPEN BOAT

Richard and Ida had too much stuff to take back to their flat in Stockholm for the way we had reached the island to be appropriate, so we were escorted by private boat, along with Ida’s brother and his daughter. Here are some pictures from the Stockholm Archipelago…

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Lars (skipper of the boat), setting off on his return journey to the island from Stavsnas

Stavsnas to Stockholm

The last stage of the journey to the flat in which I write this, before heading off later today to catch a train to Kristinehamn, southern terminal of Inlandsbanan was by bus and tunnelbahn (the Stockholm Undergound, which I will be covering in a later post) yielded a few more pictures…

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These last six pictures feature central Stockholm, as seen from the bus as it approached Slussen.

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Cricket, Images and Links

A somewhat delayed account of Monday and Tuesday, with plenty of photos.

INTRODUCTION

A few brief commenst and some pictures.

AUGUST IMAGING

I havce made sure that nothing big has been left unimaged, with my flgiht out to Sweden now only three days distant. Here are a few imaghes from the last couple of days…

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AN EMPHATIC ENGLAND WIN

Although for various reasons I did not catch much of the action in the second test match betwen England and Pakistan I congratulate England on responding in emphatic style to their defeat in the first match. While I consider the decision by Cook not to enforce the follow-on when looking at a first innings advantage of 391 to be bizarre, at least his team still managed to win. Possibly the most red-faced captain of all time over a decision not to invoke the follow-on was the Hon Freddie Calthorpe who in the final match of the 1929-30 series in the West Indies declined to do so with an advantage of 563 on the grounds that the match was scheduled to played to a finish. Unfortunately for him a combination of the weather and England’s return journey caused the match to be abandoned as a draw anyway. Six years earlier in a county game Calthorpe had suffered a different kind fo embarrassment when his Warwickshire side made 223 in their first innings, bowled out Hampshire for 15, and had them 177-6 after following on. Hampshire then made a spectacular recovery to reach 521 in that second innings, with Walter Livsey who had only reached even double figures three times in the course of the season before then making a century at no 10, and bowled a dispirited Warwickshire out for 158 in the second innings. Back to the present, and in the test match that finished yesterday evening Joe Root had the kind of match which had it been presented as fiction would undoubtedly have been laughed out of the publishers office – 254, 71 not out, four catches in the first Pakistan innings, and when given a bowl late in their second innings he picked up a wicket with his second ball!

SOME FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

I conclude this post with a few non-work related pictures:

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The West Norfolk Disability Forum

A brief account of a meeting of the West Norfolk Disability Forum and notice of a visit to Sweden.

INTRODUCTION

Most of this post is devoted to events that took place on Wednesday, but at the end of it I will have a small section looking ahead.

THE AGM OF THE WEST NORFOLK DISABILITTY FORUM

My invite to this event came from NAS West Norfolk Chair Karan, who was invited by councillor Squire. The meeting was to start at 2:30PM, but before then we were assembling at 1:00PM for a tour of Stories of Lynn in order to see what was right and what was wrong about it.

STORIES OF LYNN

I enjoyed seeing what this establishment had to offer, though I would have been under-impressed had I had to fork out the £5 admission fee because there si simply no way that what they have is worth that price. The main issues noted were that there is not enough seating in the building and that there is a lack of audio options for those who cannot read. Here are some of the pictures that I took at this stage of proceedings…

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The four big portraits tell you about themselves (all were born and raised in West Norfolk)

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The Pillory was abandoned as a method of punishment in this country about 200 years ago. A radical publisher named Daniel Isaac Eaton was one of the last to be subjected to this form of punishment – the populace delivered their own verdict by providing him with food and wine, and generally turning his spell in the pillory into something of a public triumph.

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Now that’s what I call a board game!
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The last room we saw is one where the exhbits will change periodically – this year is the 100th anniversary of RAF Marham, so at the moment that is the subject of the exhibits.
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Raf cap with cloth badge
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RAF hat with cloth badge
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The beret to which this metal badge is attached was impossible to image properly.

THE TOWN HALL

Next door to Stories of Lynn is the Town Hall, within which the meeting was to take place. We were meeting on the first floor and given my own attitude to lifts and the lack of available lift space I used the stairs. We were very early for the meeting, but refreshments had been set up in the largest of the upstairs rooms, just outside the room in which the meeting would be happening.

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The meeting room – visually spectacular, but as we to discover the accoustics were very poor.

During the pre-meeting wait the window panes within the main window that folk had marked to show when they had worked on it were shown to me. Yesterday I showed a single image that I had assembled to putting together all my indvividual images. Today, I present all the images plus a few others I took at the same time…

Town Hall Window Montage
Here is the composite image as a quick reminder…
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I assembled a large frame by connecting together these individual images, including one of the whole window, as the single panes were not quite enough to do the job….

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And filled the central space with an enlarged image of the whole window.

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THE MEETING

The meeting began with the election of a chair and deputy chair (the former a councillor, the latter not). As newbies and therefore not qualified to form an opinion Karan and I both declined to vote.

Once council representatives on the forum had been appointed it was the turn of non-council representatives.

Then various matters were raised, including shop signs restricting access, the state of facilities at both the bus and train stations etcetera.

Proceedings drew to a close after just over an hour.

LOOKING AHEAD

This section is necessary because I am going to Sweden for a fortnight, leaving on Friday. During that period posting will be restricted for obvious reasons. Finally, to finish this post here are some more pictures…

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Images and Other Stuff

Highlights from today at work, a mention of yesterday, a comment on the Melania Trump story and lots of pictures.

INTRODUCTION

This post is about today at work and a couple of other things.

TODAY AT WORK

Apart from the fact that it is so hot that for the first time in over three years as a James & Sons employee I went to work in shorts, the things I did at work covered three areas…

RESOLVING QUERIES RELATING TO THE JULY SALE

These numbered five, one of which was a repeat question therefore requiring no new work. Nos 2 and 3 which I will treat together featured a mishap over coin lots, which I was easily able to sort out, by producing and uploading the following images:

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Lot 28 was an incorrect image, and he wanted to see both faces

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Lot 29 was incomplete rather than wrong – now resolved.

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Query no 4 related to a medal – someone wanted to see pictures of the rim, which are fiendishly difficult to produce, but I came up with these…

The final query was more involved, requiring detail as to whether the item was still in working order, and more info about its provenance. To help with this I produced these images:

The main bulk of my day’s work was…

IMAGING FOR THE AUGUST SALE

There were some interesting items today and a decent variety. I will start with the non-coin items…

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This box of matches may be sufficiently old that they are not so safe as ton be impossible to strike!

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The cloth and the two bowling balls fir snugly inside the carrying case

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There was so much stuff in this lot that I took two images and joined them together.

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Finishing the August images where the queries started, here a few more…

COIN LOTS

I am not going to share all the coin images I did today (even with a mere 18 lots done that would be 54 images) but here are a few of the best…

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Lot 132

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Lot 138

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Lot 140

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Lot 143

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Lot 145

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Lot 147

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Lot 148

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Lot 149

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USING OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF

I recently posted about the Lynn News taking the entire text element of a report that had the byline of one of their journalists from my blog (see here for more details) and pointed out that while I was grateful to them for covering the event I would have been even happier had they acknowledged me. Now today Melania Trump’s speech has hit the news for the wrong reasons – as whyevolutionistrue (who I am happy to acknowledge as my source for the quotes that follow) among others have noted it is all but identical to an earlier speech by Michelle Obama. For WEIT’s whole post click here, meanwhile for comparison, here are the two speeches:

Here’s the text from Trump’s speech:

My parents impressed on me the value of that you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise. That you treat people with respect. Show the values and morals in in the daily life. That is the lesson that we continue to pass on to our son.

We need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. [Cheering] Because we want our children in these nations to know that the only limit to your achievement is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

And here’s Obama:

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.

And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children — and all children in this nation — to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

In this latter case, of course we can be absolutely sure that Michelle Obama would not be pleased to hear her words from the lips of Mrs Trump.

To sum up this section:

  1. If using stuff from someone else (and Melania Trump’s speechwriters must have been aware of the origins of the words in her speech even if she was not) make sure that you are using it in a way that the original author would condone.
  2. Even if you have carte blanche to use stuff from someone else for goodness sake acknowledge the fact that you are doing so.

 

SOME FINAL PHOTOS

These last few photos come from yesterday, some of them featuring a barbecue lunch in East Rudham, with my parents, my aunt and my nephew.

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Two boats moored on the pontoon jetty, South Quay (before setting off in the morning)

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The first of two shots of my newphew tending the barbie!

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Bees love the wild marjoram the grows just outside my parents house, and this was the best shot I managed to get of one.
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Heading for home that evening – a couple of shots of the newly restored building on Purfleet Street – I would have knocked it down and started over but this still a massive improvement on what was there.

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A Spectacular Recovery

An account of the dramatic finish to yesterday’s ODI between England and Sri Lanka, some links and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

This post is about the closing stages of yesterday’s ODI between England and Sri Lanka, which I listened to once I had got home from work.

A DISTANT PROSPECT

When I switched the commentary on Sri Lanka had made a respectable 286, which by that stage was looking positively mountainous since England were 39-4. When skipper Eoin Morgan was out for 42 to make the score 73-5, and Moeen Ali also fell cheaply to a poor shot the situation looked even grimmer for England, as Chris Woakes walked out to join Jos Buttler…

A GREAT PARTNERSHIP

Buttler and Woakes fared better than had seemd posssible when they came together, and gradually victory moved from the realms of fantasy to a distant but imaginable outcome to a genuine possibility. Two wickets in quick succession, Buttler and then Dvaid Willey seemed to have once again settled things in Sri Lanka’s favour, but Liam Plunkett (surely the most talented batsman ever to be at number 10 by design) played well alongside Woakes who established a record score for a number 8 in an ODI. In the end it came down to…

A SPECTACULAR FINAL OVER

At the start of this final over 14 were needed for England to win. Good bowling restricted England to seven off the first five, meaning that unless a wide or a no-ball was bowled England could no longer win. Neither was forthcoming, but Liam Plunkett did hit that final ball for six to level the scores and earn England a tie after a come-back of epic proportions.

LINKS

My first link, just to tie up the loose ends from the first part of this post is to an official account of yesterday’s ODI, courtesy of cricinfo.

My remaining links are all on the subject of referendums and one referendum in particular. I start with David Hencke’s post about why he will be voting for remain.

My next two links are both to posts from that legal eagle of the blogging world jackofkent, first a detailed analysis of what he sees as the flaws of referendums, and second, acoompanied by a screenshot below and some subsidiary comments of my own afterwards a proposal for banning referendums:

JoK

I would change clause 2 of the above act to read:

2. This Act can only be repealed by a unanimous vote in the house (for the purposes of this Act abstentions and absences count as votes against).

PHOTOS

For anyone who has read all the foregoing text here is your bonus in the form of some recent photographs:

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Although the day rider plus that is my standard bus ticket specifically excludes the coasthopper whose route map is pictured here, coasthopper buses sometimes run other routes, notably the X8 between King’s Lynn and Fakenham.

 

Saturday Scattergun

A pot-pourri of a post in which you can read a great story from Paula Peters of DPAC, an account of England’s win in the World T20, find a petition to sign and share and link to the latest post on my website.

INTRODUCTION

I have a few new pictures to share, a few good links to share, a good news story that has already had considerable attention but is so great I just have to share it (it will also be going on my London transport themed website for reasons that will become obvious) and news of today’s game in the World T20.

A GREAT STORY FROM PAULA PETERS

PP

ENGLAND DO IT THE HARD WAY

England lost the toss and were put in by Sri  Lanka in today’s all-or-nothing game in the World T20. A magnificent innings by Jos Buttler (66 off 37 balls) boosted England’s total to an adequate 170. It looked even better when Sri Lanka were 25-4 in the sixth over of the reply, but this England team never seem to do things the easy way. With Angelo Matthews blazing away, Sri Lanka got back into the contest and at times looked like they could do it. Then, with 15 needed off the final over, Ben Stokes who had earlier hit the last ball of the England innings for 6 (the only ball he faced as well!) and taken a fine catch, kept a cool head, and remarkably conceded just four off that over to finish with 0-19 from his four overs. Thus England won by four runs, and will face New Zealand in the semi-final, at the same ground and on the same day as the England women take on Australia in their semi-final.

LINKS

Just a couple of links today:

  • A petition launched by Jo Rust to save King’s Lynn’s Citizens Advice Bureau. Please click here, and sign and share Jo’s petition.
  • A link to the most recent post on my London transport themed website, which deals with St Albans and St Albans Abbey.

THE PICTURES

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Seven (count ’em) boats moored at the jetty today.

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Jailbird! Actually of course this is an ordinary fence and it just looks like the bird is behind bars.

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This map con be seen outside King’s Lynn train station.
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These last three pics featured in my St Albans website post

SAASt Albans Connection

 

Six Nations and Photos

INTRODUCTION

This post does exactly what the title claims. The photos are all from yesterday, which has the distinction of being the first day in 2016 on which I ventured out without putting a coat on (yes folks, it has been a long wait but spring really is on its way)

TOP AND BOTTOM SETTLED
WITH A ROUND TO GO

This weekend saw the penultimate round of the Six Nations rugby tournament. Ireland, coming into this round with a draw and two defeats to their name, faced Italy who had lost all three of their matches. Ireland racked up 58 points in the end, to open clear daylight between themselves and the foot of the table. England played Wales at Twickenham and at half time the score was 16-0 to England, probably should have been 23-0 and had it been 30-0 Wales could have had no complaints. Wales played much better in the second half, but had left themselves too much to do to get back in the match. In the third match Scotland faced France and followed their victory over Italy in the previous round with another in this match. The key try that put Scotland out of reach was a brilliant solo effort from Duncan Taylor.

The effect of this action was that England with four wins out of four are now uncatchable at the top of the table and head to Paris with their sights firmly set on completing a grand slam. This is a mightily impressive first campaign for new England coach Eddie Jones. As well as leaving England out of reach at the top, Scotland’s win over France left Italy marooned at the bottom with no way of avoiding the wooden spoon. Of the teams in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th, separated by just two points, Wales have a massive advantage because not only are they currently in second, they finish their campaign at home to Italy. Scotland and Ireland face each other, while France have an England team with confidence sky-high to contend with.

PHOTOS

These photos were all taken while out walking yesterday and are presented in the order in which they were taken…

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I took this picture because I was so annoyed that this had been left lying around.

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The cormorants were out in force.

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There will be a long post about various autism related issues coming either tonight or first thing tomorrow.