Lake District – Getting There

Setting the scene for a series of posts about a short holiday I am enjoying in Ambleside by describing the journey there.

Welcome to what will be the first of a series of posts about a short holiday I am taking in the Lake District. My parents and I are staying in a small cottage above the town of Ambleside (for fans of Rebecca Tope think “The Ambleside Alibi”). This post sets the scene by describing my journey from King’s Lynn to Ambleside.

KINGS LYNN TO ELY

I left my bungalow, situated just north of King’s Lynn, at 9:00 yesterday morning as I had planned to do. This meant that I got to the train station with time to spare before my train, the 09:42 to Cambridge (something must have been happening south of Cambridge as the service usually runs through to London). The train set off exactly when it was supposed to and chugged into Ely at 10:15AM.

ELY TO MANCHESTER PICCADILLY

The second and longest section of my train odyssey was part of a long cross country route (the full route is Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street). The train on this route consists of two carriages and there are no reserved seats. Fortunately, although it was pretty full at times it was never seriously close to ‘sardine can on wheels’ territory. I had some familiarity with the route as far as Sheffield, but beyond Sheffield was all new to me.

MANCHESTER PICCADILLY TO PRESTON

The third leg of the journey took me into the heart of Lancashire, the the county town of Preston. This route had some features of interest, and for the third time out of three on the day it ran according to schedule. Given that the final leg of my rail journey was in the incapable hands of Avanti I did not expect to make it four out of four.

PRESTON TO OXENHOLME THE LAKE DISTRICT

The final section of my rail journey took me into the heart of the Lake District. I should have got into Oxenholme at 16:09, but the train for this last section was running 20 minutes late (which probably counts as punctual by Avanti’s unique standards). It was scenic, but I could not capture any of it with my camera because the “window” seat that I had reserved turned out to give me access to about 10% of said window, so I could see things, but not focus the camera on them. I got pictures from most of the rest of the route.

THE REST OF THE JOURNEY

After a minor confusion at Oxenholme, where my parents were collecting me in their car, having made their own way up from Cornwall, we found our way to the location given for our cottage, but the cottage was so well concealed that it took several attempts to actually locate it. There then turned out to be a few other problems with it – my parents bedroom contains a nasty hazard in that the bedroom door leads straight on to the staircase. I will go into more detail about Ambleside in my next post.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Heritage Open Day 2021

Yesterday was Heritage Open Day 2021, and this is my account of the day as I experienced it.

Heritage Open Day in King’s Lynn happens on the second Sunday in September (except last year when for reasons not needing elaboration it did not happen at all), which this year was yesterday. This post describes the day as I experienced it, and is rather longer than my usual posts.

THE BEGINNING:
TUESDAY MARKET PLACE

There is a classic car show in the Tuesday Market Place in conjunction with Heritage Open Day, and viewed as the museum pieces that such contraptions should become some of the specimens are seriously impressive…

THE CUSTOM HOUSE

The first building I visited this time round was The Custom House, one of the two most iconic buildings in Lynn (The Townhall/ Guildhall is the other). They have an excellent little display upstairs, and it was well worth venturing indoors to see it…

THE RED MOUNT CHAPEL

A favourite of mine, standing on its own in the middle of an area of parkland, with the bandstand visible through the trees and the ruins of the Guanock Gate about 100 yards away. There are actually two chapels, the upper chapel and the lower chapel, and the thick walls and small windows that the outside of the building features are testament to the need to guard against religious persecution in earlier times…

THE JEWISH CEMETERY

This is near the top end of Millfleet, and most of the year if one spots it one can glimspe through the gate and see some of it. It was fully open for Heritage Open Day, and with lots of extra information made available…

ST NICHOLAS CHAPEL

I know this place well, but was interested to see what might be happening there in Heritage Open Day, and have no regrets about having ventured in.

VOLUNTEERING:
HAMPTON COURT GARDEN

I was assigned the 2PM to 4PM shift at Hampton Court Garden, also referred to as the Secret Garden, because most of the time very few people are aware of it’s existence – the only clue from the street any time other than Heritage Open Day is a very ordinary looking navy blue door set into the wall, an even the passage providing direct access from the courtyard is one that you would only know as such if you had been told (the extreme lowness of the door into the garden that way means that it cannot be used on Heritage Open Day for Health and Safety reasons). There are at least three places called Hampton Court, the famous one in Surrey, another in Herefordshire, and this one (Wolsey’s former pad in Surrey is the parvenu of the three). This Hampton Court is named in honour of John Hampton who was responsible for the newest side of the courtyard, which actually made it a courtyard (even this, two centuries younger than anything else there, dates from the 17th century). He was a baker who made good use of being based at the heart of a town that was the third busiest port in England at the time – he specialized in ship’s biscuits, for which he had a captive market.

The part of Hampton Court visible from the garden dates from 1440 and started life as an arcade fronted warehouse facing directly onto the river (it is the last surviving example of such a frontage in England). The earliest part of Hampton Court dates from 1350, and the first expansion happened in 1400.

The warehouse lost its raison d’etre through two factors: ships got bigger, and the river silted up. A new quayside was constructed resulting in the relocation of the river to its current location fractionally east of Hampton Court, and this left the warehouse quite literally high and dry.

It was nearly lost forever in the mid 20th century, because in the 1930s Hampton Court was basically derelict. At one time the council intended to knock it down and replace it with a modern block of flats but then a very determined lady by the name of Mrs Lane came on the scene. She bought the place up bit by bit and renovation work started. From this the King’s Lynn Preservation Trust came into being, and they own the freehold on Hampton Court to this day, with the individual flats, which are all different from one another, being leasehold properties.

My chief responsibility in my stewarding role was take note of numbers of people coming to visit. These numbers were reassuringly high – by the end of the day the tally was in the region of 500 visitors, and there were many expression of surprise and delight from those to whom it was a new place.

The first of two pictures showing the remains of the arcaded frontage – when this was first built those arches were completely open and good were off loaded directly from ships into the warehouse, where they would other have gone upstairs to be stored or straight through to the shops that fronted onto what is now Nelson Street.

OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS

These remaining photographs were taken at various places in and around town during the day but do not belong in any specific section…

There were many antique buses providing tours for those who wanted to see things that way. This particular example is actually old London Transport stock – buses of this type were still in regular service in London during my childhood and adolescence.

Scotland 2021: Homeward Bound

The account of my homeward journey from my Scottish holiday.

This post concludes my coverage of my recent Scottish holiday (28th May to 5th June) by looking at the journey home.

A TRICKY START

I woke early on the morning of Saturday June 5th, and it was just as well that I did so. A check of my emails revealed on overnight message from thetrainline.com telling that the service I was due to be leaving Wick on at 8:02AM had been cancelled. Fortunately I was able to locate a bus service leaving Wick at 6:57 and arriving into Inverness at 9:58 giving me plenty of time to get back on track from there. Thus rather than £100s and almost certainly an overnight stay somewhere on the way home I was able to get round the problem for £22 and some seriously shredded nerves. It also meant missing breakfast which I had intended to be the main meal of the day for me as I expected opportunities to eat while travelling to be limited. I currently have a compensation claim with Scotrail awaiting resolution. They initially insisted that I destroy the ticket even though it was only ever valid for travel on June 5th and then claimed not to have received my image of the destroyed ticket – I uploaded it again today and tweeted their social media team as well.

WICK TO INVERNESS

The bus was ready precisely when it was supposed to be, and the journey to Inverness was accomplished with little difficulty. Getting from the bus station to the train station was slightly tricky – I had seen a sign pointing to the train station on the way in and aimed for that but it was only signing the station car park, which is actually a few minutes walk from the station itself. Once I had got into the station I discovered that there was a train to Edinburgh departing at 10:46, getting me comfortably back on track – indeed slightly ahead of schedule.

INVERNESS TO EDINBURGH

The train from Inverness to Edinburgh ran exactly according to schedule. The route is a scenic one. I had three hours at Edinburgh Waverley before my next train (on which I had a reserved seat) to Grantham was due to depart. This gave me an opportunity to consume some refreshments (and as it turned out was the last such I would have, not greatly to my surprise).

EDINBURGH TO HOME

The train to Grantham (terminating there – there were various problems afflicting the network) ran smoothly. At Grantham I had to board a replacement bus service from there to Peterborough, which arrived just a few minutes before the train for Ely was departing. At Ely I had one final change to the train to King’s Lynn, which fortunately went without incident. At 11:25PM this last train arrived at King’s Lynn. Then it just remained for me to walk home. Though there were a few nervy moments this last section of the journey from Edinburgh to my home in Norfolk went precisely as the itinerary had stated.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I have photographs covering Wick to Edinburgh…

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.

Heritage Open Day 2018 1: Setting the Scene

Starting my account of Heritage Open Day 2018.

INTRODUCTION

This year’s Heritage Open Day (Sunday 16th September) came in the middle of a very busy period for me. I was scheduled to cover the Bank House for two hours, and imagined spending a bit of time both before and after that taking in the rest of the event. As it happened I was laid up for the whole of the Saturday with a bug, and still not completely recovered by the Sunday morning.

THE DAY ITSELF

Eventually, at just after 10:30AM, I set off to visit Hampton Court, reassure my aunt that I was well on the way to recovering and then make a fairly leisurely trip round to the Bank House. I took in an arts exhibition and made myself known to the photographers there. I also visited a solicitor’s office which is set in a Norman house. I arrived at the Bank House a bit early, and after reminding myself what the cellars looked like I spent a few minutes watching my predecessor handle things before I relieved him a little early because he was doing another session immediately afterwards. After two hours of what was basically a crowd control job (right in the slot for an autistic person – natch) I was quite tired, so after a brief visit to a club on Ferry Lane where I could consume some lqiuid refreshment while looking out over the river I went home to chill for a while before having supper with my aunt.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I will be giving the solicitor’s office a post to itself, and will also be giving the Bank House extended coverage, so this pictures are from elsewhere:

Special Bus — This is an old red bus, made by Leyland who manufactured the iconic old London buses, but it is not a genuine London bus.

HC Plans — The passgeway leading in to the Secret Garden featured a historical display put together by the indefatigable Hendrina Ellis.

The secret garden — The series of arches at the rear of this shot were a warehouse frontage which in those days looked directly out on the river (now almost 100m distant from them)

rowing race — A rowing regatta was happening on the river.

Militia unit, Custom House — A militia company were stationed near the Custom House (the rifles were loaded with blanks btw)

Art Exhibition 1 — The first of a number of pictures from the art exhibition.

Modern day mosaics — Creatures made using tessarae

Butterfly set in mosaic frame — This butterfly set into a mosaic frame particularly impressed me.

TMP — A glimpse of the Tuesday Market Place

Walking boat — A walking boat – and no this is not the West Stand at Headingley on a Saturday!

Kings Lynn views — Two riverside views on display at Ferry Lane.

Travelling by Lynx Bus 1 Week In

Thoughts onthe new bus service between King’s Lynn and Fakenham one week in.

INTRODUCTION

I have now done one work week using the new Lynx Bus 49 for the journeys, the withdrawal of Stagecoach from King’s Lynn now being an accomplished fact (apart from the 505 to Spalding, most of which route is in Lincolnshire). This post covers my week at work as well as detailing my thoughts about the new services.

TUESDAY

Setting off from my flat at 6:45AM I was at the bus station in good time for the bus that I needed to catch at 7:00. The bus arrived and departed in good time, and arrived in Fakenham at 7:49, as indicated by the timetable (unlike the unlamented Stagecoach their schedules include some slack, so that a traffic jam does not always mean running behind schedule). As it was warm enough that my workplace would definitely be bearable, and I had a lot of imaging to do and little time in which to do it I decided to go straight there and get stuck in early. I commenced proceedings by finishing off the badges on boards as images of these were needed for the catalogue, and then got to work on the cigarette cards, and managed to image the first 50 lots of those as well, before closing time, and my departure for the library, to do stuff there until I could catch the bus home (the service is very infrequent at present). I have already shown some images from this day’s work in a previous post. The bus back duly arrived and set off exactly as it should (a double decker for the evening run btw), and there were no significant delays en route.

THURSDAY

Again no issue with the journey out. Tony’s Deli stall was still being set up when I headed to work, so I got ready to start the day, and then popped back out to make my purchases there, before returning to get stuck into work. I did the loose badges (imaging them in batches of six to save time) for the first of the two days of badge sales, before once again focussing my attention of the cigarette cards, the last lot of the day being lot 166. Another visit to Fakenham library to fill in time at the end of the day, and once again home on a bus that ran to time.

Lot 88, uncut cigarette cards – very unusual (until we got this consignment our expert on such cards, with nearly half a century of experience had not seen any.

100-a — Close-ups of the two local examples (even if you cavil at Ely being described as local to a Norfolk auctioneer, the octagonal tower was designed a mid-14th century prior named Alan of Norwich).

133-a — A close up shot of two among the castles that I have visited.

FRIDAY

After another uneventful journey in I imaged some militaria for the first day of that sale, reverted to cigarette cards until I had imaged the last album to have been numbered up (ending at lot 294), at which point I started imaging badges on boards for the second day of that sale.

837 — These backpacks (three items, there are two images of this one and one of each of the other two) are quite heavy even when empty, but that metal framework probably gives them gfreat stability.

235-a — A close up of the local building.

273-a — Both local and arguably the most iconic of all the buildings in this set.

Lot 279 – the cigarette card equivalent of a 50-piece jigsaw.

It was warm and sunny when I locked up at work, and also of course a Friday, so I headed for The Limes and some liquid refreshment taken in the outside seating area. I had entertained hopes of finding a locally brewed craft ale, but given the actual options settled for Hobgoblin (still a very decent drink). The bus back was significantly late, but the still left Lynx with a score of 5 out of 6 for punctuality on the week – something that Stagecoach had not approached in a very long time.

THE LYNX BUS 49

The buses themselves are clean and comfortable, the drivers are friendly, such services as there are by and large run punctually. The trouble is that there are so few services on the new route. I might, particularly in winter, see if I can use my tickets on the route via Wells, which ultimately gets to King’s Lynn by way of Hunstanton. The prime disadvantage of this route is its length (doing the journey by that route would take about two hours on the bus. However, Lynx have stepped up to the plate in difficult circumstances, and their service standards are much better than Stagecoach. The cost of tickets is greater than on Stagecoach as well. I believe there remains a possibility of the 48 route, which currently terminates at Pott Row being extended to join the A148 and then on to Fakenham.

Blue Tit and Butterfly

A blue tit and a butterfly from yesterday.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday was a Musical Keys day, and on the way there I got a few photographs which I think warrant a post of their own, before I move on to the main meat of today’s blogging.

THE BLUE TIT

This was a picture I took more in hope than expectation, since small birds nearly always fly out fo shot before the camera has picked them up, but on this occasion fortune smiled…

Blue Tit - close up — The blue tit, extracted from the foregoing picture.

THE BUTTERFLY

As I approached the Scout Hut where Musical Keys sessions take place, walking along the bank of the Gaywood River I spotted a Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly. I investigated further and finished with six splendid pictures.

Different Bird Species – Same Pose

Two birds of different species exhibiting similar behaviour (which I have previously only ever observed in cormorants).

INTRODUCTION

This is whimsical little post inspired by an odd coincidence I observed while out walking yesterday.

DIFFERENT BIRDS, SIMILAR POSES

While I was out walking yesterday afternoon I saw a Muscovy duck in the stretch of the Gaywood River that is currently serving as home to a small colony of these unusual visitors to our shores posing in the fashion that cormorants sometimes so (for an amusing take on this see Anna’s recent cormorant drawing). Here is a composite picture featuring both posing birds:

Ashes Composite XI

My composite Ashes XI with reasoning and justification. Also some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

A common feature of final days of series is the selection of a composite XI based on performances in said series. This is my effort for the current Ashes series. I am going to name my team in batting order first and then explain/amplify/justify these selections.

THE TEAM

My team in batting order (England player names in dark blue, Aus in green):

Alastair Cook
David Warner
Dawid Malan
Steven Smith (Captain)
Shaun Marsh
Jonny Bairstow (Wicketkeeper)
Mitchell Marsh
Mitchell Starc
Pat Cummins
Nathan Lyon
Jimmy Anderson

MY REASONING

The openers need no justification – the only major contribution from an opener not named Warner in the series was Cook’s monumental innings at the MCG. Number three is a thorny one. James Vince has demonstrated clearly that he does not belong there, and his huge score here at the SCG notwithstanding I remain skeptical about Usman Khawaja, hence my decision to promote England’s leading run scorer in the series to a position he occupies for his county. Number four, and with it the captaincy was the easiest selection of the whole lot. Shaun Marsh has not put a foot wrong since being called up to replace the inadequate Handscomb at number 5, and I regarded him as a must pick. Jonny Bairstow and Tim Paine have both had good series with the gloves, but I have opted for Bairstow as definitely the superior batsman. Mitchell Marsh has had a magnificent series, and was an absolute shoe-in at number 7, especially as Moeen Ali has had a terrible series – he has batted poorly in every match and his bowling average reads like a Bradman batting average. Of the specialist bowlers I have picked those at number 8,9 and 10 in the batting order are absolute stand outs. Number 11 was tricky, since Anderson with virtually no support has had a good series, and the better supported Hazlewood as also had a fine series. Accepting that even were it possible vivisection is not permissible (though ‘Anderwood’ is only one letter removed from a former test great!) I have opted for Anderson as I rate his the greater achievement.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Looking at the makeup of the team (and accepting that Hazlewood for Anderson and Khawaja for Malan would both be valid changes), Australian picks predominate in both batting and bowling, though it is especially the bowling, which in my team comes out at 4-1 (including all-rounder Mitchell Marsh) to Australia and is reality more like 4.3-0.7 (rating my selection of Anderson over Hazlewood as a 70:30 pick) which has split the sides. England have collected barely more than half of the 100 wickets that were available to them at the start of the series, whereas Australia assuming that they take the six England wickets that remain in this match will have managed 90, failing to take 20 opposition wickets only on the MCG pitch.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I always like to include a few photographs in my blog posts, so I end with these recently taken pictures:

The first five pictures were taken while walking to the Scout Hut on Beulah Street for **Musical Keys** yesterday.

PW1 — These last four pictures were taken in Fakenham on Thursday.

NAS West Norfolk at the Panto And A Petition

An account of the autism friendly panto night at the Corn Exchange and a petition on behalf of small cetaceans.

INTRODUCTION

Originally I was only going to post about the Panto, but I felt that the petition that forms the second half of this post deserved extra publicity, so this is very much a two part post.

NAS WEST NORFOLK

Those of you who have been following this blog a for a while will recall that last year NAS West Norfolk had block booked seats for the autism friendly showing of Cinderella. We repeated the trick this year for Jack and the Beanstalk. We booked 120 seats for our group, and only a handful went unused. As with last year’s Panto the venue was the magnificent King’s Lynn Corn Exchange:

CEII — This was taken after the performance on Wednesday night, as I headed home.

The performance was excellent – hugely entertaining. One of the youngsters attending as part of our block booking got so into the performance that he did some impromptu dancing of his own!

The villain of Jack and the Beanstalk is of course the giant, but as any fule kno it is the little weed who tags along with the bully urging them to throw another punch who is most hated of all, so the pantomime villain of Jack and the Beanstalk is the giant’s henchman. The actor playing that role was a most satisfactory villain, his every appearance attracting a veritable storm of boos.

I am delighted to report that all of the feedback about that evening has been positive. Here are some pictures from inside the auditorium (not from the performance of course – there are limits!).