A brief post showcasing some cormorants from earlier today and announcing my intention to produce a calendar.
INTRODUCTION
This post combines showing some new pictures with being the official announcement that I shall be repeating last year’s experiment of producing calendars as Christmas presents.
CORMORANTS
I decided once I had completed my online NAS branch officer’s training this morning that I would go for a walk, and I was delighted to see the structure I call ‘Cormorant Platform’ was very busy…
The first of the cormorant images – this one shows precisely why I call it ‘Cormorant Platform – notwithstanding the three Caspian gulls also on there, it is the cormorants (five on this occasion) who stand out.
Just before leaving the river I got this picture of a cormorant in flight.A couple of moorhens to finish with…
CALENDARS
The calendars will be large, month to page, each month decorated with a picture. Learning from last year I will be aiming to have no borders, and certainly no patterned borders, just pictures taking up the whole available space. This is very much a work in progress, but here are the pictures I have so far picked out as being good enough (feel free to add your own suggestions of pictures you particularly enjoyed when I first posted them in the comments sections, although remember that I am limited to 13 pictures (front cover plus 12 months):
This picture showing the two Inlandsbanan trains together is earmarked for the front coverI will use one of these two ducking pictures
Likewise, I will use one these two butterfly pictures.
This photo, from the Stockholm Archipelago, will be July’s
This picture was actually taken in January.This picture might get the nod for AugustThis is nailed on for April, since it was in that month that the Positive Autism Awareness Conference was held at this establishment.This is provisionally September’s picture.
A brief account of the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for NAS West Norfolk.
INTRODUCTION
Yesterday saw the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for people with Autism in the King’s Lynn area. The sessions will now take place fortnightly at the Scout Hut on Beulah Street (youngsters 3PM to 4PM, older people 4PM to 5PM). The sessions are now being run by two new people, John and Kirsty.
FIRST SESSION BACK
The biggest change other than in personnel was the absence of i-pads – we were using real instruments, with the focus being on percussion…
You can see here five drums that need to lifted above ground level to be played, one box which you sit on to play, generating sound by hitting the front, a wooden instrument that like the drums needs to be lifted to be played and a second wooden instrument (partially concealed), which comes with its own striking implements.
Once we had made our selections it was time to start playing, initially to instructions.
The side of the drum I chose.
After a while I was introduced to a new instrument, a wooden frog with a hollow centre, which comes with a wooden striking instrument.
Later still I switched drums to one of the larger ones…
With this larger drum I could position the frog in the centre and vary the sound according to whether I struck the frog or the drum.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the session. John said that if anyone indicated that they wanted a particular instrument to be available they would try to make it happen.
SOME NEW PHOTOS
With one exception these pictures are all from today, from walks at each end of the day…
This poster was on display at the Scout Hut yesterday.Moorhens in the Purfleet.
Some musings on the county championship (cricket), and an acknowledgement of King’s Lynn’s latest effort to advertise its heritage.
INTRODUCTION
I am posting about two unrelated matters, hence the title, which is borrowed from a series of Bridge Magazine articles written many years ago by Terence Reese. The firs topic of the day is…
CRICKET
As another English season draws to a close there are two topics to cover in this section, first of all…
A THREE WAY TUSSLE FOR THE COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP
Thanks to Somerset continuing their late charge with a 10 wicket victory over Yorkshire, and Lancashire earning a draw against leaders Middlesex the final round of games will commence with Middlesex, Somerset and Yorkshire in that order all in contention for the title. Owing to the fact that a decision to alter the structure of the two divisions has meant that there is only one promotion place up for grabs the second division is now settled, with Essex having secured the promotion.
In the final round of matches Middlesex will play Yorkshire at Lord’s, while Somerset face already relegated Nottinghamshire. While my chief emotion as a cricket fan is gratitude that the championship race is going down to the wire, I cannot claim complete impartiality – despite having grown up in London and possessing a Yorkshire surname, it is my support for the underdog that wins out in this contest – I will be rooting for Somerset. Somerset have never won the championship (Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire are also in this position, although the latter were named as champion county three times in the 1870s, before the official start of the county championship in 1890). Apart from being a historic first, a championship win for Somerset this year would also be a fitting reward for Marcus Trescothick as he approaches the end of a long and distinguished career with the county.
The change in the structure of the two divisions mentioned earlier, moving from nine teams in each to eight in first and ten in the second, is not the most significant one happening in English domestic cricket, that distinction going to…
THE INTRODUCTION OF CITY FRANCHISES
Yes, it has been decided by a vote of 16-3 in favour to augment the existing domestic T20 competition with an eight-team city based competition. I am not going to say either yea or nay at this stage, waiting to see how it works in practice before making a judgement. I mark the break between this section and the second section of the post with some recent photographs from King’s Lynn…
This is the uncropped version of a butterfly pictureAnd this is the cropped version.
A CODA TO HERITAGE OPEN DAY
Beales Department Store which is near thus bus station in King’s Lynn has recently closed down. Rather than leave the frontage as blank windows, it has been used as an opportunity to advertise our town’s heritage, as shown below…
Save for the planning notice at the end, these pictures are presented in the order in which they were taken.
The latest in my series of posts about my holiday in Sweden. This marks the start of the ‘post-Inlandsbanan’ section of the holiday.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series of blog posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. Having concluded an eight-post sub-series on the Inlandsbanan experience I have created a page from all eight said posts can be accessed – click here if interested.
THE JOURNEY FROM GALLIVARE
Those who read my previous post will recall that my plans suffered a setback in Gallivare, which resulted in a night spent outdoors and an early morning journey to Lulea. Unfortunately the circumstances of the journey and in which I bought the ticket meant that I did not have a window seat, so I have no photos of the journey.
It failed to register with me that I could deposit the heavier of my bags at the station. My first port of call was the Arctic Comfort Hotel where I was told that I could not check in until 3PM.
Weighed down as I was I still managed to do a small amount of exploration, before settling down near the station to wait until then. Here are some photos from this stage of proceedings…
One of the first things I noticed about Lulea was the bird life, which had not been much in evidence along the Inlandsbanan route.
A particularly useful information board.This old truck turned decorative feature is as one might expect one of the first things you see emerging from the station.
This bronze sculpture is in a small area of parkland between the main road directly above the station and the main shopping area of the town
The control button at a Swedish pedestrian crossing.
I consumed my lunch on this very bench (it is made of granite, which is readily available all over Sweden).
REMAKING PLANS
Once I was safely ensconced in my hotel room I booked accommodation for the rest my trip before the return to Stockholm – one night on the sleeper to Uppsala, two nights in the cheapest accommodation Uppsala had to offer, two nights in the STF Hostel in Malmo and one night at City Hotel Avenyn in Gothenburg (after five straight nights in cheap, communal accommodation, necessitated by budgetary constraints, I felt that I would need something a little better by then). Having set the scene with this post, there will be several more posts about Lulea…
The next installment in my series about Sweden, and the finale to the sub-series about the Inlandsbanan experience.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden, and the end of the sub-series of posts about my northward journey along Inlandsbanan.
THE JOURNEY
By this stage we were nearing the end of the journey from Ostersund to Gallivare, although there was still the second meal stop to come. In the brief period between restarting the trip from the edge of the arctic circle and arriving at Vaikijaur for the second meal stop we passed a place called Jokkmokk.
Vaikijaur was not especially memorable, although the food was excellent. Here are the pictures I took.
A side view of this quirky little buildingThe front viewThe people who had produced our food.
We had no further significant stops before Gallivare although we did pass through a town called Porjus. The train pulled into the platform at Gallivare exactly as scheduled at 21:39. Here are the photos of the last part of the journey…
SLEEPLESS IN GALLIVARE
I had booked two nights at the Hotel Dundret i Centrum, planning then to take a morning train to Lulea on the Gulf of Bothnia and then an overnight train from Lulea to Uppsala, birthplace of Carolus Linnaeus also known as Carl Von Linne. However, while I located the establishment in question, there was no one at reception, and it turned out that to gain access my room I needed to make a call on a mobile phone (had booking.com mentioned this detail I would have booked somewhere else) and I had accidentally left mine at the flat in Stockholm where my cousin and his fiance live. I waited a few minutes in the very unimpressive communal seating area just in case but it was soon obvious that no one would show up.
While I could have sat there until the morning doing so would then involve having an argument over payment because there was no way I would pay for a night in which I had not access to my room, so I decided to cut my losses and headed back to the station to wait the night out. Before continuing this story here is the one photo I took in Gallivare (I knew the camera battery was low, and that I would not be able to charge it that night).
This sculpture is on the roundabout just opposite the station in Gallivare.
I did make a couple of attempts to get some sleep but they were unsuccessful. I was thankful that I had had the foresight to pack a long sleeved top just in case the Swedish summer weather was not quite as good as it might be, since while it does not get dark in Gallivare in August it does get quite nippy at night (as a cricket fan I would have said that the light was never even at its least good unplayable in). Had the sky been clear I might have had a glimpse of the famous midnight sun, but as it was solidly cloudy I was denied even that small pleasure.
At 6 o’clock I was able to get inside and think about my next move. Having ascertained that train tickets could be bought at the Pressbyran next to the station, which was now open, I paid for a ticket on 7:08 train to Lulea (the full price since I did not wish to burn a whole day’s travel for a shortish journey – btw train tickets are one of the few things that are not more expensive in Sweden than in GB – the Swedes don’t have the likes of Branson coining it from failing to provide proper train services), having decided that I would get back on track with my original plans by staying overnight in Lulea and catching the sleeper as intended the following day.
THE INLANDSBANAN EXPERIENCE
I rate this as one of the finest railway experiences I have ever had. I encountered some wonderfully scenic journeys in Scotland and on my first visit to Nordic lands many years ago. More recently I experienced some very scenic journeys in Australia, including Melbourne – Adelaide.
Although I, with my Colbeckian enthusiasm for all things railwayana thoroughly enjoyed all three legs of the Inlandsbanan journey and would recommend the experience to anyone I could also see merit in missing the Kristinehamn-Mora section and doing Mora-Ostersund and Ostersund-Gallivare having found some other route to Mora. If not constrained by budget I would recommend the onward trip from Gallivare to Narvik and some exploration in Norway as well. I also mention that there are places along the route where one could stay overnight if wanted to spend many days over making the journey, but with an inter-rail pass giving me eight days of travel and a desire to see as much of Sweden as I could encompass such was not on the table for me personally.
If anyone involved in the publication of the Rough Guide to Sweden happens to see this may I suggest that you think about turning my last eight blog posts into a chapter about Inlandsbanan since it is absurd that this incredible experience is not covered in your pages.
The latest installment in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden. We are still travelling north on Inlandsbanan and this post takes us to the arctic circle.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the next installment in this series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. In this post we are back on the move, heading north along Inlandsbanan.
THE JOURNEY
Very soon after leaving Vilhelmina Norra behind us we made a brief stop at Storuman.
After Storuman there was again a period of taking pictures through the window of a moving train.
Shortly after I had taken the picture above we arrived at Sorsele, which is significant as…
THE STATION WHERE INLANDSBANAN TRAINS MEET
Yes, it is at an otherwise insignificant dot on the map called Sorsele that the northbound Ostersund-Galiivare service overlaps with the southbound Gallivare-Ostersund service. Sorsele is also home to the Inlandsbanan Museum, although I chose not to go inside. Thus I have many photographs of this location that is so important in the workings of Inlandsbanan…
My first shot of the two Inlandsbanan trains together at the platform
A wonderful signboard, one of many here.
The external view of the Inlandsbanan museum.
A disused platform.The guard about to indicate the departure of the southbound service.Where personal meets professional – as someone who images auction items and has an interest in railwayana I particularly wanted to get a close-up of the Inlandsbanan cap badge.Outside cooking – probably a rare pleasure in this part of the world!
After a brief move we including the lake below we arrived at Slagnas
After leaving Slagnas there was a reasonably long period of forward travel…
We then had a stop for long enough to stretch our legs at…
ARVIDSJAUR
I was able to take a few pictures here before we moved on.
Moving forward again, I was still taking pictures through the train window…
I reckon this must be the lower terminal of a cable car route.
What looks like a black raindrop in the picture above is actually a mark on the window that got into more than one of my photos! It was very soon after this picture was taken that we arrived at…
THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
This was not the first occasion I had been into the arctic – on my only previous visit to Nordic lands in 1994 I had gone by train from Helsinki to Narvik in Norway, with a brief bus ride from Haparanda to Boden in the middle,, and after a night in Narvik had caught a bus to Tromso before then travelling by boat to the most northerly town in mainland Europe, Hammerfest. However in those days I had no camera, and also the point at which we reached the arctic circle was not announced. Here are the shots i took from inside the train before I knew that there would actually be a stop:
I end this post with pictures taken out in the open at the arctic circle:
The train at the arctic circle.
A fellow passenger was kind enough to take the picture from which I extracted this image of myself standing in front of the arctic circle sign.
The latest in my series of posts about my holiday in Sweden.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the next installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. In this post my account of the Inlandsbanan experience continues.
MUCH MORE THAN JUST A JOURNEY – A RAILWAY EXPERIENCE
In my previous posts about my journey along InlandsbananI have been concentrating on the route followed by the trains as they move north. However, Inlandsbanan is much more than a railway journey (though it is certainly among the most scenic of those). It is a railway experience, and the scheduled meal stops, one on the Mora-Ostersund leg at the Asarna Ski Centre and two on the long northward haul from Ostersund to Gallivare, the one which I am using as the base for this post at Vilhelmina Norra and a later one at Vaikijaur. Keen followers of this series will remember that Asarna I opted for Moose burger with jacket wedges. Here is a picture showing the two menus from which this day’s food choices were made…
For this meal I went for the Meat sandwich, while my choice for the Vaikijaur stop was the Reindeer burger.
Why have I opted to cover this aspect of the trip at this point? Well, these little critters who I was able to watch while consuming my meal had something to do with that decision…
With the meal stops being of generous duration I had plenty of opportunities to augment my collection of photos…
The latest in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden, still covering the northward journey along Inlandsbanan.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. Just before moving on to the details of this post, Anna and her fellow residents of Trosa are locked in battle with greedy/ corrupt local politicians over plans to build a new road that the area does not need or want. I urge you to visit this post, which was put up yesterday and offer your support. As a veteran of the King’s Lynn incinerator affair this touches a particular chord with me. For the rest of this post we are continuing the journey north along Inlandsbanan.
THE JOURNEY
As we left Ulriksfors behind us, I was temporaril back to photographing from a moving train.
Not long after passing the house pictured above I was able to get this picture of an old locomotive:
Here are the remaining photos I got before arriving into Vilhelmina…
The stop at Vilhelmina was not a long one, as the stop at the next station along, Vilhelmina Norra, was the first of two designated meal stops, but I did get these pictures…
Beyond Vilhelmina but before Vilhelmina Norra, which I have decided to give a whole post to itself, I managed to get a few more photographs from the moving train.
There will be a further three posts about my journey along Inlandsbanan, one covering Vilhelmina Norra, one covering the stretch from Vilhelmina Norra to the arctic circle, and the final post covering the journey from the edge of the arctic circle to Gallivare, summing up the whole experience and setting the scene for subsequent posts by explaining events that transpired in Gallivare that had a considerable effect on my plans.
The next stage in my account of my travels around Sweden. Read, enjoy and please share.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to this latest installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. My previous posts about the journey along Inlandsbanan can be found here.
THE JOURNEY
With the train from Ostersund to Gallivare leaving at 7:20 AM it was necessary to leave my accommodation early (not that many would have been tempted to linger in the Pensionat Bjornen anyway!). I arrived at the station in good time, and this not being Britain so did the train.
Settled in my seat, seat 40 (I had booked the same seat number on both the Mora-Ostersund and Ostersund-Gallivare trains), I was ready to do my best to capture the scenery that was visible through my window…
This being a fourteen hour trip there were two scheduled meal stops. My order for the first was the smoked pork collar sandwich.
Shortly after crossing the bridge through whose metalwork I took the picture above we arrived at Ulriksfors where we were stopped long enough for me to identify our whereabouts, and hence where the first part of my account of the journey from Ostersund to Gallivare ends.
The latest in my series of posts about my holiday in Sweden.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden. This post brings us to the end of the second leg of the journey north on Inlandsbanan and sets the scene for third and (by a very large margin) longest leg of the journey, the 14-hour trip from Ostersund to Gallivare.
THE JOURNEY
The food stop at Asarna, where my last post ended, comes near the end of the journey from Mora to Ostersund, but there was still plenty to see…
I was glad to get this spectacular rainbow on camera.
The station at Ostersund Central
OVERNIGHT IN OSTERSUND
I was booked into the Pensionat Bjornen for the night. It was here that my failure to pick up my phone on departure from Stockholm first adversely affected me (a day later it would do so again). I had not realised and there had been nothing on booking.com to tell me that I would need to make a mobile phonecall to collect my room key. Thankfully someone else booked into the same establishment arrived not long after me and did have her phone with her, so we were both able to get our keys. The Pensionat Bjornen is an annexe of a hotel that sits on the opposie side of the street, and it was to this latter establishment that keys had to be returned in the morning. For a single night stay with an early start it was an acceptable place, and was the cheapest accommodation in a non-shared room that I had anywhere. I conclude this post with a jpg of my official booking.com review of the establishment:
aspiblog 