Nature Photography – Page 23

James and Sons February Auction and NHS Action

The auction was a great success – for more detail and some images see the word document that I created about it yesterday. I also detected a good omen for the Great Centenary Charity Auction when a silver poppy commemorative coin sold for above estimate…

JAMES AND SONS FEBRUARY SALE

And this is a jpg which will be the featured image.

Talking of commemorative coins, lot 640, the British public libraries 150th anniversary coin went to yours truly for £15. Lot 875 also fell to me for the same price, and combined well with a leaflet advertising the North Norfolk Railway for a composite image…

The coin imaged in a way not open to me until it was my property.

A public library montage featuring the only one of the public libraries I regularly use to have any architectural merit.

3 sunset shots taken through the windows of an X8 heading back from Fakenham

Lot 875 - railway buttons — Lot 875 – railway buttons

A close up og one of the two British Railways buttons!

I received my pack from 38 Degrees for tomorrow’s NHS action in King’s Lynn tomorrow. It came with yesterday’s post. The A2 window poster is on display above the High Street – a look up from directly outside Debenhams might catch it (here’s hoping). I end with some images from the auction room, none of which have yet featured in my personal twitter account…

This is a wall decoration in a Fakenham coffee shop.

The banner and the TV kindly lent to us by Hughes Electrical

All three of these tables were quite light and easy carry (even with the very small one having a full set of cutlery stored inside its top), and even better all three sold.

Some copper pots and a large coin cabinet

I am not sure as yet whether it was a museum or a dramatic group (for a production of Cinderella) but somebody bought this spinning wheel.

The display case full of medals is a regular sight at James and Sons events, but lot 4, an essay VC, was pleasingly unusual.

This very large quantity of very small cutlery did not sell (there six boxed sets as well as this newspaper wrapped one).

The Prince of Wales Suite at 5PM on Auction Day.

“Your Captain’s Irish” and some Cool Pics

The first part of the title refers to a chant allegedly perpetrated by Scottish fans at the cricket world cup. It is perfectly true that England’s current ODI captain is Irish. It is also hypocritical for such a chant to come from Scotland fans whose team is captained by Preston Mommsen (hardly a 22 carat Caledonian name!). Finally I do not consider birthplace to be all that important – what matters is that people give 100% out on the pitch. This team (and note it has proper balance – it is not just 11 players) is made up exclusively of players I have seen playing for England, and its members have one either thing in common which I shall reveal after I have shared some pictures. Here is our team:

Andrew Strauss (Captain)
Robin Smith
Jonathan Trott
Kevin Pietersen
Allan Lamb
Nasser Nussain (Vice Captain)
Matthew Prior (Wicketkeeper)
Philippe-Henri Edmonds (SLA)
Andrew Caddick (RFM)
Alan Mullally (LF)
Devon Malcolm (RF)

The only slightly questionable selection is Robin Smith as opener, a position he never actually filled, but given his relish for fast bowling he would probably have fared well there. There is no all-rounder because Basil D’Oliveira had retired from international cricket before I was born and Tony Greig not long after. Now for some pics…

These were growing beside Hardwick Road!

Detail from above the door of Custom House

Close detail of immediately above to door of Custom House.

The answer to what that team all of have in common is all were born outside England:

Strauss, Smith, Trott, Pietersen, Lamb and Prior were all born in South Africa, Hussain in India, Caddick in New Zealand, Mullally in Australia, Malcolm in Jamaica and Edmonds in Zambia (he is also half Belgian, hence the first name Philippe-Henri).

KLASS and the Cricket World Cup

A week today is the date of the next meeting of the Kings Lynn Asperger Support Society. We will be meeting at the Lattice House on Chapel Street from 6PM. Our April meeting will be a week later than usual, on the second Monday of the month, because April 6th is Easter Monday. We will be moving to our summer venue of the quayside near the Lower Purfleet, which gives us the back up option should the weather decline to co-operate of ducking into Marriott’s Warehouse (what – British weather decline to co-operate – surely not!). I have produced an information sheet using Word, which I have then turned into a JPG for online usage (already shared with my twitter followers)…

KLASS

This is the original photo of the Lattice House used in the document.

This is the original photo of Marriott's used in the document. — This is the original photo of Marriott’s used in the document.

The Cricket World Cup is still in full swing. Recently we have witnessed India thrashing South Africa, Sri Lanka just sneaking home courtesy of a magnificent innings from Mahela jayawardene against Afghanistan who continue to do the associate nations and themselves proud and England finally demonstrating that they have not completely forgotten how to play the game they invented. On that last however, a victory over a Scotland team whose bowling had about as much venom as an earthworm is nothing to be shouting about. I for one would not be prepared to put money (even had I such a commodity) on England getting the better of Afghanistan and Bangladesh as they need to to progress. In many ways actually, falling at the first hurdle would be better for England than a reprise of 1996 where they reached the quarter finals having beaten the non test playing nations in their group and not looked remotely like beating any test playing opposition and were then thoroughly humiliated by Sri Lanka in the quarter final. An elimination at the first stage cannot be window dressed so it would mean reality having be looked squarely in the eye. A few final pics…

Guist post office (approx 5 miles from Fakenham), viewed through the window of an X29 bus

St Ann's House - directly opposite St Nicholas Chapel — St Ann’s House – directly opposite St Nicholas Chapel

Where 38 Degrees members will be meeting on Saturday for NHS related action.

The flag flying from the Guildhall on Saturday.

Similar size and shape to mallard drake but very different colouring.

Chelsea’s Shame and More From the Cricket World Cup

Racist Chelsea fans pushed a black man off a train not once but twice after their match against Paris St Germain. The culprits then followed this up with some vile racist chanting. Given the nature and seriousness of the offences and Chelsea fans’ long and dishonourable history of racism I think a severe example needs to be set. My suggestion would be that Chelsea be disqualified from this year’s European competition and banned from all supra-national competitions for a period of five years.

Before moving on to the second part of this post, here are some pictures from today…

Bangladesh achieved a comfortable victory over Afghanistan in the cricket world cup, although Afghanistan bowled fairly well to restrict Bangladesh to 267 a disastrous start to their reply saw them tumble to 3-3 from which there was no recovery. I believe that for a competition to be genuinely global some ‘minnows’ must be present. The problem with the cricket world cup is that by diktat of television there is only one match per day because if matches were played in parallel there would be less advertising revenue as only one match each day can be televised in full. Personally, i think that the interests of cricket should outweigh those of the TV moguls and that matches should be played in parallel so as to concertina the competition.

The fact that Afghanistan managed to qualify for this world cup shows that rapid improvement is possible even in very difficult circumstances. Similarly impressive stories may be emerging from Nepal and Papua New Guinea in the not too distant future.

England, as has been the case in every world cup since 1992 when they reached the final, have been decidedly under-impressive so far, and if it is at their expense that one of the minnows gains a quarter-final place I for one will be unequivocally celebrating on behalf of the minnow!

A second selection of pictures to end…

Of Birds, Local Heritage and Rugby

I will start with the local heritage. I had the opportunity at my aunt’s house yesterday before the rugby started to photograph a modern replica cast iron piece that was made from the original…

Although there were other contenders, so remarkable was yesterday photograph wise this is the feature image.

In the first of the rugby matches, England eventually ran out comfortable winners, although Italy scored first through Sergio Parisse and kept things close for about the first hour (and would have been close still had they possessed a number 10 with a functioning boot – whatever other merits he possesses ex-Kiwi Kelly Haimona is a liability in this area) but England, just as Ireland had been last week were too strong for Italy in the end. The second game between Ireland and France was much less of a spectacle. Ireland managed to win, thereby ratcheting up the stakes for the game in two weeks time between Ireland and England. There was one very serious misdemeanour by a French player in that match, when he gave one of the Irish guys a vicious knee in the back. Somewhat surprisingly the referee only deemed this worthy of a yellow and ten minutes in the sin bin. Personally, given how badly the Irishman could be affected by the blow, I think it should have been red, end of the French offender’s participation in the match and indeed of this years Six Nations.

Although it was dark by the time the Rugby ended, I had been out and about earlier in the day and snagged some good pics – I also got one on my home…

The front of King's Lynn Minster, beautifully lit up. — The front of King’s Lynn Minster, beautifully lit up.

Birds, Buildings and Quilts

Some historic buildings, a quilt and some birds plus a notice from the Environment Agency.

The title is a reference to what I have been photographing over the weekend. To start with some of the buildings:

1)Greyfriars Tower, all that remains above ground of the Franciscan priory…

This is a montage created for putting up on twitter, the rest of the gallery follows... — This is a montage created for putting up on twitter, the rest of the gallery follows…

2) King’s Lynn Public Library…

Once again, we start with a montage... — Once again, we start with a montage…

3)Custom House…

4)The Red Mount Chapel, Guanock Gate and various interesting bits of buildings…

I chose to include this with the buildings, although it also features birds!

The quilt reference is to a very elaborate quilt that my aunt made and will be submitting to a competition, for which she required photographs of it. I have provided two versions of each picture, one with very little editing, and one with much more editing….

The first five images of this quilt are the fully edited ones.

These next five images have been cropped but not fully edited.

Now we have some bird images…

To finish, a notice from the Environment Agency…

The First Fruits of My New Camera

My new camera was ready for collection today, and since picking it up I have been enjoying myself testing it out. For comparison purposes before going into the main set of pictures here are the images for Lot 723 in our February auction, the last set of pictures I took with the Samsung…

For the rest: Camera Nova Ipse Loquatur (Let the new camera speak for itself)!

This panel is quite attractive. Pity about the building it belongs to - £1.2 billion tax dodger B**ts — This panel is quite attractive. Pity about the building it belongs to – £1.2 billion tax dodger B**ts

Stage one of sorting out this disaster should involve the use of a wrecking ball!

Victory in Cumbria

The text is mainly devoted to celebrating a big success in Cumbria. As usual there are some good pictures form in and around King’s Lynn.

What is this victory in Cumbria that I have used as the title for the post? Well, this body text should make all clear:

“19 Jan 2015 — FANTASTIC NEWS!! We had the meeting this morning and we got the yes we’ve been fighting for! Mike can now stay in the best home for him, in his local community and a street away from my mum! This has been a hard fight so thank you so very very much, without you we couldn’t have done it!! My brother deserves the best which is what we have got. Thankyou so much! xxxx”

My involvement in this was courtesy of an online petition circulated via change.org. For more details please click the following link: https://www.change.org/p/national-health-service-cumbria-give-mike-a-chance-to-live-in-a-home-near-his-family-in-wigton-cumbria I have already shared this FANTASTIC news with my twitter followers on @aspitweets

If you read this, you will see that although this was a small, local campaign, it was of great importance, and as such the victory is worth celebrating.

It was cold today, to the extent that I have some shots of gulls walking on water…

This sequence of ten shots all show gulls walking on water.

I have plenty of other pics, some of which are worth sharing…

A King’s Lynn Walk

An account of a walk in an around King’s Lynn.

This walk started and finished at my compact town centre flat, and with frequent photography stops occupied two and a quarter hours.

I was on my way down the stairs that take me to street level when I took my first pic of the day, the top of the Clifton House Tower…

From there I crossed the Baker Lane Car Park, took the bridge over the upper Purfleet and headed for the lower Purfleet and the Custom House…

Just in shot above you can see part of the statue of Captain Vancouver…

Where the lower Purfleet joins the Great Ouse is a glass sculpture…

The next point of interest is the new jetty on the Great Ouse, not in use at the moment in deep midwinter…

Hot on the heels of this comes Marriott’s Warehouse, which required two shots to do it justice…

Next up was the carcass of the old Somerfeld and Thomas building…

After crossing the lower Millfleet on the bridge that has a high water mark from December 2013 the next site was the remains of Boal Quay…

A few minutes later came the meeting of the Nar and Ouse, and the structure I have dubbed ‘Cormorant Platform’. Sadly none of the birds in question were there today, but still the picture is a fine one…

My next port of call was Hardings Pits…

Crossing the Nar as I headed towards the next stage of the walk I got this picture…

Next, as I headed towards the parkland areas came one of King’s Lynn’s most distinctive landmarks, the South Gate…

From here I walked along London Road as far as the light controlled crossing, crossed and headed through Terrace Court and an alleyway to the Seven Sisters entrance to the parkland area…

As I headed towards Guanock Gate and the Vancouver Garden I got a sight of The Walks, home to King’s Lynn Town FC (only two more promotions needed to gain league status)…

The Guanock Gate came next, closely followed by a shot of the Red Mount Chapel looking along the upper Millfleet…

Next came the Vancouver Garden, which I entered via one bridge and left via the other (these are the only two means of getting in or out unless you fancy a dip in open water – definitely not recommended in an English January! This area is always worth a good few photographs, and so it proved once again…

A few minutes after this I arrived at Tennyson Road, and two more interesting things, the educational fence, a sample fo which I photographed and the King’s Lynn signal box…

From there until Lynn Sport, a few minutes later, there is nothing of great significance, though for the first part of that distance the path runs between two academies for those interested in such things. Lynn Sport has some interesting stuff outside it, notable the brickwork bus and the ornate mile post. It also boasts an elaborate weathercock…

Shortly after this comes the first glimpse of Bawsey Drain, which I was going to follow all the way back to town, but I started with a shot looking the other way…

The walk along Bawsey Drain did yield a few interesting (for me at least) shots, reproduced below, the large number of flying birds as approached the town end of it being particularly impressive…

Getting a good shot of St Nicholas Chapel is a challenge because you need to be far enough away to get it all in. Also, it is undergoing repairs/ renovations at the moment. I was pleased with this one…

From St Nic’s it was on to the Tuesday Market Place, where as well as getting a full shot of the Corn Market I also noticed a glass sculpture on the same lines as the one where the lower Purfleet meets the Great Ouse…

Finally, I delayed my return home just sufficiently to get some shots of the Guildhall (8 in total) and King’s Lynn Minster…

I enjoyed doing this walk, and enhancing my photo collection.

A classic FA Cup match and Some Other Stuff.

Last night’s FA Cup 3rd round match between AFC Wimbledon and Liverpool was thoroughly enjoyable. Although two goals from Steven Gerrard were enough to prevent what would have been an almighty upset, there were moments in the match when memories strayed back to 1988.

The BBC’s Assistant Political Editor, Norman Smith suffered yesterday for parroting the Tory line, a hecklers shout of “Get back to London” being one of the politer comments. The full story can be read at: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/01/06/pillock-bbc-reporters-duff-nhs-question-makes-milibands-day/

One of the pictures I tweeted yesterday on @aspitweets was of one of the new buildings at Hillington Square, and I received a response from the official Hillington Square twitter account, @HillingtonSq thanking me for doing so.

I have plenty of photos to share…

From yesterday in King's Lynn. — From yesterday in King’s Lynn.

No not the Hillington Square shot mentioned in the text - this was taken a day later. — No not the Hillington Square shot mentioned in the text – this was taken a day later.

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