A Warm Winter’s Tale
The Christmas period for me was one of the longest and most uninterupted I’ve had in a long time and I managed to see spend some quality time with my family as well as catch up with a number of my friends in that area. It is always a good opportunity to exercise my camera too and after a year of successfully documenting medieval cathedrals I wanted to take full advantage of nearly 2 weeks in Kent because in terms of cathedrals, that is where it all began. Canterbury and Rochester are the original two diocese and the only two to have survived more or less without alteration since they began over 1400 years ago. Not only that but they share a unique relationship with each other and with history - only 25 miles apart, one the richest in the land the other the poorest but both always at the heart of English history.
The cathedrals themselves are not the original ones, of course and like most of the rest of England’s medieval cathedrals the buildings have their origin in the Norman conquest. I tried to shoot them both the previous Christmas but circumstances intervened and whilst I managed to get piecemeal shots from Rochester during the year I got almost nothing from Canterbury which was shut. This year I threw the book at them both and have added them to my growing portofolio of similar buildings on Flickr.
Lots of catching up, a joint family meal with my parents and Helen’s parents and a New Year’s dinner party at friends all made for an excellent break and, suitably refreshed, we returned ready to face the new term / year at the factory.
Pics from Canterbury.
Pics from Rochester.
Another month goes by but thankfully there has been a little more of interest in the past month! A couple of days after my last update it was the Thursford Christmas Spectacular. I first went to this show in 2010 so this time I had some idea of what to expect. Last year’s show was astonishing and this year’s show was certainly no disappointment either. And the very next day I headed over to Peterborough to do one of my now patented work ups on the cathedral. I’ve never even seen the outside of Peterborough before, much less been in it, but having knocked off the (medieval) cathedrals of the west earlier this year Peterborough now completes the set of the east. The very next day I was up at Horsey watching the seal pups on the beach.
My millionaire shortbread extends its success, a batch of it having been sold at Helen’s school fate, helping raise funds for the school. Christmas dinner at the photography club followed that then dinner later the same week with friends Matt & Susan but had to cancel the Ghost Walk the following week when the weather turned nasty.
After the arrival of Tornado it was off the cathedral for the Cathedrals Express carol service - I don’t think I’ve been to a carol service any time recently, at least 10 years, perhaps nearer 20, and much less in the setting of somewhere like Norwich Cathedral. And even better, I got to enjoy a glass of mulled wine and mince pie in the nave afterwards.
The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. I wonder how many of them are mine? I keep saying this site is going to change and that change keeps failing to happen! Oh well, it will happen eventually!
My only real use of the camera came from joining with Helen on her morning dog walks. It seems pretty much all the dog owners in the village know each other (and their dogs) well and some even deliberately walk at the same time so that the dogs can run and play together. As someone who liked dogs but has never been in a household with one it was very interesting getting to know the personalities of the different individuals and particularly interesting to see the characteristics of the breed play out. Anna the German Shepherd, a herding breed, instinctively running round and round the group to keep things together, Lily the labrador (Helen’s dog), a retrieving breed, disappearing off into the fields, nose to the ground and retrieving lost balls and items to bring back to us. Susie the Bermese Mountain Dog is the group’s matriarch and let’s the other dogs know she’s in charge and has a habit of playing for the camera, though the over all boss, Josh the rottweiler, is so laid back he mostly lets the rest of the group do their own thing but, being another herding breed, gets upset when the group eventually splits up to head to their separate homes.
Picking up where the last blog left off, Helen and I found ourselves in London the following weekend for Proms In The Park. It was the first time I have been to anything like this and I cannot sing its praises highly enough. The headline act was Westlife who, frankly, aren’t my kind of thing, but there were many other acts that were - though the real surprise was that it was Rolf Harris who stole the show. I doubt I’ll be listening to Rolf on my iPod any time soon but in Hyde Park with a crowd of 50,000 cheering it was all about the atmosphere and no-one could hold a candle to Rolf when it came to creating an atmosphere. I’ve never waved a Union Jack quite as furiously as that night, a little worse for wear, stumbling through the likes of Jerusalem and Land of Hope & Glory!
The following weekend was the 1940’s weekend at the North Norfolk Railway which promised to provide plenty of atmospheric photo opportunities and the week after that I couldn’t resist a ride on the local narrow gauge set up, the Bure Valley Railway, when they had their steam gala. That weekend I also found the time to throw the kitchen sink at Norwich Cathedral giving it a full photographic working over in the same way as I did at places like Gloucester and Worcester earlier in the year.
The last week of the month was taken up doing my Prince2 Project Management practioner course and moving into October it was a great night down at Shotley celebrating my friend David’s birthday. My friend John and I were sitting chatting to a nice couple of guys who were the band booked for the event - but I got something of a surprise when they were introduced and revealed to have been supporting Badly Drawn Boy on tour! I thought they were just a local outfit but they actually had an album in the charts (they are called The Candle Thieves). A late season BBQ at friends Nick and Kate’s the following day meant little productive work took place that weekend - or indeed the following weekend when Helen and I went to the Norfolk Living History Fayre at Mannington Hall. Many more photographs resulted from that.
A meal out with friends Matt and James the following the day introduced me to a Spanish restaurant in Norwich which I can wholely recommend (Toredo) and then the following weekend it was nice to catch up with family in friends in Kent a the start of a week of annual leave. But this is not a week of putting my feet up. Firstly, it is time to move my career in a new direction and make use of my new project management qualifications and secondly, after years of stalling, it’s time to really get stuck into the house and bring some of the other rooms into the 21st Century! Indeed, even as I type I am covered in bits of stripped pink wall paper!
The following weekend it was off down to Kent for the lavish wedding of friends Rich & Sarah, which included the unusual spectacle of me in a black suit with tails! On Sunday they headed off to Europe for their honeymoon though, Rich, ever the businessman had a business meeting aboard Simon Cowell’s yacht right in the middle of it! A long walk around the grounds of Blickling Hall kept us out of trouble the following Saturday and then an interesting day at Hoveton Hall followed on the Sunday with their Victorian Extravagansa.
The Cromer Carnival ensured two successive trips to Cromer on the Wed & Thur of the following week, Wed for the procession and Thur for the after event fireworks spectacular - and they were spectacular. At the end of the week we headed out on a random drive and stumbled across an archaeological site - Venta Icenorum, a Roman town and one of the very, very few which do not have a modern settlement built over them. It has to be said though, it looks like an episode of time team - a green field with the old trench in it, so there’s not much to see but there is a tent with artifacts and people with information about the site. And then on the Sunday it was the All About Dogs Show - never have I seen so many dogs in one place. It was a great day and Helen even entered Lily in the “Prettiest Bitch”category in the fun competitions section. However as the participants entered the arena I stopped counting at 55 - getting a podium finish was always going to be a tall order. I was also overhearing a conversation between entrants in the “Handsomest Dog” category (just run) saying how utterly bizarre the judging was and I started to understand where they were coming from when first prize went to a chihuahua and runner up to a puppy! It was the only puppy in the category and for good reason - it wasn’t meant to be there at all. As for the chihuahua - well I thought it was meant to be a competition for dogs not rodents! You can imagine what an arena filled with labradors, collies and German Shepherds thought about that!
A week later and summer was definitely coming to an end as the Summer Bank Holiday weekend was upon us. We had a great day out in Acle as part of the Sherlock Holmes murder mystery day - and both us successfully solved the crime / mystery. The Bank Holiday itself we spent wandering around in the country and wound up in Bungay and then Southwold under some evil looking (but rather photogenic) skies! I’ve never been to Southwold before and it was the logical place to have taken Bandicoot by sea as the first stop south along the coast. It never happened though. And now it never will.