Well with rain for 40 days and 40 days (or so it seems), we are having one of the strangest droughts I’ve ever seen.
I went to an interesting talk at the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital a few weeks back given by the surgeon that reconstructed my left leg back in 2010 – and I thought my injuries had been bad but some of those included in the talk were horrendous! The wonders of modern medicine were on display for all to see that night!
A busy week followed with meals out with friends at Bann Phraya in Norwich and then at Zaks Diner a few days later. Deep fried ice cream is definitely a new one on me but overall Thai On The River in Norwich still holds the edge for me. The very next day was the wettest, muddiest Norfolk Game Fair I have ever seen! Unfortunately a lot of the events were cancelled because of the weather but it was still a good day out though left us rather knackered ahead of a quiz evening that evening trying to raise funds for Helen’s school.
Various cinema trips popped up over the last few weeks, such as Battleship (absolute rubbish) and Dark Shadows (very entertaining) but also some interesting theatrical events. Last Wednesday it was Adam Kaye Sings Smutty Songs (and other parodies) at The Playhouse Theatre and then a couple of days later a fantastic event in the city centre on Friday night called Invasion (see above picture). Invasion is kind of hard to describe so the best option is probably to look at the pictures I took which are in an album on my Flickr album (see here).
We also took advantage of the brief improvement in the weather at the weekend to have a nice walk to the “village pond” and try out my new circular polarising filter on the camera and then on the Sunday take part in a charity dog show raising money for another local school.
And the best bit was that Lily got to go round a dog agility course, something she showed some aptitude for and looks like she may now be going to classes in the future for – which handily take place at the equestrian centre in our village.
Pictures from the Norfolk Country Fair are here.
Pictures from Invasion are here.
PIctures from our village walkabout are here.
Pictures from the charity dog show are here.
Well since the previous update covered only the 2 weeks immediately following the last blog entry there are still another 3 weeks to be accounted for so a Part 2 update is required! I’ve called this one rain dance because of the total absence of any rain in the last few weeks, aside from when we were away (of course)!
Thankfully a less busy week followed, partly deliberately, and then it was off to Kent for the weekend of Mother’s Day. The Pilot in Lydd On Sea has been a landmark in the area for years but I’d never been into before Christmas when I went there with my friend Danial but it seemed a good place to take refuge with both families together as we avoided the driving rain outside. The plan had been to get together and go for a walk but that wasn’t happening! The following Friday we checked out a floating Thai restaurant in Norwich and we delighted by the food which was excellent.
The following day (Saturday) we joined a group of friends on a 9 mile hike, starting in Halvergate, going to The Berney Arms by Breydon Water and then returning on a different route to Halvergate. A full 6 miles longer than I have walked previously since my accident I didn’t really know what to expect but actually ended up suffering almost no consequences at all, aside from a slightly bruised toe. Helen who had also done a separate 3 mile walk in the morning was getting a bit stiff by then though! Friends Chris and Barbara had us round the following day for Sunday lunch and between the huge portions and generous offerings of wine ensured that nothing useful was achieved for the rest of the day!
Time flies and all that. Another month passes without me really even noticing. Yet again working late nights on a project at work, plus a busy social life have meant very little time to update things like this site. A few days after the last update my pancake party (becoming traditional now) went down rather well with our fellow Merkin members (pub quiz team) and, if memory serves contributed to another quiz win the following day. And the day after that we were entertaining again when friends Chris and Barbara were round.
On the Tuesday we met a group of friends at Mambo Jambo’s, a kind of Mexican burger eatery in Norwich with some of the biggest portions I have ever seen and then on Thursday my friend John and I met up to try something different with our cameras from a vantage point up over the city at night after which we headed into the cathedral close and took a few of the building under the floodlights. All kinds of strange effects can be tried at night time which either won’t work or are completely impossible during the day (see the top image).
We ducked the pub quiz that week leaving poor old John and Kate to go it alone and went instead to The Doghouse in Norwich for drinks before the very next evening collecting my friend Phill from the bus station for another long weekend of socialising, not least of which was the Chinese State Circus on at the Hippodrome in Great Yarmouth the following evening. Excellent, even amazing at times. And you even seemed to be able to take pictures (without flash) but I had not anticipated this and failed to take a camera (though I did get a couple of snaps on my phone). I didn’t fail to take one a few days later though when I went out to see Booton Church, an extraordinary example of a Victorian gothic replica known as the Cathedral In The Field.
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.