April 7th 2014

 

Layby 197. I love this image.  This was a stop over on the 380 mile drive I had to do today to reach Thurso. Along the entire route of the infamous A9 are layby's and all are numbered beginning at 1 near Perth and presumably ending up at Wick at number 300 or something. Do you know what I've just had a thought. Given that the A9 is about to be duelled to Inverness, I can see the madness of it but I guess the layby's will disappear soon under the widening. Is there a book here? The layby's of the A9? I like seeing the old A9 when driving along some of the improvements as I can just about  remember this, a winding, up hill down dale single carriage way that once one left Pitlochry seemed to take hours to travel the 80 or so miles to Inverness. Now its a much improved single carriageway its just the sheer volume of traffic causing problems, especially north of Inverness where the old A9 is still used and sometimes feels like a country lane.

 

Anyway layby 197 is by Dornoch just north of the Black Isle and I stopped here to take a photo of the bridge I was about to pass over. From here I had about 100 miles left to drive and from her it gets wild and woolly.

 

 

Eventually Thurso was reached and my destination the Station Hotel with my room on the first floor, to left of the balcony. I needed to stretch my legs so walked to the beach and took this photo of my ultimate destination. I can not drive any further north on the mainland but the MV Hamnavoe will tomorrow at 08.45 take me 20 miles further north than I have ever been in Britain. Orkney.

 

April 6th 2014

 

By posting yet another photograph of the interior of a pub it makes me come across as a frequent visitor of said alcoholic houses. I can go for weeks not entering a pub but like a fleet of busses, you wait months and then 2 come along together. Today's eclectic image of Pete Zulu's pub in West Boldon, the Black Horse. The reason?Sunday lunch.

 

For those of you old enough to know better Pete Zulu was the original lead singer of the Toy Dolls, the anti-punk punk rock band who parodied the scene with punk style singing to well known songs. Their biggest hit was Nellie the Elephant. Pete Zulu left the band after 2 years and trained as a chef, first at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland and then about 10 or so years ago he went solo and bought the Black Horse and in doing so turned it into a wonderfully eccentric fusion of jazz, punk, art and junk. I love the fact the menu is actually a Ford Cortina door. Not to everyone's taste but the food is excellent.

 

Why the church? We parked here to walk to the pub. This is St Nicholas Church in West Boldon, one of the oldest churches in England having been built about 1220AD and it is where I was christened and where I used to go when I went to the Church School attached to it. Fond memories of those days, the Reverend Cosserat and Sunday Worship in the Aubrey Leake Hall, now demolished. A child of the 60's.

April 5th 2014

 

Taking photographs indoors with my Blackberry is always disappointing, however this is typical of my mum. After a morning rebuilding the Chesterfield chair I broke leaning on to draw the curtains, not my doing, the screw holding the castor on sheared off; then heading to a show home on what had been the Bank Top Garage, formerly Stan Quenet's (pronounced Quenny) garage to mooch around for a new home for my parents, we alighted in the Red Lion, West Boldon. It must be 30 years since I last darkened the threshold here and so it was nice to return and see how it had changed. In a word, completely. And for the better. A drink and a sandwich was all we wanted so here is my mum deciding in her own inimitable unable to make a decision way what to have. This involved 3 different menu's and a chat to the bar staff. The result chicken and stuffing. Father had beef and horseradish and I plumped for a BLT. Excellent sandwiches although they came with a smorgasbord of salad items and fat chips. Good job the afternoon was spent snoozing through the Grand National then.

April 4th 2014

 

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No its the arc-light streetlights South Tyneside council installed in front of my parents house recently. Thus when I stay there as I am tonight it is as if I am bathed in a golden glow. Makes getting to sleep interesting but I managed. I'm at my parents all too briefly to shamelessly use their home as a sleep over on my way up to Orkney. I've been mulling going to Orkney for years and so it was with a gusto and a dash that last night I booked the hotel, ferry and two overnights in Thurso as the ferry is from Scrabster a mile or so from there. Bookings completed I rang parents, 'fancy a visitor tomorrow' and here I am. From Somerset to Thurso is 720 miles and my parents are almost half way at 320. It's a long haul, but I have always loved long distance driving, something I find very relaxing to do. There is a special art to it, speed is something one should never attempt long distance, nor overtaking just to get one car ahead. To travel a long distance it is very much tortoise and hare outcome, something I learnt from John, the Bakers Dolphin driver who took me and 30 others to Italy. Drive steady, drive smoothly, go with the flow of the traffic and above all relax and let the scenery flow by. Good advice from a master long distance driver.

April 3rd 2014

 

I've been up since 5.45am today sorting through months worth of paperwork. What with one thing and another the last 3 months have whooshed by at a rate of knots I hope is not repeated. As such the homestead was groaning under the weight of paperwork, receipts and the minutiae of everyday life. Very boring. But grabbing the nettle and a pint of tea I set too and by 9.30am had it under control, or at least ostensibly under control, much like a lion-tamer and his overstuffed feline ward. It is but an illusion. That done, the rest of the detritus poured into the recycling filing system I sallied forth to the Walled Garden café in Wrington, the Ethicurean to be precise, for a slice of their delicious to die for pear, almond and cardamom cake, a coffee and a read in the sun for an hour. Exactly what one should do on a long holiday, slow living at its best in the Somerset countryside.

April 2nd 2014

 

Today I found myself back in Somerset after the excitement of the last few days. What was exciting is that as I arrived home I was greeted by what can only be described as a Vesuvii of postage on the hall mat. I'd only been away 4 days but the Birthday in the middle of this meant that in the midst of that pile were an additional 18 Birthday cards which if my mathematics is up to scratch leaves the running total at 27. Not bad for a middle aged bachelor. It was a lovely reminder of how to spread out the fun part of life as I opened my cards a day late and extended the 50th day by an additional 24 hours. At this rate I'll be 21 again before Christmas.

April 1st 2014 - My 50th Birthday

Even though it was foggy, I awoke today feeling exactly the same as I had done aged 49, funny that. Logic of course would tell me that it is but a day of 86400 seconds, 1440 minutes or 24 hours, not a change from any other day in my life, but logic and the human psyche are not great bedfellows. Today however I woke on a mission; and that mission was to get to Bedwyn station in time to catch the 08.41 to Paddington. More on that later, but first a plethora of newspapers.

 

 

On my 21st birthday I purchased the entire output of Fleet Street, obviously not the entire output but one of each of its finest newspapers. They make interesting reading looking back 29 years to 1985. Today I planned to do the same for my 50th, yet in the excitement of being in London it slipped my mind until back home in the evening opening my present from Julie (Daily Telegraph from 1st April 1964 and here in the front of the photograph), I remembered. So it was a with a dash and a sprint we hurled ourselves into the Wiltshire countryside to purchase every paper we could at 6.30pm. And we did it. Burbage ESSO Garage provided most, Tesco Marlborough the i-paper and Budgens Marlborough the Telegraph. Julie had already bought the Daily Mail so in 45 minutes the job was done. Phew. I'll not read these now but will store them with my 1985 papers and at some point in the future peruse at leisure. Not least because by the time I reach 75 newsprint will no longer be available, the internet has speeded up news journalism to such an extent that papers are no longer the messenger of breaking news.

 

To my birthday.....

 

Present opening would have to wait, and I prefer opening presents in the evening anyway as it leaves the nice surprises to the end of the day. Time for a quick cup of tea and packed sandwiches and then off on the train. A perfect timed journey saw me depart the most rural hinterland in southern England and arrive in the big smoke 1 hour 15 minutes later. I'd left in thick fog, arrived in glorious spring sunshine.

 

It is about 3 miles from Paddington to the British Museum, so as the weather was clement my old mate Shanks's Pony was in for a good workout. I love walking through London anyway its a great pedestrian City as there is so much to see. Down through Suffolk Gardens, past the Victoria Pub (one of the best preserved Victorian interiors), cross onto Bayswater Road and into Hyde Park. In the image above one of those new (Boris bans the bendy-bus ) Routemaster busses with a back exit. They look fantastic what a superb design, as was....

 

....walking though Hyde Park in the warm sunshine was a real treat, a little piece of remnant countryside in the Capital. I needed to return to Oxford Street so aimed for Marble Arch. As I drew closer I spied this 35 foot high horse head sculpture which I'm ashamed to say I knew nothing about as I took some photographs and ate my breakfast on a seat looking at it. Later on I discovered it's called 'Still Water' or sometimes referred to as a 'drinking horse' by a chap called Nic Fiddian-Green. I have to say it is very impressive, which again proves walking is good, if I'd taken the tube I'd have missed this. Before leaving Marble Arch as everyone is doing selfies these days I had a go myself - hum, maybe not then, keep behind the lens Andrew.

 

Eventually I arrived at the British Museum, which as I looked through the railings inspired me to take the image below (today has become one of linear inspired imagery). I'd come to see the Viking Exhibition which I'd read about yesterday in the paper, thus being of Scandinavian genes myself it seemed to be a perfect way to celebrate my 50 years as an Anglo-Norse. Tickets booked on-line I had a 11.50 slot for entry. In I went.

 

(Trying to be arty here and photograph a Viking helmet on the wall). I have to say the exhibition was superb, with one slight drawback for me which I'll not discuss on this blog in case anyone reading this is thinking of going, save to say the centrepiece largest longboat ever discovered  was, shall we say less than inspiring. However some of the artwork on jewellery and artefacts were breath-taking.  I also got to see the original Lewis Chessmen. My father was given an exact replica of this chess set by a client of his, House of Fraser, as a Christmas present. As a boy of 7 or 8 I became mesmerised by these intricately carved Norse chess pieces, which my parents still have. Seeing the originals today for the first time really was astonishing, that sense of someone 1000 years ago playing a game with an opponent. Well worth a visit and I learnt that Harald means 'Hard Lord' - that was also my grandfathers name.

 

 

After 2 and a half hours I'd run out of energy to see anything else so after a coffee and some iced water left the British Museum. As I did so the portico columns there fascinated me with their light and shadow linear imagery, rattling off a dozen photos including this one which I like because of the human scale I began my 3 mile walk back to Paddington Station. By now it was hot and humid and with the high air pollution over south and east of England, a lot being from a Sahara sandstorm, my London perambulation wasn't quite as pleasant a walk back as in the morning. No matter, another on-time train journey to Bedwyn, Julie picked me up at Bedwyn and by 6pm I was home with the lovely Julie who keeps me grounded and makes my life special, opening presents and having a meal in the garden. As one who has never been one for big parties and a lot of fuss, I couldn't wish for any better 50th Birthday.

 

NB: Best of all, at the museum I got OAP rates for the Audio Guide - I like being 50 as it saved me 50p, Apt, very apt!!