Tag Archives: london

Saturday 2Ist January 2017 – PHEW!

I’m exhausted!

I’ve just seen the most exciting football match that I’ve seen for years!

So after yesterday, I had something of a disturbed night. But that’s really no surprise what with everything else that had been going around here just recently.

And it was disturbed for a variety of reasons, not the least being that I was off on my travels again. And for quite a while too.

I started off in Labrador but I don’t remember very much about what I was doing there.
But I do remember being back at my house in France and there was a huge queue of 4×4 quads passing up the track in front of my house making a great deal of noise. But a large tractor went out of control, demolished the stone wall at the back of my house and went bang into my wooden verandah. I went out to see what happened and to chat with the tractor driver who was sitting on a big old red tractor of the 1920s. The verandah was shaken but didn’t seem to be damaged, but the wall was in a state and it occurred to me that this damage made a convenient exit for me to go out there and load up the Escort van which I was still using. So while I wanted him to repair the wall, I didn’t want him to do it quite then.
From there I was back in the UK on the road between Whitchurch and Oswestry. I’d driven past some kind of tall cylindrical brick building like a water tower, followed by a huge brick blockhouse kind of place in a rhomboid shape flanked by two outer towers – used as a big ammunition store. It was set in a very dirty and untidy pig farm, which would prevent visits, that’s for sure. Just after this was a kind of bluff about 30 feet high with a house on the peak, and here I met Nerina. We had quite a lengthy discussion, which revolved around shopping. I asked her if she went to the market at Whitchurch or the market at Oswestry. She replied that the Whitchurch market had closed down and she went occasionally to Stoke on Trent on a Friday evening for her shopping. We ended up going for a walk around Oswestry to the shops and I was telling her about France – how LIDL had opened a branch in St Eloy and how it didn’t matter because at St Gervais (which was actually Commentry, but never mind) they had opened not just a LIDL but an ALDI so we still weren’t shopping in St Eloy, although not that that would matter too much to her because she had never been there anyway – I was confusing her last night with Laurence.

I struggled into breakfast where I had company for about 30 seconds – another lodger stuck his head around the door just long enough to gulp down a glass of orange juice – and then I came back down here to chill.

As the day brightened up, I decided to go for a walk to the shops. But this involved going down to Caliburn to pick up the shopping bags that I had left there by mistake the other day.

I could have gone on down to the Carrefour had I thought on, but instead I walked back towards the town in the freezing cold weather and headed towards the market and the Delhaize supermarket

Instead of going straight on down the Kapucijnenvoer and up the Brusselsestraat, I took the short cut through the maze of narrow streets, cutting off the corner.

There is a great deal of “Old Leuven” that either escaped the ravages of the German Army in 1914 and 1940, Allied bombing in 1944 and the extremes of modern architecture that did more damage to British cities than the Luftwaffe ever did.

As well as that, when the city was rebuilt after all of the damage, it was rebuilt in many cases as it used to be, not as modern architects thought that it ought to be.

Loads of little alleys, loads of little archways that really bring out the medieval flavour of the city. You can imagine just how this city must have been 120 years ago – how wonderful it must have looked.

It’s certainly a much more interesting way to come into the city centre than straight up the Brusselsestraat.

That’s the Brusselsestraat there – down the end of the Predikherenstraat there. And unfortunately, that’s not managed to escape the ravages of modern architects.

Luckily, when the architects and rebuilders turned to the Predikherenkerk, we had something that resembled very much what it was supposed to have been.

This is said to be the oldest Gothic church in the city and dates from 1234. It was originally the church of the Dominican order and the resting place of some of the Dukes of Brabant.

It was badly damaged during World War II, and restoration began in 1961. it wasn’t finally completed until 2008

My trek then took me down along the Oudlievevrouwstraat and over the bridge across the River Dyle. Unfortunately this area hasn’t escaped the ravages of the second half of the 20th Century and a huge pile of new apartments has sprung up overlooking the river.

I must admit that despite the rather bland appearance of the buildings, I wouldn’t mind a little apartment in a block just there, as long as there was a view of the river to comfort me.

Back here to warm up again, I had a coffee and a sit in front of the radiator for a while. And a brief search on the internet for nothing particular produced some astonishing results.

During the “unavailability” of my grandparents, my mother and her sister were boarded, when they were small, with a family in Palmers Green, London and later in Birchington, Kent during the 1930s. We’d kept in contact with them until they had died in the 1950s and 60s and even been to visit them as small children, although I don’t remember very much. My brother was actually named after one of the “cousins”.

It had come up in a discussion that I’d had the other day, and so in a fit of idleness I typed in the family name of one of these people. Much to my surprise, I found several pages on the internet that related to this family. Not only did this bring back many happy memories, I ended up having an on-line conversation with someone from those days.

The world is a surprisingly small place these days, isn’t it?

Another thing that I did, which I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, is to go through all of the till receipts in my wallet. Some of them have been there since I was in Canada.

Amongst the things that I found were a couple of receipts for medication, and a €20 note. That cheered me up, and no mistake.

After my butties and a little chat with Liz on line, I walked up into town and to the railway station. I’m not going to sit around here and be miserable when I can be miserable somewhere else, and it’s usually football at weekend isn’t it?

And I remembered why I had packed an oversize pair of the sports trousers that I usually wear. They had been in my Canada stuff and I’d brought them back here for some reason or other.

Before setting out, I slipped them over the normal-sized pair of trousers that I usually wear. They fitted perfectly and I was comparatively warm, considering that it was minus 3°C

Loads of places that I would have wanted to visit, like Eupen playing in the First Division, or even Hasselt in the Third Division, but Belgian football has staggered kick-off times, and the bizarre thing about that is that all of the matches that I would have liked to have seen, even OH Leuven’s match at Royal Antwerp, finished too late for me to catch a train back home again.

It would have to be Lier and Lierse SK with their cheerleaders.

What a shame!

At the railway station at Lier were three locomotives parked up in a siding, so I went over to have a look at them.

The two on the right, 6291 and 6317, are two of a class of 136 lightweight diesel-electrics built to a style of my former employers, General Electric. They date from the early 1960s.

The one on the left, 7798, is one of a class of 170 heavy shunter-freight locomotives built in the early years of the 21st Century by the German company Vossloh.

I was there in plenty of time and so I went for a walk around the site of the old ramparts of the city.

They have long-been demolished and little remains now. Nothing whatever at the site of the Antwerpsepoort – the Antwerp Gate. But it was here on 5th October 1914 that the British Army’s rearguard, guarding the retreat to Antwerp, erected a barricade and held up the attacking Germans long enough. for the rest of the Army to escape

I was expecting much more of a crowd seeing that the visitors today were Cercle Brugge. But the popular side was packed out anyway, and they made a lot of noise that contributed to the tremendous atmosphere.

I was in my usual place to the left of the goal with all of the other old fogeys, where there was a good view of the cheerleaders. I mean, there have to be some compensations about coming all of the way to Lier in the freezing cold.

As the cheerleaders withdrew from the field they stopped for a moment at the foot of one of the stands so I was able to take a quick snap of them.

It’s all blurred and out-of focus but the camera on my phone isn’t really up to all that much in these kinds of half-light conditions when you are snapping away in haste. And of course, you can’t take DSLRs into public venues in Belgium so this photo will have to do.

Liz asked me how the cheerleaders performed – well, I couldn’t tell you that from first-hand experience but you can see some of their dancing in this video clip just here that should give you some idea.

Not the best cheerleaders that I have ever seen but I just appreciate the effort that Lierse SK has taken to entertain the fans. If for some reason I can’t get out to see OH Leuven I’ll gladly come here and spend my money and I’m sure that I’m not alone.

I can still chase after the women, even if I can’t remember why!

As for the football itself, the two teams were evenly matched. As the first half wore on, Lierse gradually grew in confidence and took control, but Cercle Brugge looked dangerous on the break, especially down the right wing. However, as I have said on many occasions at this level of football, the teams are far too slow to play the ball forward, dwelling on it for far too long and finding the brief opportunites closed down.

Half-time was 0-0 but Lierse had hit the post and the bar, and had a couple cleared off the line too. Cercle Brugge had missed a sitter, open goal from 5 yards out, right in front of where I was sitting. A no-score draw it was, but boring it was not.

After half-time, the teams came out with much more of a purpose and the battle raged from end to end. Everyone was sitting on the edge of their seats as the pendulum swung from one side to the other. The slippery, ice surface was a wild-card in the match too, with players losing their footing at vital moments.

And sure enough, we had a goal. And to the surprise of almost everyone except those who follow this rubbish, it was Cercle Brugge who took the lead. For once they played the ball in early from the wing and caught the Lierse SK defence flat-footed.

And if you think that the game had been exciting up to this point, the two teams upped a gear and we were pinned to our seat as the tension mounted. We probably had the best 30 minutes football that I had ever seen from this point on.

Lierse SK equalised with 15 minutes to go, and Cercle Brugge can consider themselves to be quite unlucky to concede this goal. A Lierse SK player went down on the edge of the penalty area, no more than about 15 metres from where I was sitting, and I had a clear view of it. To me, it looked clearly as if the player had slipped on the frosty surface but not only did the referee blow for a foul, he booked the Cercle Brugge defender. I had a good look, and the linesman certainly didn’t flag for a foul and he was closer to the action than I was too.

From the free kick, the ball went straight to the head of a Lierse SK attacker, totally unmarked at the far post, and he didn’t miss from there.

The final 15 minutes continued at this roaring pace and when the final whistle went, the teams received a standing ovation from some of the crowd. And quite right too because it really was that good a match. And it was a shame about the equaliser – it meant that I didn’t get to console any of the cheerleaders.

I came home in the sub-zero temperature and caught my train at Lier. It’s the Liege train that I catch and I have to change at Aarschot. The train is at 16 minutes past the hour and there are only a couple of weekends when the 20:16 train doesn’t run, aren’t there?

By the time that I returned, I was cold and tired. But I’d had a really good day out and I was feeling a little better than I was yesterday.

I’ll pay for this day out of course, but ask me if I care.

And you wouldn’t care either after having to sit here and read over 2360 words, you poor people.

Sunday 23rd February 2014 – PHEW!

No wonder I’m so flaming tired all the time, if last night is anything to go by.

There I was in South-West London, renting a room in a house and to reach the area of London where the house was, there was a zig-zag climb up to a plateau rather like the way in to Marcillat from the Montlucon road only, of course, all built-up and urbanised.

I was talking to a girl who was something to do with a business, down at the business premises at the foot of the climb, talking about the house in which I was living, and she was expressing her astonishment that here in the inner suburbs of London there was a house that had three wind turbines powering all of the electricity (I do actually have three wind turbines here).

The conversation was interrupted as I needed to go to Brussels in Belgium. There, I met Anne-Marie in a café half-way up the Boulevard Léopold II near to the Simonis transport hub. She was wanting to see more of the parts of Brussels that she didn’t know, and the area of Molenbeek and Koekelberg (served by the Simonis hub) is an area that I know quite well.

But Anne-Marie. She joined the EU at about the same time that I did and was part of this little group of us that went around together. I had quite a soft spot for her and we went on a couple of skiing trips together. She would have been a good partner for me, I always reckoned, as she had a knack of bringing my feet back firmly to the floor whenever I went off on one of my regular flights of fancy. But as is usual, though, I would have been far too much hard work for someone “normal” and so nothing ever happened. Another “one that got away”, the lucky girl.

But let’s return to the issue at hand. Despite all of the contemporary stuff that was going on in the Boulevard Leopold II, it was in fact early 1914 and the eve of World War I. Some German notable, von Something zu Somewhat, was there trying to negotiate something with some Belgian politicians and my task, if I chose to accept it, was to find out who he was and what he was doing and who he was negotiating with and why. On the eve of World War I, everyone in Europe was nervous.

So once I had ascertained his name, I contacted MI6 to see if he was “known” to the British authorities. I didn’t receive a reply but it turned out that the principal reason why he was there was that he (only a young guy) had made a young girl pregnant because he needed a child in order to inherit something. But this girl was not ready to have herself “announced” to all the world. Therefore there was some machination about producing the baby, with a spurious mother, and producing the real mother at a later date.

I suggested that he should have produced a spurious baby as well and saved all of this pantomime, but this didn’t go down too well at all.

After all of that running around Northern Europe for 100 years when I should have been sleeping, I didn’t feel too bad about staying in bed until 10:10 this morning. And after breakfast I just mooched around for a while.

There should have been some footy this afternoon – I had a choice of the 1st XI at Lempdes – about a 90-minute drive away – or the 2nd XI at home against the Goatslayers, both kick-offs at 13:00. Of course, I chose the Goatslayers at home, and so of course the match was postponed, as I found out when I arrived at the ground.

But with the glorious summer weather today (180.1 amp-hours of surplus solar energy, 66°C in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load), firstly I aired all of the bedding that I use in Caliburn – it’s been in its suitcase in the barn since early November, and secondly, I had a look at Caliburn’s auxilliary electrical circuits.

The solar panel on Caliburn’s roof rack hasn’t been charging up the second battery for a while and neither has the split-charging relay that works off the main battery. It turns out that the cheap charge controller that I bought years ago in the UK has burnt itself out. Luckily, in one of these solar briefcase kits that I bought years ago and which broke when it fell off the LDV’s roof, there was a charge controller that was now sitting around doing nothing. Consequently, that’s now wired in the circuit and seems to be working.

As for the split charger, after much furkling arouns and bad temper and cursing, I found that there was a poor earth connection. Once that was all cleaned up and greased and sanded, that now works as it should.

But with having almost dismantled the auxilliary electric circuit, I decided to tidy it all up. It really was such a mess. Now it’s all shipshape and Bristol-fashion, bolted to the bulkhead as it should be, and out of the way of where I’m likely to trip over it. But I’m still not all that happy – I can do much better than this and I will do too.

But me? Working on a Sunday? Things are getting to me, aren’t they?

And this evening, no pizza. Not that I can’t make one, but that the temperature up here is 18.4°C, and that’s with no heating on either. If I light the fire I’d be melted out long before the pizza would be cooked.

This winter is thoroughly crazy.

-6

Saturday 17th December 2011 – NEXT TIME …

… that I do this crossing, I shall book a couchette.

I enjoyed the trip – easily one of the best crossings that I have ever had and I’ll be doing it again. But it’s so uncomfortable to curl up in a corner – there just aren’t any corners in which to curl up.

And when I discovered that a couchette would set me back a mere £20:00 if booked in advance (they were all sold out on this trip – I did check), well, it’s a foregone conclusion.

This journey saves me a couple of hours and about 10 litres of fuel over driving to Calais, and it puts me in a much better position for going up to the Midlands and the north, missing out all of London and the M25.

A couchette would more-than pay for itself, I reckon.

We were decanted into Le Havre at dawn and at a leisurely pace, took me less than 8 hours to reach home. The roads are excellent, as are most French roads, but these were comparatively quiet. I even managed to fit a little shopping in on the way home.

I beat the snow home – but only just. A huge pile of it had followed me all the way from the coast. And it was taters in here. Absolutely freezing in my attic, although the wood stove soon sorted that out.

And while I had been away the place had been ravaged by 75 kph winds. That generated a few amps of electricity, I can tell you.

So I’m not doing much now. A bit of food – curled up by the fire, and here I’m staying to catch up with my beauty sleep.

-3

Friday 16th September 2011 – IT POURED DOWN …

… all through the night and we had high winds too, but I slept right through it – didn’t feel a thing.

It’s overcast and cloudy but they reckon that it might clear so with a light heart and a spring in my step, I set off for Fredericton.

First stop was the big Atlantic superstore on the edge of the city, and this caught my eye. Vehicle number plates go up to 999 here in New Brunswick, which is just as well.

They also go up to 999 in the UK so it’s also just as well that this combination of letters would never be issued over there, because 999 wouldn’t be anything like enough.

Another thing that they would never dare sell in the UK would be a kiddie’s push-chair with a coffee cup holder like this one here.

It wouldn’t be a coffee cup that you would find in the cup holder, and it wouldn’t be an ice-cream holder that you would find in there either. In fact, it’s quite surprising the things that you find on sale here in North America that would never be sold in the UK – or maybe it isn’t.

That building over there has “Justice” written on it, so it’s probably quite appropriate that it’s hidden behind a pile of trees.

It also has two dates on it. The first one is 1878 and the second one is 1930, and so maybe the first one is the date that Justice began in Fredericton and the second date is the date that Justice ceased. I dunno.

But I will really have to stop being so cynical.

These are the old British Army barracks here in Queen Street. The British Army were here from 1784 to 1869, and was chefly known as the home of the 104th New Brunswick Regiment.

They were famous for a forced march of 700 miles in just 52 days to Kingston, Ontario through the snows of winter in 1813 during the war with the USA

This building that we have here is the old Fredericton City Hall. Built in 1876, it’s the oldest Municipal building in the Maritimes that is still in administrative use, and has been a Canadian National Historic Site since 23rd November 1984.

It’s quite rare in that it was built with a market hall underneath and which survived until as recently as 1951. Nowadays, the Tourist information department is housed there

By now the weather had brightened up a little and the festival was under way.

On stage at the Officers Square was a local band, the George Street Blues Project. Too many musicians on stage for me, unfortunately. They can lose the harmonica player for a start as I’m not a very big fan of those. Every blues band believes that a harmonica is essential, yet very few harmonica players can play one properly.

The guy at the front had an enormous amount of stage present and knew how to move a crowd, and they rocked along with numbers such as Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” and the Smokey Robinson hit “Get Ready”.

For an encore, they played the Kix Brooks number “Sacred Ground”, and that was that. I quite enjoyed that set.

Next up was an act called Christine Crowell, but the saxophones, trumpets and sheet music looked onimous and so I made my excuses and left. I had business elsewhere.

First step was to find the Canadian Government department dealing with commercial visas for people setting up businesses in Canada. After much searching and enlistment of the Fredericton City Hall, we eventually discovered that I need to speak to the Population Growth Secretariat (but why them I have no idea).

Kings Tower is where I’m supposed to be, and it has a shopping centre in it. Yes, a shopping centre, not a shopping mall. There’s hope for these Canadians yet.

Eventually I cut through swathes of red tape and blagged myself an interview with them. Her first question was, surprisingly enough, “how would your project help the growth of New Brunswick’s population?”
Never one to hold back when the occasion presents it self (as I have done so often in the past to my cost) I replied “if I told you that you would probably have me arrested”.
She tried again “we are trying to encourage the growth of young families here”
“Well”, I replied, “just because I look over the hill doesn’t mean that I am, and I still have considerable expectations along that line. If a suitable young woman were to present herself, I shall certainly try my best to increase the population of New Brunswick”.

And so she had another go. “You need to show some kind of proof of ability to invest $75,000 in your project”
“Well, I can put on the table proof of about $300,000 in cash” I replied. “Would that do?” Yes, I’ve just sold my apartment in Brussels, haven’t I, and I still have the cheque, which I haven’t deposited yet.

I picked up her pencil and notepad from the floor and handed it back to her, and I have to come back for my visa interview next Friday.

I popped round to the Festival Offices and had a chat with one of the girls there. And during this chat, the subject of “Radio Anglais
” came up. She asked about it, and so I told her, and then she asked me why I hadn’t applied for a Media Pass. Apparently I’m entitled to one, being the representative of a Media outlet.

So armed with my Media Pass, I went back to the festival.

I was however sidetracked, as you might expect, by an old and interesting vehicle.

This is a Chevrolet Corvette, from 1978 if the number plate is anything to go by, but it is certainly one of the later “3rd-Generation” Corvettes, judging by the rear lights. But it’s a little bit scruffy with a few scratches on the paintwork.

In the Barracks Square tent was a guitarist called Mike Biggar. He comes from Rothesay which apparently is a suburb of Saint John.

He played a number that went something like “You Come To Me Like Sunset On The Water” or some such, that I don’t recall having heard before but it really was superb. I wish that I knew what it was.

On stage at the Officers Square was a band from London – that’s the UK, not Ontario – called 24 Pesos. They had won some kind of competition, the prize of which was to come over here and play at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival.

It was a sort of modern blues, not really my scene, but there was no disputing the quality of the band. Their music really was good.

I went back to the Barracks Square after that, and discovered a band called Lonesome Line on stage. They come from Edmundston up in Madawaska and so we had an interesting little chat in French.

I wasn’t convinced by the wisdom of having an acoustic double-bass in an act like this. It doesn’t work when you are backing a lead guitar solo as you have so far to travel and so you can’t react quickly enough. And you will have noticed that it’s the drummer doing the backing vocals.

A pause in the proceedings enabled me to have a good look around the Barracks Square. We’ve seen the Barracks earlier, and this is the rear of the premises. It’s a grassy lawn in the quadrangle that will produce an interesting situation for the spectators if we have heavy rain.

The ground floor of the barracks here is transformed into little boutiques occupied by craft artists and the like but there’s not very much of interest to me.

Apparently there had been some kind of competition between the bands that were playing in the Barracks Square, and the winners were Lonesome Line, those who we saw just now.

And I was outraged by that. Lonesome Line were indeed quite good but there was no doubt in my mind that Mike Biggar was 10 times better and should have won this competition by a country mile. Still, I’ve often found myself in a minority of one at this Festival, so no reason to suppose that today will be any different.

There were quite a few buskers here and there around the town, including this couple playing down underneath the footbridge at the back of the library.

As the police car turned down there and pulled up close to them, I prepared the camera ready to record an “interaction” between the farces of Law and Order and the musicians. After all, I’m from the UK

And sure enough, the window came down, the hand went out of the car and then, much to my surprise, the fingers came out and started tapping on the door in time to the music.

Like I say, I’m from the UK. I was half expecting to see an arrest on “public order” issues, a knee in the groin and a truncheon across the back of the neck.

And that reminds me – that’s the third policeman that I’ve seen since the festival started. Just imagine that in the UK. Three policemen in a couple of days at a do like this. There would be thousands.

That is, if the event were to take place at all. The British Health and Safety Inspectorate would have a field day with what I have seen here this last couple of days and the event would be closed down in minutes.

I hope that the Health and Safety Inspecorate is never imported into Canada

I encountered a couple more buskers around the corner. On the steps of the Irving Building in Queen Street. These are called something like “Fraser and the Offspring” or some such name – it was very hard to hear.

I’ve seen many an impromptu band like this and indeed I’ve played bass and sang in quite a few, and these weren’t all that bad at all. I quite enjoyed listening to them and so did the little crowd that had gathered around them.

From here I went off to watch Taj Mahal in concert. No photography allowed at the Playhouse Theatre, but not to worry – I’ll catch up with them again in a public venue.

Monday 13th June 2011 – CALIBURN …

… went for a swim today.

We were out and about this afternoon in Northamptonshire meandering pretty aimlessly here and there in the general direction of Cambridge and we saw a sign for “Ford”.

With a sign like that of course we had to go for a look and Caliburn really fancied a swim. And he quite enjoyed it too

Last night I found a good spec on the A6 near Ambergate in Derbyshire. This was where I bedded down and I had the Sleep of the Dead.

Not for long though. The arrival of the Roach Coach at 07:30 and the noise that it made as it installed tself soon woke me up.

Once I’d summoned up the courage to heave myself out of my stinking pit and grab a coffee from the aforementioned, I moved on to Ilkeston.

Here at Vehicle Wiring Products I bought a pile of 6mm “red” and “black” cable and a pile of other bits and pieces for back home. 6mm because it has to handle high current at 12 volt so I need to avoid voltage drop as much as I can.

And red and black cable?

I’m heavily into colour coding, especially in electrical wiring. It saves all kinds of unpleasantness. I’m trying to keep to blue and brown for 230-volt so I buy as much of that as I can. But for 12 volt, it’s red and black. No mistake with the colours.

The polarity of red and black speaks for itself, but with brown and blue, the bRown goes to the right to where the fuse is in a British plug, so it’s positive. The bLue goes to the left where there’s no fuse, so it’s negative.

And that’s why I use British plugs and sockets, not European ones. British plugs are fused and so that avoids all kinds of embarrassment if I’ve made a mistake with the wiring.

After that, I moved myself on to the M1 where I stopped at Leicester Forest East for a shower, a shave and to wash my clothes. High time that I did all of the aforementioned seeing as I’d been living in a van for a fortnight. Even I was starting to notice.

And I dunno what was going on at Donington Park last weekend but the services were crawling with Goths and the like. Had there been a rock concert down the road?

Next stop was Corby and Radio Spares where I bought a few more bits and pieces. It was a good job that I had forgotten to buy the 7-core trailer wire at Vehicle Wiring Products because it was on special offer at Radio Spares.

25 metres for £25 which is a bargain, and it was a desperate shame that there was only one roll left.

On my way to Northampton I took a detour to visit the town of Geddington (which was where Caliburn went for his swim)

Several claims to fame, has Geddington, including the most magnificent Eleanor’s Cross.

The Eleanor concerned was Eleanor of Castille, wife of King Edward I “LOngshanks”. She died in Lincoln on 28 November 1290, and her body was embalmed and brought to London for burial in Westminster Abbey.

The funeral cortège was an elaborate affair and took 12 days to reach Westminster Abbey.

At each place where the coffin rested, an elaborate cross was subsequently erected.

The Eleanor Cross at Geddington is considered by many to be the best of the three that remain, but even so, it is believed that there was an upper part which is now missing.

But I haven’t finished yet. There’s the church to see.

And the St Mary Magdalene Church is extremely special because it has every grounds to consider itself as one of the oldest churches in the UK (although there are a couple known to be older).

I’m not talking early crusader, or Norman Conquest either, but quite possibly 250 years older than that.

Churches in the immediate post-Roman days were generally built of wood – that was because they art of building in stone had left with the Romans.

And that’s why there aren’t any still in existence today. I certainly can’t think of one, except maybe the church in Greensted, Essex, where bits of a 7th-Century wooden church were discovered in a later wooden church..

It was only gradually that the technique of stone-building was reintroduced to the UK and dates from the late Saxon period.

And sure enough, if you look at the end wall here, you’ll see the primitive stonework over the arch, and the building lines where more-modern stonework starts when the church was enlarged.

Taylor and Taylor, in their Anglo-Saxon Architecture date the primitive stonework to the period 800-950.

While others might disagree with the dating, one thing upon which all of the experts agree is that it is certainly Saxon stonework, and that’s what it looks like to me too.

At Northampton I had to go shopping for Terry, so Ipicked up Terry’s orders from Screwfix, Toolstation and a couple of other places and then took the opportunity of doing some food shopping at the Morrison’s there.

By now it was early evening and so I headed off to Cambridge where I tracked down the University library.

That’s my port of call for tomorrow

And I almost forgot to tell you about the bridge too, didn’t I?

Geddington is situated on the River Ise (the river that rises in the field where the Battle of Naseby was fought in 1645) and is a very good fording place (as you have already seen, thanks to Caliburn).

This is where the cortège of Eleanor of Castille presumably crossed.

But with the improved stone-building techniques of post-Conquest England, stone bridges were constructed and fords fell out of fashion.

The one here was built some time round about 1250 and is what’s known as a “pack-horse bridge” – with refuges for pedestrians as you can see.

It was rebuilt in 1784 – at least, that’s a date that’s carved onto some of the more-modern stonework – and was listed as a Grade II listed building on 25 February 1957.

It’s in excellent condition and it’s quite safe for Caliburn to drive over. But he thought that it would be much more fun to swim the river

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Monday 4th October 2010 – ENTER THE DRAG … UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Monday today. everyone is back at work or back at University, and so it’s time for me to be moving on. I rescued Strawberry and prepared to enter the drag … errr … the Untied States.

And another 3-hour grilling too – it really annoyed me. It reminded me exactly of when I used to go to the Soviet Union – exactly the same grilling and exactly the same reason – “the interests of National Security”.

The USA spent 50 years trying to destroy Communism and then went to install exactly the same system of controlr there. I’m waiting for some high-powered American politician to admit that maybe the Soviets had a point. But I’m going to have to wait a long time. When was the last time that you met a frank and honest politician?

Firststop for any transport fan has to be the Michigan Central Railway Station in Detroit.

Built in 1913-14 a long way away from the city centre as a deliberate attempt to pull the development of the city down to that end, at its peak it handled over 200,000 people per day, by far the greater majority of whom came by the tram network.

But the Depression dealt the expansion of the city and also the tram network a fatal blow and passenger use melted away. On 6th January 1988 the last Amtrak train pulled out of the station and that was that.

When I arrived here, there was a copper standing outside talking to some people and so I asked him if it was ok to photograph it. After all, you never know. This is the paranoid nation called the United States of America.

I asked him what they were planning to do with the station, and he replied
nothing
So now we know.

But the Depression hasn’t yet finished with Detroit.

Frankly, with all of the industry collapsing or moving away, the city is dying. And it looks like it too. Everywhere that you go, buildings that aren’t demolished lie abandoned and looted and the place looks something like Fallujah after an American offensive (and nowhere have the Americans been more offensive than in Fallujah).

This is the view across Roosevelt Park from the station. And it was this photograph, as well as several others, exhibited elsewhere, that let to the epithet “ruins photography” being hurled at my work. Still, I’m not here to please everyone – I’m only intending to please myself.

But some of the citizens in Detroit have managed to maintain their sense of humour despite everything that the world has thrown at them.

Here’s a walking advert for an auto insurance company, and he was pleased to make the acquaintance of a fellow-traveller. The scene certainly brought a smile to the faces of many people going past and makes a change from ruins photography, doesn’t it?

I wasn’t long in Michigan. Just a little further down the road is the Ohio State Line and I stop to take a souvenir photoin order to celebrate our crossing.

This is now much more like rural USA, where I am hoping to be. I find urban areas so depressing, even affluent ones. But I’m not too sure about the 45mph speed limit. I hope that that is only a local arrangement.

All around the southern shore of Lake Erie I’ve seen loads of signs “say no to wind turbines” – all identical and all supplied by an organisation financed by the coal owners of the USA.

But I haven’t seen a single sign against the nuclear reactor just here at Oak Harbor.

And that’s so surprising too seeing as in 2002 a large corrosion hole was discovered in the reactor head. The plant was closed down for two years “for maintenance” and the owners were fined a total of $33 million.

I think that that would worry me much more than a couple of windfarms. I just don’t understand the mentality of Americans who are so “suckered in” by corporate business-speak.

This is the County Court House in Port Clinton, a beautiful little lakeside town on the shore of Lake Erie (or it would be beautiful if there weren’t a suspect nuclear reactor just down the road)

What impressed me about the Court House is that it’s been extended (the USA being what it is, it’s hardly surprising) and although you can see the join, they’ve built it in stone, and matching stone at that.

They’ve clearly done their best, which is more than you can say for the UK. had this been on the other side of the Atlantic, a classic building such as this would have been totally disfigured by a glass-and-concrete monstrosity.

But while I was taking this photo a lorry clattered over the railway line behind me. I couldn’t believe it at first – thought that I was seeing things. I’ll have to look into that.

This is Marblehead lighthouse, with a beautiful view of the amusement park at Cedar Point which I have managed to avoid.

It also has a beautiful view of the city of Sandusky, which I have also managed to avoid, and they say that from the top of the lighthouse on a good day, you can see the tall buildings of the city of Cleveland 75 miles away, although why they think that that might be a selling point for tourists I really have no idea.

My road in the gathering gloom brings me into the town of Marblehead and its famous quarry, and overhead conveyor that takes the crushed limestone all the way down to the harbour, where it’s loaded into lakers and shipped off to wherever.

There’s only one motel around here and it’s quite pricey, but it’s too late to go to look for anywhere else that might be more suitable to my budget.

Mind you, it’s well-appointed and comfortable, and good value for money if I could afford it, and the view out of my front door is probably worth a couple of extra quid anyway.

In order to bring my buget a little under control, I had bean burritos for tea. It’s a long time since I had them – New Bern, North Carolina, in 2005 as it happens. And they were just as nice and tasty as I remember them too and filling.

I ordered two and with some chips and a salad from Arby’s and a huge mug of raspberry iced tea it was delicious. And it filled me up.

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Friday 1st October 2010 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY

The aim was to go to see Lake St Clair, the “forgotten lake” of the Great Lakes network. But I didn’t get far

I mentioned yesterday that the whole of this area seems to be littered with interesting cars from a bygone era, most of them awaiting some care and attention. This car, dating from the early 1930s I reckon (not that I would know) that I found in Deerbrook was in surprisingly good condition for an unrestored model.

I saw dozens like this – spoilt for choice.

On the shores of the Lake, making maximum use of the telephoto lens, I can give you all a good view of the city of Detroit, probably 15 miles away across the water.

And you can tell the kind of weather that we were having, just by looking at the waves. There was quite a vicious wind blowing around here. No wonder that wind turbines are so popular in Ontario, although I bet that there won’t be so many in the USA. No businessman there can control the supply of wind.

I’ve found the River Thames – but not the one in London (UK, not Ontario) but the one that flows into Lake St Clair. and much to my excitement (I’m funny that way) it has a lighthouse too.

The Thames River lighthouse here in the town of Lakeshore dates from about 1838 (that’s the date that the first keeper was appointed) with a grant of £1000 from the Government of Upper Canada.

Its claim to fame was that the family that supplied the keepers of the lighthouse from its inception until as recently as 1950 claimed direct descent from Jacques Cartier.

The whole area is now classed as a Conservation Area, and you can see why from this photo because it really was a pleasant place to be, especially in the sun.

And while I was walking around, admiring the view of the lighthouse and the lake, I fell in with a fisherman. He told me that this is one of the best places in the world to catch muskies, which apparently are fish that bear a close resemblance to pike.

He (the fisherman, not the fish) comes from Hamilton – that’s Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland, not Hamilton Ontario, although you never would have guessed judging by his accent.

My journey took me to the small town of Wallaceburg. I can’t go any further than this unfortunately as the Great Satan is just up the road and I shall be visiting here in a couple of days time.

Wallaceburg was formerly a major industrial centre, renowned for its glass, and was also the birthplace of what became more famous as the Lee-Enfield rifle.

The story goes that the industry here in the town and the agriculture of the neighbouring rural area were so important that lakers struggled all the way up the Sydenham River to here in order to load up.

Beautiful as views of the town might be, it’s only skin-deep because the southern shore of the river is nothing like the previous photo. It’s not always a railway line that divides the poor from the rich, despite whatever Tracy Chapman might have to say on the subject.

But then Wallaceburg is no longer master of its own budget, having been absorbed into the the municipality of Chatham-Dover.

I mentioned the agricultural produce of the area. Heading back to Windsor down the main highway, I drove through the Southern Ontario prairie.

It’s flat, as flat as the eye can see for miles around in all directions with not a single hill to relieve the monotony. The roads are totally straight and run for miles, and you are just surrounded by corn.

But while I was busy doing something else, I actually saw a diesel train and even more surprising, it was pulling four or five passenger carriages. Now as I was busy I didn’t get the chance to photograph it but the fact of it being a passenger train was totally surprising.

There are two railway lines into Windsor by the way, one from the Canadian Pacific and the other from the Canadian National. Now I could understand that if they served different townships on their way but they run parallel to each other just a mile or two apart which seems a strange thing to me – it’s just duplicating resources and bringing no benefits to anyone.

I also encountered the Taj Mahal – in actual fact the Gurdwara Khalsa Prakash Sikh temple somewhere between Tecumseh and Windsor.

There’s quite a large Sikh community in Canada, about 1.5% of the population, and like most non-white populations in North America they have suffered considerable discrimination, particularly in the early years of their arrival 100 or so years ago.

Immigration received a further impetus in the 1980s as Canada welcomed Sikhs fleeing from persecution in India, but this has led to a number of “incidents” taking place between the Asian communities in Canada, culminating in the attack on Air India Flight 182, widely credited to Sikh extremists.

But now I’m back in Windsor, in a really delightful evening. The weather is beautiful, very windy but hardly a cloud in the sky. I’ve been lucky with the weather so far but the locals think that it might break in a few days.

Tomorrow, depending on what time I wake up, I’ll go for another wander around. I’ve seen a steam locomotive on a plinth and that must be worth a photo. Tomorrow night Katherine and I are out a-dining. Doubtless Strawberry Moose will want to come too.

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality