Emma ties the knot

This was the family event of the year - the marriage of Emma and Simon in the little round church of Little Maplestead. It was a good day in all aspects, that is weather included! The whole operation went as smoothly as could be wished.

Emma, with her gorgeous smile which lights everywhere up.

The church was beautifully adorned with flowers befitting the occasion.

Two of the bridesmaids, sisters, looking radiant in their outfits. Nieces of the bride.

Joy, also a sister of the bride.

The bride arrives accompanied by her mother, Marguerite, as her father was sadly deceased.

Little Maplestead Round Church

Simon and Emma, after the service.

Emma showing her beautiful dress.

The happy couple with Emma`s family complete.

The bride's brother Andrew with wife Alison and son Christopher.

The obligatory throwing of the confetee

Before the cake was cut.

Somehow, the photographer had his picture taken with sister Marguerite, Mother of the bride.

Two bridesmaids with mum Joan, sister of the Bride.

Andrew and Alison, brother to the Bride.

Young Christopher, in a contemplative mood.

Mother of the Bride makes her speech.

... and the bridegroom replies.

Emma looks adoringly at her new husband.

Then they cut the cake.

.... before taking to the floor for the first dance

A great day where everything appeared to go as smoothly as possible, and all the well wishes accompanied them as they departed to start their new life. Sadly, like so many marriages, this one did not last for many years and they went their separate ways.

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Hot Car Show Ipswich

Not being a `petrolhead` normally, for some reason I was attracted to the Hot Car show at Trinity Park in Ipswich. It was quite an eye opener to see the fantastic machines that were on show and below are a few of them. Unfortunately I didn't gather much technical info, but they were just good to see and photograph.

Huge exhausts and exposed engines, are part of the kit.

.... as are large tyres.

Another one of the things usually associated with these hot cars is the amazing paintwork. Definitely  part of the `scene`.

A dull day, weather wise, but great to see and admire.

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Late Summer or early Autumn?

Here we are in mid August and somehow it feels that we are on the cusp of  changing seasons! On the one hand we have farmers still reaping the corn from their fields, and then we have a hint of change in the colour of the trees and hedgerows, plus the hedgerows are full of fruit and the roadsides and woodlands seem to have a lot of fungi.

 Local farmer kicks up the dust as he `combines` his crops.

Summer sky and parched ground says `Summer`.

Sudbury Victorian bathing pool

Hints of autumn in the trees around Sudbury old Victorian bathing pool. The Old Bathing Place was opened on the river in 1898 and was in use until the late 1930s when it was closed after an outbreak of diphtheria in the town. There are steps for the bathers to descend into a semi-circular section for non-swimmers which divided by an iron rails from the deep water. Once they could swim they could go out further - there are also steps on the opposite bank.

Wild Plums - ripe for picking.

Wild plums, sometimes called American plum, Sandhill plum, Osage plum, River plum or Sand Cherry, are botanically classified as Prunus Americana. They are seldom favored as a fresh eating plum, especially when compared to most commercial varieties, but rather provide food for wild animals and foragers. Wild plums were widely used by American Indian tribes as food and medicine. The entire tree from roots, bark and fruit may be used to treat various skin problems, cuts and wounds, as well as digestive ailments.

Common Puffballs. 

Not all puffballs are edible, and not all are edible at all stages, but if you stick with the rule of pure white inside with no markings (especially gills) then you will only be eating edible puffballs. Sound advice I thought, not that we eat them - just photograph them. However, a sign of autumn pending to me!

Then, a definite autumnal sign - hedgerows laden with blackberries.

Haws are the fruit of the hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and provide food for many birds at this time of year. They are a very common sight in the hedgerows of Britain in the autumn.

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Brighton and The White Cliffs

We have been to Brighton previously to see a couple of concerts but had not stayed in the daytime to explore. So, a trip to Brighton, and a visit to those White Cliff just along the coast. Accomodation for the trip was absolute rubbish!. Definitely not staying there again! Enough of that, some images of the seafront.

The Brighton West Pier

On 28th March 2003 the Pavilion was destroyed in an arson attack, and then on 11th May the Concert Hall, already seriously damaged in a huge storm the previous December, was also deliberately set on fire. English Heritage was commissioned to report on whether after such damage, the restoration was still viable. It concluded that despite the significant damage, given the wealth of salvaged material from the pier and the considerable photographic and video archive, repair and reconstruction of the pier was still viable. It was therefore bitterly disappointing that at its meeting on 28th January, the Heritage Lottery Fund decided to withdraw its funding of the project. 

Now it sits just off the coast as a sort of tourist attraction, especially for photographers. 

"What a lovely view Mavis"

Blown away!

View of the main beach

Let's have a doze on the pier

The spectacular seaside palace of the Prince Regent (George IV) transformed by John Nash between 1815 and 1823 into one of the most dazzling and exotic buildings in the British Isles.

The Royal Pavilion houses furniture and works of art including original pieces lent by HM The Queen and a magnificent display of Regency silver-gilt. The Royal Pavilion Tearoom, with its fabulous balcony, overlooks the Pavilion gardens, which have also been returned to their original Regency splendour. For some history here. but just to quote a paragraph: 

`Brighton suited George who was a vain and extravagant man with a passion for fashion, the arts, architecture and good living. He rebelled against his strict upbringing and threw himself into a life of drinking, womanising and gambling.

This decadent lifestyle combined with his love of architecture and the fine and decorative arts – his residences in London and Windsor were like immaculate sets to show off his superb collections – resulted in his incurring heavy personal debts. In 1787, after much pleading and many promises by the Prince of Wales, the House of Commons agreed to clear his debts and increase his income.` 

Then he became king in 1830 - alright for some!

Another view of the Royal Pavilion

Looking from our bedroom window we had this evening view of the pier

On parade. Posts and their shadows.

The magnificent white cliffs along the south coast. Ever since the days of early 19th-century interest in geology, the White Cliffs of Dover and those along the south coast, have offered one of the most accessible and complete records of the story of chalk formation.

They are made from chalk, a soft white, very finely grained pure limestone, and are commonly 300-400m deep. The chalk layers built up gradually over millions of years. 

They're formed from the skeletal remains of minute planktonic green algae that lived floating in the upper levels of the ocean. When the algae died, their remains sank to the bottom of the ocean and combined with the remains of other creatures to form the chalk that shapes the cliffs today. 

Over millions of years, the seabed became exposed and is now above sea level. The resulting edge of chalk is the iconic White Cliffs. 

The cliffs only stay white because they're allowed to erode naturally. Where the cliffs are protected from erosion by man-made structures, like in the Port of Dover, plants will colonise the cliff-face making it appear green when viewed from the sea. 

Admiring the view.

View back along the coastal path we had walked.

The Beachy Head lighthouse

In 1900 to 1902 under the direction of Sir Thomas Matthews, the Trinity House Engineer-in-Chief, the lighthouse was built, sited about 165 metres seawards from the base of the cliffs. For the construction, a temporary cable car from the cliff was installed for the transport of workers and stones to an iron ocean platform adjacent to the lighthouse. 3,660 tons of Cornish granite were used in the construction of the tower. 

The lighthouse was equipped with a first-order revolving catadioptric optic made up of three double panels, giving two white flashes every 20 seconds; The lightsource was a Matthews-designed paraffin vapour burner. The newly-built lighthouse was also provided with an explosive fog signal, which was sounded every five minutes in foggy weather; it involved the keepers attaching a small explosive charge together with a detonator to each arm of a jib located on the gallery of the lighthouse; when winched into place, connection was made with a dynamo-electric firing machine inside the lantern, from where the charge was remotely fired. 

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Norfolk Broads - Windmills and water

Norfolk is a county that we have not explored to any great degree, and this was a very cursory look around the area we were staying in. We stayed in Clippesby, a small village within the Great Yarmouth Borough Council area, and located on the B1152 and surrounded by the Norfolk Broads. Besides water everywhere, the other thing you become aware of is the huge number of windmills / windpumps, which seem to be everywhere. They do make a great photo at times.

Here a couple of evening images of windmills beside the Broads. Very peaceful, and what a place to spend the night in your barge.

These windmills come in a range of shapes and sizes. This one reminding me of a skeleton windmill.

Then there are boats of all shapes and sizes. The Broads attracts more than 7 million visitors a year. All sorts of activities such as boating, cycling, canoeing, fishing, walking and wildlife-watching are ways visitors, and those living here, enjoy the area.

As for the wildlife it was on the water (above) or flitting about in hedgerows or the reeds. It is everywhere.

Swallowtail butterfly, Britain's largest and found in Norfolk.

Four Spot Chaser

....and suddenly, past a sand dune and then three naked people!! Well you have to get the photo! And as I said, all sorts of wildlife here!

Possible the greatest rood screen in East Anglia. It stretches right across the east end of the nave, being built out to form grand reredos` to the side chapels with parclose screens facing each other across the centre. As Pevsner points out, the painting seems typical of the 1470s and 1480s. The dado, the lower part of central screen, has twelve Apostle figures, six on each side.

The view from the top of Ranworth church Tower, looking toward Ranworth Broad. I will have to revisit this church now that I know how much I missed 9 years ago!

One of the beautiful visitor centers tastefully built to blend in with it`s surroundings.

Great to see a young photographer capturing images of the boats passing.

Norfolk is home to many round tower churches, more than in most parts of the country I believe. To quote Wikipedia `Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshire.` This one above was from Clippesby near to our holiday let.

This one was Mautby church taken in the evening light.

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