All good fun and a few fun pictures from Dave and Lisa…

Until pumpkin time again!

Cheers,
Martin

(Click once on a picture to see a slideshow of all the pictures.)

Good campsite once you got used to the bleating sheep and the thunder of 100Mph trains… After a few beers and some camp cooking, I’m sure we were all sleepy enough. One hint is: Do not set up your tent underneath a tree. Especially not when you can expect rain in the night. Very especially not when that tree is the favourite breakfast roost for an unholy dawn squawk of crows!

Jenny organised a good tour of Lichfield with time enough for a look around the cathedral and a little shopping before we cycled back to the campsite to then collect together the picnic and to be ferried to the proms.

And a stonkin’ good picnic was had! Famously helped by Sarah’s bountiful Pimms including added essential ingredients garnered from a good doctor’s herb garden. The orchestras were good also We were highly fortunate with the weather and the fireworks finale gave a good send-off.

Next morning was a very damp very heavily dewed start. Most of us went on a merry cycling wander around the locality and explored the National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas. There was also the required tea/coffee shop stop en-route…

Everything had dried off nicely for our return to finish a very good weekend.

Thanks go to Dave and Jenny for a well organised break.

Here’s a few pictures from the weekend:

Cheers,
Martin

Any further photo gems for the group albumn?

Cheers,
Martin

We were remarkably lucky with the weather and dodged between various thunderous rain clouds. We had the campsite to ourselves and so with true EMATG organisation, the plots were allotted with aforethought for the Saturday night partying. Friday night was food and drink and plotting for the weekend…

On Sat, one intrepid group of cyclist set out to work their miracle of navigating between the clouds to stay completely dry for the day. They also covered a few miles and a few sights. Any pictures that group?… A more sedate group of us wandered down the lane into the village to explore the motor museum and a few sights.

And then it was the Saturday night party! … I’m still not sure about the retro music… Ouch! The food and drink were good

For Sunday, we had multiple groups for cycling and/or exploring. Sarah and myself wandered back via the nearby National Trust estate and a lookout tower folly.

All a good fun weekend as ever.

And here’s a few pictures:

Cheers,
Martin

In a very unassuming venue, with excellent beer, and a very well matched combination of harpsichord and electric violin, we didst enjoy some very eclectically presented new music by The Lightning Thieves at the Old Oak Inn. World premiered stuff even!

One comment added to the evening nicely: “It ain’t often you see and hear a harpsichord in a pub!”. Ain’t often you see the blur of a shiny skeletal electric violin either! We were also intrigued to some barefoot sound looping incorporating some classical playing with quite a difference. Throughout the evening, there was a good contrast of energetic toccata, through to slow and gentle, and all newly composed in an extravagant multitude of styles…

Some excellent playing of some excellently different music. Unique even. OK, you must have guessed that we very much enjoyed it

A much more traditional and classical sound can be heard nearby soon at the London Concertante’s “Viennese Christmas”.

Cheers,
Martin

Thankfully, certain members of the group were remarkably well behaved and were perhaps suitably distracted to resist all temptation from the multitudinous multifarious shoppes we breezed past. However… The military precision planning was soon all snafu from the group loitering in far greater appreciation than had been anticipated at some of the revelations along the way. A few fine ales conspired further, adding revelationary/revelling delay…

One especially big surprise was the Park Tunnel. Who would ever imagine allowing a decrepit ugly car park to be built to block the entrance!? Unbelievable!

All told, we proceeded along approximately a mere 1/4 of the intended route and points of interest. Darkness and the allure of food then won over the evening. Amazingly, certain members of the group were so enthralled (merry ) as to forgo last orders at The Victoria Hotel to instead delight in Moroccan style deserts. With some reluctance, we managed to catch a late bus back with just mere minutes to spare.

Despite spookily threatening weather, I think a very good day was had by all.

We even met an often seen early evening spooky white ghost! 46-years-in-the-job and still going strong! (The Dave of D & S Seafood.)

The photos below show the route we toured. Visits into some of the caves might be arranged for another day, let me know if interested. A recurring surprise is that despite the history of Nottingham literally resting on the man made caves all under the city, very little is made of the caves for tourism and many caves appear to be completely neglected or left to be wantonly destroyed by new construction.

‘Ghost Walk #2′ will be sometime in the spring as soon as the days offer enough light so as to be not too spooky!

Cheers,
Martin

A few links for where we visited:

• Yates Wine Lodge in what was the Talbot Inn Est. 1680
• The Bell Inn (one of the three oldest pubs in Nottingham and England!)
• Albert Hall
• The Cathedral Church of St. Barnabas
• Hand and Heart Pub
• T C Hine and the Park Tunnel
• Anish Kapoor Sky Mirror
• Malt Cross music hall built in 1877
• Nottingham Castle
• Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem (another of the oldest pubs)

We then rushed through the concrete sprawl of the Broadmarsh Centre to the excellent Restaurant Marrakesh (6 Chapel Bar, Nottingham, NG1 6JQ).

The third of the claimed oldest pubs is the Ye Olde Salutation Inn.

A good overview (underview?) of Nottingham’s caves is given on:

• Archaeologists record first of Nottingham’s caves (slideshow)
• ‘Real’ Mortimer’s Hole uncovered by cave survey
• Nottingham Caves Survey
• Truth, Legend, and Mortimer’s Hole

General Nottingham history can be found on:

• Nottingham
• Watson Fothergill

And see “Ghostly tales from the trip…” for a few ghost stories in and under the castle!

And… Finally… Here is the (4 minutes slideshow) photo-journal:

(Never seen the group look so posh! )

Thanks to Sarah, and Cathy & Bertil for organising.

“The Italinate St. Catherine’s Church at Hoarwithy has unique styling when compared to the numerous other ‘traditional’ churches in the area. The church is, in fact, a chapelry attached to Hentland Parish Church.”

We were very quietly and very keenly watched by three house martins as we entered the cloisters. Inside, our ecologist members went somewhat batty over some of the Dubricius depictions and his casting away the Devil with a sternly crooked finger…

The flamboyant mix of marble and elaborate mosaics and carvings were quite a surprise for such an unassuming village. The church is very much in use. Shame the external stonework is in such desperate need of repair…

Martin

Thankfully this time, the only falling-out damage was just very briefly dampened spirits. Even the vital barrel stayed in place. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the splash due to it being Dave the cameraman himself doing the big splash! … Perhaps the full arm’s length sweeping emergency full reverse-and-sideways thrust with a multi-axis pirouette whilst approaching a riverside tree was not a recommended manoeuvre…

We had rather a damp start on Friday evening and were welcomed to a cascade of water off E&E’s sagging tent door/awning. While people chatted and shared a brew, I made a dash between rain clouds to get our tent up quickly before the next soaking. Just in time for Sarah to produce the next brew

We soon moved on to music and food at the attached New Harp Inn, where the staff that night were perhaps a little too busy…

Overnight the rain cleared to reveal some very keen fishermen up with a very loud 5am dawn chorus. Their tip-toe rustle and creaking and gentle clank of breakfast soon quietened to be replaced by the beauty of country birdsong. All too soon, that was then unceremoniously replaced by the military Reveille of a Clafton breakfast!

Barrels loaded, we helped unload one group of canoeists into a swollen flooded river to then commander their minibus to take the back roads to our launch point further up the river at Hereford. And we were off…

Although threateningly cloudy, the rain held off. Good paddling but at times hard work against the wind. Which is where the Dave and Jenny team lost their sense of direction to take some very drunken turns across the river until their big splash! The teams were rearranged for sense of direction and for more evenly balanced tiredness/strength/style and we made it back to Hoarwithy easily in time for the pub nosh. Special mention must go to the consistent graceful gliding style and arrow-straight navigation of Keith and his counter-intuitive yet very effective optimised backwards-bent wooden paddle.

This time round, the pub staff were perhaps refreshed from the night before and more welcoming. And good food and a good few beers were had.

Against all forecasts, Sunday was a blazing bright hot day, almost scorchingly hot. The day was somewhat easier and more leisurely and no wind. Easy and fun with multiple stops for snacks. We were even welcomed to our landing in Ross-on-Wye by a full band playing a very lively “Pirates of the Caribbean”!

We were very efficiently picked up and kindly delivered right back to our tents. Some of us then investigated the rather interesting Hoarwithy church before wandering home.

All good fun!
Martin & Sarah

We camped at Tresseck Campsite, and went canoeing with the highly recommended Canoe the Wye. Rich’s impressive “RGS” BBQ box of heavy engineering is a Bush Pig Braai.

Wandering the fields, there was a very noticeable difference between areas of cultivation with a natural looking mix of crop interspersed with (wild?) poppies and buttercups, contrasting sharply with other areas of a completely sterile and utterly uniform shade of intensively farmed monoculture as far as the eye could see and nothing else. A very stark example of the power of intensive farming.

The watermill has got to be seen for the labour of love that has gone into making for an immaculate renovation back into a fully operating mill. We were also treated to some vintage vehicles and a warm welcome by the hosts.

Afterwards, we took a more direct route through Shepshed to sample pimms, beer, wine, and an excellent selection of home produce.

Thanks to E&E for organising.

- Martin