A Splendid Day For A Spot Of Civil Disobedience

I happened to be in Westminster today and as Blogville's token Socialist felt it my duty to show solidarity with the public sector workers (teachers, nurses, et al) whose pension pot the government used to bail out the bankers and pay their unearned multi-million pound bonuses.

Imagine you're a teacher nearing retirement. You've paid into the pension fund your whole working life and now the Tories have told you it's worthless because they've given it all to their friends.
Lovely …

Right … Tool up with some suitable reading material and head to Parliament to exercise my democratic right to moan like fuck about injustice.
The fact that a good demo is always GREAT fun has nothing to do with it … er …

I want to pick the prime spot and join the march at the junction between Whitehall and Parliament Square. I intend to stand in the middle of the road just past that … er … "AVOID AREA" sign.
By the looks of this policewoman I'm going to have to deal with some unbrutality on the way.

Well, here I am in the middle of the road. I've found that strolling casually where you're not supposed to be as if you owned the place usually works pretty well as the police assume you are supposed to be there.
I love the smirk this officer gave me (click the pic for a bigger smirk). It's his "I really can't be arsed climbing over this barrier to arrest you so I'll assume you're supposed to be standing in the middle of a cordoned off Whitehall" smirk.

Damn! I knew I'd forgotten something. I should have brought a megaphone.

Balloons! Yay!

For any Colonials among you, NUT is the unfortunate acronym of the National Union of Teachers.

International support.

The return of the vuvuzela (oh, crap).

You know I'm a sucker for polka dots. She was singing at the top of her voice; a version of the old "Where's Your Mama Gone? (Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep)" from the seventies that started "Woke up this morning and my pension was gone …" Splendid stuff!

Right … the crowds are thinning out, time to join the march. I got chatting with a lovely guy from the British Library who had taken a day off to come down and show solidarity. I think the average IQ of today's marchers was stratospherically greater than that of the government.

Poor old Nick Robinson (the BBC's Political Editor in case you're not a Brit TV watcher) was getting increasingly pissed off, trying to file a live news report in the face of some determined and hilarious megaphone heckling.
I don't think he was too pleased that I was laughing my ass off while I took his photo.

 More vicious police unbrutality. If the news reports this evening say there was trouble at the demo they are lying out of their right-wing arses. Look at it! It was bloody lovely!

So off we stroll, singing and chanting as we go. A splendid day out that will do no good at all but it's our right to march and strike and protest so until we can vote these fuckers out of office that's just what we'll do.

Random Norfolk - Stream

Random Norfolk - Lighthouse

Happisburgh Light warns passing ships not to crash into this dangerous potato field.

Random Norfolk - Shadows And Light

I know I've posted one of these before but I make no apology as the fence and gates to St.Stephen's churchyard are so cool.
This is right in the heart of the city. The winding path through the churchyard links the Forum to the Vagina Mall (see posts passim) and is a lovely place to walk or sit.
Beware, however, the tea shop in the church. They make (to quote Douglas Adams) "a liquid which is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea." It is brewed by a wizened and bitter old lady as revenge upon mankind for her wizened and bitter life.

Random Norfolk - Coffee Bar Etiquette

I suppose this could pass for a WTF Monday post but as I'm doing all Norfolk at the moment …
Found this on the notice board of the tiny but perfectly formed Little Red Roaster coffee bar on Saturday morning, enjoying rather a lot of their excellent selection of caffeinated beverages with Joy and Phil. As always, the place was packed to squeezing room but the quality of the coffee and the food make it all worthwhile. Boffo!
No, we didn't find any nails so it looks like the gross nail depositor got the hint.

Random Norfolk - Pier Rust

Am I the only one who sees a sewer pipe sea monster down there under the pier?

Random Norfolk - Old Hawthorn

Random Norfolk - Shelter

The window's straight; it's the rest of the world that's "on the huh" as we say here.

For Neetzy's students:
90mm is my favourite focal length for stuff like this as it's pretty much how my eye sees things.
With this one it's a case of:
- Set lens to 90mm and camera to manual, multi-spot metering,
- Stop down to f.8 as I want a reasonable depth of field,
- Stand well back in line with the window,
- Walk forward until it's framed,
- Take one spot reading off the sea and two off the window frame,
- Click.

Random Norfolk - Unparalleled

Random Norfolk - Farming

Random Norfolk - Perspective No.2

Random Norfolk - Perspective No.1

This is why I hate Summer (this photo was taken just before the "holiday season"). The roads round here were not built for our annual tsunami of tourists in SUVs, dragging caravans at walking pace and getting lost or stuck or both (usually when I'm in a hurry to get somewhere). And yet they descend on us every year and turn our local lanes into car parks. There are many weekends when I cannot even get out of the village as the coast road becomes a solid, seething mass of stationary tourist traffic. Go visit somewhere sunny, you bastards! Stay away from Norfolk. You are not welcome here (except Blogville folk, of course, who count as honorary locals).
This wide open highway is the road north out of my village. It narrows down considerably when it gets near Ranworth, which is why I only go there out of season.

Random Norfolk - Low Tide

Random Norfolk - Pollard

Random Norfolk - Scarecrow

Either he's off duty or there's something in the barn that crows crave.

Random Norfolk - Seaside Still Life

Hoorah for gnarly old stuff. I love the texture of this old timber post and those huge, rusty metal bolts.
Click on the pic for a hi-res texture-fest.
And no, I didn't put the flint on top of the post, or the mussel shell on the sand; it's all as I found it on one of my many walks up and down the coast.

Random Norfolk - Home

This is the view part-way between my house (about a hundred yards off to the left of the spot where the photo was taken) and the village shop (about half a mile to the right). Unfortunately my house is in amongst other houses so I have to walk a few yards to reach fields.
Just the other side of the church you can see in the distance is the farm shop (a local organic farmers' collective); a nice walk unless it's raining. Behind the camera the land dips sharply away through woodland to the river (photos to come another day).
As for the thing in the field: I thought at first that it was simply a concrete drainage ring housing an inspection chamber so I wandered over and took a look and it is old wartime solid mass concrete with rusty bolt holes. It is the base for an old WWII anti-aircraft gun. There was one of those in a hedge at the bottom of our road when I was a kid, still with all the rusting metalwork in place. A great place to play. The countryside round here is littered with tank traps and pillbox gun emplacements, half-filled bomb craters and abandoned airfields with rotting concrete control towers and bunkers and the like, all overgrown with brambles and nettles. When we were kids those places were the best playgrounds ever.

Random Norfolk - Lonesome Pine

Random Norfolk - Come On In

Random Norfolk - Barn Door

Random Norfolk - Windswept

Random Norfolk - Blue, Green, Grey

Not So Hidden Norfolk - Blickling

Petrea is searching for a fantasy Norfolk pied-à-terre and this cute little cottage sprang to mind as one possibility.

Mind you, it is not exactly "Hidden Norfolk" unless - as I did here - one ducks down behind the peonies and then peeps out at it.
More about the place is available via the old "Katie and Dive Do Blickling" link way down in the sidebar if you fancy a stroll around the grounds.

Random Norfolk - Cherry Walk

Random Norfolk - Dutch Gable

Random Norfolk - Junk Room Door

Random Norfolk - Sea View

Random Norfolk - Shadows

Random Norfolk - Workstation

Random Norfolk

As I'm on a "hidden corners of Norfolk" kick at the moment, here's another gratuitous photo from my locale. Regrettably this is not my own dining room …

Norfolk's Hidden Gems: Castle Acre - Pt.2

Yet more rambling round romantic ruins. Come with me into our spookily deserted little corner of Norfolk and let's get mediæval.

Not much left of it now but the remains are still bigger than the tiny village it once served.

Ooh! Ooh! Bits to climb up! Yay!

After the dissolution of the monasteries (which by all accounts were pretty dissolute places even before Henry dissolved them further), the Tudor landowner kept this part as his home. Want to come and explore it with me?

I could quite happily stick my big ol' reading chair under that window.

Some very un-monastic Tudor roses recently unearthed on what had become the bedroom ceiling.

More fabulous fenestration. Leaded lights are gorgeous but a bugger to clean.

The view from upstairs. Pretty depressing if you're a suddenly homeless monk but more heartening if you're the new Tudor landowner selling off all the decorative facing stonework for big bags of groats.

There are lots more rooms to explore but I've only got a certain amount of space so you'll have to come visit and explore them yourselves.

With all the facing stone gone the flint cores of the walls are gradually crumbling away. If you're coming to visit, better be quick.

And make sure you go to the loo before you visit as the old communal latrines have collapsed and are slightly breezy.

I love this shot. Late afternoon Autumn sunlight, a spiffy sky and gnarly old stone. Lovely.

So farewell from Castle Acre. Do come and explore the place yourself and cheer up the very lonely girl in the visitor centre shop.
More hidden gems from forgotten corners of Norfolk to come later.