Random Norfolk - Ding Dong

Random Norfolk - Spume

Spume. Yay!

 More spume. Yummy, frothy spume.
Lather yourself all over with its salty goodness.

Well just lately we've had "pollard" and "wrack" and "kine" so I thought I'd add to the list of tricky words to work into conversations with one of my all time favourites.
All together now … "SPUME!"

I feel a variation on Monty Python's Spam song is in the air.

Random Norfolk - Kine

Random Norfolk - Castle

Following up from yesterday's posts about the teeny tiny amphitheatre in the Castle moat and the comments they got:

This is the view from the main doors of City Hall, over the War Memorial and Market and up the hill to Castle Blancheflower, which has dominated the city for nigh on a thousand years. The teeny tiny amphitheatre is at the bottom of the moat on the opposite side.

Built in 1068 and never conquered, this view looking up the bailey from the moat gives some impression of its impregnability.
Of course the main reason it was never conquered is that all of our major rebellions and revolutions started here in East Anglia and went off and attacked other places, smashing their castles instead. We're still a bolshie bunch of buggers … blame Boudicca.

For trivia freaks, the battlements are the very same that Monty Python used to fling its suicide bagpipers from (a lot of Python was shot in and around the city; Elm Hill deputised for mediæval London and Sartres' Paris, John Cleese's desk for the "And now for something completely different" in all but the first series was positioned just under the Castle at the top of the slope in this picture … you can see the old Bell Hotel behind him in the shows; the Hermanas holiday camp down the road at Winterton became everything from jungles to deserts to African villages … the list goes on. I suppose we were cheaper than filming in London).

This is my favourite shot of the castle. Spring sees the bailey a solid mass of yellow daffodils and they're followed by this scruffier, daisy-bespattered look that somehow seems in keeping with the long history of the place. Plus of course, the white flowers go well with the Castle's name.

And this is the view from the stage of the teeny tiny amphitheatre in the moat. The beautiful stone that gave the Castle its name of Blancheflower was shipped over from Caen in Normandy by William the Conqueror and both the Castle and Cathedral are built from it. As you can see, it scrubs up a treat (the Castle's nice and easy to clean but the Cathedral was recently wreathed in scaffolding for four years for restoration and buffing up).

Here's the Norman front door (it's not the front door any more and is usually out of bounds to the public, hence its unrestored state).
The Castle now houses the Tate In The East art gallery as well as a superb series of galleries showcasing the Norwich School of Painters and one of the finest collections of English painting anywhere, as well as a huge and fabulous museum (and a pretty decent café).

The main Castle Keep itself is left open for exhibitions. It's an awesome space; the stones around the archery slits are scratched with 900 year old graffiti.

The Keep used to house the Ancient Egypt section of the museum, but the mummies have now been given a cosier home and this Burne-Jones tapestry is just about the only permanent exhibit in there now. They change everything else round every time I visit.

Forgive the hurried Photoshop stitching; I just wanted to give some kind of impression of the interior space. Some of the soot-blackened walls have been left uncleaned to give a more authentic feel.
I love the Castle. You can go up on the battlements and down into the dungeons (with the inevitable mediæval torture museum … yay). It's a great place to spend rainy days.

Anyhoo … enough blathering faff from me; come on over and see it for yourselves.

Hey, I just found a better photo …

Petrea asked if the teeny tiny amphitheatre from the previous post is actually inside the moat and if the Castle is still there.
Here you go. I hope this answers your questions. The brick platform is the theatre stage and the Castle is the big castley thing way up on top of the bailey.
I'll post some more Castle pics tomorrow.

Random Norfolk - Theatre In The Moat

 Being an arty-farty kind of place, Norwich boasts many fine theatres, but this is probably the most charming: a tiny amphitheatre hidden away at the back end of the Castle Moat Gardens.

The stage is tiny, but the action tends to spill out into the moat.

Here's the "Coming Soon" board. Pop along and enjoy the shows. It's free and there are toilets, coffee shops and bars within a few paces of the top of the moat.

Random Norfolk - The English In Summer

It's summer. It's England. So …

Panama hat, shades, a pint or three of Woodforde's'Norfolk Wherry' (brewed just down the road from my village and - as the umbrella proudly states - "Champion Beer Of Britain") and the crack of willow on leather. The recipe for the perfect English summer afternoon falling asleep in the sun.

Or at least it would be if our village team were not so bloody good. Cricket is not supposed to be exciting, at least not at village level, but a happy mixture of slumming county players attracted by the beauty of living here and Aussie cricketers spending their off season at the boatyards and bars along the river gives us a pretty unfair advantage. It's a team made up almost entirely of ringers.

Gerry and I meandered down to the river end of the village along with his visiting German friends Üte and Martin and a bunch of local compadres to catch the season's big grudge match against Horsford.
Explaining the rules of cricket to Germans is almost as entertaining as trying it on Americans. Martin decided it was a little like chess but played on a geological timescale. Luckily there was good beer and also I won some red wine in the tombola so the combination of alcohol and sunshine eased comprehension somewhat.

And especially for our Colonial readers, the guy with his legs splayed, standing just to the left of the wicket is taking the field position known as "silly point", so named because he's suicidally close to the batsman and the ball is fucking hard. You can also have a "silly mid-on" and a "silly mid-off" should you choose.

 In case anyone's remotely interested, we batted first (it was a limited overs, one day match, not the full, five day monty) and racked up a creditable 263 for 3.
Then we casually and cruelly slaughtered the opposition. At tea they were 59 for 5 and shortly afterwards all out for 105. We have two top notch spin bowlers who were unplayably good (witness this catch behind).

 But the main attack came from our pace men. Holy shit, watching them bowl is scary.

Compare the wicket-keeper's position in the spin bowler photo with this one for the fast bowlers. It's kind of unfair to unleash that sort of speed on amateur batsmen, but hey … it's my team so I'm not going to complain.
Some seriously aggressive field placings led to some brilliant, diving, fingertip catches, especially from one of our Aussies at short mid-off.
This pic shows the ball (you can just about see it blurring) on its way to a find catch at second slip and the batsman about to head back dejectedly to the pavilion.

Anyhoo … A splendid win against our bitterest rivals, good company, good beer, good barbie, rather more Australian accents than you'd expect to hear in an idyllic English village, and a fair smattering of pretty weemen … Boffo all round.

Oh, and a Happy Fourth of July to all my Colonial friends!

Yet More Boys' Toys

This post is for my long-time blog-bud and musician, Vic the Groover. Guitars and drums! Yay! What could be better?

Phil bought a bunch more ludicrously expensive cymbals last weekend so on Friday we decamped to the studio to put 'em through their paces.

I brought along my Martin, Old Les and my PRS from my guitar porn stash and Phil brought his banjo for some occasional yeehah acoustic action.

Pearl Reference. You get what you pay for. This'll break the bank but holy fuck, what a sound!

 That new HHX Evolution ride (the bashed-looking cymbal in the middle) totally rules.

 Heavy metal.

 As in all walks of life the correct footwear is essential.

And yes, Phil's drumstool does have a back rest. We're old farts. What do you expect?

Random Norfolk - Wrack

Random Norfolk - Busker and Audience