Meanwhile, Up At The Castle …

Thought I'd better post a Castle update in here. Apologies, but I've been ill over the so-called "festive" period, but on the mend at last.

What used to be a dark and dingy corridor with a low, black-painted ceiling and no view of the flint wall and Bigod Tower will soon be a bright and open area leading through to the old Rotunda and the main museum.

We've turned the Victorian Boardman stair around so it no longer blocks the route in, but follows its intended course up the Bigod Tower stair. The lit area to the upper right will be the new café and on top of that a glass wall (above the glass Atrium ceiling) for the Education Room, leading through to the Lecture Theatre.

It looks pretty dismal still, but it was raining stair-rods and dark and overcast. On a brighter day and with the new lighting scheme it whould feel more welcoming.

Anyhoo, here's wishing you all a far better 2024 than the years we've suffered of late.

It's Monday, It's November, My Back Hurts.

So here's a photo of a doorway just for the heck of it.

Norman south doorway at Heckingham St.Gregory's Church, just across the river from me and down a bit.

Somewhere in one of my old drawing folios is a view I made of the church, many decades ago. When my back gets well enough to move around without screaming I might dig it out and post it.

Or I might forget …

Hello Ian (again)

'Tis the season to dig up my Walter White hat and shades and impersonate the only dead person within my budget. Breakfast at the orifice this morning. The guy with the pumpkin on his head is the boss.

Those who were working from home joined in on the big screen and this is Alicia's reaction when Tom loomed into view with a full-sized and very realistic cow's head on his shoulders. She actually has really, REALLY long gold-blonde hair which she'd somehow managed to cram into her swimming hat to don a Wednesday Addams wig. Everybody wanted to play with Phil's Hedwig hand-puppet (and Dan's blood-soaked chainsaw).

It takes seven years to train up an Architect … Who'd have guessed?

Wednesday Window

Still alive, just going through another bad patch.

In the meantime, here's the nineteenth-century skylight above the old reception area at the Castle about to be refurbished.

Friday Morning Wood - Castle Roof

 So here we are at last, up inside the keep roof at Norwich Castle. The wooden roof structure is Boardman's from the 1890s and we need to thread our steels through it without touching it to enable us to support the new observation deck that will give such great views over the old city.

A tricky and delicate job involving lots of man-handling of hefty steel beams in and around the timber structure.

Knitting with steel poles.

I had to model all this in 3D to make sure it worked.

Up on top, a VERY long steel beam being lowered into place. It will form the base plate of an inverted triangular steel lattice on top of which will sit the new flat viewing platforms.

Here it is, in place. Now for the fun part!

Taking shape! The roof viewing platforms will be at the same height as the battlement walkway so anyone can wander over the whole lot and play spot the landmark.

More soon!

Friday Morning Wood - Viking Era Picture Door

The "Viking" door at Stillingfleet St.Helen's.

While the current church dates from 1150, it replaces an earlier Saxon church, the original south door of which is now preserved inside St.Helen's to protect it from the elements.

The door itself is thought to be tenth-century and is of a Scandinavian style of "picture door".

The C-Straps have dragon's head terminals, a popular Viking motif, reflecting Stillingfleet's century or so under the Danelaw.

Some beautiful Scandinavian knotwork.

Happy, dancy Viking people …

at least I HOPE they're happy and not attacking one another with axes.

 

Last up: a glorious Viking longship, complete with dragon's head prow and stern and steering rudder.

Life under the Danelaw wasn't all like The Vikings TV show or the old Kirk Douglas / Tony Curtis movie from 1958 (classic though that one was).

Blacksmiths didn't spend all day hammering out axe-heads and swords; they could have fun with story-telling on church doors.

And Talking of Bacon Grease …

I know I shouldn't mock American "food" (see the previous post's revelation of nine-pound tubs of U.S. bacon grease as a "GREAT GIFT IDEA!"), especially given the parlous state of British "cuisine". I just can't help myself.

So here, as a mea culpa, is what passes for fine dining on the bleak far east coast of Norfolk:

Ivy's Noted Tea Shop has been there my whole life but I've only been in once.

It serves the workers down on Great Yarmouth's docks area, doling out door-step butties and good, strong "brown". You don't go in there asking for a latte or sourdough bread. You go in there (at least I did, when I was carrying out a survey just down the road) for a whopping great bacon butty, crispy round the edges and dripping with grease the way it should be, and a thick cup of Builders' Brown to wash it down.

Properly delicious.

Bacon … Food of the Gods.

WTF MONDAY - Guest Comestible from the U S of A

The Interweb can be a scary place, filled with horrifying images, deliberately harmful content and comedy cat videos.

This disturbing image had me cowering behind the sofa, whimpering with terror at the realisation that the oddball inhabitants of our Lost Colonies have weaponised that most sacred of foods and marketed it as a "GREAT GIFT IDEA!"

I looked this stuff up … it's bacon grease, scraped from the bottom of the pan. Yup, bacon grease. Their website makes no bones about it: "Real Bacon Grease, Ready To Use", "Authentic Bacon Grease", with recipes and testimonials. Nine-pound tubs of it! Nine POUNDS of bacon grease! Like they say, a "GREAT GIFT IDEA!" And a free spoon in the tub!

They also have a "What Shouldn't I Do With BaconUp?" page, including the perhaps wise advice not to add it to coffee. "DO NOT Overheat, DO NOT Leave Unattended, DO NOT add back into the container, NEVER pour in trash, NEVER pour down drain, NEVER add water."

This stuff is a WMD!

So why, Why WHY do I want to crack open a tub and spoon it down my gullet, making gronf, gronf, gronf noises?

Friday Morning Wood

Little Hormead Church door, looking like I feel most mornings.

Let's Summon Hunks

Ah, the perils of keeping most of the museum open while we work on the castle keep and entrance areas.

No matter how much tape and gunk is used on the fire barriers between the works and the museum, some mischievous motes of dust are going to sneak around it and lodge themselves in a smoke alarm in one of the galleries. And lo, it was so …

You can tell by the headless-chicken, panicked running-around going on that we didn't manage to set fire to the castle. Looks like someone's going to have to go round with the gunk gun and re-seal the fire barriers and the standard lecture on keeping the dust down will be wheeled out.

So, hunky firemen and bulky builders got a half-hour of fresh air this morning before all trooping back inside and heading for the kettle to queue for a brew.