Southwold-one of my favourite places

Here's another from Southwold, home of Adnams brewery and the lighthouse. One of the nicest seaside places in the Uk, and I say that being a Devonian!

And I'm back...

Lost my login details but have managed to get into the blog somehow! Here's one from about a year ago from a trip to Southwold in Suffolk.

XH558

 So, another year between posts but I still have the Minox and still use it every so often. I'm hoping that there will be an improved version one day as I still think it's an excellent size and form and could be so much more useable than it is. Anyway... Here is a picture from Yeovilton air show. It was one of the hottest days of the year and 30,000 people turned up to watch the Fleet Air Arm's annual airshow. Once again, the last remaining airworthy Avro Vulcan was the star of the show. Every time we see it we're told it may be the last year it'll be able to fly. There's currently an initiative to take it flying into 2015, details here: www.vulcantothesky.org

 I do enjoy an air show which is somewhat perverse as I'm scared stiff of flying. I'd certainly risk it all for a flight in a Spitfire though, or even a ride in the BBMF Lancaster would do me fine. Other stars of this year's display included an excellent Saab Gripen which did a superb noisy display which appealed to the small boy in me. Will try not to leave it another year to post again...

Auschwitz-Birkenau

A long time ago now, about 25 years ago, a friend of mine's Jewish father told me that I should read a book. The book was by Primo Levi, an Italian who spent time in the notorious German concentration camp Auschwitz. That book has always stayed with me and when I got the chance recently to take a trip to Krakow along with some work colleagues I jumped at the chance. I took the little Minox camera as well as a film camera but to be honest Auschwitz is not the sort of place you want to be constantly snapping away. It is a place to look and learn and reflect on what has happened and must never happen again. Rooms upon rooms of evidence of man's inhumanity to man. All this happened in the very recent past. I'm not an old person and my father fought in the second world war-it's still modern history. We spent the morning at the smaller site of Auschwitz which served as the administrative centre. It is here that you see the infamous 'arbeit macht frei' sign above the entrance gates. Also here is the site of Mengele's terrible experiments on children. Auschwitz is a disturbing experience but a worthwhile one for anybody. In the afternoon we moved on to Auschwitz-Birkenau or Auschwitz II. This is a much bigger site and was planned to be further extended still as part of hitler's 'final solution'. The majority of the million plus people who were exterminated died on this site and it's a place you feel you've been to before you even arrive, such is it notoriety. The size of the site gives plenty of space for you to walk around, away from tour guides in order to find what meaning you can from the rubble and monuments to those who lost their lives. It would be wrong to say this was an enjoyable day but I think it was one of the things I needed to see and do. It's safe to say we all needed a beer on returning to Krakow.

Bar Italia

One of the oldest proper coffee shops in London is Bar Italia in Frith St, Soho. It's famously open all hours and is home to colourful characters of all types. The coffee is authentic and authentically expensive-well worth a visit but I couldn't afford to go there every day!

Linda Internet

Had a day shopping in London yesterday. Had coffee in Soho and was amused by the name of this shop. I rank this alongside the famous 'Alan Fish Bar' in Ely!

On the Cob

Had a couple of days off last week so we met up with a couple of friends at Lyme Regis. In between rain showers we had a walk along the Cob, made famous by Meryl Streep and Harold Pinter/John Fowles. I took the digital Minox and again most of the colour pictures are very dodgy exposure wise which results in a general muddiness. Anyway, here's a black and white contre jour snap of walkers on the Cob.

Live Eels

Here's another Minox film scan. Quality from this old black and white film is a bit hit and miss but there's nothing like film. This picture must have been sitting waiting to be developed for about four years. I'm sure the Live Eels have passed on by now...

Back from the Dead

If you go back to the very first post I made on this blog you'll notice a picture of the digital minox sitting alongside the beautiful original Minox iii from the 1950s. Well this camera hasn't been used for years, mainly due to the difficulty of getting film developed and the cost involved when it has been possible. Luckily, minox themselves have continued to sell film in their own format so what we might call 'Minoxing the analogue way' has been able to continue in this instant world.

Anyway, I caught wind of a brave company in Burnley who have a passion for all things film and heard that they were prepared to have a go at Minox film. I found this hard to believe, as even when minox were relatively popular I still had to send films to Germany for development and tiny, fuzzy prints. So i sent off my two ancient films and waited for development and scans to cd to arrive, which they did today! I'm going to be posting a few of these as they are indeed 'digital' just in a slightly more roundabout and filmic way.

Audrey x2

Had a daytrip to Cardiff this week as I had a few days off work. Never been there before (apart from to the station for work) We were only there for a few hours and had a brief walk around the shops and the lovely Victorian arcades. Sight of the day was a massive Audrey Tautou draped over the front of House of Fraser. I had to be forcibly removed...

Gap

New year and no updates for ages. Still using the Minox but the weather has been terrible for ages and photo opportunities have been few and far between. This, by the way is not the entrance to a branch of the American t shirt franchise.

NRM

I've been visiting Yorkshire regularly for about twenty years. What started as an annual visit to Headingley for the test match has now developed to the occasional out of cricket season trip to see a bit more of the county and to sample a few new pubs.

One thing I've always fancied doing was visiting the National Railway Museum in York. Everyone I know who has been there says it's a great day out whether you're interested in trains or not. For one reason or another it's taken this long for us to get there but this year we took the train from Menston into Leeds and from there to York.

The museum is indeed a great attraction and it's free to get into! After a very long walk around and a decent lunch surrounded by retired choo-choos we left vowing to not leave it another twenty years before we return.

Yoghurt Weaving in Hebden Bridge

On one of our days in Yorkshire we paid a visit to the scenic town of Hebden Bridge. We were told that it's a popular tourist destination and that it's a favourite haunt of hippies and artists. Now, coming as I do from Devon we have the hippie mecca of Totnes, known as two square miles surrounded by reality. Hebden Bridge turned out to be something of a disappointment on the cheesecloth front but very good for nick-nack boutiques!

Up the Junction

Well it's been a while since my last post and it's a while since I picked up the Minox Dsc. I'm on a couple of weeks leave from work and have just had a few days in Yorkshire staying with an old college friend. He lives in a town a few miles from Leeds in a very scenic part of the country. Luckily the area is blessed with excellent beer and many great pubs, the best of which is The Junction in Otley. This is an unpretentious no food sort of place which is normally packed with all ages and types. They have live music, but unfortunately I didn't get to see my favourite crazy dancing Cajun performer this time round. He does a sort of David Byrne style running on the spot dance while singing his cajun/zydeco ditties but performed here a couple of weeks before my holiday.
Anyway, a few pints of Timothy Taylor in The Junction is a great way to spend an evening and is a fine end to a day spent exploring new places in Yorkshire. Here's a snap of the pub, nothing much to look at photographically or architecturally but there are more Yorkshire pics to come!

Crabbers

Another picture from our Brixham trip. There was intensive crab catching going on in the harbour area while we were there. There was also a pirate themed event and what seemed to be the whole of devon and Cornwall constabulary including the dog section chasing after some miscreant. Ah, the English Riviera. Who needs Nice or Monaco when you've got Torbay?!

Grockles

On Thursday I took a day's holiday and as Linda's brother was down for a visit we decided to do the tourist thing and took the boat from Exmouth to Torquay and Brixham. I took the Minox and I have a few photos to upload. As ever the exposure of the camera was all over the place but I've got a few useable ones.

The trip itself was an all day affair and the boat was packed with northerners on their holidays! It was either brave or stupid to inflict this on myself on a day off as this is the general scene at work during the school holidays!

Rather than get off in Torquay (for obvious reasons if you've been there recently) we decided to stay onboard and visit Brixham which is a busy working fishing port and also happens to have a very good camera shop!

Here's a shot taken from the back of the boat!

Mystics...

Saturday was our annual match against our splinter side ' The Mystics and Magicians ' It's a family affair and lots of supporters turn up to watch, several of them curiously arriving just before tea! The match was a good one with our team winning fairly comfortably in the end. I didn't get much time for using the Minox as when I wasn't fielding I had to go and umpire-something I really dislike doing especially when I had to give one of my team mates out to the plumbest lbw I've ever seen! batsmen never think they're out lbw but when it's hitting half way up middle stump it doesn't really matter how far forward you've got, you've got to go! (sorry for any non-cricketers reading this, we have our own language a bit like esperanto-it's easy to learn but not many bother to do so!)

Anyway, here's a snap of the field next to the pitch at Dunsford where we play our home games. Converted in Photoshop and shadows lightened for detail...

Run Chase

Another from the Lustleigh game. For once we had a decent crowd watching the game and they even seemed to be getting quite caught up in proceedings as we inched towards an unlikely victory. The Minox is quite good for these grab shots as long as you remember to set the focus in advance!

Lustleigh

This weekend was our annual trophy match against our oldest opposition: the Dartmoor village of Lustleigh. Lustleigh is a beautiful devon village complete with picture postcard church,pub and cricket pitch. The opposition are friendly but competitive and our afternoons there are always enjoyable.

I captained our side the 'Erratics' and we restricted Lustleigh to a low score of 126. Over tea we were confident we could score these with ease. Unfortunately by the time we were 35 for 5 things looked less cheery! We recovered well and got within 15 of the winning score but it wasn't to be. This is apparently Peter O'Toole's favourite cricket ground and I'm sure when he played here he had a drink or two in The Cleve afterwards, as we always do.

The half painted bridge

Here's a shot from the back of the train today. I was asked to take a trip to Gunnislake which is about 40 minutes from Plymouth and just over the border into Cornwall. As you can see from the picture the weather shows that the English summer is back to its best!

The bridge you can see in this photo is only half painted and has been so for years. It's like that because half of it is in one local authority's land and the other half belongs to another. One council decided to paint their half and the other didn't (or couldn't) It has therefore been left half rusty and half painted.

The other amusing story connected with today was that I was only working on this train due to the discovery of a wasps nest at Gunnislake station. The chap who should have been on the train apparently is highly allergic to the little beasties so I had to tear myself away from the messroom television for my little trip to Cornwall!