20 posts tagged “suffolk”

It's a bit of a rarity, but at the moment I have all four of my kids in one place. Number Two Son was 16 last Saturday and we decided between us that as he was finished school that we'd get the lot of them together - but we didn't tell the girls about our plan. Therefore, yesterday found us travelling a round trip of approximately 280 miles whilst they were at school. We got stuck in a slow(ish) moving queue for a few miles on the way home which meant we were about 20 minutes later home than we'd hoped, so sitting their brothers outside the school as a surprise was out of the question. We drove to KT's, and discovered that the twins were moments away and Number Two Son, always one for a good surprise, leapt out at the top of the hill and fairly flew down it after them. We pulled into the carport just as they came out, all grins and joking remonstrations about not telling them that their brothers were coming.

KT suggested that we all go to the beach after the girls got home from school today. Number One Son wasn't really happy with the idea of heading out into daylight (he's a moody beastie) but the others were and I gathered up N1S as well and made him go. I have to say, it seemed he was just trying to live up to his reputation as a misery, because once we got him out of the van he was more than happy to muck about with the others.

As soon as he was out of the van, Number Two Son had found a blue plastic 5 litre bottle stuck in the rocks, so he dragged that out and put it on one of the bins to be taken away. He started looking for shells, so I sent them all away to find me some treasure.

Number One Son found a common starfish stranded amongst the groynes. He brought it back for a few photos then took it back to the water. I like this photo as he is almost smiling!

 

Number One Son's biggest find on Number One Daughter's biggest - a motorcyle tyre!

The treasure found for me by the kiddoes.

All four of my kinder. Number One Son was determined not to smile though he did grin every time between shots. I need a faster camera!
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Things I Learnt Today:

I always knew they were agile and fit, but N1S in particular showed just how nimble he was when he bounced along the tops of the groynes. We watched some teens try the same thing two days ago and they were unsure and unbalanced. I think my kids are part monkey.

N1S has a lot of power in his throwing arm. He was throwing stones towards the groynes from near where KT and I were sitting and more often than not he got really close to them - in fact, he even hit them twice. Looking at Google Maps, I am fairly amazed that it seems to be a distance of about 150 feet (about 60 metres). I so wish he had some kind of motivation in his life!

Number Two Son is imminently better at skipping stones than his brother. N1S might have the distance but he can't skip stones half as well as his lil bro.

The Port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the UK and is one of the largest in Europe. It was used in this ident for Channel 4.

 

KT and I went to the cliff tops again - it's one of our favourite places anyway and as dedicated people watchers we thought it'd be fun to see who was about. Yesterday we ended up having little chats with an Anglia TV cameraman and various passers by, including a really fun lady with a dog that I think was a whippet. Today we watched a BBC camera man trying to get a shot through the mist and gloom before reporter Gareth George was ready to give his report for lunch time telly. What we found quite hilarious is how people react around someone of a minor celebrity.

There were a group of three middle aged guys who were goading each other to get close and talk to the camera man and when the reporter was over there the goading got more intense. One of them got closer and closer, each time skipping away before edging close again - but he eventually thought better of it.

There was the family, Mum, Dad and little girl who literally oozed towards the area where the filming was taking place and in an almost tidal fashion, ebbed and flowed as time progressed. We were of the opinion that they were hoping that as there was very little to see out to sea that the cameraman might do a sweep of the crowd - they certainly kept getting really close to the camera and arranging themselves so that all of them would be seen if indeed a camera sweep was required. At one stage three women came along with an incredibly mucky dog and the little girl was obviously scared of it, but neither parent seemed to realise and kept dragging her out from behind their legs, which was kind of sad.

Then there was the stalker brolly guy. He wandered up and down the cliff edge, finally stopping right in shot behind the reporter whilst peering out to sea. This resulted in a slight exasperated moving of both the reporter and the camera. He wandered off a little then kept heading back to them both, obviously wanting to know what was going on and when he finally spoke to them it was just as they were beginning the report and he got to told to go away for a minute. He stalked off but was soon back and got the cold shoulder again.

 

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Gareth George's report on the inactivity last night - the creepy lady from Morrisons freezer aisle is shown in there (she's got glasses and dark curly hair and has a few seconds worth of soundbite at Brackenbury Leisure Centre) - she stands with a freezer open as she stocks it and stares blankly, but slightly malevolently at people - it's most disconcerting!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7360802.stm

The UXB lurking in the waters off Felixstowe shore is still on the loose. The divers from the Royal Navy have been unable to locate it after it was dragged from it's mooring by the tidal waters and although they do have a GPS on it, the tide and visibility are making it hard to track. However, they are hopeful that today it will be destroyed.

When they can find it...

The bomb found on the beach yesterday morning was positively identified as a 500kg German shell from the Second World War. It was much bigger than at first thought and specialists have said that it has the potential to wipe out half the sea front and cause structural damage up to half a mile away. Felixstowe was a prime target during the last big war due to the military use of sea planes at one end of the town and the effort made with radar at Bawdsey Manor at the other.

The Royal Navy Bomb disposal squad towed it two miles out to sea earlier with the intention of detonating it around 2pm, but the big blast didn't happen, much to the chagrin of the packed cliff tops. Local radio told us that Plan A  was to tow it out to sea and let it drop to the sea bed in the hope the impact would set it off. That didn't happen. Plan B was that the RN would countermine it with explosives, but the current was too strong for the divers. They were reported as wanting to try again around 6pm, but were again hampered in their efforts. At around 7pm, there were reports that the bomb had broken free from it's anchor in the string tide, but I have to say, there wasn't much going on out at sea. The spokediverman has said that when it's finally detonated, the boom should be heard by pretty much the whole of the town.

The 1200 people evacuated last night were allowed to return home today, so let's hope that the bomb stays in place!

This post is the three portrait style photos I've chosen to enter the quest - and the others I liked from playing at the bottom of the post for reviews. All taken with a point and click camera, so no fancy close ups as it doesn't do much!

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Chosen by H - the twin on the right

Chosen by me - shows Number Two Son in a rare capture - no boss eyes, no sticky up fingers, no smear as he races to beat the camera - I caught this one just right. Also shows KT snuggled against the bracing North Sea wind and H doing homework on the bench!

 

Chosen by KT. On the same day as the above photo, J popped into the van and was doing Dracula impressions. I wanted a pic, but she made a great game out of hiding behind the blanket every time I pressed the button - the kids have learnt it's a slow old camera! This one was her cracking up because it was obviously such a great game! Behind her is the prom through the can window - less that a minute's walk to where the bomb was found yesterday.  

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Another of the shots taken in the garden - J has a thing for sticking out her tongue at the moment and H just pulls the most fantastic faces...

 

I've been trying to get the kids to do death shots for years. We play at dead at home - did you know that when you are dead your tongue always sticks out? And to revive that person, all you have to do is push their tongue back into their mouth and shake them whilst saying 'Wake up! Wake Up!' - works everytime.

 

This lady's pooch was much admored by the two gents. The one bending down got right down level with the dog to give it some good old loving but this was the only pic where you could see the lady's face.

The Sisterly Love shot - in slight sepia style for KT, original for me and black and white for H

 

KT doesn't feel that some of these count as portraits - I disagree. Any opinions?

 

The people of Felixstowe are all excited as the possibility of half the sea front getting blown to smithereens becomes a reality. The first stage of the southern sea front revival is imminent and £10 million worth of sea defence work has already been started, which for a former Victorian WünderResort turned sad-pale-imitation-of-a-coastal-town (sorry, but although I love spending hours down at the beach, it truly is depressing how decrepit the resort has become when you can look at old photos and postcards at just how wonderful it was) is something to look forward to.

I was going to show photos today of what is left of a magnificent pier, and just how miserable parts of the sea front are, but something more galvanising has happened. At around 6am this morning, one of the guys working on the new sea defences discovered an unexploded bomb on the beach. During the Second World War, East Anglia was pretty much used as a giant air field with over a 100 USAAF and RAF air bases defending good old Blighty. One practise that became quite common was that if you were coming home from a bombing raid and still had a missile or two left over, was to dump them in the sea before going back to base - otherwise there was quite a big chance of losing an entire airfield if you crashed. It's speculated that the bomb found today is either 250 or 500 lbs (reports differ) and that it's either a practice bomb or else one of the ones that would have been dumped. Either way, the specialist team that's come up from Portsmouth has decided that at the moment there is a need for a half mile exclusion zone, and that might have to be upgraded to a mile. Our old house and the kids' old primary school is within the current evacuation zone and if it's expanded, we are in that one, though, as we up a blooming great hill, I doubt we will need to be moved. The experts were hoping to kill it off in a controlled explosion at low tide but they've now decided they need the next high tide during daylight hours in order to tow it out to sea to blow it up - it should be a spectacular sight.

In the meantime, there is a high chance of it knocking against any one of the giant boulders that were slapped on the beach to stop the prom from being swept away and exploding, so of course, there are gangs of youths and families as close as they can get, hoping to see someone or something get splattered. Being the good people watchers that we are, we got some pics of them and a video of some of the youths posturing at a news van (I'll add them later).

And to think KT and I were walking within 50 metres of it earlier when we were down the beach to take pics - oooh, the excitement!

Pic taken from the East Anglian Daily Times - copyright Mark O'Brien

 

 

 

I don't think this one actually qualifies for the rule of thirds, but I wanted to share it anyway. I quite like the way the sky seems to open up from the guy on the path upwards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one was taken at the end of the path shown above. It looks out over the Deben River, which at Nacton is quite close to the outflow into the North Sea and extremely tidal. At this time of day, pretty much most of the width of it is taken over by wading birds.

 

I think the sun is the focus in this picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the items of 'debris' along the shore is this log which is well used by local teens to write messages of love etc. to each other. It's the focus for this image and KT and I think it looks like a prehistoric monster warding off potential threats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a six week trial, the jury in the case of the suspected 'Suffolk Ripper' have brought back a verdict of guilty on all counts. Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls all went missing whilst working as prostitute on the streets of Ipswich at the end of 2006.

Steve Wright admitted to having sex with five of them but had denied killing them, even though trace evidence of blood from a couple of the girls was found on his high visibility jacket.

 

 

More red pics to join the last batch. No explanations yet - tried four times to post these already!