Another day, another blog post idea nicked off someone else.

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to leave comments to the sometimes brilliant posts of That's So Pants, so I thought I would post a link to her most recent missive on the subject of an anti-binge drinking campaign and leave a very long comment in the form of a blog post of my own.

Whilst I am no fan of people who get excessively drunk and behave badly (particularly when they cause damage to property or wake me up as they sing their way home at 2am), I do agree with Ms Pants that these sorts of campaigns are a waste of time and money.

Funilly enough, Sir Bruin and I were only talking about this with No2 (Policeman) son last time he was home for the weekend. Binge drinking is not new; particularly in Britain. Our continental cousins appear to be much better at social moderate drinking than the British and this is has been the case for at least a thousand years. Contemporary accounts of the Battle of Hastings suggest that while the Norman troops spent the eve of the battle making quiet preparations, the English troops got thoroughly rat-arsed and were somewhat hung-over during the battle. An (unaccredited) piece of writing from 1066 states "The English, being revelling before, had in the morning their brains arrested for the arrearages of the ingested fumes of the former night – and were no better than drunk when they came to fight."

As Ms Pants observes in her article, during the hey-day of Britain's Industrial past, manual workers went from the factory gates directly to the pub without passing go. Certainly, our coal miners were renowned for heavy drinking in the late 19th and early 20th century and are reputed to have spent on average 25% of their earnings in the pub. Punch-ups in town centres on a Saturday night were probably more common back then than they are today. In the episode of "Who Do You Think You Are" that featured Griff Rhys Jones, he discovered that one of his ancestors, a miner, and had been killed in a fight where the involvement of drink was suspected.

I suppose that the government has to be seen to be doing something about problems like binge drinking in order to appease an aging population who read The Daily Mail and have forgotten what it is like to be young and high-spirited. However, I agree with Pants' observation that "people don’t like to be told what to do with their dwindling freedoms" and I would add my own opinion that the other reason this sort of campaign has no effect is that the people it is aimed it simply wont see it because they will be too busy getting drunk.

Play it again, Vic.

Work is always quiet during the holidays and while surfing the net today during a moment of extreme boredom, I came across a bloggy piece on yahoo about funeral songs.

Apparently, a couple of elderly vicars don't approve of the use of pop music at funerals. They sounds like the sort of people who read the Daily Mail if you ask me, but they are entitled to their opinions, I suppose. The bit I take exception to is the fact that one of them attributes the fashion for playing music other than hymns at funerals on "the "outpouring of unbelievable emotion" that followed the death of Princess Diana in 1997". What nonsense! People were playing music of their choice at funerals long before Princess Drippy shuffled off this mortal coil. When my brother died in 1989, nearly 8 years before the Diana effect, my Mum asked me to choose a piece of his favourite music to play at the end of the funeral. He was a huge Dire Straits fan, so I picked "Brothers in Arms", which was played in church with no comment at all from the vicar (who admittedly was no where near as old as the blokes quoted in the article). In fact, it might even have been the vicar's suggestion although I'm not sure about that. It was a long time ago. Twenty years ago last week, in fact.

Why shouldn't grieving families play some music that means something to them at a funeral? I'm guessing these two reverends don't go in for modern hymns either. Do they also object to modern readings? Poems like "Funeral Blues" and "For All My Loved Ones" are often read at funerals - not so different from a pop song. Surely the vicar's role is to support the mourners, not judge them. My Grandma had her local vicar conduct a funeral service in the crematorium when my Grandpa died in 2000 and no one batted an eye-lid when the theme from the Onedin Line played as the curtains closed around the coffin.

I wonder if these old reverends object to decorated coffins as well? I read an article on line ages ago about a company that decorates coffins, which I have managed to find here. I love the story about the ice-cream man's coffin being decorated with pictures of ice-cream cones and the mourners standing around the grave eating cornettos. That's how to give someone a proper send off. I sincerely hope tinkly ice-cream van music was also played.

Funerals should be about remembering and honouring the deceased and if that involves playing some music they liked, even if it's cheesy and you don't like it yourself ("Angels" by Robbie Williams?! Ewww!), then that's fine by me. Each to their own, I say.

I have canvassed Sir Bruin's opinion and he has requested "Custard Pie" by Led Zeppelin to be played at his funeral. This has made me wonder what I would choose. I'm thinking "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".

And Wye not!

Readers of the blogs of Sir Bruin and Errol the Sheep (and anyone who had the patience to plough through my photos on Facebook) will know that the large bear and I have been on holiday. We managed to drag ourselves away from our virtual Facebook farms and spent a week in the real countryside. We stayed at a cottage in Gloucestershire, near the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley.

Why the Wye? Well, Sir Bruin had visited the area when his bear cubs were little and after I saw Richard Wilson drive through the Wye Valley on 'Britain’s Best Drives' I wanted to go there too.


We stopped at Great Malvern on the way there. Tucked under the Malvern Hills, it is a pretty little place and reminded me of Derbyshire.



From there, it was less than 30 minutes drive to our holiday accommodation in the Gloucestershire village of Upleadon.

The cottage was lovely, apart from the world's most uncomfortable bed. The cottage had its own garden with ponies in the field at the bottom.


Sunday 11 October.
Drove to Beechenhurst Lodge in the Forest of Dean and walked the sculpture trail in the drizzle. Nice walk, but most of the sculptures were a bit underwhelming.


Autumn colours in the Forest of Dean.

Yes, that is a sculpture. I think it is an acorn and its cup.


From there, we drove to Ross-on-Wye, which appeared to be closed on Sundays. Found a nice cafe and ate toasted tea cakes before going for a walk. I didn’t think much of the town centre, but it did have a nice fish sculpture.

We decided to go out to eat on Sunday evening, which turned out to be harder than expected. The first place we tried was shut and the second one didn't do food on a Sunday (it reminded me of trying to eat out in Lincolnshire on a Sunday evening). We ended up, via some scary country roads, at the Red Hart in the village of Blaisdon, where we ate an excellent meal that was worth waiting for. And the owner and his staff were the jolliest people we had seen all day.

Monday.

Bright, sunny day, so we headed to Symonds Yat. Parked near the rock and went to admire the view.

We took a short walk through the forest and then went down the steep slope to the river bank and the village of Symonds Yat East. Enjoyed a particularly delicious lunch at The Saracen's Head and then went for a short cruise on the beautiful River Wye.

Weather actually rather warm. Climbed back up to the rock and admired the view some more. Really didn't want to leave.


Tuesday.

Continued love affair with the River Wye by crossing over it into Welsh Wales. Spent sometime at the very impressive ruins of Tintern Abbey.

Inside the Abbey ruins.

Also strolled around the village and went for a short walk along the river bank in order to photograph the Abbey from the English side. After lunch, drove along to Chepstow for further views of my new favourite river from the rather splendid Chepstow Castle.

Wednesday.
Went to Gloucester. Apparently, there is plenty of parking, but it isn't very well signposted. Upleadon is only just over 7 miles from Gloucester but it took longer to find a parking space than it did to drive there.

Gloucester City Centre is pleasant, although a little tired in places. The cathedral is lovely; a very tranquil place with a warm friendly feel to it. The little garden in the centre is particularly delightful.

We walked the cloisters; the same cloisters that double as part of Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter films:

Not Harry Potter.


We saw various tombs, including that of Edward II. Later, we visited the Historic Docks. Very nice. Also very warm - observe Sir Bruin in a tee-shirt; in England; in October!

This way to Panama.

This was our third consecutive day of glorious weather. We ended up at the National Waterways Museum, which was very interesting. Sir B and I would like to have a canal holiday, but the price of a boat for a week in October is nearly 4 times what we paid for our (4 star) self catering cottage, hence we stayed there and not on a boat.

There isn't really anywhere to eat on Gloucester docks, which is surely a missed opportunity, so we headed back into the City Centre. After a late and rather large lunch, we drove a little way along the River Severn and parked up at the village of Newnham and sat quietly in the sunshine, enjoying the view.


Thursday was the day when our luck ran out with the weather. We set off to Hereford in the drizzle but it had stopped by the time we got there. It seemed a really nice little place and I especially liked the main city square.

We walked about a bit and then it started raining again, so we thought we would have a look at Hereford Cathedral. I liked it, but it didn't feel as warm and friendly as the cathedral at Gloucester.

We thought we might look at the Mappa Mundi and library, but they wanted £4.50 each to get into that exhibition, and as we weren't 9 quids worth of interested, we didn't bother.

We hopped back into the bear-mobile and headed to Hay-on-Wye, home of book shops

It hadn't rained yet in Hay when we arrived, but it was overcast. We parked at a car park with very scenic views, which would have been better without the low cloud.

I really enjoyed wandering around and we popped into a couple of the book shops, which were the sort of places I thought only existed in books and films. I found a Paul Theroux novel that I haven't previously read, which I purchased for the princely sum of £2.95. Also bought some very good fudge before heading back to our digs via the Black Mountains (impressive even through the drizzle that accompanied us all the way back to Gloucestershire), Abergavenny and Monmouth.

Friday 16 October 2009.

Sir Bruin favoured a visit to Clearwell Caves and a fine choice it was. We spent a brilliant hour-and-a-half wandering about these former iron mines, travelling to 100 feet underground.

When we returned to ground level, the sun had come out. We drove around the Forest of Dean for a while and then headed back towards the Wye. We visited a butterfly zoo at Symonds Yat West.

After scoffing a cream tea, we drove around some more in the late afternoon sunshine and parked up briefly at Lydbrook for one last look at the beautiful River Wye.

Turn on, re-tune, turn off again

So did you all remember to re tune your digital televisions and digi boxes yesterday?

Sir Bruin's mother called late on Monday evening in a state of alarm. She'd heard she needed to re tune her television on Wednesday and didn't know how to do it. Sir Bruin would have to come and sort it out for her. Sir Bruin pointed out that she doesn't have a digital receiver and that was the end of that conversation.

So, we re tuned our digital television. We gained a couple of new crappy digital channels that we didn't especially want and lost channel 5. The freeview signal on the East Coast is not good and which channels you can receive in Ipswich varies tremendously. One of my work colleagues, who lives only 15 minutes walk away, can't get a signal at all. We live on a hill (which I assume is what makes the difference) and we can get a signal, but not all the channels. In fact, of the five terrestrial channels, we can only receive BBC1 and BBC2 on digital so if we want to watch itv1, Chanel 4 or Five, we have to switch back to the old analogue signal (which is due to be turned off in two years time).

Most of the digital only channels that we can receive (with the notable exception of BBC4) broadcast very little that we want to watch.

Not that we watch much television anyway these days, being tragically addicted to Farmville.

Virtual Liz down on the virtual farm.

I probably still watch enough telly to annoy my readers with a TV review of the year come December though. Assuming that we haven't been re tuned to the point where we can't get any channels at all.

Roll up, roll up! Get your heritage here!

Every year, something called "Heritage Open Days" happens and most years I completely miss it. This year, however, I was tipped off by a woman who can only be described as my mother and who Sir Bruin has taken to addressing as Granny Weatherwax. She doesn't seem to mind.

English Heritage has taken over the organisation of this event (aided and abetted by local organisations like the Ipswich Society), so the publicity is better than it used to be and I even managed to get my hands on a leaflet this year telling me which buildings in Ipswich and the surrounding area were open to view over the weekend. We were entertaining Sir Bruin's Number 3 son yesterday, so that rather ruled out any heritage or culture but today we have been checking out places that the public cannot normally gain access to.

The Willis Building has not previously been part of this event and when we dropped by there this morning, it was turning into quite a popular attraction. Built in the early 1970s and designed by Norman Foster Associates, this unusual, heart-shaped building was listed in 1991 and at that time was the 'youngest' building ever to receive a grade 1 listing.




I moved to Suffolk in the late 1980s and I've always thought this a very attractive and distinctive modern building. It was top of my list of places to visit today, partly because I wanted to visit the fabled grass roof and take some photos.

My photographic efforts all day were hampered by the fact that the weather was grey and overcast. This is annoying because it was gorgeous and sunny Saturday. There aren't many opportunities to get up high and look at the Ipswich skyline, so I snapped away despite the cloud cover and have been busy with Picture Project adjusting the brightness on my photos.

Above is a view of buildings at the junction of Princes Street and Museum Street.

Views along the roof terrace towards Princes Street / Franciscan Way Roundabout

Looking back towards Museum Street and the town centre.

Towards the Waterfront area, with the distinctive grey and white of the UCS Waterfront Building.

This is me standing on the roof of the Willis Building. Yes, that is really a roof.

After we'd had a good wander around the roof area, we went back into the building and looked at some photographs of the construction site, circa 1972. Inside, the Willis Building still feels very new. I work in a brand new building which has been open for less than two months, and yet somehow the Willis Building on Friars Street feels more modern.

We had a tour around the office area that was once a swimming pool. The swimming pool is still there, underneath the office floor (you can see down into it through an occasional glass panel in the floor) and could, in theory, be reinstated. The depth of certain parts of the pool are still marked on the columns. They closed it some years ago due to high maintenance costs. The chap showing us around was of the opinion that, were it still available, the pool would be much better used today because everyone is so much more health and fitness conscious than they were in the 70s and 80s.

After thoroughly exploring the Willis Building, I treated Sir Bruin to lunch at Mizu Noodle Bar. On our way back to the car, we popped into another building that was open as part of the Heritage Weekend. The Unitarian Meeting House, also on Friars Street, was built at the very end of the 17th century. From the outside, it is an unassuming building which, apart from a slight lean to some of it's walls, gives little indication of the fact that it is over 300 years old. Inside, it is really rather lovely:

The photo above was taken inside the Unitarian Meeting House. The chandelier and box pews are original fittings from 1699.


There were more than 20 buildings in Ipswich that were open to the public this weekend, but we only visited 3 in Ipswich plus 1 other, which I shall come to in a moment. The last place in town we called at was the Old Custom House on Key Street. This building dates from the middle of the 18th century but only a very small part of it was open. There was a display about Maritime History run by the Ipswich Maritime Trust, but that was about it.

So, we piled into the Bear-mobile and headed out to Freston. I have visited Freston Tower before, as part of this heritage weekend about 5 years ago. Sir Bruin hadn't seen it though, and it is worth a look if only for it's lovely setting on the banks of the River Orwell.

Freston Tower.

Freston Tower was built in the 1570s, although no one really knows why or what for. It is six stories high, but so narrow that there is only one room on each floor. One local legend suggests the tower was built as a place of study for Ellen Latimer, daughter of Lord De Freston and that she studied a different subject on each floor, finishing with astronomy at the top. However, this seems unlikely given that the Landmark Trust, who now look after the building, suggest that its construction took place after the land it stands was sold by Christopher Latimer to one Thomas Gooding.

The stairs inside are incredibly narrow. As it is now let as holiday accommodation, each floor now has a different use (kitchen, bathroom above, bedroom above that etc). The views from the top are lovely, although when you are my height (5' 3") it is difficult to see over the walls.

View of the River Orwell taken from the top of Freston Tower, looking up river towards Ipswich.

It's so nice to be able to do stuff like this on your own doorstep at virtually no cost. A big hurrah for the people who organise it.

The Littlest Things

I have often complained on the pages of this blog about the muppets I have to speak to on the telephone at work. However, this afternoon I spoke to a woman who, despite the fact that the information I gave her was not entirely what she wanted to hear, still ended the call by saying "I am very grateful for the help you've given me". Doesn't that sort of thing just make your day?!

There isn't much to smile about in my job at this time of the year so a bit of politeness goes a very long way with me.


On the subject of little things, I find myself strangely addicted to Farmville on Facebook. Anyone want to be my neighbour?


At the end of my last post, I promised photos from a busy weekend. We went racing at Newmarket on Saturday and Sir Bruin's photos are so much better than mine that you will have to read all about that here. We were so tired on Sunday that we cancelled our plans and spent the day chilling out at home and in the garden. You will be relieved to learn that I didn't take any photos of us doing nothing.

Rumours of my death have been greatly exagerated

Where on earth have I been lately then?

Well, I'll tell you.

I've been to Cambridge and taken a trip along the Cam in a punt.

Bridge of Sighs

A bridge near St John's college.

Kings College.

I have also assited Sir Bruin in the erection of a new shed in my back garden. Demolishing and removing the old one took the best part of three days.

These are the instructions that came with the new shed. They said it would take 2 people 2 to 3 hours to assemble the shed.

My arse!

Thirty pages of instructions + seventy different parts + nuts, bolts and screws does not equal three hours.

It took longer than that to build the wooden base and get to this stage:

At the end of day one, we had all the walls up but no roof. And we had a sustained some injuries.

Metal sheds are sharp!

After another half day of work, we were pleased with the finished article.

Then I went back to work. Work is odder than usual because we have moved into a new building. Parts of said new building are not finished. I am working in a building site. I want to be on holiday again.

I did go to the seaside on Saturday. It was lovely.

Auntie Liz and Baby Bear enjoy the sand at Southwold.

I'm busy again next weekend, so expect more photos!