Month: September 2014

We have had boats, cargo ships, tall ships, Dunkirk boats, fire engines, trolley buses but today was a first:

A Hot air balloon appeared over the Wine Rack!

Here is a close as I can get.

The Thames barge Melissa turned up this morning and, instead of mooring down by the University, she moored up alongside Thaletta. Thaletta has been moored opposite our balcony for some time now, just going out for the occasional trip. Melissa moored in the same direction; i.e. bow towards the lock.

We went for a walk along the waterfront down to The Cult cafe this morning for a coffee and a sausage sandwich. As we came along the Podium behind the Aurora restaurant, I noticed that the masts of the two boats were out of alignment and mention to Valerie that I should have brought my camera as it would have been a nice shot. Oh well, thought I, I can come down later and get the shot.

Well, true to form, Melissa went out shortly after so that idea went to pot. Later in the afternoon, though, Melissa came back and moored against Thalatta again but this time she tied up bow against stern. They tried very hard and managed to get the masts of both boats in perfect alignment. The trouble was that I couldn’t get the good shot from the balcony, so I went back to the podium again.

Oh weel. I tried! The sun was right behind the stern of Melissa/bow of Thalatta. The shot you see now is as best as I could recover using a lot of Photoshop and the tools in Aperture. Still, at least you can see what I saw, which is what this blog is about, supposedly – grin.

 

It does mean getting up and out on the balcony at 6.30 but it is worth it. The light over the commercial port was, I think, enhanced by the lights still on from the night.

 

Then, of course, you get reflections – which I always love. The water was quite still this morning. Again, I like the street light reflection as well.

We ant out for a day trip today. Thorpeness is just up the east coast from Aldeburgh. It is a small village with a large golf course but with two interesting features. Firstly, we have the windmill. This is a very nice example and looks wonderful against the clear blue sky. Mind you, it was raining ten minutes later…

 

 

We have two images because the road was very narrow and I couldn’t get far enough back for the wide angle on my zoom lens to get it all:-(

The other interesting feature is the House In the Clouds. Last time we went to Thorpeness, we couldn’t even find this! That time, we approached from the north and all the views are restricted. This time, we came up the coast road from Aldeburgh and you can see it easily. Finding it was another matter. We tried all of the roads off the main road around the lake and finally went down this very narrow dirt road to find both the windmill and this.

 

It has a nice little notice outside the front gate:

From there we drove back to the lake and eat our packed lunch and then home.

Before we got there, we visited Aldeburgh (Note to my friend Dan – remember having coffee in the Hotel?). As we drove down the coast road to Thorpeness, we spotted some blackberry bushes so we stopped to pick some for Valerie to make a blackberry and apple pie! Getting back into the car, I had to take a photo of the vista, not only for the juxtaposition of images but also – again – for my friend Dan who will know why.

Now you can see the House In  The Sky but what is that monstrosity next to it. Why, it is Sizewell Nuclear Power Station.

It has been a very grey day today. Started out with heavy rain and thunderstorms – most unlike the last few weeks. The day was brightened up by the arrival of The Schooner Trinovante. She has been here before but it was good to see her on a day like this.

It may still be quite warm during the day (and the night) but first thing in the morning it is obvious that the seasons are changing. These two pictures were taken just before 8am this morning!

 

Victor went out on Sunday with a bunch of people and a Jazz Band. I got this picture on the way back. The band is the Gipping Valley Stompers. As they went down the Wet Dock they were playing “Cakewalking Babies”

Some of you may know that Traditional Jazz is my favourite type (genre) of music and we often go to see the Stompers at the Steam Boat Tavern over by the New Cut where they play once a month.

Unfortunately, I was out on the day of the bike race but there have been a couple of interesting things happening. Well, you may not agree of course.

Firstly, they took the last crane off the big building project on Stoke Quay. We missed all three going up and we issued two coming down but we caught the last one. That’s a might impressive crane they are using to get it all down.

I am not sure that I would like his job, although I am sure that he has done it before:-)

Pity about the green though.

Next, we had the train come back having not seen it since the spring. This time, the wagons were some very smart DB Schecker ones which look much better than the old beaten up rusty wagons we had before. DB Schenker is a subsidiary of the German Railways company – Deutsche Bundesbahn (hence the DB) who took over EWS in 2007. Pity that they haven’t had the time to re-brand the Class 66 on the train. It is still in English, Welsh and Scottish (EWS) colours.

 

Here is a close up of one of the new wagons.

Lastly, we had another visit from the resident seal. This time it was swimming directly under the balcony and right on the surface. After these tow pictures were taken, it dived under and was next seen entering the lock. It seems fully aware of how things work around here!