Fenlandphil's Blog

5 Aug

A Summer’s Place

Posted by fenlandphil in A Summer's Place, Lattersey Nature Reserve. Tagged: Blackberries, Butterflies, Dragonflies, Nature reserve, Peacock Butterfly, Purple Loosestrife, Red Admiral Butterfly., Summer, Whittlesey. 3 Comments

The way through the trees

I have written before of my love of the Lattersey Nature reserve in Whittlesey, I usually visit several times a week. Watching the changes in the vegetation and wildlife during the year is something I particularly enjoy.

A path in another part of the reserve

A path through Purple Loosestrife

We are now in high summer with autumn lurking just around the corner. Amongst the flowers in the meadow grounds and wooded areas butterflies accompanied by a few dragonflies go about their business but I am aware of the ripening of blackberries a few turning red and black among their still green fellows. The days are beginning to shorten not significantly yet but the change is coming.

An abundant crop of blackberries

Peacock butterfly

Time to make the most of the summer we have, to cherish the beauty of butterflies, dragonflies, wonder at the bees and flowers growing wild that nourish them, many considered weeds in other settings. My old gardening teacher defined a weed as merely a plant being in the wrong place. As far as the bees and butterflies are concerned these erstwhile weeds are certainly in the right place for them.

Peacock butterfly visiting a thistle a plant in the right place for him or her

15 Jul

Stamford Shakespeare Company’s performance of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit

Posted by fenlandphil in Theatre review. Tagged: Blithe Spirit, Madame Arcarti, Noel Coward, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stamford Shakespeare Company, The Importance of Being Earnest, Tolethorpe Hall. 3 Comments

I was given a ticket to Noel Coward’s play Blithe Spirit, a birthday present from my son. I hadn’t been to Tolethorpe Hall or watched a performance of this play before. My wife and I joined my brother in law together with his wife, her sister and friend. Enjoying a picnic in the grounds before making our way into the theatre.

The theatre is in the beautiful grounds of Tolethorpe Hall with permanent tiered seating and covered auditorium, the stage itself is detached from the auditorium and doesn’t appear to be fully covered.

The set was impressively well made showing a high degree of professionalism in its appearance and construction. Quality often lacking in sets used in many other supposedly more prestigious venues.

It augured well.

A photo of the fantastically well-constructed set for Blithe Spirit.

I thoroughly enjoyed the play and laughed far more than I have done in a long time. The entire cast played their parts to perfection and brought for me a degree of magic I have rarely experienced at the theatre. I particularly enjoyed the total eccentricity of Madame Arcarti brilliantly played by Angela Harris but competition from the rest of the very outstanding professional cast was tremendous.

Madame Arcardi, Blithe Spirit Stamford Shakespeare Company 2019 production. (Scan from the programme)

Madame Arcardi, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Stamford Shakespeare Company 2019 production. (Scan from the programme)

The final scenes showed just how well the set had been designed a work of exceptional quality.

The thought crossed my mind after watching the play, whether the character of Charles Condomine had been inspired in any way by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a novelist with an interest in spiritualism. I did a quick bit of research but could find nothing to support the theory.

This was my first visit to Tolethorpe Hall it will certainly not be my last “The Importance of Being Earnest” is on my to do list for next season.

Thank you, everyone, at the Stamford Shakespeare Company cast, production team and management for a truly wonderful evening.

4 Jul

Review of Halfords Chain Cleaning machine.

Posted by fenlandphil in cycling, Halfords. Tagged: chain cleaner, cogs, cycling. 2 Comments

Chain Cleaner from Halfords

Like many men and boys, I have a fascination with machines; particularly ones with gears, cams, cranks and sprockets. My daughter knows me well, she has grown up watching me watching things whirr and rotate. She has seen me standing awestruck in front of traction engines and beam engines.

As a cyclist, it was with absolute delight that I opened my birthday present to find this wonderful looking machine, its gears and cogs clearly visible through its plastic casing. Then I read the label a Chain Cleaning Kit, as the late Professor Stanley Unwin would have said, “Deep joy”.

I had it out of its packaging there and then opening it up to inspect its works, being the man I am, reading the instructions came afterwards.

The cycle chain cleaning machine itself

A few days later I put the machine to work, it is supplied with a small bottle of cleaning fluid to start you on your chain cleaning experience. The cycle was parked on the patio, a piece of wood placed under the stand to raise the rear wheel clear of the ground.

The machine is built in two halves to allow it to be fitted around the chain. The picture shows the two halves prior to assembly, the cleaning brushes and plastic cogs clearly visible.

The two halves of the cycle chain cleaning machine

The next picture is of the chain cleaner in place ready for action and waiting for the cleaning fluid. After pouring some fluid into the top reservoir I turned the crank backwards as instructed, the machine fell off hitting the ground. The second attempt produced the same result and the chain came off the back sprocket too.

Ready to go just need the cleaner adding

I refitted the chain and machine then tried turning the crank forward, we were in business the accumulated grime started to lift from the chain making its way into the bottom reservoir.

Chain cleaning in progress

The difference in chain cleanliness was very apparent, the removal draining of the cleaning fluid and washing the machine was easy and straight forward. I put my new toy away oiled my chain and was ready for cycling action.

A really thoughtful present.

2 Jun

Cambridge Strawberry Fair

Posted by fenlandphil in Cambridge, Cambridge Strawberry Fair, Huntingdon. Tagged: Bicycles, Cambridge Museum of Zoology, Cambridge People's Assembly, Cambridgeshire Keep our NHS, Hunt Saboteurs, Momentum, Novel, Sea Shepherd, Sedgewick Museum of Geology, Triffids. 1 Comment

Carnivorous Plants, any Triffids?

I grew up in Huntingdon, which is roughly equidistant from Peterborough and Cambridge. Of the two cities, Cambridge was and still is my favourite. Setting my novel in Cambridge has given me the perfect reason (not an excuse) to revisit more frequently for research purposes.

The Park and Ride at St Ives and the Guided Bus are very handy, free parking and a bus pass really useful.

For those who don’t know Cambridge the sheer volume and variety of bicycles is I am sure something of a surprise.

Dutch Bike

Today’s visit was to the Strawberry Fair, giving me valuable first-hand information I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. I had a wander around the fair astounded by the inflated price of food available at the venue, Greggs got my custom after leaving the fair. Whilst ambling around the stands and stalls I noticed one selling carnivorous plants, I was tempted to ask if they had any Triffids? I am not sure whether they would share my sense of humour and probably have already had similar requests so decided against it.

Carnivorous Plants, any Triffids?

There were a lot of live music performances taking place, nothing that really appealed to me but I am now of an age.

I toured some of the “lefty” stands, Momentum, Cambridge People’s Assembly, Cambridgeshire Keep our NHS, (nice profiteroles ladies reasonably priced too), Sea Shepherd and Hunt Saboteurs. I had a nice chat with the Hunt Sabs lady sharing my opinion of those who kill for sport and an account of an encounter I had with a hunt over fifty years ago. We agreed that those who kill for pleasure have at the very least a personality disorder.

Dinosaur skeleton at the Sedgewick Museum

I visited the Museum of Zoology and then the Sedgewick Museum of Geology looking for information to help my daughter with a topic she is teaching her class, about dinosaurs. Both museums are well worth a visit.

Old habits die hard and whilst walking around Cambridge I was evaluating the quality of the ironwork used in gates and railings, it no longer serves any practical purpose it just stimulates the brain.

I think I am now up to date with my research but an unexpected plot twist might require another visit, I won’t know until it happens, hang on, something is coming through now.

26 May

Irony?

Posted by fenlandphil in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

I was visiting my brother in hospital yesterday he has been pretty poorly, currently suffering from pneumonia. I was getting near the end of my visit when our cousin and his wife turned up.

We then proceeded to discuss people we all knew, many old school contemporaries that had died recently.

6 May

A Following Wind

Posted by fenlandphil in A Following Wind, Book, Publishing, Sunrise, Sunset, U3a, Whittlesey Wordsmiths, Writing Group. Tagged: Fenland, Publishing, Sunset, Writing. 2 Comments

A following Wind front cover

Our U3A Creative Writing Group, Whittlesey Wordsmiths, is working on a new book, a follow up to Where the Wild Winds Blow, our first very successful attempt at writing and publishing. This new volume has the title: A Following Wind.

I am working on a new front cover for the book, something that conveys both a movement by wind and our Fenland landscape. Over the years I have managed to take photographs of what is for many people the defining feature of our landscape, the skies. Often at their most breathtakingly beautiful during sunrise and sunset.

The cover may be slightly different depending on the template restrictions but please take a look at it and let me have your feedback.

11 Apr

The Calling by Alison Bruce a review.

Posted by fenlandphil in Alison Bruce, Book, Book Review, Cambridge Blue, The Calling, The Siren. Tagged: Bath, Book, Cambridge, DC Gary Goodhew, Diamond, Edinburgh, Morse, Novel, Oxford, Rebus. 2 Comments

The Calling by Alison Bruce

Having read the first two books in the DC Gary Goodhew series (Cambridge Blue and The Siren) I was keen to try The Calling; the third or more accurately the first.

Alison had written The Calling before any of the others but decided that it was better placed as the third novel in the series.

There is always the problem of a Cambridge based detective being compared to that of Oxford’s Inspector Morse, Edinburgh’s Inspector Rebus or Bath’s Superintendent Diamond. DC Gary Goodhew is further down the ranks, a mere Detective Constable but none the less just as talented.

Goodhew struggles without any advantage of rank to find his way through a maze of clues, using unorthodox methods and skating round procedural niceties to find the answer to a troubling series of cruel murders. The ending is edgy and tense with the outcome by no means a foregone conclusion.

I enjoyed the book, like a great many of Alison’s fans, Cambridge is local and familiar to me, we have ownership of the settings.

This is, as are Alison’s other books well written, detailed and literate but above all else a damn good entertaining read.

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Fenlandphil's Blog A blog from the low country

A Summer’s Place

Stamford Shakespeare Company’s performance of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit

Review of Halfords Chain Cleaning machine.

Cambridge Strawberry Fair

Irony?

A Following Wind

The Calling by Alison Bruce a review.

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