Week ending 04/09/2022
Lois & I began this fortnight with a visit to the Maui-Waui festival on the Sunday curtsey of our good friend Hannah and her friend Queen Addy. Lois and Hannah had planned to go to Maui-Waui for several months and at the last-minute Queen Addy pulled out and I was offered the opportunity of her Sunday ticket, so I took it. I had quite a pleasant afternoon wandering around the festival site and visiting the various stalls and vendors, but nothing took my fancy and my wallet stayed deep within my pocket. I took many photographs and my personal theme of the afternoon seemed to focus upon the handful of festival carts being used around the site.
I spoke with a couple of local crafts-persons that I had already met at other events and during previous years.
Dan, Isaac G’s father took part in the drum and percussion parade, and I took a photo of him as the parade marched past me as I stood outside the Albion Fairs’ nostalgia tent. A little later I purchased a jacket potato with a vegetable chilli topping and then Lois took part in the battle of the bubbles whilst I stood back filming and photographing it all. Next it was the paint bomb and 7-year-old Isaac G. and his little sister Nina took part in this coloured cloud of fun, and I photographed them covered in a rainbow of what I believe was coloured chalk powders; theses photos I have passed across with all copyright to their mother, Kay. Then came the main event and the closing act of the 2022 Maui Waui Festival, the Dutch band from Amsterdam “My Baby” a favourite of Lois’s and whom she has been following for a couple of years now. At the end of that performance, we decided to drive the 20 odd miles home rather than camp overnight even though we had the all the gear in the boot of the car ready for us to use.
My writing has suffered dreadfully this week with nothing of any substance or value being added to my still work-in-progress novel, but I did take some notes for another set of stories that will hopefully become my second novel.
Thursday came and I had arranged to mind George, Eddy, Isaac G, and Isaac V for the day. With all four boys assembled that is when I realised that our little Ford Ka has only four seats and only four seat belts, and with me as driver there was now five of us, so I had to make the decision to walk with the boys for the rest of the day.
We went to explore Mousehold on the Valley Road side of the Heath, crossing the pitch & putt golf course where we picked and ate some ripe eating apples from a tree and then we ventured deeper into the woods until we came across the high walls of HMP Norwich. These imposing structures impressed the boys, along with the many signs telling the public to keep out and that the area was patrolled by security dogs.
We then went to the site of the old Britannia Barracks WW2 shooting range backstop wall to dig for spent bullets but the remaining ground was too hard for us to dig with sticks and I already knew that the heaps of spoil against the wall had been previously plundered for the lead bullets to sell as semi valuable scrap many years ago. After lunch the five of us traipsed down Gas Hill to go fishing at a nice little spot between the Norwich Yacht Station and the Bishop’s bridge where George and the two Isaacs’ both caught fish but unfortunately when it was Eddy’s turn to wet a line the river became overcrowded with after-work canoeists, stand-up-paddle-boarders and hired day boats, which were now rushing back to the hire base in Thorpe St Andrew before it closed for the day. The speed of these electric dayboats caused far too much of a wake and the inexperienced canoeists and paddle-boarders were also too noisy and constantly slapping the water with their paddles due to their inability to propel their craft correctly which scared all the fish away.
Friday morning Lois & I loaded up the car and drove the 200 miles to Leek in Staffordshire. I don’t recall ever going to Leek before except possibly to collect some desperately needed tractor parts from the Burgess depot there maybe 32 or 33 years ago. We stayed at the Old White Hart dining rooms B&B on the main street. During Saturday Morning Lois and I toured the town, took in the exhibits at the Leek Town Library where Lois got talking to a local artist about his display and I wandered about the community project building and got talking to a couple of the craft tutors there. I quite like the industrial architecture of Leek and I especially liked all of the original Victorian era cast iron gutterings with the fancy cast iron brackets holding them up in place, but I also liked the century old and more still existing smears of industrial coal soot staining showing on most of the buildings and brickwork and features.
At around midday we departed for the Gradbach Scout Camping Grounds where I had arranged to meet my two sisters. The three of us had not been together since my father’s funeral service almost 7 years ago and we had gathered to spread the ashes of both my father and my recently deceased mother. Dad had requested that we spread his ashes in the Peak District and Mum wanted her ashes to be spread with Dad’s, but neither I or my two sisters are fit enough or well enough to go hiking up Kinder Scout or across Bleaklow moor so I chose to spread my parents’ ashes at the Gradbach Scout Camp, which is on the edge of the Peak District, the Roaches and the Dane Valley. However, I ensured that I left it to my sister Jo to sort it all out and arrange a date and time, etc. Lois and I arrived about an hour before my sisters and we walked up to the campsite flagpole, where it had been suggested we might spread the ashes and although the views are staggering, I felt it to be an inappropriate spot, so I slowly wandered down the slight slope about 200 metres to the Campfire amphitheatre. During the Summer of 1975 we camped at Gradbach as both a family and as part of the 4th Melton Mowbray Darwin Scout troop on summer camp. It was one of the best holidays I can recall with my family and with dad being both a troop and group scout leader and mum being the first officially invested female scout troop leader in England I thought that this was a much more appropriate spot…… Dad loved the whole pomp & ceremony of a “proper” Scout campfire and he was a much sort after Campfire Master, often travelling to the campsites of other Scout troops many miles and several counties away to lead their campfires and he also conducted Campfire Master training sessions down at the UK’s Scout HQ at Gilwell Park during the late 1960’s through to the mid 1970’s….. alas these training sessions ceased in 1976 due to a dispute between him and someone associated with/employed at Gilwell and one day I may tell you about that situation because it became sort of relevant to me personally here in Norwich during 2015.
My sisters and I spread my parents’ ashes at the head of the campfire amphitheatre under the canopy of a mountain ash and an oak tree, both of which are tree species which dad loved and I think that my parents will contently rest in peace there. We then regrouped at the nearby New Inn at Flash, the highest village in Great Britain where I drank a pint of John Smith’s bitter; one of Dad’s favourites to honour both of my parents and the upbringing they gave to me and my two sisters.
On Sunday Lois I travelled the 25 miles or so across Derbyshire to the national Tramways museum at Crich. Somewhere I have wanted to visit for about 30 years ever since my son Karl went there on his first school trip at 5 years old. I had a wonderful time wandering about the exhibits, taking photographs and walking (rather slowly) along the adjoining wooden sculpture trail…… I love trams and love sculpture so it was for me an excellent day out. However, the sprinkles topping on the cream of the pie was the entrance fee. Normally it is £22 for an adult ticket but as I am now 60 years old I qualified for the seniors’ concession, when I flashed my medical alert card, I also qualified for the reduced mobility concession, reducing my entry fee to just £13.50 and the girl in the ticket kiosk then deemed Lois to be my full-time carer, so Lois got in for free. When I mentioned that I was excited to be there because of my love of trams and because I had wanted to come and visit for 30 years; since my son’s school trip, they decided to give both Lois & I complimentary free tickets for a return visit that must be used within 12 months….. I think I’ll take them up on that one!
For our route home from Crich in Derbyshire I decided to take in a nostalgic mini road trip across Nottinghamshire, North East Leicestershire, East Rutland, the Droves and Fens of South Lincolnshire, North Cambridgeshire and North Norfolk much to Lois’ annoyance, but I was totally vindicated when traffic news flashes on the radio indicated there were problems on the M1 South bound, a serious accident on the A1 South bound, considerable delays from Barwell to Cambridge and then on to Newmarket along the A14 and then substantial delays in the northbound contra flow system on the A11 south of Norwich.
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