View allAll Photos Tagged put
I asked them to put a "cold one on ice" for my flickr friend Carl to welcome him home from his long trip out of the country.
I meant a COLD BEER, not half of the country!!
Welcome back to the sub zero tundra you call home, Carl!!
Sorry about this silly polar vortex. Obviously somebody misunderstood my request!!
Grab a shot. It'll warm you up :-)
Negotiating a roundabout,at Leicester,was this Arriva Fox County East Lancs European bodied Scania L113.
I had put these five photos aside when I last deleted a few more photos from my computer. Gradually, I will add the description that I had written under a different posted photo taken on the same day.
"I thought this was a very strange-looking tropical bird, found in the African building (where the Gorillas are) at the Calgary Zoo. I was lucky that it was perched on this branch close to the wooden walkway. Love the bright red, but not so sure about that eye or the beard, LOL! A bit creepy."
Recently, I haven't been posting quite as many photos as I usually do. With snow in the forecast, I needed to get out and stock up with food, especially, and see to other important errands. Clearing the snow off my car is going to be painful and almost impossible with my damaged shoulder rotator cuff, plus I now have two painful arms, ha, as I was finally able to go and get the most recent COVID-19 booster shot (Pfizer) two days ago. Yesterday, 2 November 2022, it snowed all morning, but today has been nice and sunny.
the boys put on a pool competition for the locals, however a stranger arrived and beat darth in a tense final, the boys named him strangermouse and kinda liked him.
Custom "set" I made for Put Your Brick Where Your Mouth Is Two.
Minifigures: 1 (I'll add the picture later)
Weight: 230 g
Playability:
- swooshing
- opening cockpit (I'll add the picture later)
The model is pretty sturdy. It has a stand that adds extra 15 grams.
Sadly, I didn't had enough time to make some stickers. :(
Originally, I've planned a much larger entry, but I didn't had enough time to edit all the stuff in time (I'm pretty sure I'm late for the deadline, too).
I'll add other pictures of the starfighter in next 14 hours, and the pictures of the stuff I planned to enter during the week.
1. Put your iTunes/ iPod / mp3 on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. Write that song name down, no matter how silly it sounds!
4. Tag friends who might enjoy doing this (my tags are to any and all who read this and want to do it!).
1. What word/phrase best describes your photography?
Three Little Birds ~ Bob Marley
2. What makes you happy?
Put Your Records On ~ Corinne Bailey Rae
3. What do your friends think of you?
The Back of Love ~ Echo & the Bunnymen
4. What do your friends think of your photography?
Another Time, Another Place ~ U2
5. What do you think of your friends?
I Don’t Want to Change the World ~ Ozzy Osbourne
6. What should you be doing now?
With or Without You ~ U2
7. What should you photograph next?
Robots ~ Flight of the Conchords
8. Where will you be in 5 years?
Changes ~ David Bowie
9. Is there something you must share with someone?
No Quarter ~ Led Zeppelin
10. What is life trying to teach you?
Who Are You? ~ The Who
11. What’s the best thing that could happen to you?
I Feel It All ~ Feist
12. What new experience should you try once?
Going Home ~ Runrig
13. What do people like the most about you?
Daylight ~ Coldplay
And this is the debut of my iPod Touch. The last music tag I did involved my old 30Gig video iPod, which has since died (notice the same album is displayed; I'm nerdy that way). So here we have two of the major factors that keep me going in my life: music and coffee! I have coffee every day (mornings, and occasionally in the afternoon), but I have music with me and playing almost all the time... where allowed and appropriate. Driving would be so dull and sometimes unbearable without it.
These birds put on an amazing show today lasting for over an hour. They make quite a noise when they all start pinging at once. Often within 4 - 6m sometimes closer.
I put 60-second and 240-second frames on starless frame.
There were hydrogen-alpha emissions widely in the area.
Equipment: Sigma 105mmF1.4 Art, IDAS NB12 dual narrowband Filter, and EOS R6-SP5, modified by Seo San on Vixen AXD Equatorial Mount, autoguided with Fujinon 1:2.8/75mm C-Mount Lens, Pentax x2 Extender, ZWO ASI 174MM-mini, and PHD2 Guiding
Exposure: 14 times x 900 seconds, 6 x 240sec, and 8 x 60 seconds at ISO 6,400 and f/3.0
site: 1,466m above sea level at lat. 35 48 26 North and long. 138 39 24 East near Kotokawa dam in Yamanashi. 山梨県牧丘柳平琴川ダム
Ambient temperature was low down to 1 degree Celsius or 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Wind was mild. SQML reached 21.29 at the night. Seeing was awful as usual in this season at the night, and guide error RMS was 2.25.
Picture Of City Of New York Fire Department Ladder Company 10 Located At 124 Liberty Street In Manhattan Right Near The World Trade Center Site. This New Ladder Truck Made By Ferrara Was Put Into Service Around January 2012. Photo Taken Wednesday September 11, 2013.
DSC6766
NSR ICMm 4238-4236 rijdt door Harselaar als IC 1542 van Deventer naar Amsterdam Centraal. Bovenin de portalen hebben de ooievaars alweer hun plek ingenomen.
Lance Corporal Chris Paterson shows NHS medics how to put on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that they will wear in the British-built Ebola treatment centres in Sierre Leone.
The kit - including overalls, visors, gloves and more - must be put on in the right order to provide maximum protection, as well as removed in a special sequence to reduce risks of contamination.
Doctors, nurses and medics from across the UK's National Health Service are joining Britain's fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone. More than 30 NHS staff will make up the first group of volunteers to be deployed by the UK government.
The NHS volunteers have spent 9 days training at the Army Medical Services Training Centre at Strensall near York in preparation. The facility is a replica of a Sierra Leone Ebola treatment centre.
The group - which includes GPs, nurses, clinicians, psychiatrists and consultants in emergency medicine - will work on testing, diagnosing and treating people who have contracted the deadly virus.
They will work in British-built treatment centres across the country, which when full, will triple Sierra Leone’s bed capacity.
Find out more about the UK's fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone at: www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/ebola-virus-governme...
---------------------------------------
Picture: Simon Davis/DFID
Free-to-use photo
This image is posted under a Creative Commons - Attribution Licence, in accordance with the Open Government Licence. You are free to embed, download or otherwise re-use it, as long as you credit the source as 'Simon Davis/DFID'.
There are many ways to put on a jumper.
How do you put yours on?
As a child in bewildered awe of the male beast I always admired the butch technique where they thrust their arms in both sleeves, quickly gathered up the trunk of the jumper in a concertina up to the neck hole and then bunged it over their heads as fast as possible so that their head was concealed for the minimum possible amount of time – Just in case of a surprise ‘bundling’ from mates or an attack from an embittered ex-girlfriend – This must hark back to ‘olden days’ - whilst putting on his chainmail Lancelot had to look out for an angry King Arthur carrying a pair of Guinevere’s knickers, found in Lancelot’s saddle bag.
Then there is the head up through the hole first and then several moments spent trying to find the end of the sleeves with both hands, arms flailing all over the place. This technique wouldn’t have worked in olden days - you would see the attacker coming but your hands would be all tangled up and all you could do is watch as he plunged the sword into you.
For those wearing heavy makeup or hair ‘product’ (sounds like some kind of substance the hair excretes) - the hands and fingers must spread themselves crown-like inside the neck and hold it splayed as wide as possible so that the head may pass through without touching the sides. Of course when trying clothes on in a shop the heavy make up wearer couldn’t care less and neglects to spread the neck hole out. Every ladies clothes shop is littered with white tops with orange necklines.
The kids version (and the best) is to stand with arms up and have the jumper plunged down over them by a grown up. I would love to see groups of friends getting ready to leave the pub at the end of a night, helping each other into their jumpers, everyone stands with arms straight up while the designated ‘mother’ goes round the circle applying jumpers to each ‘little soldier’.
Then there is always the ‘gay abandon’ – throwing the entire thing over your head, without working out orientation beforehand, and letting your head and arms flail around and fight it out like a game of ‘musical holes’. I rather like the total blackout as you rustle around inside, smelling wool infused with perfume and deodorant and wondering if you are going to emerge before suffocating. To apply this method after going swimming and with a slightly damp body is possibly one of the most difficult things you will ever do.
Put into the singular tense because hurt in any form is not of matter of "them", but felt by one person, and has to be dealt with one kind thought, one kind gesture, one prayer at a time.
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." - Elie Wiesel
Put the Canon FD 28mm 3.5 SC "vintage" lens on a reverse macro ring on the Canon XTi for my 100x project of 100 images with a vintage (film lens) on a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi.
I appreciate each and every visit, comment and fave here on my little corner of the world as seen through my lens.
Production: 105 (1964-1969)
Specific history of this car:
GT40 P/1079 was delivered new from Ford Advanced Vehicles (FAV) as one of the few privately entered factory built lightweight racing cars to Mr Jean Blaton from Brussels, Belgium. Compared to the road cars (which are today often rebuilt and used as race cars), the competition cars had a stronger race spec engine, a smaller, but improved clutch and a 140 litre fuel tank. They also featured a lighter flywheel and 25% stiffer suspension all around. Further the race cars were missing its interior trim, the door pockets, a radio, the heater and exhaust silencers compared to the normal road cars. As this car was one of the very late cars built by John Wyer, it belongs to the last series of GT40 which had slightly modified body parts and was lighter than any of the earlier cars.
The original invoice, which comes with the car, proves that Blaton received the yellow car on the 20th April 1968 in Ostende, Belgium for the Ecurie Francorchamps. This was just in time to put the car on a transporter for the 1.000 km race in Monza. The drivers Willy Mairesse and “Jean Beurlys” (the racing name of Jean Blaton) qualified the car 6th on the grid, but had to stop the race after 89 laps due to wheel problems. The where still qualified 7th overall and 2nd in class! The next race for 1079 were the 1.000 km of Spa-Francorchamps, were the car was entered by the Belgium Claude Dubois in the name of the Ecurie Francorchamps, still in its Belgium racing colors. The car was again driven by Mairesse and “Beurlys” who qualified the car in third position, only beaten by the local hero Jacky Ickx in another GT40 and a experimental Ford on pole. The start went very well but the Ecurie Francorchamps had to retire after 45 laps.
For the 1968 24 hours of Le Mans, the car was once more entered by Claude Dubois in the name of his team Ecurie Claude Dubois. The original and stamped (18 March 1968) entry form and application forms which are coming with the car, are stating Dubois, “Beurlys” and Mairesse as drivers. After some technical problems during the tests, the ended up in qualifying, now with a fresh engine, 10th on the grip. Shortly before the start of the 24 hours race it started to rain. Mairesse drove off first, but lost the car in the rain and crashed it at high speed on the Mulsanne as a door flew open.
After the accident the car remained untouched for a while before it went to Switzerland where it was restored. In the late eighties/early nineties the car was sold to a French based investment funds including some other high valued cars. The car was then offered at a French auction in 1994 and also stayed in France until the last owner bought it in the late nineties. During a further restoration the car has been fully stripped and some wrong parts have been replaced or corrected. The car was then showed to Ronnie Spain, author of the book “GT40: An individual history and race record”, who immediately recognised the car and stated it in writing as the original, ex-Jean Blaton car.
Since then, the GT40 was successfully driven at several Le Mans Classic races since 2002. It also raced on various Tour Auto events and Goodwood Revivals with great success. 1079 is probably one of the best documented GT40 race cars until today. Not only is there a more than 400 pages expertise by Ronnie Spain, but also a full technical expertise certifying the authenticity of the chassis. We are very proud to offer this rare and original racing Ford GT40 in race-ready condition. Only very seldom do original competition GT40 appear on the market as most of the cars which are found in historic motorsport are modified road cars.
Source: www.mustangdrivers.be/Dubois_ShelbyEuropa/DuboisBeurlysGT...
In December 2024 a special exhibition was held about classic sports cars having participated in Le Mans races.
Metropole Museum
Druten, the Netherlands.
Leaving Lepidoptera... Please don't touch the display, little boy. Oh-ho-ho... cute. Moving to the next aisle, we have Arachnida, the spiders, our finest collection. This friendly, little fellow is the Heptithilidae, unfortunately harmless. Next to him... the nasty Lycosa Raptoria. His tiny fangs cause creeping ulcerations of the skin. And here... my prize, The Black Widow. Isn't she lovely? And so deadly. Her kiss is fifteen times as poisonous as that of the rattlesnake. You see, her venom is highly neuro-toxic. Which is to say that it attacks the central nervous system; causing intense pain, profuse sweating, difficulty in breathing, loss of conciousness, violent convulsions, and, finally... uh, death. You know, what I think I love the most about her is her in-born need to dominate, posess. In fact, immediately after the consummation of her marriage to the smaller and weaker male of the specie, she kills and eats him. Oo-hoo, she is delicious! (And I hope he was.) If I may put forward a slice of personal phylosophy, I feel that Man has ruled this world as a stumbling, demented child-king long enough! And as his empire crumbles, my precious Black Widow shall rise as his most fitting successor!
Random Fact : The silk of this spider is known to be the strongest of all silk. The Black Widow spider does not spin the pretty webs, instead she will spin the thick jumbles looking cobweb. These webs catch beetles, flies, grasshoppers, moths and other spiders.
Sabry, Sabry, how many times do I have to tell you to be careful when you're sitting in a tight, short skirt and wearing stockings and garters; when you move, everything shows.
Now please put your stilettos back on and make sure you don't take them off all day.
It is funny how we forget things we have done.
Below, I state that this was my first visit to the cathedral as a churchcrawler.
When I began to post shots, I looked for the album to put the shots in, only to find there wasn't one.
A search of my photostream showed two visits to the cathedral, complete with interior shots from 2013 and the previous years.
I had no memories of these visits.
What else have I forgotten?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norwich is a fine city. Or so the signs say on every road into it. But, and there can be no denying it, it is a jewel in the Norfolk countryside.
For me it is “just” Norwich Where used to go for our important shopping, for football and later for concerts. We, and I, would take for granted its cobbled streets, Norman cathedral and medieval churches by the dozen. Also it’s a pub for every day, the ramshackle market, and the Norman castle keep looking down on the city sprawled around.
Just Norwich.
Later, it also became where I bought new records from Backs in Swan Lane, and searched for punk classics in the Record and Tape Exchange.
Norwich is lucky that the industrial revolution passed by the city leaving few changes, the character and history intact. World War II did damage, some churches were abandoned, some rebuilt, but many survived.
And Norwich is a friendly city. It sees warm and colourful, and on a hot summer’s day when the locals were in shorts and t-shirts, much white flesh was on display. I also take the football club for granted. I have supported it from nearly 49 years, and being away from the city means I get my news and views largely second hand, but I also forget how central the club is to the people.
Sadly, Norwich isn't really on the way to anywhere, well except Great Yarmouth and Cromer, so people don't come here by accident. So it remains something of a secret to most but locals.
Other cities would have children dressed in any one of a dozen Premier League club’s replica shirts. In Norwich yellow and green was the dominant colour, even after a chastening season that saw us finish rock bottom of the league. The local sports “superstore” has a Norwich Fan’s fanzone, and a third of the window is given to the home city club.
I knew the city like the back of my hand, so knew the route I wanted to take to provide me with views that would refresh those in my mind. I didn’t dally, pressed on to my two targets, the Anglican Cathedral and St Peter Mancroft.
This wasn’t the original plan; that was to meet two friends I used to go to the football with, Ian and Ali, but they both caught a bug in Manchester watching the women’s Euros, so couldn’t meet with me. But I had an alternative plan, maybe with a pub stop or two.
The trip happened as I got a mail offering a tempting 20% off the trip that had been selling poorly, I checked with Ian and Alison, they said they were free, but had yet to fall ill. So seats were booked, as Jools liked the sound of an afternoon in Norwich and meeting my friends.
Up at quarter to five so we could catch the first High Speed service out of Dover, so to be in London in time to catch the railtour to Norwich.
Sun had yet to light up Dover Priory when we arrived, but a few people milling around, including two still at the end of their night out.
Folkestone was light by the warm light of the rising sun, and well worth a shot as we passed over Foord Viaduct.
Later, I was hoping the calm morning meant the Medway would be a mirror, but a breeze disturbed the surface ruining the reflections I had hoped for.
Finally, emerging into Essex, the line climbs as the go over the Dartford Crossing, just enough time to grab a shot.
It was already hot in London, so we stayed in the shade of the undercroft at St Pancras, had a coffee and a pasty from Greggs before walking over to Kings Cross to see if our tour was already at the buffers.
We walked across the road to King's Cross, and find the station packed with milling passengers, all eyes trained on the departure boards waiting for platform confirmations.
Ours was due to be platform 3, and the rake of carriages was indeed there, top and tailed by class 66 freight locomotives.
We get on the train and find we had been allocated a pair of seats nearest the vestibule. This meant that they were a few inches less wide than others, meaning Jools and I were jammed in.
Almost straight away, Jools's back and Achilles began to ache, and the thought of four hours of this in the morning and another four in the evening was too much, and so she decided to get off at the first stop at Potters Bar.
In the end, a wise choice I think.
The guy in the seat opposite to us talked the whole journey. I mean filling any silence with anything: how much he paid for the components of his lunch, his cameras and then his job. In great detail. He also collected train numbers. I didn't know that was really a thin in the days of EMUs, but I helped out from time to time telling him units he had missed.
We had a twenty minute break at Peterborough because of pathing issues, so we all got out to stretch our legs and do some extra trainspotting.
An Azuma left from the next platform, and another came in on the fast line. I snapped them both.
From Peterborough, the train reversed, and after the 20 minute wait, we went out of the station southwards, taking the line towards Ely.
Now that we had done our last stop, the train could open up and we cruised across the Fens at 70mph, the flat landscape botted with wind turbines and church towers slipped by.
Instead of going into Ely station, we took the rarely used (for passenger trains) freight avoiding line, now a single track. Emerging crossing the main line, taking the line eastwards towards Thetford.
Again, the regulator was opened, and we rattled along. Even so, the journey was entering its fourth hour, and with my travelling colleague and without Jools, time was dragging.
We were now back in Norfolk, passing the STANTA training area, all warning signs on the fences telling the trainee soldiers that that was where the area ended. I saw no soldiers or tanks. My only thought was of the rare flowers that would be growing there, unseen.
And so for the final run into Norwich, familiar countryside now.
Under the southern bypass and the main line from London, slowing down where the two lines merged at Trowse before crossing the River Wensum, before the final bend into Norwich Thorpe.
At last I could get off the train and stretch my legs.
Many others were also getting off to board coaches to take them to Wroxham for a cruise on the Broads, or a ride on the Bure Valley Railway, while the rest would head to Yarmouth for four hours at the seaside.
I got off the train and walked through the station, out into the forecourt and over the main road, so I could walk down Riverside Road to the Bishop’s Bridge, then from there into the Cathedral Close.
The hustle and bustle of the station and roadworks were soon left behind, as the only noise was from a family messing about in a rowing boat in front of Pulls Ferry and a swan chasing an Egyptian Goose, so the occasional splash of water.
I reached the bridge and passed by the first pub, with already many folks sitting out in the beer garden, sipping wines and/or summer beers. I was already hot and would loved to have joined them, but I was on a mission.
In the meantime, Jools had texted me and said if I fancied getting a regular service back home, then I should. And a seed grew in my brain. Because, on the way back, departing at just gone five, the tour had to have a 50 minute layover in a goods siding at Peterborough, and would not get back to Kings Cross until half nine, and then I had to get back to Dover.
I could go to the cathedral the church, walk back to the station. Or get a taxi, and get a train back to London at four and still be home by eight.
Yes.
I walked past the Great Hospital, then into the Close via the swing gate, round to the entrance where there was no charge for entry and now no charge for photography. But I would make a donation, I said. And I did, a tenner.
I have been to the cathedral a few times, but not as a churchcrawler. So, I made my way round, taking shots, drinking in the details. But the walk up had got me hot and bothered, I always run with a hot engine, but in summer it can be pretty damp. I struggled to keep my glasses on my nose, and as I went round I knew I was in no mood to go round again with the wide angle, that could wait for another visit.
The church is pretty much as built by the Normans, roof excepted which has been replaced at least twice, but is poetry in stone. And for a cathedral, not many people around also enjoying the building and its history.
At one, bells chimed, and I think The Lord’s Prayer was read out, we were asked to be quiet. I always am when snapping.
In half an hour I was done, so walked out through the west door, through the gate and into Tombland. I was heading for the Market and St Peter which site on the opposite side to the Guildhall.
I powered on, ignoring how warm I felt, in fact not that warm at all. The heat and sweats would come when I stopped, I found out.
I walk up the side of the market and into the church, and into the middle of an organ recital.
Should I turn round and do something else, or should I stop and listen. I stopped and listened.
Everyone should hear an organ recital in a large church. There is nothing quite like it. The organ can make the most beautiful sounds, but at the same time, the bass pipes making noises so deep you can only feel it in your bones.
Tony Pinel knew his way round the organ, and via a video link we could see his hands and feet making the noises we could hear. It was wonderful, but quite how someone can play one tune with their feet and another with their hands, and pulling and pushing knobs and stoppers, is beyond me. But glad some people can.
It finished at quarter to two, and I photograph the font canopy and the 15th century glass in the south chapel. Font canopies are rare, there is only four in England, and one of the others is in Trunch 20 miles to the north. Much is a restoration, but it is an impressive sight when paired with the seven-sacrament font under it.
The glass is no-less spectacular, panels three feet by two, five wide and stretching to the vaulted roof. I can’t photograph them all, but I do over 50%.
I go to the market for a lunch of chips, for old times sake. I mean that was the treat whenever we went either to Norwich or Yarmouth; chips on the market. I was told they no longer did battered sausage, so had an un-battered one, and a can of pop. I stood and ate in the alleyway between stalls, people passing by and people buying chips and mushy peas of their own.
Once done, I had thought of getting a taxi back to the station, but the rank that has always been rammed with black cabs was empty, and two couples were shouting at each other as to who should have the one that was there. So I walked to the station, across Gentleman’s Walk, along to Back of the Inns, then up London Street to the top of Prince of Wales Road and then an easy time to the station across the bridge.
I got my ticket and saw a train to Liverpool Street was due to depart at 14:32. In three minutes.
I went through the barrier and got on the train, it was almost empty in the new, swish electric inter-city unit. I was sweating buckets, and needed a drink, but there appeared to be no buffet, instead just electric efficiency and silence as the train slid out of the station and went round past the football ground to the river, then taking the main line south.
In front of me, two oriental ladies talked for the whole journey. I listened to them, no idea what they talked about to fill 105 minutes.
I thought it would be nearly five when the train got in, but helped by only stopping at Diss, Ipswich, Manningtree and Colchester we got in, on time, at quarter past four.
I walked to the main concourse and down into the Circle Line platforms, getting a train in a couple of minutes the four stops to St Pancras. I knew there was a train soon leaving, and after checking the board and my watch I saw I had five minutes to get along the length of the station and up to the Southeastern platforms.
I tried. I did, but I reached the steps up to the platforms and I saw I had 45 seconds, no time to go up as they would have locked the doors. So, instead I went to the nearby pub and had a large, ice-cold bottle of Weiss beer.
That was better.
I was all hot and bothered again, but would have an hour to cool down, and the beer helped.
At ten past five, I went up and found the Dover train already in, I went through the barriers and took a seat in a carriage I thought would stop near the exit at Dover Priory. I called Jools to let her know I would be back at quarter to seven, and she confirmed she would pick me up.
She was there, people got off all out on a night on the town, dressed in shiny random pieces of fabric covering boobs and bottoms. I was young once, I thought.
Jools was there, she started the car and drove us home via Jubilee Way. Across the Channel France was a clear as anything, and four ferries were plying between the two shores. Take us home.
Once home, Jools had prepared Caprese. I sliced some bread and poured wine. On the wireless, Craig spun funk and soul. We ate.
Tired.
It was going to be a hot night, but I was tired enough to sleep through it. Or so I thought.
--------------------------------------------
Norwich has everything. Thus, the normally dry and undemonstrative Nikolaus Pevsner began his survey of the capital of Norfolk in his 1962 volume Buildings of England: Norwich and north-east Norfolk. And there is no doubt that this is one of the best cities of its size in northern Europe. Living in Ipswich as I do, I hear plenty of grumbles about Norwich; but really, although the two places have roughly the same population, Ipswich cannot even begin to compare with regard to its townscape. The only features which the capital of Suffolk can claim to hold above its beautiful northern neighbour are a large central park (Norwich's Chapelfield gardens is not a patch on Ipswich's Christchurch Park) and a large body of water in the heart of the town, perhaps Ipswich's most endearing feature and greatest saving grace.
But Norwich has everything else - to continue Pevsner's eulogy, a cathedral, a castle on a mound right in the middle, walls and towers, a medieval centre with winding streets and alleys, thirty-five medieval parish churches and a river with steamships. It even has hills...
I think it would be possible to visit Norwich and not even know this cathedral was there. The centre of the city is dominated by the castle, and the most familiar feature to visitors is the great market square widened by the clearances of the 1930s, and the fine City Hall built at that time which towers above it. In comparison, Norwich Cathedral sits down in a dip beside the river, walled in by its close, and is visible best from outside the city walls, especially from the east on the riverside, and to the north from Mousehold Heath. If you arrive by road from the south or west, you may not even catch a glimpse of it. The great spire is hidden by those winding streets and alleys, and many of the city's churches are more visible, especially St Giles, St Peter Mancroft in the Market Place, and the vast Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist, on Grapes Hill. It is said that the nave floor of St John the Baptist is at the same height above sea level as the top of the crossing of the Anglican cathedral.
With the possible exception of Lincoln Cathedral, I think that Norwich Cathedral is my favourite cathedral in all England. Call this East of England chauvinism if you like, But Norwich Cathedral has everything you could possible want from a great medieval building. But there is more to it than that. It is also one of the most welcoming cathedrals in England. There is no charge for admission, and they positively encourage you to wander around through the daily business of the cathedral, in the continental manner. No boards saying Silence Please - Service in Progress here. Because of this, the Cathedral becomes an act of witness in itself, and you step into what feels like it probably really is the house of God on Earth. They even used to say the Lord's Prayer over the PA system once an hour, and invite you to stop and join in - I wish they'd go back to doing that. The three pounds you pay for a photography permit must be one of the bargains of the century so far.
Norwich Cathedral is unusual, in that this is the original building. It has been augmented over the centuries of course, but this is still essentially the very first cathedral on this site. This is because the see was only moved to Norwich after the Norman invasion. The Normans saw the wisdom of drawing together ecclesiastical and civil power, and one way in which this might be achieved was by siting the cathedrals in the hearts of important towns. At the time of the conquest, Bishop Herfast had his seat at Thetford, and it was decided to move the see to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. It had moved several times during the previous four centuries, from Walton in Suffolk to North Elmham in Norfolk before Thetford, where the first proper but simple stone building had been raised. But as well as an eye for efficient administration, the Normans brought the idea that Cathedrals should be glorified; already, vast edifices were being raised in Durham, London and Ely. and Bury St Edmunds, with its famous Abbey, was the obvious place for the Diocese of East Anglia to sit.
However, such a move would have removed the Abbey's independent direct line with Rome, and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Province of Canterbury. The Abbey community was determined that this would not happen, and Abbot Baldwin sent representations to the Pope that ensured the survival of St Edmundsbury Abbey's independence. Bishop Herfast would not be allowed to glorify his position in East Anglia in the way his colleagues were doing elsewhere. But his successor, Herbert de Losinga, was more determined - and, perhaps, steeled by his conscience. A Norman, he had bought the Bishopric from the King in 1091, an act of simony that required penance. Building a great cathedral could be seen as that act of penance. But where? Bury was a lost cause; instead, he chose to move the see to a thriving market town in the north-east of his Diocese; a smaller, more remote place than Bury, to be sure, but proximity to the Abbey of St Edmund was perhaps not such a good thing anyway. It tended to cast a rather heavy shadow. And so it was that the great medieval cathedral of the East Anglian bishops came to be built, instead, at Norwich.
Work began in 1094, and seems to have been complete by 1145. It is one of the great Romanesque buildings of northern Europe, its special character a result of responses to fires and collapses over the course of the next few centuries. At the Reformation in the sixteenth century, it became a protestant cathedral of the new Church of England, losing its role as a setting for ancient sacraments and devotions, but being maintained as the administrative seat of a Diocese which covered all of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the ceremonial church of its great city. In the 19th Century, the western part of the Norwich Diocese was transferred into that of Ely, and at the start of the 20th Century the southern parishes became part of the new Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. Today, the Diocese of Norwich consists of north, south and east Norfolk, and the north-eastern tip of Suffolk.
The absence of this great church from the Norfolk Churches site has long been the elephant in the room, so to speak. And having it here at last is, I feel, a mark of how things have changed. When I first started the Norfolk and Suffolk sites back in 1999, I did not have a decent camera, and the earliest entries did not have any photographs at all. How the wheel has turned. Now, the photographs have become the sites, and with no apologies I don't intend to make this a wordy entry.
The perfection of Norwich is of distant views, the cloisters, and the interior. The exterior is hemmed in, and the most familiar part of the building, the west front, is a poor thing, the victim of barbarous restorations in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is almost a surprise to step through its mundanity into the soaring glory of the nave. Above, the famous vaulting is home to one of the largest collections of medieval bosses in the world. There are more in the beautiful cloisters.
The view to the east is of the great organ, looking very 17th Century but actually the work of Stephen Dykes Bower in the 1950s. Beyond is the intimacy of the quire and ambulatory with its radial chapels, the best of which is St Luke's chapel, containing the Despenser retable. Bishop Despenser is one of history's villains, putting down the Peasants Revolt in East Anglia with some enthusiasm. It is likely that this retable was made for the cathedral's high altar, possibly even to give thanks for the end of the Revolt. It was discovered upside down in use as a table in the 1840s. This chapel is, unusually, also a parish church; the parish of St Mary in the Marsh, the church of which was demolished at the Reformation, moved into the cathedral. They brought their seven sacrament font with them, and here it remains.
In the ambulatory there are many traces of medieval paint, almost certainly from the original building of the Cathedral. Two curiosities: at the back of the apse is the original Bishop's chair, and rising across the north side of the ambulatory like a bridge is a relic screen.
There is a good range of glass dating from the 14th to the 21st centuries. Highlights include the medieval panels in the north side of the ambulatory, Edward Burne-Jones's bold figures in the north transept, Moira Forsyth's spectacular Benedictine window of 1964 in a south chapel, and the millennium glass high in the north transept, which I think will in time become one of the defining features of the Cathedral. The figure of the Blessed Virgin with the Christ Child seated on her lap is the work of Norfolk-based artist John Hayward, who died recently, but the glass above is Hayward's reworking of Keith New's 1960s glass for St Stephen Walbrook in London, removed from there in the 1980s, and now reset here. Towards the west end of the nave are two sets of Stuart royal arms in glass, a rare survival.
I grew up in a city some sixty miles away from Norwich, but I didn't come here until I was in my mid-teens. I remember wandering around this building and being blown away by it, and I still get that feeling today. There is always something new to find here. My favourite time here is first thing in the morning on a winter Saturday. Often, I can be the only visitor, which only increases the awe. Another time I like to be here in winter is on a Saturday afternoon for choral evensong. Perhaps best of all, though, is to wander and wonder in the cloisters on a bright sunny day, gazing at fabulous bosses almost within arm's reach.
Several English cathedrals have good closes, but Norwich's is the only one in a major city, I think. It creates the sense of an ecclesiastical village at the heart of the city; and then, beyond, the lanes and alleys spread out, still hanging on despite German bombing and asinine redevelopment. And now I think perhaps it is part of the beauty of this building that it is tucked away by the river, a place to seek out and explore. Norwich has everything, says Pevsner. But really, I think this is the very best thing of all.
www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/norwichcathedral/norwichcathedr...
I am back in the Lamont junkyard today. I am not thinking the usual "oh my: once they were new" thoughts...or the "this is where we put stuff we're done with" thoughts.
I am thinking about how lovely junk can be, sitting quietly away in a yard as it waits for the wrecking ball.
I'm thinking about the textures of rust and the colors metal assumes once it has been sitting in the elements for a number of years. There's this fragile beauty to it, I think.
How about the patina that happens on metal after it has rubbed up against oxygen for too long?
It's kinda cool in a "so this is what happens when stuff gets replaced or worn out" way.