Weather, Euro 16, Carnival!

The weather being better and my knees being in agreement I toddled around slowly on the bike early yesterday morn.  The aches from this were noticeable this morning as I tried the same trick once again.  However even though the bright and hot sunshine has dissipated somewhat it was decent enough to trundle around for half an hour on the dilapidated bike.  It is always good circling around early in the morning, better when the weather is sunny, the world is different then.  People are often friendlier, quiet streets make movement easy, the near silence allows birds to be heard and today one cat desperately looking for a mate.  Now I am beginning to feel the benefits of slight exercise the weatherman, nasty piece of work that he is, has informed us rain is on the way.  Don't it make you sick!

The football started last night and many things disappointed.  From what little I saw of the opening ceremony I was once again aghast at the irrelevance to what was to follow.  Banal empty music loudly ringing out while absurd and needless dancers bounced about an even more absurd layout.  Why not have some football connection to this?  How about young kids kicking the ball or playing 'keepie up?'  This stuff is rubbish.
The game itself was not worth paying for.  France ought to be winning this tournament and Romania were well on top of them at times.  Disappointing starter game though the winning goal was superb! Today Wales play Slovenia and I will watch this while later England get beat by Russia, that I will enjoy...

The carnival usually has a band of some sort at the front and this year these imitation guardsmen did an excellent job of leading the parade.  The usual assortment of floats, majorettes and other carnival queens passed by.  Thousands lined the streets, well half the population, there is little else going on and kids love it, the sun came out and we all had a laugh.  Money is collected towards a good deed but unfortunately we were out of reach of the buckets catching donations.
  

You are asking "What...?"  I am answering with a shrug.
  

This float carried those deemed 'learning difficulties'  however these two lassies were far from that and just enjoying their time on the float.  how much wine had they before the show I ask?

  
A large group of scooter fans gather weekly in town and they are always present.  This year they were at the back where the smoke filled the air!
I am so busy watching football, Russia are disappointing me badly here, that I am unable to show more of these - until tomorrow!

Euro 16

So the European Championships are upon us at last!  We have waited eons since the end off the last season for some football action - that's about ten days as far as I can see!  Now tonight football returns.  Of course Scotland did not bother going this time as the hotel bills were considered too
 expensive by the SFA suits.  Instead we Scots simply check who England is playing and give them our support. This time it is Russia, a team that can be either great or feeble, Slovenia, who fail to make it but play well and Wales our Celtic cousins who at least have one or two decent players and I look forward to encouraging them to stuff the English imperialists right and proper!
Of course neither will win the thing, France, Germany, Spain and Italy must always be the front runners and one or two others will be able to challenge them this time.  The two Irish sides will put up a good show, scared of no-one and with nothing to lose they will have a hard time as they meet decent sides but hopefully they will put on a good show.
English folks around me are dubious about their chances so I am helpfully indicating to them just how rotten they are in the hope that their depression will stop the needless press hype that follows England everywhere.  The English press work on the principle that they call them 'heroes' and 'greats' and when they lose the knife is then stuck in and they crucify them, objective fact is ignored to sell grubby papers.
At least there will be something to watch in the evening as the sun goes down.

At this point I was going to scribble a new topic of enduring importance however I notice it is getting near time for the first game tonight so I must go and prepare..... 

Newsworthy, No!

I watched the headlines on the 6 o'clock TV news and lost interest in the full stories.  

This nation is obsessed with the EU Referendum, or at least the media is, the media is of course almost entirely controlled by Conservative types or self made billionaires on the make.  The slanted half truths and lies never end and real facts are hard to find however these two sites may help 'Reality Check' or 'Kings College.'

The rest of the news was typical of the times, worthless space filling.  How limited and controlled the media are, sometimes by governments, often by rich media bosses on the make and all influenced by the need to sell and all the while listening to each and every lobby group that appears.   "Facts, Facts, facts," said Mr Grandgrind!  No chance today unless you search the web.

Mostly these days I hear the news on the wireless via Radio 3 as this is short, well read and tells us we need to avoid listening to the drivel that longer news programmes offer. 

 

I dreampt about buying a new house again today.  It's not that I have bought a house, it's just that I dreampt about it once again.  There are two problems with bringing this dream into reality, one is the need to find £500,000 (that's half a million!) against my bank balance of £47: 23p.  The other problem is the man who lives there at the moment.  For entirely selfish reasons he refuses to move out and let me move in.  Indeed he was keen to strongly make the point he would move out only 'over my dead body.'  This I offered to help him with but he demurred.  Pity as it is a nice place with a nice garden.

Quite how anyone can buy under this grasping government beats me.  The lowest price here is £62,000 and that is for a pokey wee flat in an 'Over 50's only' block.  I would not want that!  The cheapest one bed flat is £84,000 and that is appalling!  Fine for one, not for two.  The first 'house' turns out to be a narrow one bed place costing £170,000 and for £185,000  you get a modern mid terrace proper house (in which I suspect you hear the neighbours easily).  How can a workingman afford this?  A mortgage may give four times your salary, around £15-25,000 for most, that gives a total of £60,000 to £100,000 as long as you don't become sick, over 50 or unemployed.  

The answer they say (or at least developers who bribe MP's say) is to build more houses on green belt land.  These people already have plans for Brown field sites use them first I say.     

Hot Sunshine!

Standing outside the museum door yesterday attempting to drag people in off the street I was surprised to discover the sunshine and even more surprised to discover just how hot it was!  The temperature reached 23% and that is 73% in English!  As we were so quiet, well I was the other one was talking a great deal, I escaped several times to feel heat upon me that did not come from some sort of radiator.
Today, having only important things to do, I cast them aside and at almost half past ten wandered over to the public gardens and sat there exposing my nipples to the hot sunshine for half an hour.  As you can expect several young ladies came my way, what...?  Oh!  Well have it your own way then.
This is the first time I have done that for a short eternity, indeed I almost took my shirt off completely but as it happens in my life clouds began to cover the sun.  The temperature rises and soon afterwards in this country thunderstorms appear, yesterday masses elsewhere but none so far over me.  Such a change for us to enjoy this and hopefully it will last a while.

  
I did have an interesting query yesterday about the Savills and after leaving the museum trekked all the way over the road into the Congregational church graveyard to look for a dead woman.  She was not there.  This little tomb collected many of the family together but appeared full by 1885.  My woman died in 1915 and far from here so I knew it would be a wasted trip but one has to look hasn't one?  Somewhat crumbling now and overgrown as at this time of year graveyards are untended to allow the beasties to live off the grasses and flowers that abound the structure also looks as if it will fall apart one day.  This was once a well to do family, farmers, soldiers and even one who became captain of the HMS 'Hampshire' during WW1.  He it was we were researching, or at least his wife who died before him.  He himself went down in the ship in 1916 when it struck a mine during a storm.  I was left wondering what the various bodies here would think about their tomb?  Would they not expect someone from the family to care?  Indeed if any remain in this area are they concerned with their forefathers?  So many graves over a hundred years old and I wonder if anyone knows or cares who these people are?  Would you visit graves of the long lost relatives?

    
The museum has a little garden.  Four square brick blocks inhabited by a variety of flowers all tended by a volunteer from the Organic Garden world.  She is very careful about what goes into her plants and each year produces some fantastic results.  So successful she raised funds by selling young plants a few weeks ago to eager gardeners instructing them on the organic manner of tending them.

One day I will train these guys to stand still while I take their picture.  One day....
I now sit here, skin somewhat burning, as my delicate white flab is not used to sunshine.  If I remember correctly the last time I was sunning myself it was 1984 but I could be wrong, I often am.  I wonder if this big yellow thing will hang around for a while?

Laugh....

On Being an Idiot Still...

Drowsiness filled my head this morning.  Struggling out of the grimy ex-army blankets I made my way through to the trough for breakfast.  Considering it too difficult to negotiate cooking anything when my mind was absent I fed myself some form of cereal that was lying about the kitchen, some of it remaining in the bag. 
Bleary eyed I switched on my life the laptop and sought the football pages of the online papers.  There was none to be found as the season is over - eventually!  I checked my friends blogs to entice the intellect to warm up then checked the hundreds of replies to my latest blog. 
Both were erudite and interesting as always and were placed onto the site.
I then spilled cereal over the desk checked my blog where something was not right.  It was apparent to me there was a problem and this problem was solved accidentally - I accidentally deleted the last post!
Stupid boy!
All those letters look the same when the mind is not there. 
Alas two sensible replies are lost (actually I still have them but the post has gone), thank you young ladies for the comment.

The brute was also running slowly today and after trying a quick scan, Malawares and hitting it knowingly with a hammer I ran a lengthy 'Boot scan' once again and as last time the nasty downloader was found hidden in the 'Recovered items' section of Windows Live Mail.  Quite what this section is for I know not but the four relevant dates have been deleted.  The downloader comes through a junk email and hides there for a while and opens out whenever it chooses.  
That's the second time he has done this.  His judgement will come.
Thankfully I fixed that I hope and luckily I had nothing else to do bar fall asleep.  This is just as well as after clearing up yesterday I was knackered, and fitness is not my strong point just now.  However the sun will shine tomorrow for a change and I will possibly but probably not get the bike out.

A Tiring Week

It has been a strange week.  Whereas last week I was running around everywhere this week I can hardly climb the stairs!  Mental and physical energy have disappeared this week yet I was up for almost anything last week. 
Tuesday saw the kids arriving at Half Term for the activities the girls have laid on for them.  This is always good as it is the only time I see kids these days and many come back time and again.  Always good ton see them and they clearly enjoy whatever is laid before them and it shows.  Kids are so different from adults.  The emotions are the same but not yet fully formed and these show more and are easier to read and this makes them more fun than ever.  Free from home and school limitations they are here merely for fun and so we hope to see them smile a lot, they get enough put downs at school and home I suspect just like the rest of us.  
Having said that I watch mums coming in with two or three kids and wonder where they get the energy for them from?  One child is bad enough and only for an hour or so, imagine every day like this!  The grandad's and grandmas who come agree with me and enjoy the kids yet are happy to dump them back!   Just watching them tires me out now.
Thursday was very busy as many mums brought kids in unexpectedly, the weather hindering taking them anywhere.  This suits us, the kids enjoyed it and the mums & dad's learned some history also.
An enjoyable day as two 14 year old lassies enquired about local history, another Yank appeared searching for distant relatives and we had a good but unsuccessful discussion on him as no records can be found and also many more talks and much fun with the kids coming and going.  A very good day this!
I was exhausted however getting home.  I am stuffing my face to give me energy for the next week!

Only I have to write things for the museum and canny think straight or be bothered to look things up.  This is, as I'm sure you understand, a bit of a problem.  I must write something we can offer to schools regarding various museum exhibits, WW1, WW2, the 'Lyon,' Crittall's, Lake & Elliott and other businesses and so on.  So far I have got 'WW2...' and no further.  This is not good enough to please their majesties in the museum. 
Aaaaaand tomorrow I have a full day for the US thing, the kids will come in, unless the sun shines, and something else may be occurring rumour tells me.  I may just go back to bed....

Ne'er Cast a Clout till May is Out or Something

Today, as you can tell by my window, is the last day of May.  In less than a months time we reach the middle of the year, the longest day!  Fooled by two or three days when the sun shone and the temperature rose we thought Summer was 'a cummin in,' it hasn't!
Worse still is the photo that arrived this morning from my nieces husband playing around on Lock Fynne up near Fort William in the highlands.  The sun was shining at eight in the morning, the sky blue, the Loch calm.  It makes you sick, it's no fair!
Naturally as the wind, heading towards 40 miles an hour as it threw the heavy downpour at my window, paid no heed to the fact that I had to saunter down the road to the museum in the middle of it.  I was fair drookit when I got there!  Good job I am not the complaining type.

 
Yet another bunch of Yanks coming on Saturday.  These guys are studying the war and the effect of the airfields on the people living in the area.  We have some stuff lined up for them but as always I have not been given much info on what is actually happening.  Still I expect it will be a good day.
Thousands of these men came here and many left their children behind.  Just as many flew away to the east and were never heard off again!  Ridgewell Museum is based on what is left of the airfield there.  B 17's flew from there for two years constantly. Wethersfield on the other hand was in use until recently. 

 

Doggone Fun!!!!

A Mill, A Bull, A Pond and A Church

Townsford Mill stands on a spot used by mills of many types going back centuries.  It is thought grain was first milled here in the midst of agricultural land but over the years weaving became the norm.  Samuel Courtauld, one of a family of Unitarians, became sole owner in 1825, one of many mills he was to possess, and soon developed a powerful steam worked silk mill one of the biggest in the country.  However by 1850 foreign competition hit deep into his output this led to a development of Black Crepe often used in funerals, which with a stroke of luck brought him much profit when prince Albert died.  With Victoria descending into deep mourning the nation followed on and Courtauld's Black Crepe was in much demand.  The Mill soon employed over 1400 women using a thousand looms.  Weaving of one sort or another continued until 1982 and soon after the closure the antiques people moved in and what a success this has become.

 
Where once a thousand looms deafened the girls working them now a variety of units peddle items some of which my family still put to good use.  Imaging how many items now considered 'antique' are still lying abode the abode?  There is a restaurant in the bottom and two floors of junk valuable items much of what I found very interesting and a great deal of it not too expensive either.  If I had money and wall space I could have gone for several pictures and the number of books on show tempted me, I kept telling myself to go back to charity shops for them.  After wandering I retrieved my bag from reception, they somehow did not trust me, and asked the young lady about the gun she had by her side.  A rifle of great age lay there which she said she kept for troublesome customers. she waved it in the direction of her friend who ran for it.  However  it turns out to be a toy!  An expensive toy for a young lad 150 years or more ago I suspect.  I decided not to buy as getting on a bus these days with a rifle gets funny looks from others I find.

These two houses are part of a row which Samuel Courtauld built for his workers.  He was not penny pinching when he asked George Sherrin to build them in 1883 was he?  I suspect the more loyal workers with their families were placed in here.  Courtauld employed 70 men and boys as well as the women, many of those rescued from London's workhouses and offered jobs in Essex.  Long hard hours for seven shillings and sixpence may not seem much now but it was better than a life on the street which was the future for many of the girls otherwise at that time.  The weavers cottages from yesterday were probably built by him for his workers also.

     
 Amazing how dingy clearish brown water runs up to the mill but on the other side the river is overgrown all the way along.  Reed clutter the river bed and had I the energy I would have walked along for a few miles to see a bit of countryside.  Instead I came upon this bedraggled old building once a hive of industry and now awaiting its fate.

Originally part of the railway yard this large double sized building looks derelict and rather sad at the moment.  This is a reflection on how important railways were to industry in times past as the goods yard was big for such a town and business must have been brisk.  Today little remains although one or two station building have been reused, however I suspect few under seventy remember the line in operation.

Some folks like it however.  Three windows had such a bird taking ownership of the place.  Plenty large windows to go round for everybody.

As I avoided spilling my lunch in the Bull Inn I gazed at the thick aged beams that hung above me.  These may have been part of the original building when created in the 1400's.  Imagine, in spite of adaptions and renovations over the years, imagine how many have supped here over the past seven centuries?  Impossible to miss at the bottom of the hill the bridge over the river is outside the door and I wonder if any careless driver or runaway horse and cart have clattered into the Bull?  I can see many drivers of both horse and car doing so.  

  
Waiting at the door for the taxi to come through...

 
The public gardens are well maintained by the excellent council workforce and here the memorial to the lost of WW2 is found.  A small four sided plinth is engraved with the names of the lost and the gardeners have created this magnificent Lancaster Bomber as tribute to the airmen who lost their lives.  Apparently this is the second Lancaster, the year before that a Glider was made.  I see this as a magnificent gesture and who knows what they have in mind for the next one. 
Well done to the council gardeners!

The gardeners also maintain the excellent pond which has found favour with several ducks.  So happy are they that mum has produced at least four chicks who stumble around the pond searching for lunch.  Kids are always hungry, at least when it suits them.

Not far from the pond stand the disused Holy Trinity Church.  The architect one Sir George Gilbert Scott a man famous for many buildings such as the Midland Hotel, The Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Albert memorial.  This was one of his earlier works in 1843/44 and now stands bare and rather sad.  The outside is impressive but as almost everything relevant has been removed the building is in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust.

It was as I turned and looked down the nave that I suddenly became rather depressed by the disconsolate appearance a disused church has.  It matters not that this was a 'High Church' in times past (It appears a golden cross was offered  for processions and some objected, possibly the protestant types. This cross soon disappeared and was later found bent over in the River Colne.  It was returned to the vicar in 1911 and soon back in use.)  

One of the few remaining items is the Great War Memorial which appears to be still made use off.

Some people have not been forgotten.

 

Scott had a sense of humour it seems to me.  Just what encouragement these faces high above every pillar in the church gave I am unsure.  There was a variety of faces and I winder if he had someone in mind for each of them?  Were they posed I wonder?

 
OK, you can wake up now.  No more from Halstead that I will show.