Happy New Year ... Happy Christmas 2017 !!

It seems a surreal and an unfamiliar experience to be publishing a post after a break of about 18 months. It's been a busy period due to getting married, selling two houses and moving to the countryside.

More recently I have had to empty and return a rented garage back to the local council as I had no further use for it near where my Mother used to live. It has been a monumental task trying to downsize and although I'm not quite there yet, (1/2 a room to sort) it seems within touching distance. I was incapacitated for a while when I broke a bone in my foot and was off work for six weeks in the middle of the year.

I had planned to get a new laptop in the autumn but that still hasn't happened do to distractions of a new kitchen and annoying maintenance and repairs to brand new and old large household appliances. thought you may like to see some very local scenes. I was encouraged by a follower (Cranberry Morning) to join Instagram a while back so have been active on there to keep myself operational !! I also had to apply comment moderation to this blog a few months ago due to spam.

There is a bakery just opened up in the village and it serves a variety of savoury and sweet treats to eat inside or takeaway. Whilst waiting for a breakfast, I caught up with the weekend sports news with a sourdough bread to take home afterwards.

The view from the other side of the table on an earlier occasion looking out on the snow.

Hello to whoever is still following me and I thought I'd squeeze in a solitary 2017 post
and wish you all a Happy Christmas from the local village green, Hopefully I should be back at some point in early in 2018.

December observations at home ... and DSLR discrimination !

December is always a busy month for obvious reasons and is made up by a series of deadlines, which is why I haven't caught up with other peoples blogs yet ... boxing day onwards ! I hope you are not expecting wonderful images throughout here as the quality is not consistent using material from three different sources ... the clue is in the title, more about that in a moment.

I had a week off work in late November to make a start on the Christmas letter to my Mothers friends and my own. Unfortunately the dangling carrot of a few days away in that period with a friend was too much and it meant I only had two days at home. These days turned out to be getting ready and packing for the 5 day break (an adventure in itself worthy of a future set of posts). As I hadn't planned to visit any Christmas markets and had to work a weekend at short notice, time slipped by so I opted to photograph local scenes in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne instead.

Those following this blog for a while may remember that I did a similar post four years ago covering Fenwick's window on Santa's toy factory (here's the link for some background ... Fenwick's window newcastle 2010), so I thought it was about time I revisited it on these pages.

Fenwick's Christmas window provides great interest every year as the shop decorates all eight of them in a systematic seasonal or children's story with moving parts and music, this year it was Alice in Wonderland.

It is not the easiest of locations to photograph on several fronts, firstly the reflections of the sky in daylight and neon signs across the street at night. I opted to leave in the Newcastle based "Greggs the bakers" sign as it is my take on a local The Mad Hatters tea party.

Secondly and unfortunately as a result of what happened, I wasn't happy at the end of the Window evening so I wanted to cheer myself up a bit by covering other topics of December later in the month and the post.
I have known for some time but it was confirmed to me clearly on this occasion that DSLR users are discriminated against as they are viewed with suspicion in public places particularly in the vicinity of children. It seems that as a result of my activities outside Fenwick's window, I was reported to the police.

Obviously I knew nothing of this until I was approached by two of them later in a large bus station. To my shock and on my questioning, it turns out that I was followed for a considerable distance on overhead close circuit TV monitors. As I wasn't using my own transport (no need to carry a driving license) and wasn't previously known to the police, I had my bank details and account number scrutinised as the next best form of I.D. along with all my images on camera and phone (which I never even used). It would of course be nice for the person reporting me to the police view this post and check out how I have compromised peoples privacy here in relation to what I suffered on that night. It may be a minor detail to some, but I gave up in daylight hours as there were too many people about and was reprimanded by a Father for not joining the queue like everyone else. I returned on another occasion later in the day and the month, hoping for less people. Personally I thought that small children should be at home at that time and not seeing potential December evening misbehaviour in a city centre. As I didn't have children with me, it was awkward standing in the queue awaiting my turn and I'd be reluctant to cover the window again.

Maybe the stereotypical person in life should watch 2 hours of TV per night including a soap opera, have an interest in alcohol, shopping or sport, never travel outside your home county unless in an aeroplane to a sunny destination .... and only take pictures on a mobile phone :-)

Borrowed this ...        :-)

As a result I decided for this post to vary my hardware and use the more damaging mobile phone as well ...  as no-one questions the use of that in public places. There's more use and upset on social media with the mobile phone than what there ever will be with a DSLR.

On the other side of the coin, I came across an article in a national newspaper this month that suggested people want to eat their cake and have it as there were issues with a parent wanting to share their child's Nativity play on Facebook ...
Metro newspaper article

Newcastle upon Tyne always has a small Christmas market in the city centre during late November / December.

Two weeks are normally dedicated to hot continental food and another set of traders use the same stalls to sell Christmas and Winter wares during a subsequent fortnight.

It's a bit unusual to see the combination of the best of Dutch food sitting in front the quintessential Englishness of Earl Grey, I wonder what he thinks about all this continental food as he looks down from his monument !

Not being one to miss out on a taster, I got to try some lovely Chorizo potatoes from Barcelona and special thanks to the chef for taking the time to pose just before serving my dish. It was wonderful.

Santa was here too for the day and he had some helpers who were supporting a well known local charity  .... http://www.stoswaldsuk.org

The nearby out of town Gateshead Metro Centre is a Christmas rival to Newcastle and has it's displays on a different scale.
However it was nice to see that they had space for a large nativity scene which I took with my mobile  phone ...

 ... oops did I catch a child in the corner, like I said, mobiles are more dangerous than DSLR's !! ... even if the image quality is poor !
Other than Primary school plays, many people forget about the Nativity in favour of family and / or indulgence. Some may argue several points of view from religious history but it's important to remember that the overview of life is all about what we did with the Saviour of the World and how he can change our lives and destiny.

I have had a busy week preparing and taking part in a Carol service that far exceeded anything that we have done before in a much larger hall.

There were some festive treats afterwards and has set a model in all of our hearts to raise the bar of faith for this being the norm in future. As you can guess I had other things on my mind and shoulders to worry about without taking my DSLR along as well. A challenging and failed image on my camera phone trying to work out exposure and focusing on a massive depth of field. I have to say at this point that when I loaded the images onto here, the camera phone images loaded straight away with minimal KB whilst the others in MB took a while. I can't fool you into thinking that the above image is a good one or fool myself into thinking that the mobile is a s good as other cameras. Unfortunately, many people seem to think so.

My Boss gives all the staff a small gift at Christmas, this was my local dialect seasonal offering.

Borrowed this too !!

Lastly I came across this sausage and bacon Nativity image on social media which may encourage more men to come to interactive Carol services !

... and on the other foot ...

Reindeers are hoping that Jamie continues with a traditional Christmas menu ! ...    :-)

                                                Wishing you all a Happy Christmas

Taking a break 3 ...

Alternatively titled ... "I'm back, red's a start as I warm up to blogging again.

I'm about to open the door on a new chapter in blog land as I try to overcome the difficulties that I have faced in recent times with my photographic naivety on the internet and juggling 4 or 5 issues in reality that seem to have conflicting interests. I step back on board with a new photo library, a new hard drive on the computer with a few experimental ideas. A comment from someone who doesn't follow me said "If I can do it, any one can". I would like to repeat that everyone seems to have a system that works for them and "it's only easy if you know how"! I tried the 30 day photoshop elements program trial but the watermark didn't work for me as cropped images produced ridiculous outsize results and the whole program didn't work well as it produced a "corrupted file" that didn't correspond with anything that I was being told on the forum pages.

Surprisingly on a different note, with little blog activity since I last posted on 14th February (3 and 1/2 months), I can't quite believe the average of 2400 page views a month in previous blog posts.

In this post, apart from two different kinds of experimentation that has given me an occasional idea, I want to give you a brief insight into what I've been up to in recent months. I will in due course publish a post on about 75% of the photographic content.

Without giving too much away, there is great meaning behind the dull images and the small amount of colour depicted here.

The opening image was the main focus of a countryside winter road walk to the Feathers in Northumberland. This was the second of two walks that I did with one of the associate walking groups of the Scarborough sand castle manager !! The food was unbelievably good cooked from local food sources.

My Scarborough Sandcastle manager is a man with fingers in many "figurative pies" and he has been attempting to start up a social group that meets once a month in a trendy cafe style venue with meals and other social activities to be added as the group becomes larger. I was asked to take some photos of the ... err ... red hot venue !! for some future advertising.

The sports season ticket that I possess is for the Newcastle Eagles basketball team who play at home on most friday nights from September to April. Although British Basketball is not comparable in standard to teams in the USA or some parts of Europe, my team has done rather well last season. One can't ask any more from a team to play for Four trophies and win them all, a feat that has only been achieved twice before in British Basketball history, once by the then Chester Jets and another occasion for the Newcastle Eagles. As many of you know I'm not a portrait or people photographer, but I was allowed on court afterwards alongside members of the press to capture the moment.... maybe I looked like one of them :-) The image above is a post match BBL trophy win press interview with the inspirational player / coach Fab Flourney on the left and high scoring Charles Smith on the right.

In February I had the opportunity to travel to Lisbon with seven friends from Yorkshire to see some amazing sights. As you can see not everyone was enthralled by the scenery but I have to say that Lisbon requires the most comfortable shoes as it can be a weary experience walking constantly on small, beautiful but tiring street tiles !!

A trip that I had planned for some time was a charity trip to South Africa at Easter time. This was an amazing experience with Willing Hands to see first hand how money was being spent on HIV and Orphanage projects. I found it was warm enough not to require the services of a hat !!

I've spent a lot of time playing in the church band of late and this particular occasion I had the view from my seat at a wedding during February. This image reminds me that I should be updating my equipment.

Since the Lisbon trip, I have been spending a lot more time on the A1 and M1 motorway visiting Sheffield, albeit at most awkward times of the day and night a lot more frequently in recent months.

I have been familiarising myself with some of the surrounding countryside. The classic postcard view of Bakewell from the opposite side of the bridge is no longer possible thanks the the overgrown tree in the centre, so I thought I'd draw attention to how the size of a tree should be at such an important viewpoint !!

The health of my Mother is stable with progress of two steps forward and then when I am least expecting ... two steps back. In the rotation of saturday life, we go for a drive in the car to a local town for a day of interesting shopping, eating and general sightseeing. One such place is the Northumberland town of Morpeth. It is unfortunate that my favourite shop (Appleby's bookshop) is closing down because of the loss of business due to the unending roadworks a little too close to home for them. I cannot begin to tell you how many budget travel books I have bought from this shop in the past. Most of them at the moment are for reference only but some of them in my collection are still sitting there waiting to be .... "read" !!

Lastly an image from a Bakers shop window in a suburb of Sheffield. As it is Jubilee weekend with Queen Elizabeth (Long live the Queen !) being on the throne for 60 years that warrants an exception to the rule of this post and allowing a second colour here ;-) ... small steps. Hope those of you who are celebrating the event enjoy the weekend. I'm off to Sheffield on monday night for a garden party where 40 people are attending. Here's hoping that the only thing that is not british about the event is the weather !!

Lincoln Christmas Market, SRPS/ North East railtours

Many UK towns and cities have a twinned friendship with a European town, one of these friendships is between the City of Lincoln and Neustadt in Germany.

One Christmas in 1982 a few stall holders from the German town decided that they were going to introduce their wares to the people of Lincolnshire. The original market had 11 traditional style German stalls and introduced a new culture to the UK.

Having been on the mailing list of North East Railtours for some time, this trip was always difficult to access as it runs on a friday. The charter company use the SRPS coaches and volunteers from Bo'ness in Scotland to serve meals on board and this particular trip has an end of year Christmas party atmosphere ! Cereal, Bacon Roll, Mince Pie and Mulled Wine on the outward journey with Christmas Dinner on the way back. I first took the plunge back in 2004 to book an Annual leave day from work to sample the experience and have done so six times since that first adventure. For me it's about the whole experience of the train, the food, the market, Christmas and a heavy dose of nostalgia !!

Class 55 Deltic "Royal Scots Grey"

A railtour running on a friday doesn't seem like it's going to be a great success, but with the added interest of some heritage Diesel traction (London Kings Cross - Edinburgh - Aberdeen route 1961 -1981) is a guaranteed success with the diesel fans particularly as it uses most of its former stamping ground. The nostalgia element for me was when I was a young boy I used to watch these powerful machines standing thundering away in Newcastle central station. There were 22 of them named after regiments and racehorses and sat in the time zone in between the Mallard and the Inter City 125.

"Steep Hill" Lincoln

The City of Lincoln has always attracted visitors from an early age due to it's original location high on a solitary hill amongst the flat county of Lincolnshire.

There was a Roman garrison at the top and as the city expanded, the need for an inland harbour that utilised local waterways became essential.

Lincoln Cathedral East End

The Normans arrived and brought the gift of the Cathedral which was completed in the 13th century.

Modern visitors ... shoppers and shadows !

I was last here for a concert in 2010 and it was unusual to see the City so quiet. The 2010 Christmas market was even quieter as it was cancelled due to snow and bad weather. Here are some images from my June 2010 blogpost when I was a young blogger with about 3 followers !! ... post number 10.

A quiet moment in the market on a friday

The market has grown to nearly 300 stalls that commence next to the Cathedral in the first image and continue into the Castle grounds (above) and then into an adjacent park and nearby streets. In some ways as one commentator says that it has become a victim of it's own success that the organisers do not seem to recognise as a lot of saturday visitors dislike the experience of pushing through crowds as trip advisor demonstrates. It is unfortunate that it becomes newsworthy for these reasons...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire 16042776

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-16120746

and something a little irreverent .....

Peace and solitude

One of the best moments of my earlier 2010 visit was saturday lunch time when I sat having lunch in the sun near the tower for a while. I managed to peek over the market perimeter fence and dream that was me for 30 minutes ... it must have been a Castle worker.

Anyway, enough of waxing lyrical and dwelling in the past ... for the moment ( ! ), it was time to take in some sights ...

Souvenir hunter

Bubbleologist !!

Hans handy with his hands !

Somebody else handy with their hands.

Exchanging Plastic for wood !

The ultimate burger ?!

One of the burger stalls neighbours for the weekend !

With all of this, I was left in a spin ...

... as I didn't know who was a local, a visitor or an official anymore !!

As I made my way back to the railway station, one thing was certain that there was more effort made...

... in the local bakery shop ...

... than what there was on the wall outside ... need to spread the love around !

All to soon, it was over for another year wondering if I'll repeat the experience again next year all in the name of nostalgia !! I didn't plan on taking the last image but the engine was standing there for some time and I was left wondering if this engine would ever work this charter to Lincoln again...

Newcastle Central station ... Deltic 22 ...or ... ISO 1600 !!

And just to re-live my childhood one more time, it's arrival and then later departure as I stood next to this film maker ... the most powerful Diesel in it's day ....



Even though it raced up the East Coast mainline back home to Newcastle and beyond, it was a named after a regiment and not a racehorse ....

Nostalgic racehorse