Who's a pretty boy then?

Not this poor chap, that's for sure.

I first saw this young blackbird about ten days ago when it was sitting on our neighbours' fence. From a distance it looked like a small vulture but by the time I'd grabbed my binoculars for a better look it had flown away.

Since then, however, he—or possibly she; it's a bit difficult to tell at this age—has been visiting our garden and looks even more peculiar close up. The poor thing has either been bullied by its nest-mate (I saw another young blackbird nearby that was fully-feathered and frightened this one away when it got near) or it's infested with something. Whether it will recover is anyone's guess.

Yesterday, being August bank holiday Sunday and beautiful weather, we popped down to Weymouth bay where the annual dragon boat race was taking place. We arrived just in time to see the three finalists paddling away from the beach to the starting point at the end of the ferry terminal jetty. After a while we realised they were all paddling madly back towards the beach. A minute later (literally) they all stopped, the very short race apparently over, and the victors began throwing their teammates into the water.

On our way home after a cup of coffee at the nearby Weymouth Pavilion we became aware of a strange squawking noise. There, amongst the afternoon promenaders was a lady walking along with her arm bent up and with two (I discovered later) black-headed caiques perched on her hand. They were each wearing a little harness and seemed totally unphased at being surrounded by dozens of people.

A new garden project

Many of you will know that back in Shinfield Ian and I spent many years landscaping and then planting our back garden. It originally sloped rather unevenly downhill away from the back of the house but hours of back-breaking digging and the shifting of what seemed like tons of earth around the garden levelled out the unevenness and left enough for us to fill a raised bed in the middle. By the time we'd sold our house it was just starting to look like a well-established garden, and quite lovely, although it was becoming apparent that some plants were in the wrong place and would need moving around.

The garden in our new home in Weymouth is a completely different story! On entering the garden it is immediately obvious that gently sloping it is not! The garden rises about six feet over a length of about thirty feet. It had obviously been well-loved in its time, but a year's unattendance has taken its toll.

The large clump of green in front of the hydrangea is mint and there are brambles, nettles and several self-seeded wild buddleias all around the garden and growing in the cracks in the paving.One bonus was the discovery of another batch of self-seeded plants... potatoes! They're delicious and we've been eating them boiled, chipped or roasted with about two out of every three main meals since we arrived and there's probably enough left for a few weeks, yet.

There are agapanthus, clematis, lilies, an as yet unidentified tree (cherry/crab apple/pear/plum), camelias, several more shrubs and much more in the garden, not to mention the large quantities of pots with various shrubs, bulbs and herbs. Much of it is inaccessible at the moment. The top right-hand corner has two overgrown trellises shielding what looks like a compost area, but until someone (thank you, Ian) hacks their way through the undergrowth - and overgrowth - we won't know for sure what's there.

In the top left corner (the garden is rather rhomboid-shaped and the left side is a few feet shorter than the right) there is a little suntrap that catches the evening sun. Like the rest of the garden it's rather overgrown with trails of ivy, brambles and clematis taking possession of the two chairs left behind by the previous owners. But with a little tlc it should be lovely, particularly if we ever get a summer with evenings warm enough to sit outside.

But we're not going to do too much in the garden just yet apart from some pruning. We'll wait until the spring to see what appears. In the meantime, while the weather's still warm, we'll continue to enjoy our lunch on the terrace and watch the dozen or so sparrows that took about half a day, if that, to discover that we'd put out some fatballs and seeds.

Victorian weekend at the Nothe Fort

Yesterday - another beautiful day - we visited the Nothe Fort, a ten-minute stroll from our house, where they were holding a 'Victorian Fayre' over the weekend. Unfortunately, we missed the advertised artillery displays and also missed the cannon firing (probably not so unfortunately!)

There wasn't very much that could be identified as specifically Victorian except the costumes (the stall-holders were dressed up and the 'soldiers' were in authentic costume) and the building itself; face painting and modern plants are certainly not Victorian, and the maypole dancing, clog dancing (from Lancashire), masonry skills and throwing wet sponges at people in stocks are activities with a far longer history.

The Nothe Fort was one of the Palmertston Forts built during the Victorian period on the recommendations of the 1860 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom. The name comes from their association with Lord Palmerston, who was Prime Minister at the time and promoted the idea. The fort is constructed on three levels: The lowest level, Magazine Level, was originally designed to store gunpowder and shells (there are reputedly at least one resident ghost down in the damp corridors that run around the ramparts). The middle (ground) level, Gun Deck Level, was designed to accommodate 12 heavy muzzle loaded cannons and provide accommodation for the soldiers manning the cannons. The top level formed the ramparts and provided a raised platform that could be used to fire muskets and light muzzle loaded cannons during an attack on the fort. (more information here). As one would expect there is a great view all round from the upper level and yesterday the view was particularly stunning (click the picture for a larger view):

Weymouth Carnival finishes with a bang

The victorious Team GB sailing team

At six o'clock we walked down to the Esplanade and joined thousands of spectators lining the street under a cloudless blue sky to watch the annual Weymouth Carnival; the largest on the south coast. The entire Team GB sailing team had returned to Weymouth for a victory ride in an open-topped bus along the carnival route. You can just see Ben Ainslie with his gold medal at the back of this picture.

After the disastrous start to the day when the Red Devils were cancelled and the scheduled WWII memorial flight was reduced to just one Lancaster bomber, the clouds disappeared around lunchtime and the sun shone for the rest of the day. It was still breezy though, and with gales forecast for the evening, our planned cruise into Weymouth Bay to have fish and chips and watch the end-of-carnival fireworks with other local members of the Federation of Small Businesses (of which I am a member) was also cancelled.

The carnival parade itself was quite impressive. The participants had obviously gone to a lot of trouble prepareing their floats and, rather sensibly I thought, the parade stopped every hundred metres or so, so that the bands, dance groups and club members could put on a short performance for the spectators before moving on. The parade lasted about an hour, by which time we were starving and went to find something to eat. Not so easy... everyone else was doing the same!

In the end we ended up at the Nothe Tavern where we had a huge fish and chips. A little later, we were followed in by some characters dressed up as Victorian soldiers who had been in the carnival procession. They were from the Nothe Fort which dates from the 1870s and is one of  the 'Palmerston Forts' built to protect the south coast from invasion. They have a 'Victorian' weekend at the fort in a few days' time, so more of that later!

A little later we were outside again, at the top of the hill behind our house, watching the fireworks down in the bay concluding the carnival celebrations.

Weymouth Carnival off to a cracking start

Oh dear. Weymouth's annual carnival, scheduled to start at 10.00am this morning with the crowning of the carnival king and queen followed by the Red Devils sky diving at 10.30am has not got off to a good start. It's been pouring with rain all morning and there was a big flash of lightning followed by a crack of thunder at 10:31. Looking out of my office window Weymouth beach has completely disappeared in low cloud. What a shame. It's supposed to clear up this afternoon and a Battle of Britain memorial flight and aerobatics are scheduled, but I'm not holding my breath.

“Laugh and smile and dance and sing”

What can I say about last night’s Olympic closing ceremony except ‘Wow!’? We went down to Weymouth’s Beach Live area where there were already hundreds of people – including a lot of young families, but I’m not sure how late they will have stayed – on the sand in front of the two big screens. The harbour area, which we have to walk round to get to the beach and which has been buzzing of late, was almost deserted even though many of the pubs had the ceremony on big screens.

As the preliminaries drew to a close we were wondering if they were going to turn the sound up once the ceremony started but after the countdown and it got underway it was obvious that they weren’t. Something about the sandy area in front of the screens just mops up the sound. We gave up after about 15 minutes and, whilst the sound was better up on the Esplanade we decided to go back home and watch it on TV, starting again from the beginning, glass of wine in hand. To be fair, I can’t blame it all on the sand, some of the TV sound quality, particularly from the performers on the moving flat-bed lorries wasn’t brilliant.

But what a show. Fantastic. I loved the way the Olympic flame unfurled and later gently went out and how everyone was joining in with all the lyrics. Seeing Victoria Beckham looking like she was enjoying herself and not pouting for once was quite a treat, too. I do think Eric Idle and Always look on the bright side of life should have been the final song, though.

“If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten, and that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing”

What next? Well, Weymouth Carnival, of course!

Something for everyone

A Dance a Day performance on Weymouth Esplanade

There’s been something for everyone at Weymouth during the Olympics, most of it free. On Friday, a beautiful warm day, Ian went off with instructions from me to take pictures for this blog to watch a dance performance by ‘A Dance A Day’. Part of the Cultural Olympiad, this turned out to be a group of mature ladies, with a scarves fluttering from their wrists, gently swishing and twirling in a kind of synchronised, speeded-up T’ai Chi. But I mustn't laugh; I expect I’ll be doing something like this one day. When the group started to dance with empty sand buckets Ian decided it was time to move on…

...to the Punch and Judy Show! Here, the show was surrounded by unattended children who obviously thought it was very funny to pelt the booth with little stones, much to the annoyance of the operator who made pointed comments in the direction of the missing parents, none of whom appeared to chastise their offspring. Being such a lovely day I expect the parents were happily taking the opportunity to cook themselves whilst the kids were being entertained. The next day when I was there it was much windier and the children, accompanied by mums and dads this time, were doing all the right things, with choruses of ‘hello’ and ‘yeeeees’.

It was so windy on Saturday that as we walked back home in the afternoon we were showered by sea spray blowing in about 50 metres away from the shore of Newton’s Cove. Quite a difference from the day before’s millpond conditions when some of the sailing had to be postponed due to lack of wind. Up on the promenade, a group of children were having a whale of a time, dashing in and out of the spray as the waves crashed against the sea defences.

Gold!

"Weymouth and Portland are basking in Mediterranean conditions" I overheard an Olympic Sailing commentator say. That was a slight exaggeration, being somewhat cooler than you might expect in the Mediterranean in August, but last Sunday was a beautifully sunny day and certainly much better off than nearby Somerset and other parts of the country that were suffering from yet more flash floods.

At the top of the hill just behind our house is a large flat green area from where you can see over Newton's Cove and towards the Nothe Fort where the official Olympic ticketed area is. As you can see from the picture above, there was plenty of space nearby to watch for free! The bright blue strip near the fort is the boundary of the official site. I'm afraid I don't know the first thing about sailing, never mind competitive sailing, but it was lovely gazing out over the water watching the boats sailing back and forth. And I was there when Ben Ainslie won his gold medal and became the greatest Olympian sailor in history. Wow! Then, of course, I rushed back home to watch Andy Murray win his gold at Wimbledon. What a day.

In the morning I was down by the harbour again and was surprised to see two small brass bands seated on either side of the town bridge. Apparently every time the bridge was lifted over the weekend (about ten times in all, I think) the boats coming through were being serenaded by the town band. They alternated playing and sometimes played together in a weird kind of stereo. The atmosphere was lovely; the onlookers were snapping away and the people on the boats were, too.

A view of boat masts, Weymouth buildings and the
giant Olympic screen from the Nothe Tavern

On Saturday (why am I writing this backwards?) we went for a preprandial drink at our nearest hostelry, The Nothe Tavern and, as it was a lovely evening, sat out on their terrace. The Tavern is in a prime position in many ways, being situated just outside the one entrance to the official Olympic Sailing viewing area and overlooking the harbour and on between the houses to the beach in Weymouth, which we couldn't actually see because of the giant Olympic screen in the way. Looking to the right you can see more of Weymouth Bay. I think Pimms must have bought advertising space at the Tavern and have been running a promotion as all the outside gazebos were advertising Pimms and we kept seeing people walk outside carrying large jugs of the stuff. We look forward to going back there for a meal.

Festival cancelled

Sadly, due to lack of attendees, the Weymouth Bayside Festival due to run throughout the Olympics has closed today and gone into administration. We had really enjoyed ourselves at the Magic of Motown night on Tuesday and had bought tickets for four more evenings. We may be able to claim something back through our credit card but we'd much rather have gone to the events. We'll still be able to watch the closing ceremony on the big screen on the beach as that's a separate event run by the local council.

And we can still go up the 174ft Olympic Viewing Tower. The tower looks like a cross between London's Post Office Tower and an Olympic torch and the viewing platform slides up the outside of the tower and then rotates slowly. Maybe after a drink or two!

Picture from the www.matchracegirls.com website.

Collective Spirit

There are many lovely boats in Weymouth Harbour from little dinghys to tall ships. A couple of days ago a beautiful new boat arrived: Collective Spirit. It is made from about 1,200 pieces of donated timber to celebrate the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. One of Jimi Hendrix's guitars makes up the tiller while a leftover plank from the London 2012 velodrome was also used. You can read the full story on the BBC News website. When I saw it last night it was sitting on a trailer on the harbourside rather than in the water. It could do with an information board as I heard a few people commenting "it's beautiful, but what's it about?"

The harbour in the evening always looks lovely. It has an east-west orientation so that the sun sets upriver and lights up the boats and harbourside buildings. All the little fishing boats and yachts are decorated with official Olympic bunting so the whole place is just shimmering with colour.

To Motown and back

Last night (31st July) we had a brilliant evening down at the Weymouth Bayside Festival with an excellent performance from ‘The Magic of Motown’. The festival is part of the celebrations during the Olympics and has entertainment every day in two arenas from noon until 11pm. There’s also free entertainment on the beach nearby along with two giant screens showing the sporting events. Unfortunately, the number of visitors to Weymouth is a fraction of what was expected due in part to dire traffic warnings and the fact that the regular summer visitors are staying away. Consequently, Weymouth and Portland district is having its worst summer season for over 50 years! So, if anyone fancies a great day out, come to Weymouth! (The A31 near Ringwood isn’t great, but then it never is, Olympics or not).

When we arrived at our house on the morning after our stay at the Premier Inn we found a postcard on the mat from two of our neighbours welcoming us to Weymouth. An encouraging start. A little later another neighbour came around and introduced himself to us.

Our first full day in our new house was spent unpacking boxes and yet more boxes. Rainbow Removals did a very thorough job with virtually everything being packed in two sheets of special (non-scratchy) paper. We had sent 29 empty cartons back with the van the day before and I think there are about 50 more empty ones in the garage with another 30 or so still to go. We had the plumber round to re-commission the boiler and fix the ball-cock in the tank which had seized up after being drained down and out of use for some months so we now have running water.

We also discovered that there are three aerials in the house – one in the garage which feeds a point in the kitchen and two in the main loft which don’t work so our next job was to find an aerial man to sort that out. Fortunately, we were able to watch the Olympic opening ceremony in the kitchen; the built-in aerial booster in our HD recorder helping to get a good signal.

In the evening, tired and hungry, we walked down to Hope Square where there are four pub-restaurants and a daytime French bistro. In the square there are regular buskers and on this occasion there were Morris dancers who, after finishing their display, sat down with a drink while their musicians continued to play folk tunes. The following evening when we popped out for a stroll and a pre-dinner drink there was a violin and guitar duo playing.

The next day was more unpacking and then I cooked a meal for the first time in our kitchen. I’m used to a gas hob but am now getting used to a ceramic one. It’s ok but I haven’t worked out yet how long it takes for them to heat up or cool down. We ate our meal watching the first part of the Olympic opening ceremony on TV (wasn’t it great? and I loved the Bond scene with the Queen!) before walking down to the beach to join in with the crowds down there to watch the fireworks. Fortunately, the weather was still very warm and the atmosphere was great. If we hadn’t been so tired we would have stayed longer.

On Saturday a man came and installed a new digital aerial, I did a huge shop at our local Asda (a much better managed shop that the one we used to frequent at Lower Earley), and we also met some more of our neighbours. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming. In the afternoon we made our way to B&Q which is adjacent to the railway station. There was a long train of old-fashioned carriages at the platform with steam engines at both ends which pulled away while we watched. There is a local company that runs steam train trips from Bournemouth and Poole to Oxford, Bath etc so they must be doing Olympics specials.(Note to self: always carry camera)

On Sunday morning I went down to Holy Trinity Church by the harbour bridge where I met one of our new neighbours. The service was taken by the Bishop of Salisbury who was there to bless the waters for the Olympics (but not to pray for British victory in everything!) Ian met me outside afterwards and we had a stroll around the town before going back to the Galley Bistro where we’d eaten on Thursday night; one of our neighbours had recommended their Sunday carvery. And, like the meal we’d already had there, it was very good. They even had a fish option.

Monday morning. More unpacking and sorting. I walked to the doctor’s surgery to get forms to register and after lunch Ian and I went out for another walk. Just up from our house is a lovely view over Newton’s Cove where some of the Olympic sailing events are taking place. It was a beautiful clear day and we could see miles down the coast towards Lulworth and beyond. Pictured here are the Danish, Portuguese and Russian teams. (No idea what class, but Britain's Ben Ainslee was competing).

On Tuesday Ian walked into town to pick up a few bits from Wilkos and then onto Asda before walking home. We then both walked to the doctor’s surgery after lunch with our completed registration forms where I discovered that I’d forgotten my photo ID so I’ll have to walk back again. I think we'll be doing a lot of walking here. After more unpacking and, finally, getting my new office in place, we walked down to Weymouth Pavilion (about a mile) to explore the Bayside Festival where, as well as musical and other entertainment, there are stalls with local produce and information on the local wildlife, the Jurassic coast and more. On the way home for an early supper we spotted a rather unusual police vehicle, the driver of which was, I think, enjoying his moment in the spotlight!

Then another walk back to the festival for the evening (see top). Not surprisingly, we are both sleeping extremely well.