Music, Maestro, please!

As well as doing my paid work during the day and enjoying what seems to be a continuous diary of events in the town at the weekends, I am also keen to get involved with some local activities on a regular basis with, hopefully, the added benefit of getting to know some more people here.

With this in mind I contacted a couple of the local choirs and duly went off about three weeks ago for an informal audition at the home of the director of a small choir. After a bit of voice-warming exercises and singing through a couple of pieces along with the piano it would appear that I had done enough to be accepted. The following week I drove across town to the rehearsal venue and had a sing-through with the group. I haven’t sung with a choir on a regular basis since my days in Stamford and it felt good to be doing so. Sadly, though, after the second rehearsal I decided that the choir was not really for me; the style of music they perform not being my cup of tea.

With a second choir up my sleeve I went along to their rehearsal the following Monday (last week). This is a larger choir with a more traditionally classical repertoire and I enjoyed the evening. Best of all, they usually perform their concerts within walking distance of home! I have since been to the second rehearsal and still enjoyed myself and was warmly greeted by the other singers, many of whom are also incomers from as far afield as Sweden, Scotland and Wales. Next week, I have an audition (aaargh - I do not like singing solo), but it's supposed to be casual and only to check my range.

I have also attended a meeting of Enterprising Women Dorset, a networking group that meets every other month with a visiting speaker and on the alternate months meets at other groups or events. This meeting included a presentation from Popcorn Marketing, a PR company who helped to turn around the revamped Riviera Hotel in Weymouth - a large post-Art Deco grade II-listed hotel - from one of the worst-rated into one of the top ten rated hotels in the area in just a few months in the lead up to the Olympics. Julie Cleaver, who is also a governor of Weymouth College and will be president of the Chamber of Commerce next year, also runs Open 4 Business, a community interest company. They are organising a free Platforms for Growth conference and exhibition in mid-October at this hotel, so it should be an interesting day out in many ways.

The plague arrives

Saturday, 8th September.

Weymouth – or actually Melcombe, and later Melcombe Regis, as the town on that side of the river was known – holds the dubious honour of being the place where the bubonic plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, arrived in Britain in 1348, carried by people fleeing the plague on the continent. It was transmitted by the bite of a flea, the flea itself having been infected by the black rat upon which it lived. As the population fled the plague, unwittingly taking it with them and spreading it further, the plague went on to kill an estimated 30 to 50% of the country’s population. This fact is commemorated on a plaque attached to the wall of the Ship Inn on the harbour. We haven't eaten there, yet.

This, and many other fascinating facts about the harbour area, was brought to our attention by a member of Weymouth Civic Society who, with his wife, was conducting a free tour of the area on a very warm Saturday in early September (so warm and sunny that I ended up with a very red neck, having forgotten to go out with any sun cream).

We also learnt about the railway line which ran from the main station to the quay at the harbour's end, carrying passengers to the ferry terminal (see more here). Much of the original harbour was reclaimed when the current town bridge was built in 1930 but you can still see parts of the original harbour wall outside The Royal Oak adjacent to the south east side of the bridge. In a street leading off the harbour behind the Royal Oak there’s a replica of a civil war cannon ball that was lodged high in the wall of a building – the Royalists had captured the Weymouth side of town, including the Nothe Fort, were bombarding the Melcome side of town which was held by the Parliamentarians.

In nearby St Mary’s Street, the church boasts an impressive painting of The Last Supper by Sir James Thornhill, who was born nearby and also became a local Member of Parliament. (He was also responsible for the eight scenes in the cupola of St Paul’s Cathedral and for much of the painted ceilings and walls at Greenwich).

On the west, the Weymouth side, of the harbour is a mixture of residential buildings and old store houses. Many are much older than their Georgian and later frontages would suggest and in Cove Street, which at one time was the side of a harbour inlet, is one of the oldest remaining residential buildings in Weymouth. Following restoration by the Civic Society it was, until recently, let out to tenants on condition that they allowed tours of the building on a set number of days per year. It is no longer tenanted, but still open for tours which we have yet to go on. As well as other buildings nearby, it is, reputedly, haunted.

As our guide was revealing the history of the building a former resident came by and told us that although he’d never seen any ghosts, a friend of his had had a very strange and unexplained experience involving noises coming from the stairs. When he turned to look, there was no-one there...

The carnival is over

Bincleaves Green - 14th September 2012

The summer, which made a late comeback this year and for the last three weeks has been hanging on by its fingertips, has slipped away. Blackberries, which are normally ripe and juicy in mid- to late-August, are mostly small and red and unlikely to provide enough fruit for any pies or jam this year.

Today it has been raining steadily for most of the day but it is the first serious rain we’ve had here in weeks. A little while ago, the only things tumbling over the grass were the dogs being exercised up on Bincleaves Green, but now they are joined by browning leaves, swept off their branches by the chilly winds blowing in from the east. The normally calm seas in the shallows of Weymouth Bay are today whipped up into thousands of white horses and the distant hills are shrouded in mist.

I have been extremely busy with work over this period and haven’t had the energy to update the blog – very naughty of me – so I now have quite some updating to do, so here goes with the first report:

Paralympic success
The Paralympics have been, like their sister event, a huge success. Here in Weymouth the beach sports arena, which was created for the Olympics, was re-opened in a slightly modified format, allowing people of all abilities to have a go at accessible sports, including wheelchair basketball and seated volleyball as well as sailing and windsurfing. Such was the success of the two sessions that the local council is considering making the sports arena a regular summer activity.

The main competitive event here, of course, was the sailing. Unlike in the Olympics, Paralympic sailing is one of the few events where men and women compete together and one of the competitions was won by British sailor Helen Lucas – the only female competitor in the race – but a day early. Sadly, the weather was so calm on the last scheduled sailing day that there was no wind for sailing and the decision was taken to award the medals based on the positions at the end of the previous (fourth) day.

Saturday 8th September – the last competitive day of the Games – was a beautiful day under cloudless skies. The town was filled with people enjoying the end of the summer and groups of Morris men, women and children were to be found all over town. They had come from as far as Cornwall and were there as part of the Cultural Olympiad by the Sea programme to celebrate the end of the Paralympic Games.

The following day the Moving Tides procession, postponed from the opening of the Olympic Games due to the appalling weather, took place, featuring over 1,000 performers in costumes of themes ranging from Olympic sailing to Jurassic sea creatures. Unfortunately, Ian and I missed it. The carnival was due to start at 4pm on the Esplanade. We were a little late and on the wrong side of Weymouth Harbour. We keep forgetting that the town bridge (the only working ‘bascule’ bridge in the UK other than London’s Tower Bridge) opens every two hours on the hour to let large boats in and out of the marina, and four o’clock is one of those times. There is a rowing boat ‘taxi’ service that might have helped, but the last one was an hour earlier. We would have been half an hour late and probably missed most of it, so we turned around and walked the long way back home along the harbour and through the Nothe Gardens.

I have since discovered that this carnival is part of the annual Spirit of the Sea Weymouth and Portland Maritime Festival, so we shall be on the Esplanade, in plenty of time, waiting for next year’s procession.

Paralympics and more fireworks

Paralympic sailors practise in Portland Harbour on 31st August.

September – and the last few days have had a distinct chill in the air, particularly at night.
Mind you, as I write the forecast is for the low 20s again this afternoon.

It's been a week since my last post and I've been frantically busy in the meantime; though not much worth posting about. We did manage, however, to get down to the harbour to watch the Paralympic flame arrive last week on August bank holiday Monday.

I was expecting a torch like those carried for the Olympic torch relay so I was rather surprised to see the Paralympic flame being held in what looked like a storm lantern. Why it's not a torch I don't know. [If anyone does know, feel free to post a comment below.] Anyway, despite the terrible weather (though not quite as bad as when the Olympic torch arrived and which had eased up by the time the torch arrived from Portland) lots of people turned out to watch the flame and its entourage arrive on the boat 'MV Freedom' – a boat specially adapted for disabled sailors – at the harbour. Many more lined the seafront as the flame continued its celebratory route on the Sea Life land train up and down the Esplanade.

In the evening there was an 'international fireworks display' – the third fireworks display we'd seen in a month! I'm not sure whether the 'international' part of the display was because it was for the Paralympics or if this is an annual event.

This time, rather than watching from Bincleaves Green above our house we walked to the steps leading from the west side of the harbour up to the Nothe Gardens from where we'd watched the flame arrived. A much better view from here, but I suspect the best view is actually from the main beach but, as it was pouring with rain and we were already pretty wet (despite coats and umbrellas) we really didn't fancy walking that far.

Five days later – September 1st – and the Paralympic sailors had started their races. There seem to be only three classes (mixed) but each has a race every day until the last on medals day, Thursday (6th). Ian and I went for a walk down to Sandsfoot Castle (the ruins of a castle built by Henry VIII; more of which in a future post) where on a mound in the gardens next to the castle was a crowd of people watching the sailing. The weather was good, though overcast, and many of the spectators were making a real day of it with picnics and blankets all around.

Fixed to a fence at the garden's edge was a flotilla of 'boats' all brightly decorated with an Olympic theme created by students at Budmouth College and 10 Weymouth primary schools.

From here we joined the Rodwell Trail, a former railway track from Weymouth town to Portland, now tarmaced and an easy stroll to Ferrybridge where the track abruptly ends as the bridge no longer exists. Along the way you can see the remains of the platforms with signs such as 'Wyke Regis Halt' still in place, though half hidden under sweet peas, honeysuckle and brambles laden with unripe and rather small blackberries.