Showing posts with label Fisher Fleet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fisher Fleet. Show all posts

Friday 31 January 2020

Bonsoir old thing, cheerio! chin chin!


Two score and seven years ago our fathers dragged us into a Continent, conceived in Error, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created European...

Three years and seven months after a majority voted to leave the EU the UK is now, at 11 pm January 31st 2020,  leaving that damned institution. There will be muted celebrations I expect, this is the way things are done here not with a bang but a whimper. Still, a Brexit Party house just a few doors down is putting out the flags in a show of Union rags to put the Mall in London to shame. Now I wouldn't want you to confuse me with those sentiments. I wouldn't have that Butcher's Apron on my property. I wanted to leave the EU but I'm no mad British Bulldog patriot, je ne suis pas un rosbif! I do not feel particularly British or English (I've never, ever felt European, I don't know what it means to feel such a thing, it's an invented identity that has no history or meaning) I'm just a Hartlepool lad a long way from home ... but I digress, anyway I had no choice in the matter, ma and pa just left me here to sing my song. No. I just want this country to be responsible for its own mistakes and its own successes like any other independent state. Make our own laws, pay our own taxes, spend our taxes as we see fit, trade freely with whoever will trade with us, kick out the bastards in our Parliament every now and then and make our government humble and sore afraid of the people. Not too much to ask, I think, just some basic independence.


It might be thought appropriate here to say that I wish the EU well without us ... well no, sod 'em, if you'll pardon my French... They and their vocal friends in this country have done their best to delay, thwart and obstruct the will of the majority. They are dangerously antidemocratic. This is absolutely unforgivable and will be their downfall. They still think they have some right not to have their noses rubbed in their defeat. I sincerely hope the sensitive souls are suffering. I look to the rise of other successful Leave parties across the states that remain trapped in the humourless and historic absurdity that is the European Union. This will no doubt happen but vita summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam ... 


The lips of the tyrants are trembling and pale, 
In dismay they are dreading the shock, 
Of the millions who, bold in the truth of their cause, 
Are as strong as the adamant rock!

The weekend in black and white is here.






Wednesday 25 December 2019

St Nicholas' Chapel


There may be no Santa Claus (who can say?) but there is definitely a St Nick's with its impressive spire looming out of the evening gloom over the Fisher Fleet in King's Lynn.

Sunday 29 September 2019

Out to the Wash


Here we are again down the Fisher Fleet; this time with a bit of day light. If you carry on past the fishing boats you eventually fetch up at the river, the Great Ouse, which flows out into the Wash. The river no longer flows in its own free way but in a man made channel, dead straight. King's Lynn used to be much nearer the sea but land reclamation, drainage and such things means it's now a few miles inland.







The weekend in black and white is here.

Saturday 28 September 2019

The Fisher Fleet


The Fisher Fleet just after sunset with a bit of a tide to reflect the lights and ghostly almost invisible ducks quacking to themselves is an experience not to be missed. Sure it involves a wee bit of trespass on port authority land but no one will mind too much and even if  they do they can only politely advise you to leave.


Folk have been setting off from here to scour the Wash and North Sea for fish and such like for centuries, these days it's mainly shrimps that provide a living for dozens in King's Lynn.


The Fleet now lies strictly controlled with embankments between two docks and surrounded only by light industry. A painting from the 19th century shows a more rustic, even bucolic, place with folk having a nice family day out by the banks of the stream. I can't see that happening these days. I found a couple of other old paintings here.

Margot Juby took this

Just ignore this sign ...

MargotJuby  took this
And if you are a tad confused over the word fleet, here it means a creek not a collection of boats. In fact the Fisher Fleet is the mouth of the Gaywood river which flows with no great urgency for a few miles and empties into the Great Ouse here. So there you go, it's clear as mud ... There are other 'fleets' in and around Lynn, Millfleet and the Purfleet spring to mind.