Under the Mistletoe

Well I'd been in and around the Walks before but somehow I'd not noticed that just about every other big tree had huge fuzzy globes at their tops. Weird, alien looking things still green while all the leaves have long gone. It is, of course, Mistletoe (Viscum album or white sticky stuff ... ). I've never seen anything quite like it, there was just loads of the stuff. What makes this King's Lynn park such a fine place for these hemiparasitic plants I can't imagine but both hosts and guests are definitely doing well.

 

The South Gate, King's Lynn

I suppose in a rational ordered world this vestige of medieval urban protection would have been cleared away and become nothing but an entry in obscure historical chronicles. A wee sign informs us that this was put up in the early 15th century clearly to bottleneck the flow of carts and horses causing tailbacks over the river Nar and along Friars Street as toll charges were levied and collected on traffic. The sign mentions that the gatekeeper was also "keeper of the muckhills" but thankfully does not elaborate on what that might mean ... The small doors on either side show where pedestrians had had enough and were allowed through. Later on London Road was developed and was as you see it is twice as wide as the gate. So there it stands covering half a road serving no useful purpose other than being a delight to the eye, an oddity in the blandness of modern life.

The gate is open to visitors during the warmer months but not on a chilly  Sunday afternoon in February.

The stone clad frontage is to impress visitors, it's really a brick building similar to the North Bar in Beverley.

The South Gate was the site of the town's gallows where poor unfortunates were hanged if they weren't being roasted in Tuesday Market... Margot suggested these orbs might be the restless souls of the condemned hovering about the place, I think it's just a stinky picture ...

Here's the wee sign I mentioned earlier.

The building is, of course, Grade 1 listed. Here's more by folk who know what they are talking about.

Frederick Savage

One thing that I did not see at the Mart was a roundabout with horses, folk are more interested in being put at the end of a vertical centrifuge and spun up above the chiminey tops than going round and round and up and down on wooden horses accompanied by steam powered organ music. 

Times and fashions change but once upon time steam powered galloping horses, invented by this guy, Frederick Savage, were all the rage. I read that showmen could make close on a hundred pounds a day from penny rides on one of these machines; that's old pennies, 240 to the pound. He sold his contraptions around the world spreading dizzy fun while making a small fortune.

Frederick Savage became mayor of Lynn three times (a veritable Dick Whittington) and died in 1897. This statue was erected in 1892 paid for by showmen and the people of Lynn. He was clearly much liked as a banquet was held in his honour.

After his death the works nearly went under and were only saved by being bought up by local firms. Steam engines were not the way of the future, at least not for farm work or fair grounds. The last Savage roundabout I saw was at Hull Fair several years ago, I don't think any are left in active service, they are all museum pieces. The factory in Lynn where Savage made his machines is now a tame arcade of shops. 

This statue has him in mayoral ceremonial garb giving a priestly benefaction to all who pass. It stands, as it always has done, on London Road close to the South Gate.

By way of postscript; while going through the papers of Margot's late mother I found that her house, off Loke Road a stone's throw from the old Savage works, was built on land sold off by Mr Savage's widow in 1898. 

King's Lynn Mart

I mentioned in a post a while back that every year on Valentines Day the Tuesday Market in King's Lynn becomes fun fair for a fortnight or so. When I first heard about this I wondered how they could squeeze a fun fair into a small town square but fit it in they did and have done for centuries so I'm not one to speak...

This year's Mart was shorter than usual due to Council works needing to be done or some such excuse. We caught it on Thursday evening when it seemed a bit deserted and again on Friday afternoon when it was full of screaming kids as fun fairs ought to be. 

The Mart marks the start of the year for those involved in fairground entertainment, the year ends with Hull Fair. It would otiose to compare this neat compact attraction with the sprawling noisy brash thing that sprouts out on Walker Street each October.

Oh yes, I should mention in case you haven't noticed that I've been to King's Lynn for a few days so expect posts from Norfolk for the time being.

The rotating arm thing was visible for miles as you approach the town.

By Sunday evening it had all gone; no sign it was ever here but it'll be back next year.

Whole trees in motion

For the past three or four days they've been at it again. Barely had one little storm faded away than they issue warning of impending doom with another approaching Atlantic depression. They've called this one Dennis and it promises the usual big blow and a whole ocean of wet stuff. Maybe a month's worth of rain in a day, there'll be flooding, there will be recriminations ... But as of now it's just a fresh breeze stirring up my neighbour's birch trees and a little drizzle, time to walk the dogs and get the shopping done or just put your feet up and forget about it.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Roses are red

Roses thrive on a rich well manured soil ...

For reasons that escape me our media follow closely the ins and outs of the quadrennial, seemingly perennial, US Presidential wooing game. For as long as I can recall they have bored us with it, as if it mattered more than Tesco not having any milk ... They gave us blow-by-blow reports of Iowa's arcane and somewhat sweet caucas process (that went well didn't it?), of the New Hampshire Democrats' desire to have their very own and original magic Grandpa as their choice and how Biden is vexed and Warren is, well let's not talk about Warren ... Commentators over here cannot decide how to pronounce "Buttigieg" (it's a name that gives those of us on this side of the great watery divide who have failed to find our inner adult the titters  but then we don't have a vote, no wonder he calls himself Pete; President Buttigieg!, nah can't see it ... but then there's been a Trump in orifice, sorry office, for the past four years  and we, well, we have our very own Johnson and his special friend Cummings ...). The wannabes are such a deep well of oddly 'talented' (by which I mean rich) folk all convinced that they have what it takes to be The Candidate; filled with the right amount of righteous indignation and large amounts of steaming hot  phony baloney ... it is, as I say, a mystery why we get such coverage when, from this distance, it is clear the short odds favourite will walk it with his hands in his very deep pockets. I can't say it worries me much: the current guy hasn't started any wars (yet) and the world is still spinning ... from what I see and hear he is far from ideal but as someone once said "The real American is all right: It is the ideal American who is all wrong."

A Darkness at Noon

A storm in February used to pass by unnoticed, it was the kind of thing you expect, happened every year, through out autumn and winter we'd have storm after storm. A few dustbins would get blown over, maybe a tree or two, a power outage ( to use the American term) was not unknown. But it was winter, you expected it and got on with stuff. Nowadays everything has to have some malign anthropogenic cause and we'd better beat ourselves with birches until we come to our senses and/or die and leave the planet to all those cuddly animals and nice trees and flowers and grasses ... The chiliastic numpties gather in their covens and murmur misanthropic millennial doom and say we must expect these "extreme weather events" even more frequently now that there's so many people on the earth all making nasty carbon dioxide. They are, as I've said before, quite mad and completely wrong: we have fewer storms these days ... but mere facts never faze a craze.

Also crazy is giving these passing Atlantic depressions names: today's puny effort has the name Ciara which means "dark haired"; apt given that it was getting quite pitchy at just gone noon when I took my photo coming back from Tesco.

My bin blew over (almost!) , we must expect more events like this ... We shall rebuild! I don't know if the trauma will ever  leave me.