30 November 2011

When I walk down your street, through your barred windows you look at me - Ramsgate still has some fabulous buildings hidden away, you only need to go off of the main streets a little to find them. It can't be long before beautiful buildings such as this one are turned into luxury apartments.

29 November 2011

In high seas or in low seas - The weather is finally turning, the winds are picking up and the sea is changing too.

28 November 2011

Well I told you once and I told you twice, but you never listen to my advice - Another fine example of stencilled graffiti, this one is hidden from site on Ramsgate seafront.

27 November 2011

I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles - We walked from Cliftonville to Westbrook and back this afternoon. It tried very hard to rain, but the sun kept on shinning.

26 November 2011

Turn on your light, let it shine on me - The Lizard is the most southerly point of mainland Britain and one of the things that it's famous for (besides it's famous sons) is serpentine. Serpentine is a metamorphic rock that has veins running through it and at the Lizard it is turned into various ornamental souvenirs, one of the most popular shapes is the lighthouse.

25 November 2011

Robbing people with a zip gun - In a couple of hours we are off to Folkestone to see The Bad Shepherds for the third time. The Bad Shepherds are a great folk band fronted by Adrian Edmondson and they play punk songs in a folk style and are fantastic live!


Here's a better description direct from their website:



The Bad Shepherds play punk songs on folk instruments. Not as a gag, but because we really like the noise. We think the songs are better than people remember. We love folk instruments. It works. We do songs by The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers, The Jam, Sham 69, The Undertones, The Buzzcocks, The Ramones, The Specials, Talking Heads, Squeeze and others, even Kraftwerk! Alright, they're not all punk, but they come from roughly the same era. We've mostly given the songs a kind of Celtic feel, and we've stuck in the odd reel and jig here and there. But occassionally we just thrash! I've always thought the excitement of a reel taking off is the nearest thing to the excitement of watching punk live in the 70's.


I love the songs of 76 - 82. I was 19 in 76 when punk arrived. Those songs were the soundtrack to my life as I went through Uni and started pretending to be a comedian. I loved the noise, the faces and the attitude. I love making music. Got my first guitar when I was 13 and along the way I've picked up ten other guitars, a banjo, a ukelele, two trumpets, a banjolele, a mandolin, an autoharp, a charanga, two pianos, a tenor guitar, a triangle and even made myself some Coconuts (strangely enough - from a coconut). I also love folk music, I love the noise - at its live best its the most exciting music to be in the same room with. It occured to me that punk was the folk music of its day.


I decided to form a band to reflect all of the above. It would be great if you came along for the ride.


Cheers, Adrian

24 November 2011

Lay down your arms - Terracotta warrior in an egg cosy.

23 November 2011

Fish on the table and fish on the fire - I made the most of the good weather this morning and took a walk down to Ramsgate's Royal Harbour. It's very much a working harbour and still has a reasonable sized fishing fleet.

22 November 2011

Red for danger - Collection of old oil lamp chimneys.

21 November 2011

I'd rather die than say goodbye - We left a misty Cornwall this morning on the A30, stopping only to photograph these three Cornish flags.

20 November 2011

Take a look around, tell me what you see - Another day spent walking around Falmouth looking for things that other people may miss.

19 November 2011

Down in the alley, we sure have fun - Falmouth, like many old sea ports is full of little alleyways and they all have their own tales to tell. The difference here is that they are much steeper than most other places.

18 November 2011

Well, don't you know about the bird - Pair of cormorants on the rocks near Pendennis Castle in Falmouth.

17 November 2011

Take a walk with me, down by the sea -After driving from one side of the country to the other and arriving in Falmouth just before the sun disappeared for the night, what's the first thing we did? We went down to the beach and watched the tide come in.

16 November 2011

I wished on them, but they were only satellites - I have walked up and down this road in Ramsgate hundreds of times and it wasn't until last year that I noticed this sign underneath the magnificent arch. It goes to show that there's always something brand new to see, even if it is very old.

15 November 2011

Burn that candle night and day - We can put the candles and matches away now. After a worrying few days I have managed to fix the gas fire and we can have some real heat in the evenings again!

14 November 2011

Bad fog of loneliness - We've had a lot of fog over the last few days, mainly overnight and in the morning, but today it hung around all day. On Joss Bay this afternoon you could hardly tell where the sea ends and the sky begins.

13 November 2011

The news is out, all over town - Another day of British Formula 1 success, congratulations to the McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton for winning the race and to Jenson Button for coming third!

12 November 2011

You know I miss warm cookin' mama, that you lay down - If you see a cookbook that looks like this, then you know it works. A good cookbook should be dog eared and stained, it should fall open at your favourite recipes. All the recipes in the book will probably work, unlike modern cookbooks written (perhaps) by some celebrity chef that's produced on such a tight schedule that not all the recipes have time to be tested.

11 November 2011

Though I walk the streets with my plastic feet - today we spent the morning on the allotment. I dug over a bed and planted the broad bean seeds. Planting them now means not only that they can be harvested early but it also stops them being so badly attacked by black fly.

10 November 2011

An old streetlight was painting mystical circles - We popped into Sandwich late this afternoon for a hot chocolate and a slice of cake. Then spent an hour walking around the back streets and alleyways of the town as the sun disappeared.

9 November 2011

You win some, lose some, it's all the same to me - Sometime a joker turns up and helps!

8 November 2011

For ever and ever - This is a bust of Sir Keith Park at The Battle Of Britain Memorial at Capel-Le-Ferne near Folkestone. If you don't know who Sir Keith Park is you can read more about him here and more information about the Memorial site can be found here.

7 November 2011

And soon I'll hear old winter's song - It's a sure sign that autumn is here when the leaves start changing colour.

6 November 2011

Let the wind blow right through your hair - Lin and I walked into Broadstairs this morning and passed the allotments. This little man was sitting reading just behind the fence.

5 November 2011

When men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go - Had to make a quick visit to the allotment to drop off some compost and found one of the paths covered in fungi.

4 November 2011

I just got into town about an hour ago - Early evening on Margate seafront.

3 November 2011

The other night me and my girl went bowling - Another slice of Ramsgate that can easily be missed. This is one of the two gates to Ramsgate Bowls Club on the West Cliff.

2 November 2011

I turn into a teenage goo goo muck - View from Margate pier as the sun goes down.

1 November 2011

Well I'm a-tellin' you dad, it's the best we've ever had - Because Lin spends so much time looking after the garden we have great soil, very soft. The local cats were very quick to discover this and our borders have become the best cat toilet in the neighbourhood.


It's not too much of a problem when the borders are filled with plants, but once the borders are tidied up for the winter it almost a full time job to keep them clear. Last year I came up with the idea or running lengths of string a couple of inches off of the soil along the borders. It worked most of the time, but occasionally a desperate cat would find a way in. This year we have improved on the design and added short pieces of bamboo canes and so far its kept the cats at bay.