Grand Norfolk Hike stage 5: Ely to Littleport

by martinxo on January 26, 2012

I walked this, the 5th stage of my Grand Norfolk Hike, on Sunday 22nd January 2012.

Ely to Littleport

Ely to Littleport

It was a windy day as I tramped on up the Great Ouse on this short walk to our neighbours in Littleport.

It was a typical fenland walk in many ways.  Wind, long straight stretches, lots of birds. Nothing stunning but beautiful in its own special way.

River Great Ouse

River Great Ouse

I met only one other walker, we grinned at each other as our paths crossed.  Other than that I had only had the swans and geese to sing to.

Swans in a drain near Littleport

Swans in a drain near Littleport

Before I knew it I was in Littleport.  I didn’t tarry, instead I finished off my sandwiches and munched on a marathon bar at the station before hopping on the first train home.

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In praise of lower-league football

by martinxo on January 22, 2012

Ely City FC badge

Ely City FC

Yesterday I went with my boy (Harry), his pal (Sid) and Sid’s grandad (John) to see our local side, Ely City FC play Dereham Town in a top-of-the-table clash of the Ridgeons League Premier Division.

There weren’t any highly paid stars, the attendance was 114 (including a handful from Dereham), there’s no electronic scoreboard, or video playback screen or whatever.

But who needs all that stuff?

Instead we saw a thrilling game (final score 1 – 1) for only £6 per adult, the kids got in free.  There’s a club-house where we could buy some hot chocolate for the boys and a pint each for the adults.  And it wasn’t fizzed-up cats piss beer, nope, it was a fine pint of Greene King IPA from across the border in Norfolk.  It tasted great. And what’s more we could drink it outside while watching the match.

Who could ask for more?  Well a win for The Robins would have been good but a draw was acceptable, Ely camped out in the Dereham half for the last 30 minutes but couldn’t hit the back of the net.

We all had a great time and Harry and Sid want to go again.

 

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Grand Norfolk Hike stage 4: Thornham to Burnham Overy Staithe

January 21, 2012

I walked this, the fourth stage of my Grand Norfolk Hike, on Saturday 14th January 2012. You can see a map of the hike so far So…this stage was a little odd in that I didn’t actually get to be near the sea.  I saw it, sure, but I didn’t get that close to it.  Never [...]

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Grand Norfolk Hike stage 3: Ely to Shippea Hill

January 13, 2012

I walked this, the third stage of my Grand Norfolk Hike, on Sunday 8th January 2012. This might sound a little odd but the title of the post is wrong, the correct title is the one above, just under the map.  The reason for this is that Jo drove me to Shippea Hill station so I [...]

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Feelings, emotions and the Blue Screen of Death

January 10, 2012

“It’s like the blue screen of death,” she said, describing her difficulty conveying her emotion with a widely used term for a Windows computer crash. “There are no words there.” By Kirsten Lindsmith from ‘Navigating Love and Autism‘. I know exactly what she means.  Only for me it’s a dense black fog, where nothing is [...]

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The Grand Norfolk Hike – Heacham to Thornham

January 7, 2012

I walked this, the second stage of my Grand Norfolk Hike, on 31 December 2011. Despite gloomy warnings from the BBC website there was no rain on this walk at all, I even saw the sun a few times. I took a bit of time finding my way out of Heacham and had to backtrack a [...]

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The Grand Norfolk Hike – King’s Lynn to Heacham

December 30, 2011

I walked this, the very first stage of my Grand Norfolk Hike, on 17 December 2011. I caught the train from Ely and supped a coffee while watching the Fens pass by.  I took my camera out for an inspection only to find the damn thing wasn’t working, pah! I arrived at King’s Lynn station [...]

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The Grand Norfolk Hike – introduction

December 28, 2011

One of my big projects for 2012 is to hike around Norfolk.  Originally the idea was to walk around the north Norfolk coast from King’s Lynn to Great Yarmouth. This is a nice idea but I soon realised it wasn’t enough and I really needed to complete the sort-of rectangular box that would take me back [...]

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Poem – The Last Boy in Europe

December 22, 2011

Freezing rain, for example. in West London take a shortcut Beautiful ascent of the ridge during a rainstorm. the hotel is full Accommodation outside of Foix the route of the walk Take a shortcut French translation La pluie verglaçante, par exemple. dans l’ouest de Londres prendre un raccourci Splendide ascension de l’arête pendant une tempête [...]

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The Monochrome Set at Dingwalls – June 12th 2011

September 24, 2011

Robo and I went to the gig back in June and it’s taken me this long to blog about it.  Never mind, better late than never. The Monochrome Set have long been a favourite of mine.  I didn’t see them back in the day but have always enjoyed their music, in particular the four or [...]

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