neil.baldwin – Page 45 – Neil Baldwin's blog : Warning contains walking, technology, photography, holidays.

Cley NWT

We area having a day off the rest of the party and heading to Cley NWT, the weather is fantastic sun shining just the odd cloud, an the air is still, even by the sea there is only a light breeze.
Before we set out we went to Morston to book Beans seal trip, but they were all booked up for this afternoon, but we have the option of trying again on Thursday evening or Friday morning 09:30 which would mean an early start.
We headed out along East Bank and saw probably 12 Bearded Tits, then over on the sea bank we had fleeting views of several Lapland Butings that have been resident for a couple of weeks now. After sitting on the sea defenses for 20 minutes, we saw an Artic Skua, but dipped on the Porpoises.
As we walked along the sea defence we sa a couple of Sandwich Terns and a Gannet.
We headed to the North hide and as usual the time we were there meant we were looking into the sun so good viewa were impossible. We saw plenty of waders that proved difficult to identify. On leaving the hide we kept our eyes out for the Hooded Crow on Eye Field, but it was not to be. A loo stop was in order so we headed straight back to the visitors center and had a well earned lunch, cheese sandwich for mw and Helen opted for the humous and roast vegetables toasted Sandwich.

Suitably refreshed we did a quick tour of the hides to the west of the visitors center. On the walk out we saw the hooded crow, which was a great surprise. After some time in the hides we headed back to the hut but not before, coffee and cakes at Byfords in Holt. We have not been to Holt for some time but it seems to be going up market, lots of shops for Helen to browse and spend money.
The service in Byfords was pretty slow we ordered hot chocolate, cappuccino, and a couple of cakes and it seemed to take an eon for it to turn up, how long can it take to steam some milk and slice a couple of cakes? Helen suggested the cow was playing hard to get!
When it turned up the apricot and almond tart was worth the wait, and the cappuccino was tasty. Helen reported that the huge hot chocolate (half a litre I estimated) was divine, the generous wedge lemon cake was tasty.
After some shop browsing, I purchased a flash card reader, then we drove on to the deli at Cley for some snacks for our tapas evening tomorrow. Finally we headed back to Blakeney via Cley Spey to get Helen a longer strap for her Knockers!

BOS to Holkham again!

Not an early start today, we got the 10:18 coast hopper from Blakeney village hall, to Burnham-overy-staith. We walked on the sea wall then straight out ontoi the big beach that is Holkham, a few miles of sand and we swung a left in land with the hope of a coffee/lunch break at the 0holkham tea room. Turns out it is shut, the Victria Hotel was open but were doing full menu till 15:00, only then would they serve sandwiches.
We decided to get the bus to Wells where we found a great place that did huge sandwiches in a pub garden. After some refreshments we headed along the coastal path, the plan was to walk to Stiffkey for a pint at the Red Lion.

The walk along the marsh was long, and the sun was hot, eventually we swung a left in land and can out at the Stiffey antique center and headed right towards the pub. The pub was very welcoming, we had beer, coke, coffee, and expresso, plus a few packets crisps and nuts.
The bus was a welcome luxury saving us the last few miles back to Blakeney. All in all a good day out.

The White Horse, Blakeney

Helen and I have been to the pub when we stayed in Blakeney a some years ago. The food then was great even if a tad on the pricey side. I had a curried potted crab as a starter, followed by baked Bream with artichoke, and saffron potatoes. The crab was the star of the meal, and the Bream was really good too, really well cooked.
Caroline had mushroom risotto which was very flavoursome, and Helen and Sallie had a parmesan tart which looked lovely, was reported delicious.
I’ll give it 4 out of 5.

Blakeney to Cley NWT and back

We set off in fairly good time this morning, down to the quay and Blakeney we headed off on the coastal path/sea wall out towards the point then back in land to Cley. There was a lot a fine rain showers as we headed out but as the day progressed it got increasing brighter and the sun started to break through the clouds.
Once at Cley we headed through the tight high street, and out the other side if the village and then along to the NWT visitors center. We had lunch at the center and I bought a book that has a chapter devoted to Lee Evans down fall, it is called “Tabloid Birding” (get this confirmed).
After lunch Nancy and Sallie headed back by bus via the git shops, and we headed in land to eventually do a loop round to the opposite end of the village, of Blakeney. We stopped off a Cley church a grand building and passed through Wiveton.

By the end of the walk my feet had pounded enough ground and I was ready for a glass of Admans from the mini barrel we purchased at the Adnams shop a Holkham, pure nectar after the long walk.

Blakeney we have landed

This year the Sharp (and hangers on) holiday is taking place in Blakeney Norfolk. We set out with auntie Sallie at 09:30 and headed off to the land of many birds with the plan of stopping off at Sandringham to have tea with queenie. When we got there we were informed that she was not in residence, we let ourselves in and had a look around the house anyway.
Then we set off to the Adnams shop at Holkham for some beer supplies for the holiday. We got to the hut at about 17:00, we are staying at Flinders in Blakeney, it is a great rental cottage, lots of rooms each with on suite.

As it was fairly late on in the day we decided to have fish and chips for dinner so Helen and I were despatched to Holt to Angus Road to get some. Helen placed the order but we seemed to get twice the amount that we needed for the eight of us, the person serving seemd to ignore the request for small portions and doubled them all up, (I did not complain).
After eating we all watched the wedding video edited with great skill by Paul from all the footage we collected.
Now we are all looking forward to a week of outdoor living.

Gorgonzola and caramelised onions

I am stuck at the Seagoe hotel in Portadown, Northern Ireland and tonight was my third night. I have been working my way through the menu, I don’t eat meat but I do eat fish so the options can sometimes be limited.
Monday was fish and chips, Tuesday King Prawn stir fry and tonight was a revelation.
I ordered the fritata with gorgonzola and caramelised onions. The combination was a synergy, the sweet onions counter balanced the gorgonzola perfectly. Gorgonzola being a strong cheese can often over power everything but it did not.
The fritata was actually more like an omelette but it was delicious.

Google white out!

I hope you have all been using Google’s instant search features. Just to remind yiu you need to be logged in to Google and go to the google page to do your search, searching from the browser search or address bar does not do it. When you search Google presnts the search results as you typen not just the old suggested stuff that appears in the search box but the full results for what you have typed.
Any way it turns out that there are some words that that cause the search results to “white out”. It seems that iif you type a rude or offensive word as you type Google the ajax code somehow is triggered to white the page out. This will open up some interesting stuff.
If it happens you kind of wonder what you have done to cause it. Have you searched for something you shouldn’t or just made a typing error? You can imagine that if you notice someone on google and you see the screen blank, you will wonder what they had done, it is sort of an invasion of privacy.
This also has some implications for some people and companies, as some will fall foul of the trigger words. For example Bitch Magazine, Scunthorpe Council, a Russian name that start Urinea!
Google also get a lot of statistics about how we search and type. The search feature waits for pauses in your typing before presenting in the results, this means they get a real insight into the way you search, do you type the whole lot, or just a word then add more words until you find what you want?
Only time will tell what the trigger word are, how they will deal ith peoples name clashes.

Walk round The Lee

Quite a busy weekend, but Helen and I needed to get out into the fresh air. Saturday had been spent at John Lewis trying to spend some of our wedding gifts, on a new sofa (and television!), then Abida a Connie came round for something to eat before we went to see Chris Packham.
We started off at the church just off the village green at The Lee, the weather was bright, with blue skies and blue cumulus clouds. The perfect opportunity to try out my newly purchased filter holder for the LX3, I could feel the polarising filter was needed. We crossed the green and headed down a track that leads to the edge of the common via some woods. We passed a group of barn buildings called the Old Garage I wander what they looked like in days gone by. We walked through the woods parallel to the common until we reached Ballinger Bottom where we crossed the road.
There were loads of mushrooms about but it took a while to get our eyes in! We walked on until the field on the left became woodland then we took a left through the woods, along what looked like a really ancient path way, the trees either side of the path looked very old and gnarled.
We were about half round at this point so we looked out for a suitable path leading left back towards The Lee. Once followed we found ourselves out in the open again, strange though there was a very wide (25m) avenue of grass that ran the length of the field right to the edge of the village. The habitat for mushrooms was very different so we saw quite a few different species from those in the woods. One in particular was giant, about 10 inches across and a foot high, looked like a parasol, perhaps that is what it is called.
Once back at the village we turned off the road and across the allotments and back onto the common where I took a picture of the cute house that Steve’s parents live in. We rejoined the path we took on the way out and eventually crossed back across the green. There was a tree with really tasty red apples in it, I was a bit surprised toi be asked by a group of people whether they were edible of not.
That was a great walk, another time we might extend it a little and find time to visit the pub on the green called the Cock and Rabbit. They serve Italian grub.

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Tamara Drewe (***)

The trailer suggested a British comedy, about an attractuve girl returning to a rural village she once lived in and had had connections with existing people currently living there.
The people living there a couple who run a writers retreat od the witers within, a local odd job man, and a couple of teenage girls who hang out at the bus stop.
The film is your typical british comedy with all the cliches you would expect. I found it funny. It is not up there with the comedy classics, but well worth watching.

The Men Who Stared at Goats (***)

the title of the film and the A list actors suggested this film could be fantastic. Sadly it did live up to my expectatiions. Having said that it was an original story.
Basically Ewan McGregor is a journalist who ends up in the middle east war zone, after his marriage breaks up. He meets up with someone who he had heard of whilst doing a story for his local paper years before.
This leads him to enter the war zone and find out about a secret section of the us army who use mind power to beat then enemy, and the experiments done where goats were killed by being stared at!
It has it’s moments but I would not recommend to the average film goer they might be disappointed.