Hooray.

'Nuff said.

Eeek . . .

Ever felt the foundations of your own personal universe weren't quite as solid as they should be? Google home page disappearing has that effect on me!

I'd better go for a lie down in a dark room and hope the World has got back to normal when I wake up. I mean, if you can't rely on Google...

Grrrr . . .

So much for that hanging basket. Damn and double damn. The caterpillars have munched their way through the pretty bits, and the little black beasties are lurking, ready for the rest. Sigh. I thought birds liked feasting on stuff like this?

Can I at least hope for a flock of butterflies in the near future? From the caterpillars obviously, I don't expect much from the little black beasties . . .

Ramsgate Carnival 2007

An unexpectedly sunny day, despite rainy forecasts, so a great start to Ramsgate Carnival 2007. An impressive carnival parade and a nice little funfair, perfect for younger carnivallers, meant a perfect Sunday which we decided was the day when Summer officially returned. A few pictures below - and these and a few more on Flickr (especially useful if this page loads slowly). Enjoy. (***I've removed a few pictures from the blog entry to try and speed up this page's loading time, but you can see them all on Flickr, just follow the link above***)

And if this has whetted your appetite, the Herne Bay Carnival site lists dates for all the other Carnivals coming up, including Whitstable, Margate, Herne Bay and Sandwich (among many others). Excellent.

Although we didn't see it on the way out, by the time the procession came back to Government Acre, the Mayor's bus had joined, so it was official, anyway.

Miss Ramsgate and ladies-in-waiting did their stuff beautifully of course, soon to be followed by the representatives of many other Kentish towns and districts.

Miss Romney Hythe and Dymchurch looked a bit like a locomotive to me, but it was my first carnival...

A man rather hidden by his bundle of balloons...

This slightly ragged crew seemed to be something to do with the Twinning Association...

And Christmas comes early for the British Legion . . .

The little ones loved the pinkness of this one...

And a couple of stretch limos promoting the virtues of... er... stretch limos...

Not sure it's the right way to treat a car, but it looked quite cool...

Apparently Miss Sheppey must not be crossed, according to the notice on the towbar anyway... is she really that fierce?

And we all agreed this one was particularly a good float...

And then we went home.

Cliftonville Car Fest

An unexpected bonus today- Cliftonville Farmers' Market had expanded to include a singer or two on the band stand and a Classic Car show. Just a few dozen cars, but some looking very shiny and well-loved - and a parrot. I'm not quite sure what the parrot was doing there, but it seemed to be happily walking along in front of the car display behind its owner.

Seaside Postcards 13 - Fishing for Compliments

Time for another old postcard- this delightful item dates from 1913, and was sent to M. et Mme. Lacau in Montmartre, Paris, and described great fishing - La peche miraculeuse - and the front of the card reflects that with the jolly fishermen retrieving a briefcase containing a drop down set of old photos of Ramsgate.

Cool Thing of the Day: Internet Trend Map

OK, so you have to be a bit of an Inernet nerd to like or even pretend to understand this one, but it's an attempt to 'map' the relationships and trends of the 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. Based on the Tokyo underground map, it is really interesting. Really, it is.

Click on the map to get the full explanation, as well as high resolution versions and further information. And if you like 'interpretations' of the classic London Underground tube map (a nostalgia kick for all us DownFromLondoners!), have a look at the "Silly Tube Maps" web site. Excellent use of time and space...

Ramsgate Mini-guide

The observant may notice a new button over on the right hand-side of the page. You may find it interesting, even useful, but I confess it's mostly a shortcut to many of my favourite sites, a simple shortcut to stuff about Ramsgate and Thanet, so please don't be offended if your site isn't there (yet). Feel free to link to it if you think it's useful. And suggestions for additions are welcome (no guarantees though).

Beached?

A wander round the Royal Harbour yesterday raised a couple of questions. How do ships the size of these get through an entrance as sandy as this? Has it always been like this, or are we going through a particularly silty period? Shouldn't the dredger be working here? OK, presumably this is not a new phenomenon, at high tide there is obviously enough clearance or the Grand Turk, the Customs and Excise boat and these two little ships wouldn't manage it, and obviously the harbour management are aware of this. But to the casual observer (me) it seems a little curious that the beach is so big at low tide.






And then overcome by nerdiness, I looked up the ships registrations. Finding myself in the world of Vesseltracker, ShipSpotting, and the World Shipping Register I learnt that the Hoo Swift and Hoo Pipit were built by the Yorkshire Dry Dock Company in Hull in 1989, managed by Coastal Bulk Shipping Ltd, Rochester and are of 794 GWT (that's Gross Weight Tonnage - cargo and related equipment). Lordy, lordy, where will this thirst for knowledge take me next?

Flickr Maps

Fiddling with Flickr, I saw this for the first time, although I'm sure it's been around for a while. Yet another great example of integrating a database and a map (others include OnOneMap for property search). Click on the map to go to the 'real' one at Flickr, then explore - the numbers in circles take you to the picture for that spot, and of course you can go off anywhere in the world for a look at which photos have been added. This does rely on the photo-taker adding a 'geotag' so it's not EVERY photo, just those where people have taken the extra step to map it. But it can only grow...




Now I suppose I have to geotag my own photos. Sigh.

Don't Adjust Your Set

I'm not sure anyone cares about the techy detail here, but just for the record - in case you're banging the side of your monitor because it doesn't look the same - I have widened my blog from 738 pixels to 960 pixels wide (to most of you, that just means it fills more of the screen). Only 2% of my visitors have 800x600, so although one or two (literally) might have to scroll a little to see the full glory of my stuff, the other 98% get the chance to see even bigger, brighter pictures. And as I seem to be mostly focused on pictures, that seems a good thing.

Watch this space for bigger, brighter things. And just as an example, here's a piccie I took at Dover Castle a few months back. More luck than judgment, but I thought it came out ok . . .

And then it was gone...

OK, I give up. The boingy thing has now gone, after just one day as far as I can tell. So for pictures of the current 'funfair' please scroll down to the previous picture of the empty site. Sigh.

How many rides make a funfair?

More than one I expect. That big catapult-you-in-to-the-air thingy is back, but that seems to be it, so "good news bad news" for the funfair-expectant... Maybe the others are on the road, or temporarily delayed by floods or something. One £15-a-go ride isn't exactly going to make a Summer.

West Cliff Concert Hall (again)

Another nice view of the West Cliff Concert Hall and the Royal Crescent. Click on the picture for a larger view. Just to the right of the Concert Hall are yet more windows, under the roadway in fact - was there a tunnel from the Churchill (or whatever the building on the corner was back then)? Or did the Hall reach sideways?



All my West Cliff piccies on Flickr . . .

www.flickr.com

*And Also* in one of those coincidences that show that there is just one brain available for use in blogging and we all share it in turn, East Cliff Richard has just mentioned a fabulous web site with photos of the rather disastrous interior of West Cliff Hall. So - with due acknowledgement to ECR - have a look at Broken Britain (just do a search for Ramsgate) - especially Motor Museum visit 1 and Motor Museum visit 2, and also the Marina Restaurant while you're at it. Then explore the rest of the site for adventures through abandoned buildings... grrrreat...

**And Also, part 2** It's in the comments, but easier to click through here - Michael Child has provided a link to his set of photos of the former Motor Museum. More old cars than architecture in the photos of course, but at least the building was alive... Thanks Michael.

Funfair arriving soon?

Well not yet it isn't. Despite predictions of the 16th, it's still a little bit too virtual. Any day now, I expect.



Oh well, the sea was looking lovely, even lively, and Summer can't be too far away now, surely...

Summer

Not much happening this week, apart from work (yuk). Still, all this rain is doing amazing things to the garden, and the bees are just loving the sunflowers... and the other flowers too. If nothing else, it reminds me a little of sunshine while I'm watching the rain and listening to the thunder outside. Summer...hmmm...

Kent Show 2007 - overview

Our first visit to the Kent Show at Detling, and a great day out for us and the other 50,000 or so who were there. More pictures (86 altogether!) from today on Flickr.

Agricultural exhibits included a wide range of sheep, goats, cows, poultry, rabbit and horses, oh yes and llamas and alpacas - and a blacksmithing contest.

And some sort of elephant hiding inside a bull costume. I mean how big does a bull need to be for goodness sake?

The vintage section had the Detling steam fair and as many hissing, steaming bits of cast iron as you could shake a stick at, as well as a proper funfair. One with fairground organs. And a proper carousel.

And a vulture.

And raspberries.

And a dalek. It was a day of variety . . .

And of course the steam. I have a few more pictures of the steam - both the engines and the vintage funfair, and you can see them (and the other usable pictures I took today) on Flickr.

And then I found myself enjoying a flower show. Unbelieeeevable. But the Bonsai and Fuschia sections were amazing. The bonsai display from The Bonsai Shop in Whitstable was a particular treat.

The spitfire gave us a great display over the Parade of Steam, which seemed to satisfy pretty much everyone.

And later on there was that flying advert plane again - everywhere I go, he goes. I'm starting to wonder...

Show jumping, birds of prey, a spitfire for a few minutes and an aerial advertisment for a few minutes more, plus food, shopping, sunshine and - did I mention - crowds. Brilliant day. These are my favourite pictures of the day - you can go direct to my Flickr Set and see the lot as a slideshow if you're a real glutton for punishment.

And venturing in to the judging tents, it was nice to see a Ramsgate address on the label of the honey that won first prize. K P Flynn, whoever you might be, well done!

Oh yes, and thumbs up for organisation - no traffic problems, sensible parking, enough toilets, bins and catering, it all looked like an amazing triumph of planning. But then I suppose they have done it once or twice before... And we even found the car without difficulty. Grand.

And finally... in the spirit of completely unnecessary and intrusive celebrity spotting, TV auction man Michael Hogben clearly enjoyed the floral displays - but so did we all!