It’s been a while since I made a film, and this is two minutes of sun, song and sausages. The allotment is the most wonderful place to chill, although I got sunburn (in Manchester?) and lightly grilled my face while cooking al fresco. And if I say folk music, sunsets, cats and characters, all surrounded by wild flowers then you’ll know the evening ticked all my hippy boxes. Viva la vodka! Featuring Gordon Whitelock on acoustic guitar. Bliss.
Random
Barbecue Sunset
Categories: Music, Photography, Random, Vibe Monitor, Video
Tags: acoustic guitar, Chorlton, Cleveleys Avenue Allotments, Folk music, iMovie, iPhone, Live Music, Manchester, Upad, vintage movie
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California Dreaming
California, England. It’s not where you expect to find a California, but there it is, clinging to the Norfolk cliffs, next to Scratby. We would tell our schoolfriends we went to California every year on vacation, slightly forgetting to mention it was 6000 miles to the right of the one in the States. And marginally less glamorous. Or hot. This is the Pleasure Beach in Great Yarmouth, the highlight of every childhood summer holiday.
Yours truly squinting in the sun. Some very lovely old beach huts here, next to the rackety old fun fair.
A relic from the 70s, when the world was high on Star Wars and the fair was a riot of screaming colour and noise.
The Pink Panther says it all, really, doesn’t he? Still here.
I’m saying goodbye to Scratby, driving off through the chocolate-box villages to Kent.
Episodes one, two and three are here ‘if you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air…’
Categories: Design, Photography, Random, Travel
Tags: beach hut, England, fun fair, Great Yarmouth, holiday, Mark Wallis, Norfolk, Scratby, Star Wars, The Pink Panther, vacation
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Beach Rain
“Feel the rain like an English summer,
Hear the notes from a distant song.”
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Sometimes, when you’re stumbling along in wet sand, trying to take pictures of everything at once, a wonderful and rare mistake will become your best picture ever. Just make sure you say it was deliberate, and brush the sand off your clothes.
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Nothing calms the soul quite like a rainy beach, deck chairs flapping in the wind under a hide-and-seek sun.
Every morning at dawn, I sneak to the cliff edge to catch the sun rising. And every morning the famous Norfolk sunrise beats me to it. This is the closest I got…
See the start of this tale in The Time Travel Tourist, and episode two, Summer Salt.
Categories: Design, Photography, Random, Travel, Vibe Monitor
Tags: Beach, deck chairs, Great Yarmouth England, holiday, hut, Norfolk, Scratby, vacation
10 Comments
Summer Salt
My sunny memories of childhood holidays in Norfolk have blurred slightly, like the faded glamour of an English seaside village. I’m the Time Travel Tourist, powered by nostalgia, jaunting back to the sand dunes and salty air of 1970s Scratby. Days were spent on bright windy beaches, and at night we retired to our charming, creaky wooden cottages on the cliff top.
I found a derelict cottage with all the original features, and I’m dreaming of a day when I can renovate it…
The sea is loud and feisty, with mournful fog horns and Bouy bells in the night, magical sounds to my childhood self, and just as hypnotizing to me now.
See the first episode The Time Travel Tourist, and also Beach Rain
Categories: Design, Photography, Random, Travel
Tags: England, Great Yarmouth, holiday, Norfolk, nostalgia, Scratby, seaside, Summer, vacation
7 Comments
Hazy Shade of Summer
Little ginger cat
It’s a hazy shade of summer down on the allotment, everything’s blooming, colourful chaos. I slipped through security and wandered into the sunset, meeting a gorgeous little ginger cat who rolled around and posed for pictures. How do cats know it’s a camera? Little Ginge reminded me of the Late Great Sparky, my beloved super-sized tom cat who features elsewhere on The Vibes. The bees were buzzing in the dying rays of the sun, refusing to pose for the camera – just too plain busy! Good to see so many of them.
Chives in the sunset
Bee in a flower at sunset
A print design I made from a picture of some blue flowers
Categories: Cats, Photography, Random, Travel, Vibe Monitor
Tags: bees, Chorlton, Cleveleys Avenue Allotments, flowers, ginger, horticulture, Manchester, nature, wild
16 Comments
the vibes 