Tendring Topics…..on Line
A Word about Photographs
It is only relatively recently that I have learned how to include illustrations in my weekly Tendring Topics….on Line. Since then (like a child with a new toy!) I have tried to include one or two at least, in every posting.
Mostly they are photos that I have taken myself (the two included this week for example) but at other times they are pictures that have been taken by a friend or relative. A friendly waitress took a recent family picture of a celebratory meal in a Brussels restaurant.
Mostly too, they are just included to illustrate a point that I have made in the typescript. Last week’s item about the reclamation of a piece of wasteland in Jaywick was an exception. In this case it was the pictures that were of greater importance and my words did no more than put them into context. It was therefore particularly remiss of me to fail to mention that they were taken not by me, but by my friend, Rodney Thomas. Rodney is the very competent amateur photographer who, with his wife Janet, had produced the transformation that was the subject of the article.
Rodney isn’t complaining. He says that everyone knows that the author of a blog hasn’t necessarily taken the pictures that illustrate it. As for me? I have to confess that I hadn’t given it a thought until the blog was copied, at my instigation, into our area Quaker Newsletter. There, to my consternation, I found that I was credited with the creation of those three colourful photographic illustrations! Mea culpa …my fault entirely!
Rodney and Janet insist that no apology is called for. However, I felt that I owed them, and blog readers, a word of explanation. In the future I’ll try to remember to give credit where credit is due.
Manchester in Blossom!
Manchester is the hometown of one of my daughters-in-law and of one of my best friends. I hope that neither of them will be offended if I say that it is not a city that is immediately associated with orchards fragrant with apple and cherry blossom and ‘the humming of innumerable bees’.
That though, may be about to change. My last week’s blog about the transformation of a noisome piece of waste land in Jaywick into a horticultural work of art, has inspired another of my friends to present me with a news cutting about a forthcoming similar transformation, though on a much larger scale, that is to take place in Manchester.
There the Council, prompted by the discovery that lots of little Mancunians had no idea where fruit and vegetables come from, is spending £200,000 on planting fruit and nut trees, as well as beds of herbs such as mint, parsley, thyme and sage, in all of its public parks. Together with such obvious trees as apples, pears and cherries, they intend to introduce less common fruits such as mulberries, damsons and greengages.
The trees will have signs giving their names and the right time of the year in which to harvest them.
Fruit trees blossoming in my back garden in Dudley Road, Clacton. On the left is an eating apple tree and on the right a Bramley cooking apple tree. Behind the Bramley, and obscured by it, is a damson tree. All three are very fruitful Behind them is a Japanese winter-flowering cherry and at the very back of the garden can just be seen two of four silver birches.
Also to be introduced at a number of sites are beehives for honeybees, each with a capacity of 80lbs of honey a year. If the experiment proves to be successful, hives will be provided in all parks, the council eventually producing its own honey and beeswax.
Mr Chaz Garghaly, in charge of Manchester’s Parks and Leisure Services, is reported as saying, ‘These parks are public areas and there is no reason why people shouldn’t help themselves to the produce grown’.
Manchester Council seems to me to have amazing (and very refreshing) trust in human nature. The Mancunians whom I know are charming people of unquestionable honesty and integrity. Surely though, not all of Manchester’s inhabitants are paragons. If a similar scheme were to be introduced in our area I would expect that the growing trees, shrubs and herbs would first have to face the onslaught of mindless vandals who delight in destroying or defacing anything that is of use or gives pleasure to other people. Those that escaped or survived the vandal attacks would very likely be stripped (probably prematurely) of their fruit by budding entrepreneurs intent on selling it and taking the first step towards becoming home-grown millionaires!
Is Manchester really devoid of vandals, and of unscrupulous future captains of industry and commerce? I do hope that the dreams of the City Fathers aren’t destined to turn into nightmares!
Mobile Phones
It is amazing how quickly mobile phones have become an essential part of everyday life. One of the regular hazards of negotiating a mobility scooter on Clacton’s pavements these days is dodging folk, sometimes pushing prams and with toddlers in tow, oblivious to any other user of the footpath as they stride along, deep in conversation on their ‘mobiles’.
For by far the greater part of my life mobile phones were the stuff of science fiction. The first one that I personally possessed (an eightieth birthday present!) was large and clumsy by today’s standards and had only very basic functions. Nowadays these phones will take and send photographs, send and receive emails, access the internet and probably do other exciting things of which I am not even aware. My own phone is now a compact Sony Ericsson that I use only very occasionally for phone conversations and much more frequently for text messages. How very convenient it is to be able to send a text to let someone you are visiting know your estimated time of arrival or the fact that you have been unexpectedly delayed! How useful too if you become separated from a companion when on a shopping or similar expedition, to be able to let them know your exact location!
I had recently found that the battery of my mobile phone needed recharging at ever-decreasing intervals. Simple, I thought, it needs a new battery. I’ll pop into the Clacton retail shop of my network provider (where I had bought the phone four or five years earlier) and get one. To my total astonishment I was told, ‘Sorry sir. We don’t stock batteries. You might be able to get one at the new Tesco store. Can I interest you in a new and updated model?’ No, they couldn’t. To get a new phone because the battery needed to be replaced seemed to me like getting a new car because the ashtray was full!
Nor was I inclined to go to Tesco. I didn’t fancy tackling that busy bypass on my mobility scooter, and the chance of finding the battery I needed there hardly seemed worth a taxi fare. In London over the Easter weekend, enquiries were made at a number of supermarkets and electronic retailers – no joy! I almost reconciled myself to the fact that I would have to buy a new phone.
The FunnyFone Shop, 21/23 West Avenue, Clacton-on-Sea (Tel. 01255 434664)
Then, riding my mobility scooter along Clacton’s West Avenue I noticed for the first time (I’m really not a very observant person!) a tiny shop with an odd name sandwiched between a large mobility appliance retailer and a tattoo establishment. It was the ‘FunnyFone Shop’ and, as well as selling mobile phones, it offered mobile phone repairs and accessories. I went inside, without much hope, to enquire. How could this little shop possibly help me when much larger and apparently better-stocked retailers had been unable (or unwilling) to? My enquiry met an immediate smiling reply; ‘Of course sir …….I’ll have to order it, but I should get it within two or three days. If you’ll give me your phone number I’ll let you know when it arrives’.
In fact, it arrived within twenty-four hours. My old battery was quickly replaced by the new one (another job I’d have probably ham-handedly bungled had I been left to do it myself!) and my mobile phone is as good as new. I know where I shall go in the future with mobile phone problems or when, eventually, I do decide that I need a new phone.
Swine ‘Flu…..A Pandemic?
The Mexican Swine ‘Flu epidemic which, thanks to air travel, has spread world-wide in a matter of days, succeeded in driving the continuing economic crisis and the Government’s problems, off the front pages of the newspapers, at least for day or two. From some of the press reports it might be imagined that its threat to humanity is comparable with the Medieval Black Death or with the ‘Flu Pandemic at the end of World War I that killed more people than had been the victims of four years of carnage on Europe’s battlefields and the world’s oceans.
Tabloid headlines about ‘the killer virus’ feed public anxiety. The fact is that it clearly is a highly infectious form of ‘flu but could, so far, hardly be described world-wide as a deadly one. By the end of April, although cases were being reported throughout Europe and as far afield as New Zealand, there had been only one recorded death outside Mexico, a very young child in the USA. What is more, we appear to have ample stocks of an anti-viral drug that has proved successful in combating the disease. In Europe at least it seems to be rather less of a threat to human life than the winter ‘flu with which we are all familiar.
If we find ourselves with ‘flu-like symptoms we have been advised not to go to our doctor’s surgery but to phone up and ask advice. That, I suspect, will already have resulted in the phone lines to medical centres and surgeries throughout the country being clogged with unnecessary calls, possibly blocking other more urgent ones. It is worth remembering that ‘flu is almost always distinguished from, for instance a feverish cold, by its sudden onset. You’re OK one minute and the next you’re shivery, with a blinding headache and aches and pains and pains in every limb. If the condition has gradually developed over several days then, whatever else it may be, it is unlikely to be ‘flu.
If there should be cases near your home, it would be wise to stay away from places where people are crowded together. ‘Flu is a droplet infection spread primarily by viruses in the expired breath of folk suffering from or carrying the infection. Younger people, unusually, are said to be particularly at risk. I have never, even in my younger days, been in a night club or attended ‘a rave’ but if, as they are always portrayed on tv, they are seething with excited young people, they are ideal venues for passing on ‘flu or indeed any other infection.
I had a great deal of sympathy with the British holidaymaker in Mexico who, interviewed on an almost deserted beach, said that she wasn’t catching an early plane home. She felt that she had a lot less chance of catching ‘flu where she was than on a plane crammed with fearful epidemic refugees.
A Word about Photographs
It is only relatively recently that I have learned how to include illustrations in my weekly Tendring Topics….on Line. Since then (like a child with a new toy!) I have tried to include one or two at least, in every posting.
Mostly they are photos that I have taken myself (the two included this week for example) but at other times they are pictures that have been taken by a friend or relative. A friendly waitress took a recent family picture of a celebratory meal in a Brussels restaurant.
Mostly too, they are just included to illustrate a point that I have made in the typescript. Last week’s item about the reclamation of a piece of wasteland in Jaywick was an exception. In this case it was the pictures that were of greater importance and my words did no more than put them into context. It was therefore particularly remiss of me to fail to mention that they were taken not by me, but by my friend, Rodney Thomas. Rodney is the very competent amateur photographer who, with his wife Janet, had produced the transformation that was the subject of the article.
Rodney isn’t complaining. He says that everyone knows that the author of a blog hasn’t necessarily taken the pictures that illustrate it. As for me? I have to confess that I hadn’t given it a thought until the blog was copied, at my instigation, into our area Quaker Newsletter. There, to my consternation, I found that I was credited with the creation of those three colourful photographic illustrations! Mea culpa …my fault entirely!
Rodney and Janet insist that no apology is called for. However, I felt that I owed them, and blog readers, a word of explanation. In the future I’ll try to remember to give credit where credit is due.
Manchester in Blossom!
Manchester is the hometown of one of my daughters-in-law and of one of my best friends. I hope that neither of them will be offended if I say that it is not a city that is immediately associated with orchards fragrant with apple and cherry blossom and ‘the humming of innumerable bees’.
That though, may be about to change. My last week’s blog about the transformation of a noisome piece of waste land in Jaywick into a horticultural work of art, has inspired another of my friends to present me with a news cutting about a forthcoming similar transformation, though on a much larger scale, that is to take place in Manchester.
There the Council, prompted by the discovery that lots of little Mancunians had no idea where fruit and vegetables come from, is spending £200,000 on planting fruit and nut trees, as well as beds of herbs such as mint, parsley, thyme and sage, in all of its public parks. Together with such obvious trees as apples, pears and cherries, they intend to introduce less common fruits such as mulberries, damsons and greengages.
The trees will have signs giving their names and the right time of the year in which to harvest them.
Fruit trees blossoming in my back garden in Dudley Road, Clacton. On the left is an eating apple tree and on the right a Bramley cooking apple tree. Behind the Bramley, and obscured by it, is a damson tree. All three are very fruitful Behind them is a Japanese winter-flowering cherry and at the very back of the garden can just be seen two of four silver birches.Also to be introduced at a number of sites are beehives for honeybees, each with a capacity of 80lbs of honey a year. If the experiment proves to be successful, hives will be provided in all parks, the council eventually producing its own honey and beeswax.
Mr Chaz Garghaly, in charge of Manchester’s Parks and Leisure Services, is reported as saying, ‘These parks are public areas and there is no reason why people shouldn’t help themselves to the produce grown’.
Manchester Council seems to me to have amazing (and very refreshing) trust in human nature. The Mancunians whom I know are charming people of unquestionable honesty and integrity. Surely though, not all of Manchester’s inhabitants are paragons. If a similar scheme were to be introduced in our area I would expect that the growing trees, shrubs and herbs would first have to face the onslaught of mindless vandals who delight in destroying or defacing anything that is of use or gives pleasure to other people. Those that escaped or survived the vandal attacks would very likely be stripped (probably prematurely) of their fruit by budding entrepreneurs intent on selling it and taking the first step towards becoming home-grown millionaires!
Is Manchester really devoid of vandals, and of unscrupulous future captains of industry and commerce? I do hope that the dreams of the City Fathers aren’t destined to turn into nightmares!
Mobile Phones
It is amazing how quickly mobile phones have become an essential part of everyday life. One of the regular hazards of negotiating a mobility scooter on Clacton’s pavements these days is dodging folk, sometimes pushing prams and with toddlers in tow, oblivious to any other user of the footpath as they stride along, deep in conversation on their ‘mobiles’.
For by far the greater part of my life mobile phones were the stuff of science fiction. The first one that I personally possessed (an eightieth birthday present!) was large and clumsy by today’s standards and had only very basic functions. Nowadays these phones will take and send photographs, send and receive emails, access the internet and probably do other exciting things of which I am not even aware. My own phone is now a compact Sony Ericsson that I use only very occasionally for phone conversations and much more frequently for text messages. How very convenient it is to be able to send a text to let someone you are visiting know your estimated time of arrival or the fact that you have been unexpectedly delayed! How useful too if you become separated from a companion when on a shopping or similar expedition, to be able to let them know your exact location!
I had recently found that the battery of my mobile phone needed recharging at ever-decreasing intervals. Simple, I thought, it needs a new battery. I’ll pop into the Clacton retail shop of my network provider (where I had bought the phone four or five years earlier) and get one. To my total astonishment I was told, ‘Sorry sir. We don’t stock batteries. You might be able to get one at the new Tesco store. Can I interest you in a new and updated model?’ No, they couldn’t. To get a new phone because the battery needed to be replaced seemed to me like getting a new car because the ashtray was full!
Nor was I inclined to go to Tesco. I didn’t fancy tackling that busy bypass on my mobility scooter, and the chance of finding the battery I needed there hardly seemed worth a taxi fare. In London over the Easter weekend, enquiries were made at a number of supermarkets and electronic retailers – no joy! I almost reconciled myself to the fact that I would have to buy a new phone.
The FunnyFone Shop, 21/23 West Avenue, Clacton-on-Sea (Tel. 01255 434664)Then, riding my mobility scooter along Clacton’s West Avenue I noticed for the first time (I’m really not a very observant person!) a tiny shop with an odd name sandwiched between a large mobility appliance retailer and a tattoo establishment. It was the ‘FunnyFone Shop’ and, as well as selling mobile phones, it offered mobile phone repairs and accessories. I went inside, without much hope, to enquire. How could this little shop possibly help me when much larger and apparently better-stocked retailers had been unable (or unwilling) to? My enquiry met an immediate smiling reply; ‘Of course sir …….I’ll have to order it, but I should get it within two or three days. If you’ll give me your phone number I’ll let you know when it arrives’.
In fact, it arrived within twenty-four hours. My old battery was quickly replaced by the new one (another job I’d have probably ham-handedly bungled had I been left to do it myself!) and my mobile phone is as good as new. I know where I shall go in the future with mobile phone problems or when, eventually, I do decide that I need a new phone.
Swine ‘Flu…..A Pandemic?
The Mexican Swine ‘Flu epidemic which, thanks to air travel, has spread world-wide in a matter of days, succeeded in driving the continuing economic crisis and the Government’s problems, off the front pages of the newspapers, at least for day or two. From some of the press reports it might be imagined that its threat to humanity is comparable with the Medieval Black Death or with the ‘Flu Pandemic at the end of World War I that killed more people than had been the victims of four years of carnage on Europe’s battlefields and the world’s oceans.
Tabloid headlines about ‘the killer virus’ feed public anxiety. The fact is that it clearly is a highly infectious form of ‘flu but could, so far, hardly be described world-wide as a deadly one. By the end of April, although cases were being reported throughout Europe and as far afield as New Zealand, there had been only one recorded death outside Mexico, a very young child in the USA. What is more, we appear to have ample stocks of an anti-viral drug that has proved successful in combating the disease. In Europe at least it seems to be rather less of a threat to human life than the winter ‘flu with which we are all familiar.
If we find ourselves with ‘flu-like symptoms we have been advised not to go to our doctor’s surgery but to phone up and ask advice. That, I suspect, will already have resulted in the phone lines to medical centres and surgeries throughout the country being clogged with unnecessary calls, possibly blocking other more urgent ones. It is worth remembering that ‘flu is almost always distinguished from, for instance a feverish cold, by its sudden onset. You’re OK one minute and the next you’re shivery, with a blinding headache and aches and pains and pains in every limb. If the condition has gradually developed over several days then, whatever else it may be, it is unlikely to be ‘flu.
If there should be cases near your home, it would be wise to stay away from places where people are crowded together. ‘Flu is a droplet infection spread primarily by viruses in the expired breath of folk suffering from or carrying the infection. Younger people, unusually, are said to be particularly at risk. I have never, even in my younger days, been in a night club or attended ‘a rave’ but if, as they are always portrayed on tv, they are seething with excited young people, they are ideal venues for passing on ‘flu or indeed any other infection.
I had a great deal of sympathy with the British holidaymaker in Mexico who, interviewed on an almost deserted beach, said that she wasn’t catching an early plane home. She felt that she had a lot less chance of catching ‘flu where she was than on a plane crammed with fearful epidemic refugees.
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