Week 33.09

Tendring Topics…….on Line

A trip to Sheffield!

I spent the first weekend of August in Sheffield, with my son and daughter-in-law Andy and Marilyn, visiting my only granddaughter who lives and works there. To me, a southerner by birth and an East Anglian by adoption, a trip ‘up north’ is a major expedition, scarcely less adventurous than my visit, a few weeks earlier, to Zittau on the German/Polish/Czech frontiers.
I had been there once before. Last October Andy and Marilyn drove me to Sheffield for a similar weekend. Regular blog readers may remember that on that occasion I took the opportunity to photograph the water feature outside Sheffield Town Hall, apparently identical with the one that in Clacton, has been fenced off ‘to comply with health and safety’ requirements.

No town (not even sunny Clacton-on-Sea!) looks at its best in late October/early November. The beginning of August was more promising. Yes – there were some showers but we didn’t let them bother us. It was warm. There was quite a lot of sunshine too and on the Sunday we were able to lunch in an outdoor forecourt café at Barlow, a small village in the Peak District a few miles south of Sheffield.

Left - Marilyn lunches al freso in Barlow. Beside her is Andy

Right - in Rossi's. Left to Right; Jo, Andy, Siabhan, Marilyn

I saw more of Sheffield itself than I had on my previous visit. On our arrival on the Friday evening we met up with Jo, my granddaughter, and her friend Siobhan, and dined in style in Rossi's Italian restaurant. It was rainy but that didn’t really affect us. The following evening the sun came out. After dining at the Café Rouge, very obviously named with the famous Moulin Rouge in mind, an easy walk (even for me!) from the Novhotel where we were staying, we strolled round Sheffield’s compact and very attractive city centre.

The imposing City Hall dominates a landscaped pedestrianised area containing the water feature and surrounded by attractive buildings. Nearby is ‘Sheffield’s Wheel’, Yorkshire’s answer to the London Eye. Not as enormous as the ‘Eye’ it is arguably better sited than the latter, in the administrative centre of Sheffield. We found it to be an object of grace and beauty, illuminated as it was in the twilight of the dying day.

Left - The Glass House of the Botanical Gardens.

Right - Andy and myself in the Glass House

Another striking Sheffield feature to which we paid a visit on the Sunday was the Royal Botanical Gardens. Sheffield’s hilly terrain adds grandeur to the Gardens’ landscaping, and the enormous glasshouse, with its tropical and sub-tropical plants and trees, rivals those at Kew and Wisley.

But of course if you tire of the urban landscape, a little more than half an hour’s drive from Sheffield will take you into Derbyshire and the spectacular vistas of the Derbyshire Peaks. And that is where Andy drove us on the Saturday of our visit.

The other Bradwell

Everyone in Essex knows Bradwell. It’s a coastal village lying south of Clacton, long famous (or perhaps infamous) for its nuclear power station. This is now out of action but powerful forces would like to see it brought back into nuclear life. It’s a long way from Clacton by road but as the crow flies (or the nuclear fall-out cloud might drift!) it is much nearer, clearly visible across the water from Jaywick. Bradwell is also famous, among those interested in such things, for St. Peter’s on the Wall, one of England’s very oldest Saxon chapels, built by St Cedd centuries before the Norman Conquest. It is now a place of pilgrimage.

Above - we were well prepared for rain but

we experienced only showers

Below - the rood screen of Bradwell parish church

During my visit to Sheffield I was introduced to another Bradwell, in Derbyshire, about as different from our Bradwell as it could possibly be. While the Essex Bradwell lies beside the sea on the flat Essex coastal plain, its Derbyshire namesake nestles in a high valley among the Peaks and there’s not a nuclear power station, or any other industrial plant, in sight. Its church is a living place of worship that is also central to the life of the village community. This Bradwell is famous for its well dressing, a practice originating in pagan times, but taken over and successfully perpetuated as a very visible Christian witness.

Left - Well dressing with the theme Christ the healer.

Right - The Children's well dressing depicting Jacob's dream with the angels ascending and descending to an from Heaven. Children's art work surround the dressing

We arrived on Carnival Day. The weather hd effectively dampened the carnival pocession and

the fair on the village green. Our hearts ached for those whose hours of preparation had been spoiled by the weather. The rain was only fitful though and was no more than an inconvenience to us. The dressed wells were there for us to see and in the nave of the village church a fascinating arts and crafts exhibition had been arranged. Where church bells are concerned I enjoy traditional English change ringing. I have to say though that to hear those bells peeling out familiar and well-loved hymn tunes was an inspiring experience. I recall that I climbed the steep ascent to the site of the well that had been dressed by the village children, to the tune of, ‘Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father….’

A Profitless Prophecy!

Why ever did the Met. Office forecast that we were going to have a ‘barbecue summer’, thereby inducing the popular press to persuade us all that we’d have wall to wall sunshine for week after week, and that our main summer worry would be whether the supplies of sun-cream would run out? It hasn’t been quite like that. Sensational pictures of downpours and floods (though not in our corner of north-east Essex) have accompanied press denunciations of the Meteorological Office and all its works.

In the outrage it seems to have been overlooked that we are having quite a good, if not spectacular, summer. The first few days of Clacton’s Carnival Week for instance were not only infinitely better than those of the previous two years but were, for sunshine and warmth, better than any similar consecutive days that I can recall during the past two summers. We don’t, of course, yet know what weather the late August Bank Holiday will bring but, so far, even 2009’s Bank Holidays haven’t lived up to their reputation for misery! In our corner of north-east Essex, temperatures have been above average. We’ve had plenty of sunshine. What rain we have had has been mostly in quite brief storms…. and we’ve had far fewer of those than practically anywhere else in England! If I were still an enthusiastic gardener I’d be praying for rain.

Luckily, our holiday coast’s visitors seem to have noticed the improvement even if we haven’t. Council income from beach hut hire from April to June was up by £31,000 and income received from that source in the first quarter was more than had been expected for the whole year. Tendring Council’s off-street parking income was also up by a massive £66,000. Bookings are up at our many holiday caravan sites and Clacton’s newly opened Travelodge Hotel reports that it is already well booked. The Council’s beach patrol teams report that there are many more holidaymakers on the beaches than in previous years. It would be astonishing if all this extra activity hasn’t meant merrily ringing tills in our shops, cafes and restaurants.

Last week the Clacton Gazette carried the headline 'Holiday boom at the beach……but what if the weather turns bad?'

Cheer up! Our weather isn’t ever all that much worse than ‘abroad’. There can be forest fires in France and Spain, earthquakes in Italy and Greece, avalanches in the Alps, sandstorms in Morocco, typhoons and tsunamis in the Far East and hurricanes in the Caribbean and in Florida.....and it has been known to rain in all of them! What’s more, I’d bet that the holiday resorts on Croatia’s lovely but stony Adriatic coast, would give anything for sandy tide-washed beaches like those of Clacton, Frinton and Walton!

Oh yes, and much as I enjoyed every minute of my excursions ‘up North’ and to Belgium and Germany, I’m glad to be home again in sunny Clacton-on-Sea!