Our talk at Hethersett Library on Thursday was very interesting. Paddy Anstey not only talked about the Mid Norfolk Railway but also the history of railways in Norfolk as a whole.
I was fascinated by the possibility of expanding the Mid Norfolk Railway north of Dereham to a place known as County School. This is close to the village of North Elmham and we were there a couple of weeks ago. We missed County School. There are no trains running there at the moment due to repairs. But apparently the station is interesting and has a cafe. So somewhere else to pop onto the bucketlist of places to visit. It would be wonderful if the Mid Norfolk Railway continued even further to link up with Wells Next The Sea and the North Norfolk Railway.
I fear this is too much to expect due to cost and the fact these heritage railways are staffed primarily by volunteers. Mr Beeching has a lot to answer for, destroying so many rail routes although according to Paddy he didn't technically get rid of the Mid Norfolk Railway from Wymondham to Wells. That stretch was put on a list of lines that county councils could decide to save by ploughing money in. Norfolk County Council decided not to.
Continuing on the railway theme, I am always dismayed by stations that are a long way from the town or village they serve. We used to have a station at Hethersett but it was some distance from the village centre.
I have mentioned the North Norfolk Railway and Holt station is a good mile from the town. Similarly Weybourne Station is a mile away from the village centre and why is that? Well it's all down to a rather extravagant building known as the Weybourne Springs Hotel or the Weybourne Court Hotel.
The hotel had a very checkered history. Something of a folly, it was built as a luxury hotel for the posh people of London and the idea was to make Weybourne a fashionable resort. But it just didn't happen as envisaged.
At first there was no railway station at Weybourne. From Sheringham, the next station was Holt. Then it was decided to build a new station at Weybourne primarily to serve the new hotel and not for local people and that's why it was built a mile away from the village centre. Had there have been no hotel there probably would have been no Weybourne Railway station.
The hotel may have been built during something of a tourist boom, but it never really took off and for a time was used as dorms for pupils at Gresham's School at Holt who would get the train to Holt every morning and then return after the day's lessons had finished.
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Apparently the big news of the day is that Take That will be playing a gig at Carrow Road football stadium in 2024. Wow. Let's just say I won't be rushing out to purchase tickets. It's a shame that Norwich City have decided to stop playing both at Carrow Road and anywhere else for that matter.
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The number of questions I answer on University Challenge can vary from one or two to a handful. I often get music questions right.
I'm often asked what my favourite piece of classical music is? Ok I was once asked this question. There are so many pieces I enjoy but right up there is Vltava which comes from Ma Vlast (My Country) by Bedrich Smetena. It depicts the flow of the River Vltava as it meanders through what once was Czechoslovakia and was then the Czech Republic and is now Chechia. I remember walking along the river in Prague humming the piece of music.
This is what the composer said about the piece.
The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Studená and Teplá Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John's Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Elbe.
To me no other piece of music illustrates the passage of a river like this one.
Yesterday I re-acquainted myself with this piece on Spotify, just before watching a recording of University Challenge where the piece of music was one of the questions. Yes I did get it right.
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There are now so many places you can either buy or get books free in our village. There's two charity shops, a library, a community book exchange and even the two pubs now have a selection which can be taken or swapped. The parish church has some in its porch.
These book swaps have sprung up everywhere. Lots of villages have specially constructed book places. Some utilise former phone boxes. I quite liked it when we had book crossing. You might remember this. You left books with a message in them with the idea of somebody else taking them, reading them and then leaving them somewhere else for another pick up. Book Crossing is still going but I haven't come across one for ages and somehow the idea now seems to be rather superfluous.
At our book swap I picked up a John Grisham novel entitled A Time To Kill and I'm enjoying it. Strangely it was his first novel but it was some years before it was published. It's a long time since I read a Grisham novel but I seem to remember enjoying the ones I have tackled.
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Yesterday I had a productive start to the day, sending a load of photographs of the library reading presentation event I mentioned the other day to the library for their Facebook page. Then put together a poster for our coming quiz on October 28th. I'll have more details of this later.
We then got a bus to Wymondham and popped along to one of our favourite cafes for coffee and a bacon sarnie. Have you ever had a situation where you have done something for the right reason but your reason for doing it has been misconstrued or misunderstood?
Well it happened at Wymondham and it was quite amusing. We sat outside the cafe in the street and there were a couple next to us. The waitress brought their coffee and a bacon sandwich.
"Sorry we asked for brown bread," the lady said pointing out that their sandwich was on white bread. This is riveting reading I think you will agree.
I jumped up as the offending white bread sandwich disappeared into the cafe. I meant to say "we will take that sandwich" but it probably came out all wrong.
"Yes we will come and take your order soon, " they replied. I eventually got my message over and they realised I was trying to stop them throwing away a perfectly good sandwich rather than trying to jump a queue.
After sustenance we walked down to the historic Becket's Chapel which has just been renovated. It was once the town library and is now an arts' centre. Yesterday they had a photographic exhibition and there was some interesting work on display and it was all very reasonably priced. We bought a couple of pieces.
Then we went to our cousins Belinda and Clive's for carrot cake and drinks. We tried to work out how many places in Wymondham you can get a cup of coffee and something to eat and we stopped counting at around 14.
That's probably more than enough for today. Incidentally today it's off to Yorkshire for a certain concert that I may have mentioned just a few times.