Apparently there are two buses operating - the old and the new. Ours was the vintage 1951 but there is also a modern electric bus. It's all operated by the Holkham Estate which seems to own everything in the area - it must be a massive business.
The buses replaced the beach train in 2022. The service runs from April to October with the old bus running at busy holiday times ie now. The buses run from 10 am to 6 pm to relieve the beach car park which is full by mid morning.
The bus starts and finishes at Wells Football Club and I have memories of standing watching football there from my days associated with Wymondham Football Club and also coaching youth football at Hethersett.
I have a particular memory. One of my players had never scored for the Hethersett club. He played at full back and had played over 200 games. It was his dream to score a goal. We were playing Wells on their pitch and were winning 4-0 with about five minutes to go, In other words we were certain of winning the game. This would have been at under-13 or under-14 level.
One of our players was brought down in the penalty area and a penalty awarded. Our non scorer was given the ball. This was his moment. Guess what? He shot wide.
He did eventually score a goal and I think it was with a long distance shot in a 7-0 win over Brandon a couple of seasons later. His celebration was something to behold. He ran round a pitch next to ours. It seemed a rather over the top celebration considering the scoreline but their manager understood when we explained the situation to him and told him that we weren't trying to taunt his already well beaten side.
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I must go down to the sea again
To the lonely sea and the sky.
Actually what I'm thinking of is Corrie.
Years ago I went round the Coronation Street television set. This was before the soap moved to a new and larger set. Now they are doing tours of the new home and I feel it's time for another look. It's the only TV programme I would bother to spend time looking round. I would run a mile from visiting Albert Square and the EastEnders set in case someone shouted at me because that's all they seem to do in the programme. We have stayed in Askrigg in Yorkshire a few times as it has Holiday Property Bond properties. This is the village where the original series of All Creatures Great and Small was filmed. We stayed in the pub which was featured in the programme. Our bedroom was very old and had a vastly sloping floor which could be quite difficult if you had to use the loo during the night. But back to Coronation Street.
It must be strange to be an actor on Corrie. You spend much of your life on a mock up street that is familiar to millions and then at the end of the day instead of going to the Rovers for a drink or a famed hot pot (the only food they serve) you walk through a gate and enter the real world and go and live somewhere completely different where there is probably a distinct lack of serial killers but where whole streets don't congregate numerous times a day in the local pub.
I bet at times you would get very confused. By day you would be married to one person but by night you would be married to someone else. By day you might be straight but at night you might be gay (or the other way round). All rather confusing. And what would you call each other? Longest serving cast member William Roache has probably spent more time as Ken Barlow than he has as Bill Roache. Actors would be recognised in the street by their fictitious names rather than their real ones.
People would say "look there's Kevin from Corrie" rather than "oh look there's Michael." So yes another visit to Coronation Street is due.
We will be travelling up north up north in September for a special concert.
It was back in 1970 that I first saw Barclay James Harvest live. They immediately became my favourite band and have remained so to this day. Only two of the original four members are still with us. Sadly drummer Mel Pritchard left us many years ago and keyboard player Stuart "Woolly" Wolstenholme took his own life. The other two - John Lees and Les Holroyd fell out in a Roger Waters/David Gilmore sort of way* and probably haven't spoken for years and are unlikely to do so.
So suddenly there were two bands with the same name. This happened with Wishbone Ash as well. So we had Barclay James Harvest featuring Les Holroyd and John Lees' Barclay James Harvest. Two very different bands. I wouldn't really cross the road to see Holroyd's band but I would be happy to drive 150 miles to see Lees'
For me the two great talents both as musicians and songwriters were Lee's and Wolstenholme. Pritchard and Holroyd were competent musicians on drums and bass guitar respectively but Holroyd's material was much more pop music than prog and you all know how much I love over the top pomp rock.
John Lees' is now 76 and this will be the band's final tour although they have said they will play an occasional festival and one off gigs.
The thing about the Huddersfield concert is that it will feature an 80 piece orchestra. I'm not sure that they have played with an orchestra since the early 1970s when it virtually bankrupted them.
I love symphonic rock - the marrying of great rock music and classical. One of my favourite examples of this is "Days of Future Passed" by The Moody Blues which has the imperious "Nights in White Satin" which for some reason for years I thought was entitled "Knights in White Satin." In the same way for years I thought the song by Sting "Fields of Gold" was about fields in Bali in Indonesia rather than fields or barley - the crop.
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There is a metronomic regularity to my sleeping at the moment. I seem to wake up virtually the same time every morning - around 6.30 give or take five minutes.
That's it for today folks. I have at last run out of waffle - well for 24 hours at any rate.