Here comes the sun...

As the George Harrison continued, "Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter".

The last week or two has seen warmer weather in these parts of the country, but what a long old slog it's been to get here. This past winter must have been the longest, darkest, coldest winter I can ever recall. While we might not have had prolonged periods of seriously cold weather or snow and ice conditions in this part of the country this particular, it was consistently cold, dark and depressing.

I now appreciate what it must be like for folk living in the north of Scotland (I hear it was snowing there yesterday) or on the islands or in the Nordic / Scandinavian countries. No wonder they do so much to celebrate the arrival of summer and mid-summers day.

PS - spooky. Since writing this blog, I've visited Wikipedia and seen that George Harrison is today's headline feature.

Birdsong

They say that every family in Britain had some sort of connection with the First World War. However, up until some six years ago, I always thought we were an exception. My paternal grandfather did join up but by the time his training was complete the war was over. Beyond that I didn't think we had any family involvement. And then I discovered that my maternal great grandfather was one of seventeen children, a discovery which also brought with it two known WWI family connections.

Unbeknown to him, my maternal grandfather had a great uncle who died during the conflict and a cousin who finished the war with a gunshot wound to his head. Having visited northern France on numerous occasions, I decided it was time to pay another visit.

Day one, visiting the family sites, was a series of heavy showers and grey skies interspersed with bright sunshine and a chill wind - the weather in its own way reflecting the extremes that many soldiers must have endured in France 100 years ago. First stop was a hamlet called Mont Des Cats which is a actually a Catholic abbey atop a small hill. During the war the Abbey was used by the allies as a casualty clearing station for triaging the wounded. It was here that the cousin was treated and assessed before making his way via two hospitals and Boulogne back to Canterbury and recuperation.

The great uncle's story was probably typical of many men of the time. He joined the army in the 1880s and served in India and the second Boer war, both locations where illness and action saw many casualties. Having endured those, he then went throughout the whole of the First World War only to succumb like many others

to the great flu epidemic three months after the war. He's buried in a Commonwealth War Graves plot in the public cemetery in Lille.

Day two may have been brilliant sunshine but it was still very chilly. Having travelled south to the Somme region and stayed overnight in Albert, the next stop was a visit to the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, at Thiepval. Over 70,000 names are etched on the memorial, which may not be breathtaking in its beauty but which is a sobering reminder of the carnage that must have taken place over the summer of 1916. Crossing the River Ancre, next stop was the Newfoundland memorial park which is maintained by the Canadian government. Walking across no-man's land in the bright sun, with only the chirping of birds to break the silence, it's hard to imagine what life would have been like back then, though  Sebastian Faulks's book, Birdsong, which is set in this area, vividly portrays a sense of what it must have been like. More of my photos of the Somme are available on Flickr.

My girl's mad with me...

A dead cat, a lost father, the children grown up...

Suggs, my life story  is a one-man show (with some support) which sees Suggs, front man for  Madness, setting off on a personal quest which is interspersed with flashbacks to his childhood, the lead-up to the formation of Madness and what happened thereafter. Along the way there are some familiar songs and some interesting impressions.

An intimate show, in complete contrast to last year's Madness Buckingham Palace and Olympic stadium gigs, but still very much a part of London. If you get a chance, see it - it'll take you at least one step beyond.

Sunny seaside days...

 A melange of experiences on a return trip to Margate.

Four years ago our visit was in sharp contrast to the fond childhood memories. Gone were the candy floss, fun fairs and masses of people, replaced by boarded-up shops, a lack of people and the air of a has-been seaside town.

This time the experience was so much more enjoyable. The seafront seemed so short compared to childhood memories and space on the beach wouldn't have been a problem if we'd wanted it. The shone brightly on the new steps set into the promenade near the harbour, a new development that adds character and brings visitors together with the beach and the sea which is what Margate is all about.

On this occasion the exhibitions at the Turner were a little disappointing but something different will come along with time. Outside, the community recognised the dedication of local seafarers, predecessors of the RNLI, when the crew of the Victory gave their lives in 1857 trying to rescue the crew of a ship in distress. A new memorial was unveiled to those selfless souls.

Memories fade - we struggled to remember exactly where the entrance to the town's pier, wrecked in a storm in the late '70s, was. And the seaside rock and beach-spade shops were small  in number. But a wander around the variety of shops, and lunch, in the Old Town was a delight, crowned with afternoon tea in the Mad Hatters Tea Room (a must do when visiting Margate on a Saturday).


Fond memories and a wonderful day out.

From prime minister to car salesman in three weeks

Three weeks can be an awful long time in politics. Then again it can shoot by.

One week you're you're prime minister and responsible for the police mission to locate a kidnapped child, and then you're selling cars and pleading with the new prime minister Birgitte Nyborg for the Danish government to rethink their military policy in Afghanistan.

Ah, perhaps that's just Nordic actors popping up in alternate series. After all, it seems entirely possible to get bumped off as Sarah Lund's police partner in The Killing I only to become a TV editor back in Borgen. Anything's possible in Norse sagas.

The roller-coaster ride of Borgen is back for series two and as good, if not better, than series one. Intrigues, wheeling and dealing, compromises, heart-tugging home life. Be careful what you wish for.

And welcome to 2013...

What happened to the last three months of 2012? Apologies for such a long gap. I hope that 2012 was good for you and wish you a peaceful and healthy 2013.

Respected BBC expert talks of Medway filth

Would you be insulted by a respected BBC expert who turned up in the locality and went on to talk about Medway filth? That was exactly the dilemma we found ourselves in the other day? So how did we react? Walk away? Contact the BBC to register our complaint? Or laugh?

Antiques Roadshow recently visited Chatham Historic Dockyard. We've never had an attic full of old bits and pieces, so we've never had the opportunity to discover an old master or some other valuable artefact, but over the years we've acquired one or two things we were interested to find out more about. The Roadshow was the perfect opportunity.

Beautiful weather formed the backdrop to what was to turn out to be a morning's entertainment.

Waiting in the queue that snaked around the site, it was fascinating to watch the production crew well under way almost from the moment the gates opened. A camera on a boom swinging high over our heads capturing shots of the crowds while three cameras recorded another expert discussing a couple of watercolours. Visitors, like us, had trolleys and bags with weird and wonderful things poking out, all of us waiting to see what the appropriate expert would say. While we're not regular viewers of the programme, we saw some well known faces offering advice and filming short sequences which will ultimately be edited down to form the two episodes from the day.

We queued to see the "miscellaneous" and "ceramics" experts, the latter providing a valuable insight to the various pieces that we took. And then, with a warning, we made our way to the "glass" expert Andy McConnell.

"Madame, the next time I visit Chatham from my antiques shop in Rye, I'm going to bring something that Medway is clearly lacking." A pregnant pause... "Washing up liquid. Your glassware is covered in Medway filth." Rather than feel insulted, the lady, along with the rest of us gathered around his table fell about laughing. Andy had already dismissed another lady with a comment about her piece of mass-produced glassware. And now it was our turn.

He picked out our bud vase and studied the hard water staining that lined it before holding it to his ear. "This has been used as an ear trumpet," he suggested, "and now it's full of ear wax." His banter continued, a mixture of pure entertainment interspersed with information on how to clean glassware and facts relating to the period the objects where made in, where, and why the demand for similar objects existed.

And did we witness a special Antiques Roadshow moment? We think so. Two ladies described how their father found the glass bottle they were showing in a skip. After Andy explained some of the "behind the scenes procedures" and took the girls away to production crew staff, he returned to say that that was the most valuable glassware object he'd discovered on the programme. Entertainment for the gathered crowd or a genuine statement? We suspect the latter but will only find out when we watch the programme later this year.

A great morning out and wonderful entertainment - well worth the license fee. I've more pictures on Flickr.