MISS ELAINEOUS VISITS THE GREAT YARMOUTH OBSERVATION WHEEL...

I normally visit Great Yarmouth once a year, usually staying at Haven Caister in a Prestige caravan, and this was my 12th visit as an adult.  I was brought up on the other side of Norfolk, so I came twice as a tourist as a kid- once with my parents and another time with my summer youth group; and once more at the age of 15 for a very unsuccessful interview at the now-defunct Great Yarmouth College of Art.  The less said about that the better, but on the plus side I based a story around my disastrous experience for one of my MA Creative Writing projects- and achieved good marks.😁😁

I have blogged about Great Yarmouth before.  This is the link to a huge post containing details of the Tolhouse Gaol, the Nelson Museum (now sadly closed forever), Caister Lifeboat, the Waterways and the Pleasure Beach (amongst other things):-

http://elainerockett.blogspot.com/2019/09/miss-elaineous-visits-great-yarmouth.html

Here is a smaller blog about Nelson's Monument, Anna Sewell's house and the Victoria Arches:-

http://elainerockett.blogspot.com/2020/02/miss-elaineous-visits-great-yarmouth.html

I'll start my blog with a walk through the rose pergolas at the holiday camp...

I have to say, the gardens looked a tad unruly, but perhaps a wilderness was their intention...

We decided to walk down the beach to Caister Lifeboat  (which we always try and support).  These two stone lions at the end of Beach Road fascinate me- from the perspective of "why are they here?"

Do they have names? Shall I be unimaginative and christen them Lenny and Leo?!

A bit of Googly research reveals that they guard a gap in the concrete sea wall; built as a defence to tidal erosion in 1950.  There is some dispute as to whether Great Yarmouth is gaining land from the sea, or the opposite.

Once the essential wall was complete, the Engineer to the Sea Defence Committee, Mr S W Mobbs, presented the two lions to adorn the entrance to the Gap at Beach Road.  Lions are featured in Great Yarmouth's coat of arms.

We decided to go on the Great Yarmouth Observation Wheel.  Originally this wouldn't have been possible, but this travelling wheel decided to extend its stay, and it coincided nicely with our visit.

All the pictures are taken through the glass (to try and stick a camera through the door gaps would have been sheer folly) so I apologise for any quality issues.

Here we are looking down on neighbouring Wellington Pier, with the remnants of the older section of pier, left alone during its 1971 restoration, clearly visible...

For £8 you get three revelations plus it stops near the top for a couple of minutes, to allow you to get a good view.  Here's a similar angle, showing more of the road, and you can see Great Yarmouth Power Station to the centre right of the land line, and Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour jutting out to sea...

The 30 V80 turbines of Scroby Sands Wind Farm are visible to the right.  The area is famous for its grey seals, and sometimes they can venture onto Caister Beach.  We went looking, but sadly didn't see any.

The Britannia Pier is in the distance, and the nearby contraption is called the SlingShot ride and appears to be some kind of bungee bouncing thingumajig...

It was a very blue day, and you can just about make out a ship floating across the horizon.  We enjoyed our one-off wheel experience...

The Great Yarmouth Tower is the oblong building that looks like it has square eyes to the right.  It's a complex containing a number of tourist attractions.  Great Yarmouth Minster is visible in the centre of the photograph.

Looking towards the River Yare.  A word of warning- book via the wheel website as it costs less.  If you do decide to use the machines underneath the wheel, then put in your pin number when using your card rather than just tapping.  The SuperDean tried the latter, the payment was declined but ended up in his "pending transactions" for days- he had to ring his bank to sort it out.  I mean, now difficult would it be to hire a person to sit in a ticket office, rather than being lazy skinflints and relying on (sometimes unreliable) machines?

I tried to crop SuperDean's big fat swede out of this photo, which shows the former Windmill Theatre (now used for indoor crazy golf) but for some reason my computer is not saving my endeavours.  Oh well, he gets to be famous...😉

The lighting installation down Regent Road represents wind turbine blades, symbolising this local source of renewable energy- but some people thought they were Mercedes-Benz badges!😂

It was opened in May this year, and I rather like this photo peering the other way- up Regent Road from the seaside to the town.  I love the way the lights disappear into the sunset.

We popped into the Sea Life Centre, and I didn't take much in the way of photos (I do want to actually observe things, and not see life (ha ha, see life, geddit?!😁) at one remove away.

But I just had to take a piccie of these adorable penguins.😊

I loved this display of hanging witches in Cobholm Miniatures, which is being used to promote a book.

Macabre little moi would....😈

Skull nail varnish courtesy of Belzart, a gothic/ witchcraft shop down in Great Yarmouth Rows, and £1 necklace a gift from the SuperDean from the charity shop section of Caister Lifeboat.  The necklace was falling to bits (hence the reason it was in the cheap "tut" tray), had a weak link between two of the diamante emblems and when I tried to mend it it sheared- but I solved the problem by sewing it back together with a discreet application of cotton.  Inventive, aren't I?!😁

How big can hoop earrings be before they're considered chavvy?!  SuperDean treated me to these delights from Martyn's Walk Round Store and I love 'em!😁😁

 Great Yarmouth, I will return...

Until then...

TTFN

The Miss Elaineous

xxx

xx

x

THE POISON TREE by ERIN KELLY

 THE POISON TREE

BY ERIN KELLY

THE BLURB:-

I have given up so much and done so many terrible things already for the sake of my family that I can only keep going.

I do not know what us going to happen to us. I am frightened, but I feel strong.

I have the strength of a woman who has everything to lose.

In the sweltering summer of 1997, strait-laced, straight-A student Karen met Biba- a bohemian and impossibly glamorous aspiring actress.

She was quickly drawn into Biba's world, and for a while life was one long summer of love.

But every summer must end. By the end of theirs, two people were dead- and now Karen's past has come back to haunt her...

THE REALITY:-

I'd seen the television adaptation of this- which differs slightly- so therefore it was never going to come as much of a surprise. The author has been criticized for her use of long words and “purple prose,” but I quite like that- I managed to pick up a couple of new words on the way, which I am always pleased to do.

It's been commented by reviewers that none of the characters seem to be nice people. They have a point, but I do believe that these non-whiter-than-white characters are true to real life (in my opinion, everyone has the propensity to be horrible, selfish and disdainful, given the right circumstances) and make for a better story. In particular, Biba is one irresponsible character who is impossible to warm to, and I think she deserves the (spoiler alert!) sticky end Karen conjures up for her. I totally understand Karen's need to protect the family she has (another spoiler alert!) perhaps wrongly (but also did she have that much of a choice? Yes, she could have been honest, but isn't Alice perhaps better off having her as a mother than her natural mother, Biba, or ending up in the social services system?)  I can relate to Biba- she's someone who was abandoned too early on by her parents, and people like that always seem to expect the world to parent them, in absentia parentis.

I can also easily relate to the 1997 summer time frame, as I too was completing my finals (the first time around- at fashion college) then, and worked not far from the area in which Biba and Rex's house is situated. I also totally get Biba's bohemian dress sense, being a fellow boho babe, kitted out in vintage and charity shop finds rather than (often) sub-standard and boring chain store offerings.

With a beginning, middle and an end, this story was well plotted, and it was interesting to see Karen's awakening turn into a slippery slope into tragic disaster, and what the consequences of that were. I would recommend this author, and in a way wish I hadn't seen the TV adaption beforehand.

THE LOVE CHILD by RACHEL HORE

THE LOVE CHILD

BY RACHEL HORE

THE BLURB:-

It is 1917 and nineteen-year-old Alice Copeman is pregnant. Unmarried, she is forced by her parents to give up the child as soon as it is born.

A childless couple, Edith and Philip Burns yearn for a baby of their own. Adoption appears their only choice. As little Irene becomes part of the family, she grows up sensing she is different. But will anyone tell her the truth?

While Alice strives to make her mark in the world of medicine, Irene leaves her Suffolk home in search of answers. As two extraordinary stories intertwine across two decades, will secrets long-buried at last come to light?

THE REALITY:-

I finished this in a very short space of time (in contrast to the Katherine Webb I just read- I had too many problems to attend to to be able to rush through that one), so it must have had something going for it. And yet it didn't touch me deeply. I discovered Hore's work at the same time as I discovered Webb's, and find the latter's offerings more detailed and complex, and in a way more gripping. But A Place of Secrets, by Hore is probably the best offering of these two writers, who by coincidence I have kind of entwined in my mind.

The Love Child did come across as a kind of diary of events, so it made for easy reading, and the characters were very real and easy to imagine. They were true to the beliefs of their time, and I enjoyed the way Alice's striving for the independence of a career was explored. The settings of London and Suffolk offered up enough to be meaty, and yet what I liked most about the book was the way in which relationships were explored, and how people's ideals change as time marches on- most evident in Irene's adoptive mother, Edith, with her initial lack of warming towards the child her husband chose, shifting on to her fear of rejection towards the end of the novel.

I suppose this was, in its own way, a fantastic read; it was just more subtly nuanced than possibly works for me (gimme some drama!) and no great joys or despairs seem to have been documented- although they must have existed within the circumstances of the characters, especially little adopted Irene, although you can sense her childhood confusion. I think it was Fergus who came across the most strongly- you do get a sense of struggle between his beliefs and how he's forced to adapt.

I'd still recommend this, though. A pleasant, rainy afternoon kind of read.

THE ENGLISH GIRL by KATHERINE WEBB

 THE ENGLISH GIRL

BY KATHERINE WEBB

THE BLURB:-

Will the girl who left England for this beautiful but dangerous land ever find her way back?

Joan Seabrook, a fledgling archaeologist, has fulfilled her lifelong dream to travel to Arabia and has arrived in the ancient city of Muscat with her fiancé, Rory. Desperate to escape the pain of a personal tragedy, she longs to explore the desert fort of Jabrin and unearth the wonders held within.

But Oman is a land lost in time, in the midst of a violent upheaval, and gaining permission to explore could prove impossible. Joan's disappointment is only eased by the thrill of meeting her childhood heroine, Maude Vickery, and hearing the stories that captured her imagination as a child.

The friendship that forms will change everything. Both women have desires to fulfil and secrets to keep. As their bond grows, Joan is inspired by the thrill of her new friend's past and finds herself swept up in a bold and dangerous adventure of Maude's making. Only too late does she begin to question her actions- actions that will spark a wild, and potentially devastating, chain of events.

THE REALITY:-

What a wonderful setting- the desert! As a kid I used to view my dad's pictorial atlas with delight, poring over pictures of parts of the world's vast terrain. The bit that fascinated me the most was the Sahara Desert, with its miles and miles of undulating sands. I pictured myself crossing them, and imagined the bliss of peace and quiet (not for one moment understanding how unforgiving this environment can be.) This book is set in the Empty Quarter- part of the Arabian Desert- and the author certainly brings this location to life, in vivid detail. I loved the reference to Arabian folklore heroine Scheherazade (what a wonderful name!) and totally got both Maude's (she's born in 1882), and Joan's (she's born 50 years later, in 1932 and Maude is her heroine) need to escape and do something “different” to the life that's expected of them.

This book has been wonderfully researched, and it's interesting reading some of the author's influences as it's future reading material for myself- perhaps. Maude is obviously based upon intrepid explorer Gertrude Bell, who was born into undeniable wealth. The lives of both Maude and Joan come alive on the page, although I feel the character of Joan could have been better explored. Her back story did seem a bit bland- but perhaps that was the idea, and explained her need to break free. Islamic culture and speech patterns seem accurate and give the story credence, as do the mannerisms and ways of the British protectorate forces abroad (although the latter do seem ever-so-slightly stereotyped.  Mind you, I've always known that stereotypes exist for a reason.)

I didn't get the ending I wanted- I would have liked (spoiler alert!) Maude to have gone after Nathaniel and pull him up for what he'd done to her in terms of his betrayal, and make it public, claiming what was rightfully hers. But sadly there wouldn't have been a story if she'd done that; and as is pointed out (and expressed throughout the novel) things were different for women back in the main story time frames of both 1908 and 1958. The way times have changed also features in the way we have three homosexual characters who've hidden their true selves.

The term “God willing” features a lot; a reference to the Muslim beliefs of the Omanis who look after Maude (or perhaps I should say “inshallah” instead.) I don't consider myself a spiritual person. In fact, I did the VIA Character Strengths Survey and spirituality came right near the bottom. But in looking at some of the signs that have spread up throughout my life, I have come to believe that sometimes we do have to trust in fate a little. Or more than a little.  For that I thank this book- for putting me in touch with the mysterious, spiritual world.

The ending did come across as a bit bland- but maybe that was intentional, as it reflects the fact that Joan is on a life mission that even she doesn't quite understand herself.