HISTORIC GREAT YARMOUTH (PART 1) YOUTUBE VLOG NOW LIVE!

 My Historic Great Yarmouth (Part 1) YouTube vlog is now live!

Link:-

https://youtu.be/CFYCoFm6ofk

Great Yarmouth is sandwiched between the North Sea and the River Yare, and settlement dates back to Roman times. Once considered to be a wealthy trading centre of great importance, it was granted a charter by King John in 1208. By the early 18^th century it was a thriving port with a significant herring industry, and was a main military supply base during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

I visit Great Yarmouth at least once a year, and am a big advocate for British tourism. In this video I'm not going to be detailing the main tourist drag- although I do touch upon it- rather, I've honed in on the historic aspects of the town.

In Part 1 of this series, amongst other things I'll be visiting Anna Sewell's birthplace and wandering into neighbouring Great Yarmouth Minster's churchyard- home to a refectory containing a ghost! I'll also be walking through the Victoria Arcade and down to the historic waterfront, and I check out the Tolhouse Gaol, where I once had the privilege of a private tour. Then I take a stroll along King Street; home to Great Yarmouth's only surviving 17^th century urban jettied timber framed building, and another building once known as the leaning tower of Yarmouth! I also discuss some tourist attractions that are sadly no longer open, and hone in on some of the interesting things I find along the way.

Stay tuned, as there is a Part 2...

As you know, I will always be a writer before anything else, and have blogged about Great Yarmouth before.  This general Great Yarmouth blog is huge:-

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

Smaller blog, including Anna Sewell's house:-

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

Great Yarmouth Observation Wheel blog:-

https://elainerockett.blogspot.com/2021/10/miss-elaineous-visits-great-yarmouth.html

Another Great Yarmouth vlog, featuring some of the things in this video:- https://elainerockett.blogspot.com/2023/11/miss-elaineous-visits-great-yarmouth.html

Remember to like and subscribe, and don't forget to follow this blog as well!

TTFN

The Miss Elaineous

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THE NANNY by MELISSA NATHAN

 THE NANNY

by

MELISSA NATHAN

THE BLURB:

When Jo Green takes a nannying job in London to escape her small-town routine, complicated family and perfect-on-paper boyfriend Shaun, culture shock doesn't even begin to describe it...

Dick and Vanessa Fitzgerald are the most incompatible pair since Tom and Jerry, and their children- glittery warrior pixie Cassandra, bloodthirsty Zak and shy little Tallulah- are downright mystifying. Suddenly village life terribly appealing.

Then, just as Jo's getting the hang of their designer lifestyle, the Fitzgerald's acquire a new lodger and suddenly she's sharing her nanny flat with the distractingly good-looking but inexplicably moody Josh. So when Shaun turns up things get even trickier...

THE REALITY:

I did worry about this one- a tome but about a light-and-trite subject? Hmmm. But I couldn't have been more wrong! This book is a real study in human relationships and a lesson that just because things appear a certain way on the surface, doesn't mean that appearances tell the whole truth- or even something approaching anywhere near it. It was also a good way for me to learn how to write about children and their foibles. I don't have children, nieces and nephews or godchildren, wasn't a big sister and, to be honest, don't have much to do with kids, and therefore know nothing about them. But this book certainly delivered me a lesson and an insight into their worlds, and I loved how they sometimes got whole sections of the book to themselves.

I can certainly relate to small-town backward ideals, as I myself had to escape them. I do like the way maratial relationships are explored; with both Jo's parents and Jo's employers, and I (spoiler alert!) managed to work out that it was Sheila Shaun would eventually end up with- they do come across as compatible.

But it was the humour that got to me throughout- there were several laugh out loud moments, especially when Vanessa enquires over the phone to Jo as to whether little Zak has been holding his willy today (it appears to be his self-comforting move) and her boss walks in and says, 'I hope that's not a client you're talking to!' And policeman Gerry's fancying of Jo, naming the four kids he thinks they'll be having and the treading in of shit by policeman Nick and spreading it over a crime scene (in fact poos feature more than once, which would impress lavatorial little moi!) I also enjoyed the Highgate references, and the allusion to how well-connected and monied people live, and how, at the end of the day, everyone is human; with foibles, and the problems that human beings suffer.

All in all, a nicely written novel.