Category: Streetlighting

Posts related to streetlights. Warning: may contain photos of streetlights.

King’s Lynn Day 3 – Ely and Cambridge (I finally published it!)

Yes, yes, I’m fully aware that it’s been over 8 months since the few days away. As I mentioned, things have not been great, and I just haven’t had the motivation to put the final touches of this together. As it seems a bit of a waste to type it, take photos and not actually publish anything, I’m doing it now. You’ll just have to imagine this was back in April. Or something. It’s probably not up to my usual quality of writing (so even more crap than usual then? – Ed). Shut up. anyhoo, “enjoy”

The second of our two full days began in pretty much the same way Day 1 started, with me wandering around King’s Lynn for a bit. I had intentions of going back and visiting that record shop I mentioned, but I discovered that King’s Lynn actually had a port, and a few fishing boats too. Turns out it’s a nice little walk along the riverside. At some point, someone in a car went past blasting “21st Century” by Weekend Players. I haven’t heard that song for years, and now it’s going to be my lasting memory of this song. Probably.

Sadly, the afore-mentioned record shop totally slipped my mind, and I never went back. A shame, as I’m sure I’d have got some good stuff in there. I did, of course, have a look around the charity shops again. I truly can’t believe I took a photo of this and didn’t buy it… a board game based on the 1980s quiz show, ‘Connections’ hosted by Sue Robbie.

I headed back to the hotel, and met up with Chris again. After nipping out and getting some breakfast, I popped today’s location into the “satnav”, a.k.a. Google Maps on my phone. We jumped into the car, drove off and watched in horror as the damn “Satnav” took us through pretty much every council estate that King’s Lynn would have to offer. Eventually, we found our way back onto the main roads, and off we went to our first destination

Ely would be our first stop of the day. An interesting fact about Ely is that it’s England’s smallest city, and yep, it feels much more like a small market town than a city.


Of course, there’s a cathedral so we went in. Very pretty it is too.

Charity shop-wise, they’re pretty much all on the one long street down the side of the cathedral. It goes without saying that I picked a few CDs up.

Considering this was early April, the weather was glorious. I was the only person walking around in a t-shirt. I think all of the locals could tell I was from “up north”.

We left Ely and headed off to the 2nd stop of the day… Cambridge. This was probably going to be the biggest city on our stop and oh boy, did we have fun with the one-way system. Sadly, by the time I published this, the Google Maps app has purged the history from this day so I can’t provide a screenshot as I originally intended!

Our first stop was to a shopping complex. At the time of typing, I can’t remember the name of it, but it appeared to be the “low end” shopping precinct. An abandoned shopping centre lay at the heart of this development, and a long L-shaped road housed the rest of the low-end shops. Normally, I’d be excited at the thought of two entire rows on charity shops in a day, but these were, to say the least, terrible. No other way to put it. We were both left with a slight sense of shock. That can’t be all there was to Cambridge surely?

We jumped back in the car, and after getting lost around the one-way system, we found a car park disguised as an office block. I think the signposts might need to be improved for that one. Mind you, it had just been built, and we saw a bit of Cambridge we wouldn’t have seen otherwise, so that was nice. I don’t think Chris saw it like that.

It reminded me very much of York, but much bigger. There were even parts of it I’d only seen in photos, and I never thought I’d get to see in the flesh.


Yup, Richardson Candles! Back in the day these would have ran several fluorescent tubes, but I assume these will have been retrofitted to run LED by now.

I did like Cambridge. It’s a pretty place, plenty to see.



It’s definitely one of those places where you need more than a couple of hours there. Chris bought some weird sweets while we were there. The name escapes me, seeing as it’s been a few months now, but I think they were called ‘School Chalks’ or something? A chalky substance on the outside, and a bit of liquorice in the middle. Interesting. Apparently, there are only certain places you can get them. They were like those torpedo sweets you can get everywhere, but the outer was nicer, and it didn’t appear to be that awful synthetic licorice that’s everywhere.

Oh yes. One other thing about Cambridge, every railing has a poster tied to it. Whether it’s a work of art, or whether it’s advertising something, they’are absolutely everywhere. Maybe it’s a student thing, but not a single one was of any relevance to me. I didn’t see a single record fair mentioned

One thing that was of absolute relevance to me, was the sight of a Popeyes.

My absolute favourite fast food place. As we had already planned to have our final Indian on the night, we hgave it a miss, but it was nice to see another one in the wild, they’re extremely rare here in the UK.

Our all-too-short itme in Cambridge ws over, and we headed back along the 50-mile journey back to King’s Lynn. A quick nip into the hotel for a change of clothes, ard we were back out. One last beer-me-do in the Nip + Growler ALe House… well, actually, it was two, because our exit was blocked by a duck.

It was time for one last curry. Off we went back to Rajasthan, this time I got a Jalfrezi, and just like the previous night, it ws excellent.

I was really going to miss this place.

There was a day four, the journey home, but it never got written. It was the journey hope, which involved a trip to Boston (that was great, except for the traffic), S;eaford (it was shut), and the Lidl in Norton)

Day 3… Ta-Ta Treacletown

So, as mentioned in the last ramble, I managed to get a decent night’s sleep in the hotel, and finally surfaced about 9. We had already had a recommendation for food. I didn’t mention in the previous days’ blog, that Chris had stopped off at a chothes shop to pick up a cap, as he didn’t want to get any of his dozen hairs wet. We got chatting to the shop owners who had instantly picked up on our accents. I explained about our pin-on-a-map charity shop excursions, and he gave us a recommendation of an old cinema that had been converted into a large eatery place with lots of individual stalls to buy food from.

We went on the search for it, and also stumbled on an untapped vein of 5 or 6 independent charity shops. That was an unexpected bonus.

Thankfully, I did pick up a few CDs this time. I don’t think there was anything amazing in them, but I’ve yet to listen to them at the time of typing.

We found the eatery which called itself “Picturedrome”, and it was indeed large, and plenty of places to eat… It did seem a bit “hipsterish”, with plenty of laptops and beards flying about. It wasn’t exactly cheap either. Ihad a chuckle at a noodle bar called “Send Noods”.


So, it was time for the final hurrah. Naturally, one last trek around any charity shops I might have missed. My first concern was… had they restocked the Age UK I’d visited previously?

Yes. Yes, they had. the shelves were full. Of course, my next question was, could I still get the CDs for 50p? I was feeling confident. I was definitely going to get away with it two days in a row. I took my 11 CDs to the counter.

“That’ll be £11 please”. Gosh darn it. Never mind. It’s all for charidee, innit? As the weather was still nice, and we still had a little bit of time before we could set off, we had a walk around the surrounding area. I found a mural dedicated to those 108 steps, stuck to the side of a bridge.

It’s also the first time I can recall where I’ve walked over a bridge, but also been under a bridge at the same time…

Fascinating stuff. I also don’t know what it is with me seeing faces in things… first there was “Coke Bloke”, secondly, there was this one…

I’m not quite sure which one amuses me more. I feel that second one might be a little more intentional though.

And, doing things slightly out of order, because I can, and there was no other place for it, I also photographed these classy old fluorescent streetlights in the grounds of Macclesfield sorting office…


So, that was it for good old Macc. It’s a nice place. Plenty going for it. The next stop was Stockport. Again, this was more of a pin-in-the-map type thing. It was on the way home, and I have no recollection of where the idea came from. We probably passed it on the way down. I’d like to call this place ‘varied’. It’s bigger than I imagined it to be. There were a few charity shops we’d passed on the way down. I expected that to be it, but it turned out we were a good few miles from the town centre. Leaving Macclesfield and getting to Stockport town centre seemed an age, but in reality it only took 30 minutes, and that included an aborted stop in an Asda to get to the afore-mentioned charity shops.

First impressions were… not amazing. There was confusion on how to pay for parking – it looks like the shopping centre we were in was in the process of going “app only” for parking. A genuinely disgusting turn of events. If that’s the future, no wonder town centres are dying.

Anyway, rant over, thankfully, we found possibly the only pay machine tucked away in the corner. I deposited the cound, and we had two hours to explore the delights of Stockport.

Peering over the wall didn’t look promising.

Oh, would you look at that! It’s taken my collection of shopping centres during demolition up to three. Two in three days. Aren’t I lucky?

It took a while for things to get good when it came to shops. It seemed like you have that rank old precinct, but walk a couple of streets away, and it’a much nicer affair. Modern shops, a decent number of charity shops, and of course, a market hall.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of the market hall, but it was much nicer than the one in Huddersfield. There was even a guy selling local bottles of beer. Reasonably priced too. I think I picked 4 up. I have, of course, drank them in the intervening time between me getting home and typing this, so I can’t remember what they were called, but they were very nice.

We even stumbled across a record shop. I knew we were limited on time, so I couldn’t spend much time as I wanted in there, but I almost jizzed my pantaloons at the sight of a “Loading Bay Records” copy of Ankie Bagger’s “Where Were You Last Night”, until it was pointed out that I already have it. A quick check of the databse, and it is, indeed in there. I certainly didn’t pay £2 for it though. Bugger. Or should that be Bagger? A-hahahaaaaa. Sorry, it’s getting late.

That pretty much would be the final stop. I nipped into the “Pound Bakery” for a sausage roll. It was not amazing. I also nipped into Holland and Barrett for some cough sweets that I liked, but it seems they don’t stock them anymore. Another thing discontinued is “Green Cola”, something released a few years back. It was not amazing. Either way, I picked a can of that up for 59p. I’ve yet to have it, it’s chilling in the fridge.

And that, as they say, is that.

The rainbow, pointing towards the pot of gold that is Teesside, assuming you don’t check the GPS location embeeded in the photo. Overall, an enjoyable few days away. The food was superb. the charity shops could have been better, but I was still happy with the little haul. the weather certainly could have been improved on. Unfortunately, the week after we went, the sun was cracking the pavements. At least it was back in sunny ol’ Hartlepool. Still, a little rain never hurt anybody.

Hopefully, I won’t leave it six months until I have something worth blogging about!

Vienna Calling, Day 7

The final day begins! It was a mere 24 hours until I’d be flying into Newcastle airport, therefore, I wanted the final day to begin early. It… er, didn’t. C+J were sound asleep intil about 10:30, despite making plans to get up early, as it was pretty much the end of the holiday. Still, one thing that was in our favour was the weather. It was absolutely boiling, and probably the warmest day since we’d got there. My first priority was to get some photos for this blog, so I started off with “The Little Stage”, where the previous night’s “festivities” were still sinking in…

That was the bar we’d spent most of the nights in. We were to give it a miss on this last night.

One other thing, as I mentioned was the “street art”. One particular one I hadn’t mentioned was on the outside of the Pilgramstrasse underground station, and clearly visible whichever platform you exit from. I think I’m more interested what goes through people’s minds when they design such drawings.

We headed back to the museum quarter, because I was particularly interested on what was happening at that harvest festival we’d found the day before. Turns out, not a lot. I’m not sure if they were still setting up, but there just seemed to be a load of tents. Maybe if the language barrier hadn’t been in the way, we might have got somewhere, and knew enough about what was going on. We didn’t, and left the place pretty quickly, but not before I walked out into the path of a passing cyclist, presumably getting insulted in another language. Whoopsy.

We walked around the shopping area for a bit, which was a complete waste of time. Pretty much everything had five figures before the decimal point, and I was day 2 into my £3 Matalan T-shirt. I didn’t really feel in place.

One thing I wanted to do, was to go up the big tower we’d seen in previous days. I missed the opportunity to go up the one in Berlin. I didn’t want to miss this one.

From our walk in the previous day, I knew it was one or two stops after where we’d got on the underground, so we knew we’d be in the vacinity of it when we got off the underground. It was the “Commercial Quarter” this time. I wonder, just how many quarters there were. This area was very modern. Construction was going all around us, and there were some interesting building designs. Oh, and LED streetlights.

Anyway, we reached a park area, which I now know as “Donaupark”. It was still about half a mile away, though the perspective made it look longer. I must admit, the standard of “mindless graffiti” here was rather more upper class here, than back home in Hartlepool.

6187811139_986b58c545_o

A short walk though the park (for me, still with blisters, it was like a short walk with rusty nails in my socks) later, and we arrived at the tower.

6188336476_87c07fb317_o

I clearly had no problem with the height, but Chris did. He really didn’t want to go up there. There was no point trying to get him to go up if he didn’t want to, so I’d do a reconnaissance mission, go up there, do what I wanted to do and see if it was as high as it made out to be. Chris could then go up with Jonathan if he wanted to.

I paid my money, and headed off to the lift. The lift had a clear ceiling. As it went up, lights illuminated the lift shaft. The fact that it literally took seconds to reach the top caused confusion between me and the poor lady whose job it was to go up and down a shaft for minimal pay (f’nar!). I have the conversation ‘on tape’ as I forgot to stop the camera. I’ve not dared listen to it yet. I remember it in my head as being “awkward”. Tsk. They leave me on my own for five seconds…

The view was just as spectacular as I’ve hoped. Usual rules apply. A picture says a thousand words…

6188337876_c277fcff06_o

6187818161_8c2e13c970_o

6187821495_0f522dc052_o

What I didn’t know, is that there was a revolving restaurant above my head, and I only found that out by Jonathan telling me, after his trip up there. Bugger.

We hastened back from whence we came. I’m not sure if that sentence is valid in English, but it meant we returned back to the expensive shopping precinct, as Jonathan had ran out of clean shirts, and sharing a plane ride home could be rather unpleasant for those concerned. To be honest, I know fuck all about fashion, but I know one thing. Certain shops that look expensive ARE expensive. The first shop we went into, I just knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of here. All of the brand names were the same as at home, except that I’d scoff at paying £50 for a certain brand of shirt because of its label. I think I let out an audible cry when I picked up the same shirt, with a €150 price tag. Good lord, I’ll stick with Matalan. At least if I spill curry onto it, there’s not much of a loss.

The second shop we went into was a little more reasonable.One thing that struck me as odd was the fact I nearly stood on a dog. No, really. There were dogs on leads walking around the shop. I kid you not. Jonathan managed to find a shirt for the journey home, while I was quite happy to recycle a previously worn one. You know, sometimes I have to check and make sure I’m not circumcised. (Oooo, there’s a line – Ed)

There were also souvenirs bought. Not from me, you understand. I’ve told everyone I know I’m not bringing them anything back, in the understanding that when they go away, they don’t have to bring me anything back. It’s an understanding that works perfectly, even if it’s a little anti-social. Fair enough, if someone requests a keyring in the shape of the Leaning Tower of Piza, they can get it themselves, I was a few hundred miles away.

Back to the hotel we went, I got a better photo of the >strange orange “street art” thing I posted from earlier in the week, as well as an image of the streetlighting near the hotel. I could describe it in great detail, but I thought I’d save that for the gallery. it’d be interesting to get a picture of the streetlighting working. I’ve never been in a location where domestic fluorescent tubes are used in streetlighting…

6187861955_9a04b346c0_o

6187863983_4ab0b1d1d5_o

We hammered the pool table for what would be the final time. Reluctantly, our goodbyes were said to it, as we headed off for something to eat. I was still in agony, but not due to the blisters. Because I’d spent the last few days walking like someone who’d had nails hammered into the soles of his feet, it meant I’d been using leg muscles I didn’t know existed, so there was no way I was going to travel a great distance. Instead, we returned back to the ‘5er Brau’. there seemed to be a lot more people out this evening. this was mainly because they were broadcasting the Austrian version of “Match of The Day” on two big televisions. Still, we trusted the food, and could remember the menu. I went for the schnitzel again. I was going to go for the pork one, but couldn’t remember where it was on the menu, so just pointed at the chicken one, shouting “THAT ONE”…

The food was, again heavenly,, and we headed back to the hotel. It was around 10pm at this point, so it was still early. We attempted to go for a walk, but really only got as far as around the block, as my legs were ready to fall off. We headed back tyo the hotel, and had a couple of beers outside while discussing the journey home. I think we all knew it was going to be a nightmare, but I don’t think anyone knew just how bad…