Monthly Archives: June 2026

Cleethorpes Pier – an old draft resurrected

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Here we have a post that has been hanging around since September 2018.

Most of it is self-explanatory. I was obviously having a bad day and enthusiasm was not in great supply – a trip through North Lincolnshire will do that to you. I never did get on with the book on piers (just like I never get on with the book about anything – it’s over 50 years since I formed an ambition to write a book and I still haven’t done it. This is pitiful, I admit. However, I have learnt a lot along the way. As we started visiting piers my arthritis and walking began to get worse, we slowed down a bit and then, the next year, we had lockdown. That’s my excuse. I will now pass you over to the original text of the draft and go to see if I can find photos. If not, it will be published without photos. (I did find the photos – they were in August rather than September 2018).

Freddie Frinton’s Blue Plaque. The term “entertainer” was accurate in the 1960s but I fear it wouldn’t apply in modern times. I’ve seen “Dinner for One” and can only marvel at it’s long-running success.

The reason that I’m resurrecting this? I was reading an article on those “achievements” that keep cropping up, and, after getting annoyed at the manipulation involved, I became immersed in reading about them. Yes, it’s another rabbit hole, be warned. Anyway, it inspired me to look at my drafts, and I thought, that though I hate myself for falling for it, that if I’ve saved this for seven and a half years I really should finish it.

Since saying I was going to write a book about visiting piers I have found it increasingly difficult to actually write about visiting piers. I suspect this is what often happens.  The words below this line were written in 2018 and have not been altered. You will then find some more words from 2026. How time flies.

We went to Cleethorpes a couple of months ago but I haven’t written about it yet. This is probably what writers call writer’s block, but I’m a blogger and we just call it laziness. As I’m going to visit a few more piers next week it’s probably time to get on with some work.

Julia pressing a penny – a fascinating machine.

We approached Cleethorpes through Grimsby, which is not a name that inpires confidence. It’s a throwback to Lincolnshire’s Viking past, the suffix -by is a Viking word meaning homestead. Lincolnshire is full of village names ending in -by. Grim is a name often associated with Odin, the top man in Norse mythology, so may not be a grim as it sounds.. He was also known as Woden, so when we visited Grimsby on a Wednesday we have two Odin references in one trip as Wednesday is Woden’s day. Even after a thousand years the Vikings are still present.

As Kipling said –

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

Grimsby and Cleethorpes don’t have a great reputation for affluence and the road through Grimsby, though clean and neat, didn’t look overly prosperous. It had the look of a place stuck in the 1960s with a number of more modern shops offering discount carpets and things of that nature.

Prize Winning Fish and Chips on the pier  – claimed, at the time of our visit, to be the largest fish and chip restaurant in the country. It doesn’t seem to say that these days.

The docks, which we drove past, seemed full of gleaming cars. I’m not sure whether they were coming in or going out, but I assume they were coming in as there are no car factories in this area. That would suggest there’s money somewhere for new cars.

I’ve only been to Cleethorpes once before.

(At that point, on 9 September 2018, the post stopped. I now start it again for a few lines.)

The last visit was for a junior rugby match. I can’t remember the details, but several of us went to Cleethorpes afterwards. It was a bit like Shangri-la for me, if Shangri-La had shops selling buckets, spades and rock. When we lived in Lincolnshire, many years ago, Cleethorpes was always just above the area my parents would visit, so I always had to make do with Skegness and dream of the exotic delights of Cleethorpes.

A sight that is growing less common as time goes on.

In truth, there are none. It’s a decent enough place but no better than Skegness, though the remains of the pier do house an award-winning fish and chip shop. It’s just an accident of geography that It’s a lot easier to get to Skegness rather than Cleethorpes. If it were the other way round, I would be happy to visit Cleethorpes and give Skegness a miss.

The Pier

A Mosaic of a Life

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We had a great spotted woodpecker in the garden this morning – Julia saw it and managed to get to a camera before it slipped away. She only managed one shot, but it was good. They are not rare in gardens, but we have been waiting eighteen months to see one.

Not the world’s most impressive bird, particularly for those of you who live in tropical paradises, or even Maine, but it’s quite bright for Britain. I could probably have edited it slightly better, but this way you see less of the fence, which needs painting. It has no red on its head so is probably a mature female. Males have a red nape and juveniles have a red cap.

She washed a yellow happi coat  in what they call a hygiene wash yesterday. It used to be a boil was, even though it only gets up to 60 degrees C. The yellow dye is not colourfast at that temperature and we ended up with a lot of yellowish underwear and tea towels. That doesn’t matter, but she also dyed a favourite t-shirt and is a little downcast by it.

Bouncing back from yesterday’s adversity I have found a poetry magazine that is accepting submissions, and it will suit the five I had returned yesterday. Tonight I will tighten them up and then I will send them. Even if they are returned again, it will be good to show confidence.

These are the small things that make up my day.

Poppies growing from cracks in concrete – I really must try to get some established around here.

And, of course, naps.

We also prepared a box of stuff that No 1 son left behind on his visit, and presents for the grandson’s first birthday. International postage has got more complicated over the years, and more expensive.  I cut the box down to make sure it passed as a small parcel in both height and weight, then arranged for the Royal Mail to collect it tomorrow. It is considerably cheaper if you book it via the internet rather than taking it into a Post Office. About £11 in this case, which seems wrong. The Royal mail and the Post Office should work together. Soon all post offices will be closed down, I expect, through lack of business, and people won’t have anywhere local to conduct business as the internet will have taken over.

Puffins at Bempton – they are lovely birds, but always seem a bit glum. This one appears to be contemplating throwing himself off a cliff. However, along with that mournful expression his creator gave him wings, which will prevent any unfortunate events.

 

 

 

For Want of a Keyboard . . .

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Yet another post that was started one day then ignored until the next . . .

I sent a poetry submission off last night. This morning, just nine hours later, I had a swift rejection. One of the problems was that I’d said, in the covering letter, that I had used AI. What I meant to say was that I had not used AI. Editors like you to say that these days. I can’t really blame this on my age or tiredness as I wasn’t tired and am the same age, to within a few days, to when I sent off several properly worded submissions. Unfortunately, as my fingers dance over the clapped out keys of my keyboard, they seem to miss things out. Sometimes a letter, sometimes a pair of letters, sometimes an entire short word. When it’s a complete word I often wonder if it’s my brain or the typing, or the keyboard which should take the blame. I’ve decided to invest £12 in  a new keyboard and find out.

Unfortunately, he then followed up by telling me the poetry was “safe” and gave the feeling that I was “ticking boxes”. Whether this view was informed by his unfortunate belief that I had used AI, or it really is so bland, I don’t really know.

I suggested that I could maybe make the poetry more “raw” as requested by making the old man in the cafe swear a bit more, mention his PTSD in verse two and add a fith verse that shows him vaulting across table to disembowel an annoying child with a plastic butter knife.

Julia said she wasn’t quite sure it was the right thing to suggest as it might be seen as sarcasm rather than a serious attempt to regain my artistic integrity.

That’s what she meant anyway.  What she actually said was “No. Don’t.”

So I wrote, explained the typos and told him I would take his comments on board.

I won’t, as they are all decent poems, but it doesn’t pay to upset editors.

Photos are from yesterday when a nestful of blue tit fledglings descended on the feeders. Current RSPB advice is that we shouldn’t feed birds in summer as it spreads disease. However, we wash the feeders regularly and are feeding several families of fledglings – blue tits, great tits and starlings. It’s difficult to know what to do for the best.

Of course, the pictures never come out as well as they could do, as the birds are all greyish instead of blue, white and yellow and I never manage to get more than three in one shot.

Continuing My Education

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We saw an interesting story on Digging For Britain last night. I can provide little detail because I was discussing tea with Julia and thinking about writing. It was Series 7 from 2018, detailing The North, if you want to look it up. The North, in this case, starts in Lincolnshire and ends up with a crashed Spitfire in Norway.  The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Alastair Gunn, bailed out and ended up in the real life Great Escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944, being one of the 50 men selected to be murdered on Hitler’s orders.

The Great Escape is a lesson for modern life. It featured cooperation between nations – Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Poland, Norway, France, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Belgium, Rhodesia, Holland and Argentina _ and is a lesson in what can be done with organisation and a common purpose. There were probably more nationalities in volved, as I have only been able to find the origins of the escapers. My apologies to any who have been missed out.

However, I really meant to talk about wood turning.

Basically, digging in  an Iron Age floor covering of a Scottish Iron Age village, the archaeologists discovered a turned wooden pole (possibly part of a loom) and a turned wooden bowl. They were about 2,500 years old. I had to look it up. There were various sorts of lathe available, and the pole lathe is still in use today – I have seen them in action. The continuous rotation lathe was possibly  a Roman invention. The Egyptians and Etruscans used lathes at this time. I may have got the date slightly wrong as we didn’t usually adopt things as early as the Egyptians and Etruscans.

However, the dates are Iron Age, which was worrying me, as I couldn’t see lathes and flint tools going together. It was interesting, because it was a whole technology I’d never thought about in an historical context.

Sometimes you hear discussions about how did anyone think about inventing the wheel or milking a cow, but seriously, what thought process led to wood turning? It’s quite a leap.

 

Work?

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It’s 11.09 now and I sat at the computer at 07.04 this morning. That’s half a day, and what I have achieved? Well, I’ve eaten breakfast, washed up and made coffee. And I’ve checked emails, answered comments, including reading articles on atomic testing and reforestation. I’m afraid reading will have to wait for later.  We also had a visit from the conservatory man. He is ill and is having heart exams at Addenbrooke’s and Papworth. They are both 40 miles away, Papworth having relocated to the same science campus as Addenbrooke’s, and he has to be there for 8.00. They won’t change his appointment or the distance he has to travel. It makes my quibble about travelling to Stamford (15 miles) or being at the City Hospital for 7.40 (2 miles away) seem trivial.

Apple Blossom

I’m not approaching “work” as I cakll it, with any degree of enthusiasm today. I sent off eight submissions in the last three days – a total of 32 poems. As three of the submissions are competitions or new magazines I’m predicting a rather gloomy three or four successes. Fortunately, this month comprises a number of old favourites, so I should do better, although with all the added journals my percentage acceptance will still be lower than I am used to. It’s probably a good thing, as becoming comfortable is not a good thing for creativity.

I just re-read that last sentence. Am I sounding like “a poet”. I’ve always tried to avoid that. That seems like a good place to stop as this last sentence will take me over the 250 word mark.

I w

Blossom at Wilford

ill prepare the worksheet to show the submissions this month (and the numbers of each thing I need) and a progress chart. I need about 55 poems for this month in 14 groups, and it’s easy to make a mistake, as I think I’ve described before.