h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just got back from visting an "Art Deco and antiques" fair at The Rowley Mile Racetrack at Newmarket.

I thought I'd take along my camera, maybe take a few photos that would have interesting lighting, shapes contours that sort of thing, maybe a retro-sih feel.

So I get there and given my initial enthusiasm what happened next came out of the blue: I found the experience quite... depressing.

It was held amongst the clean line and ubiquitously even lighting of the conference centre which kind of robbed it of any character - the Souqs at Marrakesh, this was not. So there was an immediate dislocation of the environment with the subjects.

Then there was the matter of what was on sale. Banish from your mind all though of the straight lines and geometry of the 20's art deco movement - this was a all-in affair. I saw figurines of cute china dogs, lots of war memorabilia, corals under glass, even a native american headress with feathers. I was struck (feathered headdress notwithstanding) by the unbearable bric-a-bric kitishness of it all.

It felt like rummaging through my gran's flat - or worse - someone elses' gran's flat.

This is not the reaction I was expecting.

Matters were probably not helped by my arriving late (the result of an unexpected nap on the sofa of awesomeness) so I was surrounded by mainly trades people, diligently removing items into sarcophagi of bubble wrap.

I left without a single photograph of ugly jewellery or bad portraiture or amusingly optimistic tins for cigarettes and instead fled back to the sunshine and the car park determined to do something modern and alive.

Next time I'm going to the seaside. Antiques fairs are horrible places.

antiques or craft fairs are horrible places for both shoppers and sellers... makes one wonder why they happen at all....

I was dragged to one at Goodwood racetrack last year. I came away with the same opinion.

It was enormous in scale, but there wasn't a single thing there that piqued any interest in me whatsoever - just thousands of stalls selling identical chinaware. I'll certainly avoid them in future.

This comforts me. It's good to know I'm not the only one.

When the weather gets better, get the train to Norwich, and go on the Sherringham line... I think* they still do a weird all day ticket thinggy, from Cambridge, for not a lot of money, and you can go to all the various places along that line... sherringham and Chromer are good, and by the sea... (and there are some pretty decent pubs along the route in teh various other stops too on the line, and some decent chip shops)

Sounds good. Might make a long weekend of it.

The best bits of the coast though, are a pain to actually try and get to round here... Been a while since I went down the Sherringham line... they have a beer festavil in the summer at the steam railway in Sherringham... and of course, you can always pay the fortune to take the actual steam line from Sherringham to... err whever it goes, but Iseem to recall the times were silly so you've never have long enough at the destination to really do anything

>>The best bits of the coast though, are a pain to actually try and get to round here...<<

Ah. Tell me more oh great sage of these (incredibly flat) lands.

I always really liked some of the bits of the coast down from the Lowestoft sort of area... Very wide and open and windswept places... Coheithe was probably always my favorite, an area where there's been huge costal erosion over the years (including the fantastic road which just 'ends', at the top of the cliff, and one pressumes used to carry on in the long past, to the dozens of villages now long taken by the sea... The cliffs there at coheithe were always good fossil hunting areas, as the errosion meant there were always new bits of the cliffs exposed...
Inland from there, there's tiny little villages like Blythburgh, which has a loverly old church (including, if its still there, the origional door, with the claw marks of the Satanic Black Dog (black Shuck), on the door (OK in reality modern science tells us that what they whitnessed way back when was probably a strange coincidence of ball lightening striking the door and entering the church... but the more poetic explination is just so* much better)
Strangely, I never really explored a great deal fo the coast going the other way, 'up' from Lowestoft, but there must be some nice bleek windswept bits up in that direction too...

Then of course there's the err, now I cna't remember the name... sand bars/shingle bars, down where they tested the trigger explsoive devices for the nuclear bombs back in the forty's, err, is that blakney point... or something like that... err... no that doesn't sound right Now, that is really* windswept (remembers heading out in a boat, across the channel there, in the freezing wind and rain, to go do a ecological survey of seagulls of all bluddy things ) hmmm.... The coast round near the Sizewell nuclear plants is pretty flat and bleek too, which is kinda nice if you can ignore the huge industrial bit that is the nuclear plants themselves...

Southwold is nice too, but the best bit there, is if you can travel there via the river/salt estury, as there are some loverly bits there, in the middle of the salt estury, where your just not in sight of anything man-made at all... until you come across this strange little 'island', in the middle, with a long ago disurted old house on it... very weird hmmm... that's only really dooable by canoe mind

Mind, there's nice of inland bits of the fens too, probably a bit more picturesque in some ways than the bleekness of some of the coastal bits.. but I always liked the really bleek coastal bits... the inland fenland bits can be very pretty though, especially if there is either any sun, or heavy frost/snow on them...
Used to love canoeing on the rivers through the fens, then taking 'detours', and canoeing miles and miles through the network of irrigation channels... then having to stand up in the canoe (Canadian canoes mind), to try and spot a church or something in the distance, to figure out where the we were

Actually if I remember correctly, the river from Blithburgh, the river blithe, was fun to canoe, and I think* that one eventually took you out to the sea at the Southwold area... I think* titchy little river which actually went dry at some points when we canoed it, where underwater concrete/brick structures, once used to control the flow I guess, were exposed by the low water... and we had to lift the canoes up and walk over the underwater constructions

The river that goes through Thetfod and Brandon, coming inland, I seem to recall was quite nice too as was the river (though damn If I remember which river), that comes into Norwich...
The Wavney, (I think), as it heads past Beccles and onwards was really nice too; The downstream bits there tend to be quite murkey looking waters (Eutrophication)), but I seem to recall, once you get a bit past Beccles the water runs more or less clear, and you start getting lillys and suchlike on the water... and I'm sure that's where there were the Willows hanging out over the river, and you basically cannoed under the willow fronds that hung out and over the river...
If only I hadn't distroyed my memmory through years of diligent alcohol and drug misuse I could probably remember more, and actually stand a chance of getting some of the names right We must get you over to Cambridge when the weather picks up and check out a couple of the rather decent pubs near me here... I'm sure there are probably some rather nice pretty bits of the fens near Cambridge too... but there probably all too much of a worryingly far distance from pubs for me to have ever gotten near them

Late to this thread party but Spouse and I went to the same kind of fair at Chilford Hall, Linton and had the same reaction as you.

However coming to the thread late means I get the, um benefit of 2legs local musings...!

Only found my way here cos you mentioned Cambridge yesterday, are you local too? Do I get some help keeping back the marauding badgers and Legster?!

I am now. I moved down from Derbyshire to Newmarket for a job In Cambridge.

Was on the phone yesterday to a hotel on the seafront in Weymouth, my snooping may have snagged us a deal.

Thus making the holiday much more likely.

Hurrah.

I visit Newmarket fairly often for my job. Horses everywhere. Literally.

I have decided how I'm going to pay for the holiday so am off to book it.

Weeeeee!