Heyjude

Ludlow Arts Festival

Every year in June Ludlow holds an Arts Festival over two weeks when poets, players, comedians, singers and musicians invade our small English town. Most of the entertainment is held in the Castle grounds and an entrance fee is naturally expected. However, there are often fringe events happening around the town which may be free and there is nothing like walking up to the market square to buy some veg for dinner and hearing 10CC or the Hollies rehearsing for their show or potting up your pelargoniums to the sound of the English National Philharmonic Orchestra

The town is full of visitors, swarming around the square and wandering down to the River Teme, cameras at the ready. At 5:30ish on a Saturday and Sunday you will find them lugging picnic chairs, blankets, food hampers and bottles of fizz to picnic in the castle grounds before the open-air concerts begin in the Castle’s Outer Bailey.

It might not be Glastonbury, but it brings a happy vibe to the town.

Just Back From… Ledbury

Last week on a rare day of sunshine and warmth we decided to go for a drive into our neighbouring shires of Hereford and Worcester getting off the usual roads we take when going south to get onto a motorway and slowly exploring a few of the many B roads in the counties to admire the most wonderful countryside and views. Continue reading Just Back From… Ledbury

Vancouver: English Bay

On my final day in Vancouver I walked up Denman Street all the way to English Bay Beach on the opposite side of the peninsula. Denman has a mixture of shops (most are very tacky) and restaurants (lots of fast food outlets) and bike rentals. It is useful to know that there is a large Safeway store on the corner of Denman and Robson where you can buy a huge variety of help yourself take-away food including Chinese, salads and freshly cooked pasta dishes. Why don’t English supermarkets do this? All we get is a miserable choice of cold antipasti, sandwiches and sometimes a cooked chicken! Continue reading Vancouver: English Bay

Vancouver: Stanley Park

Today I decided to spend walking around Stanley Park which covers 1,000 acres at the tip of downtown Vancouver. There is so much to see in the park from the seawall walk (8.8 km), several beaches, Beaver Lake and the Lost lagoon, ‘monument’ trees and many trails amongst cedar, hemlock, and fir trees which lead you away from the madding crowds into the cool quiet forest. Continue reading Vancouver: Stanley Park

Vancouver: Art, History and Nature

On my own today, so I walked along the seawall down to Canada Place along Coal Harbour where the Harbour Air Seaplanes are based with stunning views across Burrard Inlet. Vancouver is filled with hundreds of pieces of public art; everywhere you go you find odd sculptures or examples of Chinook phrases, and since 1998 they have the International Sculpture Biennale with temporary exhibits from all over the world.

At Harbour Green Park you will see the “Light Shed” which imitates the simple boat-sheds that stood along the harbour over a century ago. Poised on log stilts, this aluminium-coated shed is particularly lustrous after dark when a dim, moving light shines from within. The park itself is a lovely shady area which seems to float at the edge of the harbour and it has plenty of benches from where you look at the appealing views and watch the float planes arrive and take off. It contains a variety of European Beech, Northern Red Oak and London Plane trees. This was going to be a long, slow walk….

Further along I came to the Vancouver Convention Centre West. A fascinating building as it appears to lean out over the harbour and resembles the prow of a ship. It has huge glass windows that reflect the view (on this day lovely clouds over the North Vancouver Mountains). Also along the seawall are railings similar to those you find on a ship and there are lots of interesting information plaques telling you the stories of different people who came to BC and what they did. What a wonderful way to learn history. All the photos come from the BC Museum in Victoria. (Another must-see museum).

Finally you come to an impressive blue bulbous sculpture “The Drop” by Inges Idee. The west building has a 6 acre living roof with 400, 000 indigenous plants and 4 beehives and 40% of the building juts out over the water. An impressive building. You then arrive at the distinctive Canada Place with the five sails that dominate the Vancouver Downtown skyline and which is home to the Vancouver Convention Centre East and the cruise ships terminal, and if you look up West Hastings Street you will see an impressive example of art deco, the Marine Building, which was built during the great Depression and was the tallest building in the British Empire in 1930.