Book Bench Trail, Newark

Posted on September 17, 2024 by Louise Jayne

A couple of weeks ago I headed out to Newark to find all the decorated book benches as part of an art trail by Newark Creates and Wild in Art. Many of you may be familiar with Wild in Art sculptures that pop up all over the country, and even as far away as Sydney and Sao Paulo. The last ones in Nottingham were the robins in 2018. You could pick up a free map from either the Palace Theatre, Newark Bus Station or download from the website. I was using a downloadable map on my phone until I fortuitously bumped into one of the people who’d organised the trail wrapping up some media interviews and she gave me a paper map. The trail finished on 5 September (this is one of a series of posts I had planned to put up before the event I was writing about finished but which got delayed due to a family medical emergency).

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Garden Visitors

Posted on September 12, 2024 by Louise Jayne

Every so often I do a post about the birds and animals I’ve photographed in the garden. We’ve had quite a few interesting visitors that I haven’t managed to photograph or that we’ve only caught on our nature camera overnight such as cats, hedgehogs, foxes and once quite memorably a badger but there are others that stuck around long enough for me to grab my camera. One such creature was this rat which had taken a liking to the seeds I put out for the birds (I moved the bird feeder around and took a break from re-filling it and this worked for a little while). [Since starting to write this post I found the rat dead in our garden – RIP].

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Murder by the Book at Cambridge University Library

Posted on September 10, 2024 by Louise Jayne

My main motivation for travelling to Cambridge in August was to attend the Murder by the Book exhibition at Cambridge University Library (I had intended to get this post up before it finished on August 24th but a family medical emergency – now largely resolved – impacted all my plans). I’d never been up to the part of Cambridge where the library is located before which is the main research library of the university. Designed by Giles Gilbert Scott (designer of the red telephone box among other things) it opened in 1934.

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Melrose Abbey

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Louise Jayne

As I mentioned in my Abbotsford post, the house provides a free volunteer lead shuttle from Tweedbank Railway Station to Abbotsford, but also from Abbotsford to Melrose Abbey. As it’s volunteer lead this isn’t always available (check Abbotsford’s website for details/contact info) but happily the shuttle was available on the day I visited and the driver offered to take me to the Abbey when I was done at the house (I was the only person using the shuttle that day). The drive didn’t take very long and you’re set down in a car park opposite the Abbey. The shuttle doesn’t take you back to the station but the driver pointed to a bus stop nearby and said that was where I could get the bus back to Tweedbank (it wasn’t – but more on that later!)

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Grand Safari Trail at the Grand Arcade Shopping Centre, Cambridge

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Louise Jayne

Recently I was in Cambridge for a couple of days to visit some museum exhibitions but I didn’t have any plans for after my arrival late in the afternoon of my first day in the city. A chance mention of this trail on social media lead me to head out to the Grand Arcade Shopping Centre in the middle of Cambridge to see it for myself. There are 13 animals to find that are made from tiny bricks (they are part of BrickLive and therefore, as they are keen to point out, NOT Lego). The exhibition ends on 27th August.

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Nottingham Carnival Parade

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Louise Jayne

On Sunday afternoon I headed out to the Victoria Embankment in Nottingham to watch the Nottingham Carnival Parade. In fact, because my bus dropped me off at one end of Wilford Grove I walked along to the end of that stretch of road as I knew that was part of the parade route, rather than heading closer to the river. It proved to be a pretty good spot and I got there early enough to be at the front with plenty of space around – it definitely got busier as time went on.

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Attenborough Nature Reserve – August 2024

Posted on August 15, 2024 by Louise Jayne

After putting in some long hours at work recently (the joys of being self-employed!) I decided to take a random day off to enjoy the sunshine and headed out to Attenborough Nature Reserve. I’ve been here before a number of times but this time I travelled there from Nottingham on the train (an all day ticket is £3.70 and the journey takes around 10 minutes). Attenborough is a tiny station with only two platforms but the nature reserve is well signposted from there and it only takes about 5-10 minutes walk through some streets lined with very beautiful houses to reach one of the entrances to the reserve.

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Abbotsford: The Home of Sir Walter Scott

Posted on August 13, 2024 by Louise Jayne

As I’d been to Edinburgh before a lot of my stay there was using the city as a base and going on day trips by train. The one I was most excited about and proved to be excellent was Abbotsford, the home author Walter Scott had built in 1811. I caught the train from Edinburgh Waverley Station to Tweedbank Station which took around one hour. One useful thing the house provides is free transport from the train station to the house. It’s volunteer lead so isn’t always available – you can find times and a phone number to see if it’s happening on the day you’re traveling on the house website – but the day I travelled it was waiting just outside the station, and I was the only passenger! If it isn’t there the house is a 20 minute walk away that is described on the house website, or you can get a local bus. There is also of course a car park at the house if you’re driving.

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Greenock, Scotland

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Louise Jayne

As I mentioned in my previous post I visited Greenock last year because my grandmother was born there and her grandparents moved there from England for work. I’ve done a lot of family tree research over the years – particularly during the COVID lockdowns – and this was a chance to explore some of the places she, her mother, aunts and grandparents lived and worked.

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McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Louise Jayne

Part of my reason for travelling to Scotland last year, and Greenock in particular, was to do some family tree research. My paternal grandmother was born in Greenock, her grandfather having been moved up there from Kent in the early 1900s to work at the Torpedo Factory which was, at the time, an extremely secretive job. My first stop therefore was to the McLean Museum where I had been hoping to find more information about the factory. There was, in fact, barely any mention of it that I hadn’t already found elsewhere – a veil of secrecy seems to still hang around the details – but there was plenty of other items of interest in the museum.

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