Harleston Clock Tower

I found one more image from my East of England visit to post here: it's a picture of a clock tower. The tower is located in a small town named Harleston, a place where my aunt and I took a short walk at:

Harleston is in Norfolk, located on the border between that county and Suffolk. It was quite a pleasant little location to visit.

"Everything at Once" - Lenka

A piece of music for today's post; it's "Everything at Once" by Lenka, an Australian singer. I saw her a few times in a commercial when I was in Suffolk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfy5CBfjZ8s

I had not heard of Lenka prior to seeing the advert, and I had to Google the song's lyrics to find out. I like both the sound of "Everything at Once" and Lenka's pronunciation of certain words in the track. Both her albums are available on Amazon UK.

The irony here is that the advert wasn't for her: it was for Windows 8!

Southwold images

I had a great time going to Southwold on the second day of my trip to Suffolk. It is located on the English coast, right next to the North Sea. I was surprised to learn that Southwold is quite a small town (around 1,500 people), but based upon how busy the place seemed I assumed it was much larger! It was my first trip to the English coast since 1994, which was also a visit to Southwold.

This is near the town centre. Again, the place is incredibly busy...anyone could be fooled into thinking Southwold is a bigger place than it really is.

A shot looking towards the beach and the North Sea. The sea itself was calm, but the weather was cold, and made even cooler by a strong breeze.

The beach huts. I've seen plenty of these in pictures of the English coast and this was the first time I'd ever seen them in person. Some of these huts are used for commercial purposes, but a fair amount are beach homes. Southwold is an expensive part of the country, and while the huts themselves consist of one room and a toilet, they can cost anywhere between £25,000-£125,000...perhaps even more depending on the location.

The Southwold Pier. We spent most of our time on the pier in a café called The Clockhouse (the building on the near right); not surprisingly, the pier was colder than the areas on land, but I found The Clockhouse to be a little overheated! They serve lovely food there, nonetheless; I appreciated the hot chocolate and brownie I ordered.

Southwold as viewed from the pier. The Southwold lighthouse can be seen there on the left.

Finally, the North Sea itself, taken from the very end of the pier. Despite making the effort to educate myself about the geography of the United Kingdom, while I was in Southwold I honestly thought that it was considered to be a town on the coastline of the English Channel; evidently the North Sea is one area I've neglected to learn about.

We then walked back off the pier and into a small arcade area, where we played a couple of simple games before walking back to the car and departing Southwold. Is Southwold a place I'd want to return to? Certainly; I'd love to see it on a sunnier day.

The first day in Suffolk

On my initial day in Suffolk, one of the first places I visited was a town called Bungay. I walked with my aunt, uncle, and immediate family members around Bungay and took a few pictures before we returned to my relatives' house. The first day in Suffolk wasn't particularly busy for any of us - other than making the trip there - so I thought it was good to walk around one of the local towns.

All images from the visit were taken with my phone:

This structure here is the Bungay Buttercross. Located near the town centre, the Buttercross was built in 1689, the year after most of Bungay was destroyed in a fire.

I was fortunate to capture this shot of the rain pouring from the clouds in the distance. See that area of darkened sky beneath the clouds? That's rain.

A cenotaph outside the St Edmund's Catholic Church. It commemorates British soldiers from Bungay killed in World War I (the cenotaph itself refers to it as the "Great War").

I was most impressed with this structure. It used to be a windmill but I was informed that it was converted into someone's home. Imagine living in an ex-windmill!

Bungay is a lovely little town and is a very pleasant place to walk around. I look forward to visiting there again.

On the results of the United States presidential election, 2012

At long last, the United States presidential election of 2012 is over. I stayed up all night to watch the results come in, and although it was quite a nail-biter at first, President Barack Obama pulled ahead in the electoral vote when the Pacific states, Iowa and Ohio were all called for him. As I have been strongly in favor of his re-election since before his 2008 win, I am delighted at his victory.

Mr. Obama won all of his 2008 states with the exceptions of Indiana and North Carolina - the latter which he lost narrowly - and as of this writing Florida, which hasn't been called yet but he is leading there. Nate Silver, the statistician who correctly predicted the outcome of 49 of 50 states in 2008 will have a 100% success rate on the presidential level this year if Florida ends the vote counting with a win for Mr. Obama.

I watched Mitt Romney's concession. I am far from a fan of his but I give credit where it is due: I thought that the speech Mr. Romney gave was decent, polite, and gave a call for national unity and support for the president. He sounded fairly cheerful and even looked as though he wanted to be there. I can only commend him for his graciousness.

Beyond the presidential election, the Democrats have both maintained and increased their majority in the Senate, while the Republicans have kept their majority in the House with minor losses; I had hoped that the Democrats would regain the House, but that was definitely a long shot in this election. Maine, Maryland and Washington have all approved gay marriage in referendums held in those states, and Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality there. Colorado and Washington have both voted to allow the use of medical marijuana.

The other interesting referendums of the night were the two held in Puerto Rico. One referendum asked voters in they wanted to change its territorial status or maintain the status quo, and the other one asked if they wanted statehood, free association or independence. Puerto Ricans appear to have voted for change in the former and statehood in the latter. Should Puerto Rico's request be approved by Congress and signed by Mr. Obama, it will become the first new state since Hawaii was admitted to the Union in 1959.

A ridiculous amount of money was spent on this campaign: over two billion dollars was spent on the presidential race alone. Hundreds of millions more was spent on Congressional races, with some Super-PACs having spent tens of millions of dollars just to defeat one person - Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) were swamped with massive amounts of money against them but they held onto their seats. I would like to see the end of the Super-PACs and other excessive wasting of money before the next elections; too much was being spent on elections before Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was ruled upon, and now political spending is out of control.

I am mostly satisfied with the results of the election. I'm also glad that the whole campaign is finally over, and hopefully people will make the attempt to mend any fences broken by extreme partisanship. Sour moods, grudges and a refusal to work together will achieve nothing but more bitterness and political fighting.

Now that the election is finished and I've said my piece, I'm looking forward to writing some more posts about my recent visit to Suffolk and showing some of the pictures I took while there...something that we can all enjoy regardless of our political persuasions!

Back at home again

I'm now back at home in Northamptonshire after a wonderful and surprisingly extended visit with relatives in Suffolk and then in Nottingham. It has been a busy nine days and it does feel strange to be back at home again, but this feeling will subside fairly quickly.

There was a surprise waiting for me at home: a couple of weeks ago I bought Jordan Hill's debut album on Amazon, and the delivery would take between 8-14 days. I was delighted to discover that her album had arrived when I was away.

In the meantime, I have over 250 pictures that I took during the trip to rename. I'm also looking forward to writing some longer posts than the ones I've been typing up recently!

Brief Nottingham stay

We arrived in Nottingham last night after a 2 1/2-hour nighttime trip, and are now currently having a short stay with my grandparents. My aunt and uncle from Suffolk will be returning to their home tomorrow.

As for today's activities, I've spent a good portion of it with four of my cousins; we went over to my Nottingham aunt and uncle's house, and then we went to one of the local cafés. It is also the last day of my (unexpectedly extended) visit with family: I definitely go home tomorrow.

Last day in Suffolk

Today is my last day in Suffolk. It's been quiet again: my aunt, a cousin and I watched a film in the morning, and my aunt and I visited a couple of small towns outside the town where they all live.

There was a change of plan; originally I was supposed to be leaving Suffolk tomorrow, but my aunt and uncle had planned to visit other family members. Depending on my uncle's work we should be leaving for Nottingham in a few hours time and will be staying there for the night. I'll be returning to Northamptonshire tomorrow.

*Update as of 20:26 01/11/2012: It seems I won't be going to Nottingham tonight: my uncle's work will have him busy for the rest of the evening and most of tomorrow. We'll likely be going tomorrow evening instead.

The East of England

For the first time in about eighteen years I'm at my aunt and uncle's house in the county of Suffolk. I look forward to my time here, and will be in Suffolk until next Friday.

It's hard to believe I was only four the last time I was here! I've already taken a few pictures and will be posting them when I return to Northamptonshire.