Friday Flyers

Posted on August 7, 2026 by crispina kemp

A few of the butterflies seen on our walk on 27th July 2026. And a damselfly.

27th July 2026

🔽 Common Blue Damselfly, lots of these about, not many cooperative 🔼 Meadow Brown

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

🔼 Lots of these too, but devilishly difficult to photograph. Common Blue. Happy to get this shot 🔽 Green-veined White

27th July 2026

🔽 Speckled Wood resting against green, just so we photographers could see it!

27th July 2026

🔽 Those that follow are all Gatekeepers. I think we found Gatekeeper Central! So many. But very fast moving

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

🔼 Love these longer shots! 🔽

27th July 2026

🔽 And this one, it would be sacrilege to crop it close

27th July 2026

That’s it folks. Hope you enjoyed

 

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CCC098: Heal My Heart

Posted on August 6, 2026 by crispina kemp

Yellow Lily
River Lady
Focus of my fantasy
River Lady
Yellow Lily
Lend to me your remedy
Heal my heart
Mend what the world has torn apart
River Lady, there for me

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , , | 24 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #098

Posted on August 5, 2026 by crispina kemp

Every Wednesday I’ll post FOUR photos (if you want to get a head start you’ll find them marked in that week’s Sunday Picture Post and Tuesday Treats). Lots of choice!

And here they are:

You respond with something CREATIVE. Perhaps an  answering photo, or micro-fiction, or a poem, or just a caption

As before, there are only two criteria:

!!!!! Your creative offering is indeed yours !!!!!

!!!!! Your writing is kept to 150 words or less !!!!!

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it.

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Prompt | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Tuesday Treats: Late July Flowers

Posted on August 4, 2026 by crispina kemp

A small collection of late July flowers, photos taken on our walk on 27th July 2026. Enjoy…

27th July 2026

Two invasive plants but so very different 🔼 Himalayan Balsam invades and clogs our waterways. But the bees love it and it’s so pretty 🔽 A Bramble Briar entwined with bindweed. Here’s another pretty flower, and the bees love this too and we love its berries. But it shows up all over the place and is nigh impossible to eradicate

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

Wetland delights 🔼 Up close and personal with Purple Loosestrife 🔽 Reedmace surviving, yet the ground is dry enough to support Ragwort and Thistles ⏬ Looking like an orchid, this Marsh Woundwort likes it damp

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

Two yellow flowered plants 🔼 Common Fleabane and 🔽 no longer in flower so I can’t give you a definite ID but my guess is Birdsfoot Trefoil

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

Two healing herbs 🔼 St John’s Wort, still used today for depression and anxious 🔽 Yarrow, one time used to staunch blood flow

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

Into the edibles. Maybe! 🔼 Wild Carrot. It might be the grandma of today’s carrots but you’d have to be desperate to make a meal of its root 🔽 Sloe might vaguely resemble a plum but… draws a mouth tighter than a purse!

27th July 2026

🔽 Giving us a taste of what’s to come next week. Yellow Water-Lily (squint hard, it’s there 😁)

27th July 2026

And that is all for this week. More next week. But don’t forget Friday Flyers

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Sunday Picture Post: Last Walk of July

Posted on August 2, 2026 by crispina kemp

27th July 2026, forecast cool morning, hotter-than-hot afternoon. We need a walk that’s done by noon and yet will feed the camera with ample shots. I know just the one, although we seldom walk it in summer, plus this time we’re varying it. So, let’s fill our water bottles and head out…

27th July 2026

Until I damaged my knee in 2024 we’d always started Marriott’s Way from within the city of Norwich. Since then we’ve reduced the walk, bussing out to join the Way at a later point 🔼 The new route takes us through a shady belt of trees 🔽 with a hump-backed bridge to take us over the Wensum, the river that is Marriott’s Way constant companion

27th July 2026

🔽 Way up river we see a bright spot. My camera zooms in. It’s a swan

27th July 2026

🔽 These days, Marriott’s Way is a long distance cycle route and also provides safe cycling for getting around the outskirts of Norwich

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

🔼Although channels help to drain the land between the Wensum and Marriott’s Way, there are ample signs that it is still a wetland 🔽⏬

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

🔼Since 2020, when the popularity of cycling boomed, these paths have been improved to make them cycle-safe. Happy for walkers too!🔽 Which way? We’re heading for Sweet Briar Marshes, a nature reserve

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

🔼 We might have drought, but the wetlands vegetation is rampant 🔽

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

🔼 A provided hard-surface path, but we walkers have always used the other path 🔽 It’s windy! Flowers and grasses alike bend to the blustery gusts. We welcome its cooling effect

27th July 2026

27th July 2026

🔼 The Serengeti-look of Sweet Briar Marshes. Yet butterflies are plentiful (See Friday Flyers) on the flourishing flowers (See Tuesday Treats)

🔽 Bridge over the Wensum, one of many of this walk. Hereafter we’ll be walking the county-side of the city boundary. But I’m saving that for next week – which ensures I’ve something to show you even if another heatwave zaps me

27th July 2026

That’s all for this week, folks. Don’t miss Tuesday Treats. Loads of flowers. And Friday Flyers.

Hope you enjoyed

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Oddments. Miscellany. Patchwork. Collage.

Posted on August 1, 2026 by crispina kemp

Image credit: Eynoxart via Pixabay

I tried not to stare at her
This dishevelled lass of indeterminant age
Late teens? She could have been older
In my continued silence
She repeated: I’m an artist
I asked: Performing? Creative?
She answered: Destructive
Then turned and said, Come see
When she opened her door I saw
Oddments. Miscellany
Patchwork? Collage?
Explosive hodgepodge!

55 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Hodgepodge

Posted in Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

CCC097: An Almost True Story

Posted on July 30, 2026 by crispina kemp

1271: Foundation of the grey-friars’ monastery (Franciscan Order)

1538: Dissolution of that monastery (by order of King Henry VIII)

Portions of land and buildings variously gifted and sold
Carter, local merchant, amongst those invested, or investing

Elegant town house erected
Warehouse raised around monastery remains (the granary)

1604: Annexe built as wedding gift to the merchant’s son

1605: Carters involved with the Gunpowder plot, discredited, fled

Former merchants’ buildings converted to solicitors’ offices

2000: Offices converted to residential units

2005: Latest occupier of the converted warehouse (formerly the granary) wakes around midnight, cold. There follows a heart-warming friendship of occupier and ghost

An almost true story

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, History, Mostly Micro, Photos, Prompt | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #097

Posted on July 29, 2026 by crispina kemp

Every Wednesday I’ll post FOUR photos (if you want to get a head start you’ll find them marked in that week’s Sunday Picture Post and Tuesday Treats). Lots of choice!

And here they are:

You respond with something CREATIVE. Perhaps an  answering photo, or micro-fiction, or a poem, or just a caption

As before, there are only two criteria:

!!!!! Your creative offering is indeed yours !!!!!

!!!!! Your writing is kept to 150 words or less !!!!!

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it.

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Prompt | Tagged , , , | 23 Comments

Tuesday Treats: Up and Down The Streets

Posted on July 28, 2026 by crispina kemp

An odd collection of details and places that caught my eye in Summer 2020. Enjoy…

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼⏫ I do wonder if this ought to be called street art, since I found it not in the street but in an underpass that sneaks beneath the busy bypass road to allow we nature fiends to reach our destination without getting squashed! 🔽⏬

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼 See photo of Benedictine priory in Sunday’s post 🔽 Flowers colonising our town wall

Summer 2020

🔽 From detail of town wall to detail of town hall…or rather its annexe, though it’s now converted into apartments.

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼 In Sunday’s post I said about Gt Yarmouth’s rows. This one runs from the market place towards the quay. The signage is for Back To Backs, a wonderful pub that’s tucked into there 🔽 No words needed here

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼🔽⏬ More Yarmouth rows…

Summer 2020

🔼 I think this one is Capt Christmas’s Row. Christmas used to be a common name around here 🔽 Many rows are named for the pub on the corner. Lots of corners, lots of pubs!

Summer 2020

That’s all for now. I hope to be back into the rural lanes in time for next week’s posts!

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Sunday Picture Post: 2020 Hindsight, A Town In Lockdown

Posted on July 26, 2026 by crispina kemp

Due to too many appointments for both myself and my daughter, we’ve not managed a walk over the past two weeks. So, I must resort to the archives, and I thought you might like see our town. Here’s some photos I took during the lockdown of Summer 2020. Hope you enjoy

Summer 2020

I lived just 2 minutes walk from the quay in 2020 🔼 The trawler Lydia Eva is permanently moored here, but though a museum it wasn’t open to the public that year 🔽 While our fishing industry died long years ago, private boats were and are available to hire for those who enjoy line-fishing

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼 Not every day is sunny. But the view of the river is always good 🔽

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼 Back in the 12th & 13th centuries, our town had several priories – until King Henry VIII ‘dissolved’ them. Some parts remain. This is Greyfriars, upon whose former grounds I lived in 2020 🔽 Great Yarmouth town hall, built 1880 in Queen Anne style

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼 The market place and town centre, looking even less exciting and attractive than usual. The photo is slightly deceptive, it was taken early morning before the shops opened 🔽 More than one hundred alleys, called rows, dissect the town, east to west. Back in the day those rows channeled the sea breezes and helped to keep the town plague-free. But some of those rows were rather narrow. Not this one. This is Broad Row

Summer 2020

🔽 Great Yarmouth has two literary connections. In 1848 Charles Dickens stayed at the Royal Hotel (on sea front) to write David Copperfield. And in 1820 Anna Sewel, author of Black Beauty, was born in this C17th house

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼 St Nicholas’, reputed the largest parish church in England 🔽

Summer 2020

🔽 The old Benedictine priory, founded by Herbert de Losinga, Bishop of Norwich, at the same time as he founded Norwich Cathedral (1101). Henry VIII closed it. It later served as St Nicholas Primary School (1853-1999) and is now a community-focused facility

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

🔼 And no visit to Great Yarmouth is complete without at least a look at the sea front. Somewhat quiet during lockdown. So sad to see the theatre closed 🔽

Summer 2020

I hope you enjoyed this trip into my archives. It seems the summer of 2020 wasn’t particularly bright! No comment to that. See Tuesday Treats for some ‘unusual’ bits and pics. And don’t forget Crimson’s Creative Challenge on Wednesday 😀

Posted in Photos | Tagged , , | 29 Comments