Never Trust a Man with a Nappy on his Head! - England/Scotland with my son (1)

I've decided to re-post my very first hiking saga for you, since most of you will have missed this, due to the fact I didn't have that many readers back in the day...it comes in installments, so keep your eyes peeled.

Enjoy!

I've wanted to take a sentimental journey to Norwich for years. 

But you know how it is: no time, or no money, or no time and money.

Finally, this April, time, money, opportunity and my son all happened to coincide.

 I booked a ferry trip to Harwich, a train ticket to everywhere (I'll explain 

about this later) and packed lightly.

We arrived in Harwich after an uneventful night, and found a delighted ticket 

seller at Harwich station. He was only too happy to stamp our BritRail passes 

and told us to swop trains and platforms at Manningtree.

Norwich used to be a haunt of mine when I was in my teens and early twenties, 

and I hadn't been back there since. My memories of this Norfolk city are pleasant. 

The Close, the ancient Cathedral grounds, is rated amongst the most beautiful 

and un-spoilt of England. So I felt a happy anticipation when we left the station 

and walked along the river walk to the Cathedral.

Some hours, and a visit to the Keep and Sheringham Beach later, 

we needed to find ourselves a bed for the night. The first four B&B's had 

no vacancies. We walked uphill and found a hotel which did B&B. It looked a 

bit shabby, but clean, and (quite important) it had two single rooms for us for 

the price of a double, and they even threw in breakfast for free.

We decided to walk back to the station to get ourselves some sandwiches for 

dinner, and when we had almost reached our hotel, we passed a group of young

men coming from that direction. When they had passed us, we looked back. 

Did one of them really wear a Pamper on his head? Yes.

I tried to explain the quaint practice of 'Stag Night' to my son. We had a laugh 

about it. Silly Englishmen.

Our day had started at 5 am, so we were ready for bed at 10 pm. We had only 

just wished each other a good night when an almighty banging and shouting 

started up next door. Our two single rooms were the bookends to the Stag Boy's 

room, you could say. He needed a lot of Dutch courage. The shouting, screaming,

 singing, counting 'one, two, three, bottoms up', and eventually the howling fights 

and violent throwing up lasted until 4 am. We got 10 minutes sleep, then a fight 

started under our window.

We needed to be on a bus to Peterborough at 9.40, so we needed to get up early 

anyway. 

Somehow, Norwich didn't live up to its memories.

The Frustrations of a Newby Music Film Maker

Good afternoon to you, where ever you are!
You have missed me...at least, if you are a regular reader, you have. Otherwise you haven't...duh!
The reason for my absence is that I have been very busy with my regular work (let's not talk about that - although fulfilling it is extremely stressful at times and non-eventful at most others. I enjoy it. I like my pupils. It brings in the veggies. Full stop) and with my passion: singing.

I have mentioned that I am a singer/the singer (opinions differ here. I like to think I am THE singer) in three set-ups: a cover band consisting of 5 other musicians of a certain age and myself, and a duo consisting of my son in law (gorgeously young) and myself, and a jam session band consisting of  20 or so very different musicians who drop in or out and sort of do their thing - preferably at the same time as the others.
And as of yesterday I have been drafted to be the singer in a jazz band as well.
Hey-ho!
Sounds great. Is great, really, it is a lot of fun!

But: and here it comes...I have been toiling to upload a song to let you all listen to what I am working on. I've recorded it on my iPhone, using iMovie, and uploading a load of my own original photos to give you something to look at whilst listening to me singing a song.
So far, so good. It's finished, it's as good as it gets. And it's floating in cyber space...or is right now being performed on Pluto. 
But for the life of me I cannot seem to import it into my Mac. Or export it to YouTube or even FB (I mean..geez, FB takes anything, right?).
My iPhone keeps informing me that I do not have enough storing space. Well...fiddle-dee, I have space, since I've removed 3/4 of my stock of photos and songs. But my phone thinks differently.
So, clever clogs that I am, I thought to import it directly into my iMove on the Mac. Right? Nothing doing.
So there it is: a perfect little 4 minute song with images, lounging in my phone and determined to stay there and not be shifted.

I got soooooo frustrated!
Usually I routinely upload onto YouTube and then give you a link. Doesn't work.

So you will simply have to take it from me. I have tried. Honestly I have.
If there is anyone out there who knows how to fix this, please reply in the comment section.
In the meantime, I will keep on singing. 
It's just that I will have to sit on my hands in order not to throw my i-whatsits through the plate glass window!

UPDATE 2/27/2017: In the meantime I have managed to upload the song onto my Facebook page...yeah! If you are curious: the name is Song Smith, the photo a painting of a lizzard, the song is called Cry Me A River.