Thoughts from the maize maze

Yesterday was my day off and being the summer holidays some sort of entertainment for the children, that didn’t leave the adults mazed, was required.

One of the things that is very effective at this time of year is the maize maze http://www.quexpark.co.uk/default/quex-maize-maze.aspx at Quex neat Birchington, this costs £1.50 per person, the more adventurous adults can join in, while those of a more sedentary nature can remain outside the maze.

I opted for the maze, it is big enough and complex enough to get lost in and I can recommend it for that purpose.

I have to admit to a steak sandwich at Quex Barn first, children’s meals there are £5 and it is a very easy place to eat with children in tow.

While sitting there waiting for children to eat up I spent some time researching Manston Airport on the internet, this was supposed to give me a clearer idea of the drinking water issues there, what I turned up instead was that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is due there today.

With the peculiar failures of the councils main website http://www.thanet.gov.uk/ and their tourism website http://www.visitthanet.co.uk/ it is surprisingly difficult to find out what is going on here in Thanet. I also use the sidebar on Eastcliff Richard’s blog http://eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com/ and http://www.kent.all-in-one-place.co.uk/

This is one of those gritty problems, I just don’t have time to do a what’s on in Thanet website and the council seem to be spending our money on doing this, but missing many of the important events that are on in the next week, while at the same time promoting events that are on at some random time in the future.

The main problem here is that people from outside the area would normally expect council run events websites to be inclusive and therefore trust them. By this I mean that if the councils websites doesn’t list important events, then people are inclined to assume that those events don’t exist and to look no further.

The main events, for the next few days, that I have noticed and that they seem to have missed altogether are the Manston flypast today, and the Ramsgate lifeboat open day and fishing boat race on Sunday, see http://www.ramsgatelifeboat.org.uk/rl-home.htm

Perhaps they just didn’t think them important enough, the Battle of Britain, the lifeboat and the local fishermen, this would seem unlikely. Perhaps they didn’t know about these events, the Manston flypast did seem to be a bit elusive but Ramsgate Lifeboat open day and the fishing boat race are annual events, click on the link for a few pictures of Ramsgate Lifeboat open day last year http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts4/id16.htm

Anyway so much for thoughts from the maze, here are the pictures that were in the camera http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/810/id8.htm including some taken in the maze, not very exciting visually as it is all maize.

Anyway I armed myself with the telephoto lens today and went out to try to get some pictures of the Battle of Britain memorial flight. I didn’t get any, either I missed them or they didn’t come over Ramsgate, perhaps they didn’t come to Manston at all.

I did after practicing on some sparrows in the garden manage to get some of the boats taking part in Ramsgate week, here they are http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/810/id9.htm

Now a strange reflection from the maze of life. There are several pictures in this week’s Gazette that are attributed to me, strangely enough they are not mine. The local papers do often use my pictures and sometimes they don’t credit them so I suppose this makes up for that.