Death Warrant by order of the Sheriff of Kent, a bookseller and Gormley in Folkestone, Minter in Thanet manuscript, photos ramble, mostly the usual type of stuff.

I have never seen a Kent death warrant before and in terms of significant Kentish documents I think it must be one of the scarcest. The document would have been handed to the executioner and having discharged his task he would have presumably torn it up and thrown it away.

I don’t think I have to be politically correct on this one, as I don’t think there were any female executioners in eighteenth century Kent.

My day off today so off to Folkestone where the children can shop, do what they do on the beach and I can get a view to paint with a pot of Yorkshire tea, comfortable seat and the sun behind me.

Marrin’s bookshop where I bought a few books including a manuscript for publication, the Fanit youf who will type this up, enhance the photos and turn it into a local book which I will publish is. What? Rubbing hands together with enthusiasm, a teenagers lot, oh well.

I decided that the death warrant was a bit expensive and as it wasn’t a Fanit one didn’t buy it, wot about the black seal, ever seen the like?

I wos in search of the Gormley’s as well, who wouldn’t be

Here are uncut, unedited camera card content links – all the photos I took today apart from the ones on mi fern.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817L/id17.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817L/id18.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817L/id19.htm

still on the arts and literature front here is the link to the books that went out on the shelves in the bookshop in Ramsgate on Wednesday http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/chitty-chitty-bang-bang-in-bookshop.html

Ramsgate Carnival photos around 1984 and Rocket Man in Kent

I would say the carnival photos speak for themselves, but who knows any comments would certainly be interesting. Is the date right?

Do you ever get that feeling that reality may be bunging up too many coincidences? I bough various books charts and maps in the bookshop today, but with the usual suspects among world leaders hovering their fingers over big red buttons, the Doodle Bug Map of Kent and the book showing various early rockets and the individuals keen to twiddle knobs, it was a bit of strange day.

if it won't expand enough try clicking on this link and if you get desperate downloading the image

Oh well it never rains but it pours, so I don’t suppose there will be out and about photos for today, so here are some Margate photos for five years ago http://michaelsbookshop.com/laptop912/id5.htm and some Ramsgate ones http://michaelsbookshop.com/laptop912/id6.htm

Ramsgate regeneration and degeneration sun sea shopping and Folkestone.

I am outnumbered by the fairer sex in my family, this means that leisure will probably include shopping for clothes or shoes or even handbags, this something I don’t understand and am also allergic to.

When we go outside and the shopping occurs I usually have to be put into a man crèche or found a secondhand bookshop, as I understand browsing and my allergy doesn’t present.

Bank Holiday wise we spent Sunday in Canterbury, this is the Lords prayer in English somewhere on the edge of Old English and Middle English so probably 1200s, as you see the past, only some 800 years ago, probably a couple of hundred years after the conquest, indeed another country.

 where I bought books and painted dreadful watercolours, then Monday reared it’s head, the requirement being sun, sea, sand and shopping.

I mentioned Margate, apparently there are no shops there that have any appeal whatsoever to teenage girls – name one?

This may seem strange to some younger readers – but wasn’t going to spend bank holiday Monday in an out of town shopping centre.

What is required apparently are shops like Pimark, Next, Peacocks on the one hand and the beach on the other.

Folkestone was decided as the solution, Folkestone had very similar issues to Ramsgate, around the same size too, perhaps a marginally larger population, up until fairly recently it was a significant ferry port.

However unlike Ramsgate where the council seem keen on turning the place into an industrial transport hub, Folkestone is being turned into an arts and leisure town. 

 Here is the link to the books that went out in the bookshop on Saturday 

This gadding about is no new thing this poster I came across over the weekend is fro 1923

Link to some of the photos

Next here is the link to this evening's Ramsgate out and about photos

Some August Thanet photos

Local history is a strange business and I think the most difficult time to cover in Thanet during the time between the end of the second world war and the late 1990s. Finding photos is particularly difficult.  

Around 2010 I started putting the photos I took out and about on the internet. I did live in Ramsgate from sometime in the 1960s and around 1972 I did take quite a lot of photos, but these were of family, friends, motorbikes, etc. it never occurred to me to take lots of pictures of the Thanet towns and at the time I don’t think they would have been much use for anything.

If you want to get to the pictures I took it’s really a matter of working back through this blog using the blog archive wosisname on the sidebar

Most of the pictures are probably on webpages with a series of link along the top, like the ones I am putting up this month

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817L/

and

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817/

The pictures I took today being at

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817L/id15.htm

with some older August ones being at

http://michaelsbookshop.com/810/id7.htm

and

http://michaelsbookshop.com/811

At times I have thought about going through and deleting the worst photos, but never got round to it

All the fun of the fair in Ramsgate and I start paining St Anselm's Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral

A few out and about pictures in Ramsgate this evening, Harbour Parade is much busier than usual because of the music and funfair. This does beg the question of how much busier Ramsgate would be if Pleasurama was still operating and further questions about local taxation subsidising amusements.

Here is the link to the rest of the rest of the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817L/id13.htm

It’s a similar problem to the lack of High Street shops, most severe I think in Margate, which has become a town where it is difficult to get younger people to go to unless the weather is good and very difficult to get them to go to in winter.

Up until Primark closed it was just about an all year family destination, meaning I could take my children with me when I wanted to sketch there in the winter.

I went to Canterbury today, had a wander around the cathedral looking for somewhere to start another painting, eventually asked some of the people who work there and have started to have a go at St Anselm's Chapel.

I also took some photos of the chapel, here is the link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/817L/id14.htm

I won’t go into the history of this as there is plenty online, but I think it has solved my ongoing problem of somewhere to paint, where there is a seat and the light is mostly coming from behind me.

Funfair in Ramsgate Henry’s in Margate, the start of a series of posts about cameras and photography, some sort of ramble and some out and about photos of Ramsgate.

Over the last 10 to 15 years advances in camera and mobile technology have made changes to the way photography is done.

If you had a fairly expensive camera back in the day, if you are wondering about getting a digital camera or if you are considering photography from the armchair then this may be a useful series of posts to add to this blog

  

One thing in photography is about length, and what you can and can’t fit in.

I was caught short in Herne Bay yesterday so headed for the loos up the Reculver end, after which I took a few photos of the end of Herne Bay pier.

I have a very cheap mobile phone this link brings it up on Ebay I bought it because it has long battery life, the camera is OK but not amazing.

 This is want it makes of the pier.

and this about the best I could do zooming in and cropping out.

Like Dora The Explorer, I had my backpack with me, so fished both real cameras out of it and faced the music.

This is what the bridge camera will do

The business of cameras is a strange one, for over 100 years this involved a box with a lens on one end and light sensitive chemicals coated on see-through wosisname, film glass at the other end.

Recently this has changed to a box with a lens on one end and light sensitive electro wosisname at the other end.

Electro wosisnames are getting smaller, so the itsy bitsy phone cameras are now around about as good for most purposes as the expensive film cameras were, so I am going to explre some of the minor differences.  

Now the main reason I use a proper camera is because I wear reading glasses and proper cameras have an optical correction knob next to the viewfinder, so when I look into the viewfinder on a sunny day with no glasses on I can see what I am going to take a photo of.

There are various different reasons for having different cameras and some compromises mostly to do with how much they cost. Obviously as a shop assistant I fall into the economy bracket.

I also like to try before I buy, so I go into the Game Shop exchange places and buy secondhand cameras from there.

The bridge camera I am using at the moment is a Canon PowerShot S3 IS which I think was about £600 when it came out to rave reviews and I think was about £35 secondhand.

I am surprised it has survived rattling around in my pocket for over two months now.

Batteries are probably the top consideration in a camera, if the thing won't take ordinary AA rechargeable UNiROSS camera batteries and anything from Duracells to £1 Shop batteries when they go flat then creeks and paddles come to mind.

When it comes to optical attachments for cameras, don't forget that a lot of what fitted film cameras also fits digital ones, so the high street camera shops like Henry's in Margate can be very useful.

so a long shot of Henry's like this one can be taken using the bridge camera armed with optics from Henry's.

Bookshop wise follow the link and link

picture wise follow the  link link and link

here are some of the ones from my mobile phone

sorry unfinshed post clicked publish by mistake