Dreamland and Margate Easter Bank Holiday 2019 photos and some old Dreamland photos a rare picture of me testing the facilities for the mature visitor

As a local businessperson I think the main recent Thanet improvements are the reopening of Dreamland in Margate and Wetherspoons in Ramsgate. In this capacity I often test these facilities and also do my best to take some photos and store them on the internet, so today it was Margate with camera and brush.

Anyway the links to the photos should be at the bottom of this blog post and I will try to fill the first bit with historic Dreamland photos.

We are back at work tomorrow the last batch of books went out on Saturday here is the link to them 

Margate and Dreamland, the verdict is.

Dreamland has improved a lot since it first reopened.

I think traffic management and parking in particular is probably the main constraining element at the moment, we parked in Morrison's multi story which was easy, when we arrived at Dreamland parking was difficult at the car parks there. The other big issue is that the heavy traffic on Marine Parade cuts off the amusements from the beach and creates air pollution in an area where people have come for the fresh air.

Margate town centre is still a problem and I think the root of this is that Westwood Cross changed Thanet from an area with about the right amount of retail space for businesses to survive with moderate difficulty, into an area with far too much shop space for anything much to work.

With thousands of visitors in Margate today and very few shops for them to spend their money in, combined with the number of days when there are thousands of visitors being relatively low, it is hard to see a good solution.

With today's photos the groups that are nearly the same are the ones I hope to make GIF animation with.

Margate and Dreamland photos 22.4.2019 1

Dreamland and Margate photos 22.4.2019 2

Dreamland 2015 Blog post with pictures 

Photos of Margate and Dreamland June 2016

Photos of Margate Dreamland temporary fair 2012 1

Photos of Margate Dreamland temporary fair 2012 2

Photos of Margate Dreamland temporary fair 2012 3

As promised a rare photo of me testing out newly opened local facilities for the more mature resident.

 These two gif animations were made with the same photos the second one using the photos in reverse order

 Bit of sketching over a cuppa and a snack in The Cinque Ports, pleasant pub with good food and if I get time I will go back and do some more to the sketch another day.

Mostly Margate, Dreamland, Turner Contemporary, some photos

I took the day off today and went to Margate, started with "Portfolio" exhibition at Turner contemporary, the photos in this post are only representative I will put a link to the rest at the end of the post.

On to revisit the main exhibition. The Waterhouse is till my fave in this.

Sat in the shade of the wall over a cuppa and sketched a rather tall Droit House for a bit.

Then on to Dreamland, much improved with the new wristband and token arrangements, I think from the ratio of people walking around, people waiting for rides and people riding they have this just about right.

Back in the day when I worked for Chipperfields fair this was regulated by adjusting the prices of the rides, Jimmy Chipperfield was a professional showman and Dreamland had that sort of look about it today.

 Margate Sands were reasonaby busy too

Back to the gallery where I did a bit more to the watercolour of Old Kent Market

For the rest of the photos, all the ones on my phone today, click on the link https://goo.gl/photos/NdQudNEBpENMgjoh8  

Photos of the New Old Kentish Market, the Books, the Seesaw in Turner Contemporary, Dreamland, Some Painting, Then and Now all in bank Holiday Margate.

Good Friday being a Bank Holiday and being replete with Hot Cross Buns, my children – for some inexplicable reason – wanted to drive dodgem cars at Dreamland. Obviously I tried reasoning with them, suggesting outings of an educational of possibly theological nature, but for some reason my reason failed to prevail.

 A lot of pictures in this post, clicking on them frantically will make them bigger.

 I really can't see the atraction

 Fun they said, I mean, to say. What is fun?

 OK proper quoth, er um, quote - the caps are Death's leaden voice and the quote Terry Pratchett:-
WE ARE HAVING FUN?
'I thought I was,' said his lordship uncertainly. The voice by his ear was vaguely worrying him; it appeared to be arriving directly into his brain.
WHAT IS FUN?
'This is!'
TO KICK VIGOROUSLY IS FUN?
'Well, part of the fun. Kick!'
TO HEAR LOUD MUSIC IN HOT ROOMS IS FUN?
'Possibly.'
HOW IS THIS FUN MANIFEST?

I inadvertently added a photo from an old blog post to FaceBook and had to do some explaining about the nature of Margate 

 Note the red line round the building in about 1870

Note the red line round the same building today, I should have stood on the left of the path, but didn't, note to self to try harder.

Wrong posts same kidney.

 sand

 peole

 sun

Oh well

 New Old Kentish Market, open today

 See inside - the mobile phone camera is not really the best for this type of photography

 you need a wide

 or a tall attachment

 or perhaps a big lens

on to art 

Well actually painting in Turner Contemporary Cafe 

 While eating

this

 Two new exhibitions in the gallery

 Shonibare’s The British Library, a colourful work, celebrating and questioning how immigration has contributed to the British culture that we live in today. Shelves of books covered in colourful wax fabric fill the Sunley Gallery, their spines bearing the names of immigrants who have enriched British society. From T.S. Eliot and Hans Holbein to Zaha Hadid, The British Library reminds us that the displacement of communities by global war has consequences that inform our lives and attitudes today.

 And Shonibare’s newest sculptural work End of Empire explores how alliances forged in the First World War changed British society forever, and continue to affect us today. The new work features two figures dressed in the artist’s signature bright and patterned fabrics; their globe-heads highlighting the countries involved in the First World War. Seated on a Victorian see-saw, the entire work slowly pivots in the gallery space, offering a metaphor for dialogue, balance and conflict, while symbolising the possibility of compromise and resolution between two opposing forces.

 I think I prefer the The British Library