I don’t know who Dave was.

Yesterday, in my excitement over the Kingfisher, I decided not to post any of the other images I made.

This bench on the Gipping path is something I see when I do my regular bicycle ride. This morning it was still raining here so no bicycle exercise for me, but yesterday morning was incredibly cold and after the first sighting of the Kingfisher I noticed that the flowers had been refreshed on the side of this bench and tinsel had been attached. Someone or some people obviously regularly attend this bench in the memory of Dave. The melancholy light and coldness of the hour  come through in the temperature of this image but there is something of a spark to his former life in the fresh flowers and tinsel. I shall look out for changes on this bench as the year progresses.

Other images are from the Gipping path. The Gipping was an important navigation to inland East Anglian towns before the lock gates fell into disrepair. There is some talk of of renewing these locks but I suspect it will only be for heritage craft or pleasure craft.

Anyway I think I may have chilled too much yesterday morning as I am now fighting off the start of  a head cold.

I previously posted an image of this sculpture with a clear dawn sky and moon. This aspect is from 180 degrees opposite to that and would have been impossible on a clear sunlit dawn. It does show one of the few remaining heritage buildings of the wet dock. R&W Paul owned extensive tracts of land in East Anglia and grain shipments were a big part of trade through Ipswich and still are today albeit from the tidal side of the docks.

I first saw this weeks ago at an appropriate bottom of a similar spring tide. I was on my bicycle that day but have been checking tide tables regularly to work out when it would be uncovered again. One can only surmise as to why a till like this is in the river with drawer open. I expect it is as a result of a robbery.

I do not know why our river systems are a magnet for dumping waste. No end of trollies and bicycles get exposed at very low ebbs on spring tides. Trollies and traffic cones abound but get colonised quite readily by molluscs.

I suppose it is appropriate that it is at least a form of transport discarded at this Anglo Saxon crossing point of the Gipping. One can see why they chose to cross here at the bottom of a Spring tide. The water is very shallow and would have enabled rudimentary building of crossing stones. This crossing is a pinch point in our current transport system. The bridge is quite ugly but somehow fits in with an industrial heritage.

The steel food defence wall is a magnet for graffiti artists. Red hips are a magnet for my eye during the winter months.

It was not until the engineer Bruff broke through Stoke Hill that the GER railway could effectively link London to Norwich. Burrell was responsible for some of Ipswich Station which boasts listed canopies and a rather fetching facade with hand rubbed brick arches. Properties along Burrell Road are somewhat downtrodden in look and feel these days.

Ipswich has long courted a Polish community. There was a Polish Bomb Disposal squad based in Felixstowe and the foundry at Crane Fluid Systems employed many Polish workers in the acrid, hot ash strewn atmosphere of the foundry floor. These days the rivers plays host to many casual drinkers and anglers. I often spot eastern European anglers fishing along the river bank. The ex-military camouflage clothing is a giveaway. This bench is just above the path I normally cycle on and is adjacent to the ‘The Navigator’. This is a steel sculpture celebrating the industries that put Ipswich on the map from corsets to stern glands of ships.

Just after the Navigator I decided to cut short and run, or rather walkfor home. I had been testing various settings on the D810 and the highlight weighted metering seems to be performing quite well. This final shot is straight into the sun. I have dodged the greyish sky around the occluded sun spot. I do not know how Nikon have pulled off this metering mode but the sensor collects sufficient data to drag the exposure easily by 3 stops. It is also perversely similar to an image mage by Chris Mapey, a 2nd year student who was out with digital and film cameras yesterday. Spooky.