I did not step foot outside of the house yesterday but made up for it this morning. I popped out for a short walk at 0700 as shooting for the RPS Docklands project has been on the back burner of late as Edgelands has nosed it out.
I got home at 0945 and the D810 had been put through its paces.
Most of the perceived view of Ipswich Docklands is that of the Wet Dock, complete with Wine Rack, wine bars, cafes, coffee shops pizza palaces, UCS and not forgetting the marina.
Step just outside of those pedestrian friendly wharves and a different story emerges.
We have the redundant Gothic pile that was the Tolly Cobbold Brewery when I first turned up here in 1977. I was never that enamoured with the beer they made. I recall that if it was on the pump along with other beers that asking for a pint of river water got you a Tolly bitter.
What a sad state the building is in now.

I kept on walking. Once one starts, it is just one foot in front of the other until you realise that you have to walk back. This happens to me quite often. I get lost in my work. I love it.
Just further along Landseer Road there are the remnants of a tank farm that was at one time of day an Esso tank farm. There are no signs of recent activity here but I am minded of 26th April 1986.

We were on holiday at Selsey Herb and Goat Farm in the Cotswolds and relishing the intensely bright sunshine. Bilbo, our 98% Golden Labrador was as happy as Larry, so happy that on arrival he cocked his leg against my jacket as it hung on the side of the chair and peed for England with that great dopey grin on his face. Luckily it washed out and was drying in the spring heatwave. Well, we did not know that events in Ukraine had by that time no doubt already polluted the air where we sat in sipping wine and eating lunch.

The point of this? Well the chap who owned the farm we were on had until growing herbs, goats and pigs, used to manage the tank farm on Landseer Road.
Ever since then I have always associated Chernobyl with Landseer Road.

Landseer Road gives an opportunity for elevated viewpoints so I scrambled up the rather steep and very soft slopes noting cloven hooved footprints suggest small deer activity, and then across the road to Sandyhill Lane.

On the way back the light was right for this Art Noveau style shelter. Was this a bus terminus at some point?

Then I bumped into Jenny, one of our minders from late night opening at UCS. Current students will have no experience of being able to use the facilities on 3 evenings of the week. They used to be productive times for me. It was good to catch up.

And on I went.

I had made an image of this on the way up but slightly better light made this one the edit of choice. Seeing the wheel of the poster lying the way it is was one of those pictures just crying out to be made. Fast car, brewery tap. They do not mix.

Where did the phrase “The cut of one’s jib” come from?

Also noted on the way up. A test shot for maybe some large format work.

And back on the dock. I had photographed this trawler on the way up this morning but it is the first time I have seen a working fishing vessel in the dock for ages. Fish boxes were being loaded and engines were turning. A long way from her home port of Bideford though.