The Wrecking Crew

Do you often get that feeling when you realise that it's too late to do something which you should have done sometime ago?

Well I got that feeling today, when I saw that they had begun to knock down a building that I should have taken a photo of a few months ago.

The building in particular is the former British Red Cross offices, situated on a cross roads near the QMC. It has been empty for a while now, and so I've had ample opportunity to do it, but kept putting it off. Now it is too late.

Besides taking its photo for posterity, it was also unusual in design, in that it had a strange roof design, as well as the overall footprint of building. Certainly a one off. I can't quite remember when it was originally built, but it has certainly been there since the mid 1970s.

On The Garden Trail

I popped over to the Park Estate this afternoon, as they were holding an event to raise money for various local charities. 21 Gardens had been opened up to the public, so they could have a look around and see what is usually behind closed doors and high walls.

Some gardens also had art displays, like these resin heads; that were in various colours. I didn't take that many photos of the flowers, but couldn't resist this Kiwi fruit bush that was growing quite happily around an archway. And had even produced small fruit, which you can see if you look carefully.

Another garden had a display of wedding gowns on show. Possibly because the owner of that particular house organised weddings.

There was a fair bit of walking involved, as the gardens were quite spread out around the many different streets that make up this exclusive neighbourhood. I was quite excited to see this old MG parked at the side of the road, and fortunately I managed to get a shot of it, without capturing any modern vehicles.

The first garden trail was in 1986 and raised a modest £520. Last year's event raised an impressive £11,500. I'll let you know how well they do when I hear what the figure is. But I think it should be pretty good by the number of people I saw walking around with the programmes in their hands.

The Ace Of Spades

Driving past the White Hart pub in Lenton, We came across a gathering of motorcyclists. Oh, I said, a photo opportunity. So I parked up and we went to investigate.

The White Hart is a pub that I cycle past every day on my way to work, but I've never actually been inside. So this was also an opportunity to put this right.

As we were both hungry, we went in for some food. We both went for the enchiladas; and very tasty they were too. I think we will be eating there again, as it was good food, well cooked and quite reasonably priced.

So onto the motorbikes. Although I'm not that keen on them, I was impressed on how they riders had customised them. We were particularly impressed with the main one in the photo, who's owner is stood by Gail, explaining the in's and out's of his machine. He said that the skulls that adorn the bike were made by someone in the West Midlands, who is now so good at such things, that he has gone into business for himself.

Apparently the Nottingham Aces group have been meeting at the pub for about the last fifty odd years. So we had a look inside their club room. The walls were adorned with loads of photos of club members, both past & present, memorabilia and motorbike artworks. They even had a old wall mounted jukebox that had loads of Sixties hits. In fact I didn't really see any tunes that were later than about 1972.

It was quite an interesting time we had, and the group is certainly something that I'd known nothing about, despite my continual scanning of local events that are advertised in all forms of social media.