On Friday, I finished in Liverpool city centre at 17:00 and had a boat due to depart to Dublin at 22:00 from Bootle Docks just five miles up the road. This left me with time to look around at Crosby and Blundellsands, near the mouth of the Mersey. An old, quiet, clearly very affluent suburb of Liverpool with huge houses dating from a few years before and after the Great War, probably built as the residences of the managers who worked at such places as the Royal Liver and Cunard buildings I've pictured here in the last few days.

Signs pointed to parking for Anton Gormley's Other Place, and I wondered if I was going to see the 100 or so "statues on the beach" that one of my trainees had mentioned at Crosby. Curiously, though, the signs petered out towards the beach and I stopped a couple of times at a quiet park, and beside a boating lake and walked around in the immediate vicinity for a few minutes. The dog-walkers and joggers were all out on a pleasant evening; the beach was a good few hundred yards away - in these flat parts there's such a gentle shelf from town to sea that there's an interim of lagoons and sandhills much of the way.

Heading North again, expecting to leave Crosby, I found yet more signs to Anton Gormley's other place and , following, was directed right up into the top, beachside corner of the town where the signs petered again. Ah well .. I pulled into what looked like a regular seafront car park. With the traditional chip van and Ice cream van.

Families parked up; the more mature folks sitting in their cars watching the dipping sun, the boats coming in and out, and the other activities. The people of about our age taking a gentle walk on the front. Younger still, joggers and cyclers, and kids on the beach playing with balls and making sandcastles. And, now that I look carefully, odd people just standing out there on the beach gazing to sea. Motionless. Scattered over the sands. And I come to realise ... these are the statues on the beach that I had been told about. One hundred life size casts of the artist, all facing out to sea and spread across the sands ... accepted as part of the natural life of the place by the locals, enjoying their beach that evening amongst the work.

As the tide came in, the sun dropped towards the horizon and the light became lower, the figures disappeared into the sea. A head sticking up there, a complete torso visible off to the left and what looked like a paddling figure a short distance to my right.

Anton Gormley is the creator of Gateshead's famous "Angel of the North", and his "Other Place" work will remain on display in Crosby until November, when it will be moved to a new location.


Container boats, ferries, high speed cats passed by, and in due course it was time for me to head down to the docks and my own ship ... the "Norbay" bound for Dublin, from where I'm posting today.


(written 2006-06-25, updated 2006-06-30)

 Z100 - Daily life
  [19] interesting products and subjects - (2004-08-19)
  [20] Not two the same - (2004-08-20)
  [26] Matching Cat - (2004-08-24)
  [110] Friday, busy week! - (2004-11-05)
  [149] Fish stocks - (2004-12-12)
  [206] Fox and Python - (2005-02-08)
  [228] Beard Justification - (2005-02-26)
  [232] Diverse activities - (2005-03-01)
  [238] Difficulties with a trolley - (2005-03-07)
  [271] Different course every day - (2005-04-07)
  [283] Natural or man-made? - (2005-04-18)
  [307] Farming yesterday - (2005-05-10)
  [330] An O level comes in handy - (2005-05-30)
  [363] Greetings from Edinburgh - (2005-06-29)
  [446] Up early - (2005-09-16)
  [455] A Stengthening day - (2005-10-04)
  [473] Looking different in town - (2005-10-22)
  [474] Vintage Bus Day - (2005-10-23)
  [516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
  [580] What to do with milk - (2006-01-28)
  [584] Loosing breath with Gerald - (2006-01-31)
  [605] Design your day with a walk - (2006-02-13)
  [612] Coming or going? - (2006-02-18)
  [613] Greetings from Dublin - (2006-02-20)
  [623] Behind every face is a person and a story - (2006-02-25)
  [635] Odd one out. - (2006-03-06)
  [645] Lost Camel - (2006-03-14)
  [654] Making use of disabled facilities - (2006-03-22)
  [655] Can some food be TOO different? - (2006-03-23)
  [692] Healthier eating - (2006-04-20)
  [698] Catch up weekend - (2006-04-24)
  [706] May day away - (2006-05-01)
  [724] Helping mental health through diet, exercise and other lifestyle matters - (2006-05-18)
  [752] Over zealous police activity? - (2006-06-09)
  [817] Working on Weekend in Wiltshire and others - (2006-07-29)
  [843] To join an organisation? - (2006-08-23)
  [882] Rocks, hard places, trains and funerals. - (2006-09-30)
  [897] Too much for the National Trust - (2006-10-18)
  [908] And so to Inverness - (2006-10-29)
  [911] Letter Home - (2006-11-01)
  [921] French Exchange - (2006-11-11)
  [978] Wellhouse Manor, Hotel, Melksham - (2006-12-10)
  [992] Enthusiastic, but .... - (2006-12-16)
  [1056] Another frantic posting! - (2007-01-30)
  [1057] Selling by phone and Skype - our policy - (2007-01-30)
  [1061] Take vehicles off the road - put all the passengers into one - (2007-02-01)
  [1100] Wondering where I have been - (2007-03-06)
  [1138] The Holiday - unlikely romantic comedy? - (2007-04-08)
  [1151] Gordon Dodge, R.I.P. - (2007-04-16)
  [1178] Ducking stool for Melksham? - (2007-05-06)
  [1189] Meet, greet and welcome - (2007-05-16)
  [1272] Behind closed doors? - (2007-07-22)
  [1303] Heading Upstate New York - (2007-08-14)
  [1429] Remembrance day - inside a church and inside the day - (2007-11-11)
  [1643] A lack of technical content - (2008-05-16)
  [1810] Middle aged subsidise young and old - (2008-09-26)
  [1953] End of Training, 2008 - (2008-12-20)
  [1979] Looking forward, in Melksham, in 2009 - (2009-01-05)
  [2000] 2000th article - Remember the background and basics - (2009-01-18)
  [2008] The Month Ahead - What is happening in Melksham - (2009-01-25)
  [2024] Carry on Training - in spite of the weather - (2009-02-03)
  [2027] Who sticks by you in the snow? - (2009-02-05)
  [2030] The final step to being British - (2009-02-07)
  [2034] Through Snow and Flood to Linux and Tomcat - (2009-02-10)
  [2064] East of Melksham Countryside - (2009-03-02)
  [2068] Playing Catchup - (2009-03-06)
  [2090] Melksham to Georgia - (2009-03-19)
  [2105] Hire Car, from Atlanta Airport - (2009-03-27)
  [2106] Learning to Twitter / what is Twitter? - (2009-03-28)
  [2118] Spring Sprung - (2009-04-05)
  [2121] Out in the Vale of Pewsey - (2009-04-07)
  [2141] Town Crier competiton - (2009-04-25)
  [2159] A long day to guess where - (2009-05-06)
  [2164] Updating my public profile - Graham Ellis - (2009-05-09)
  [2217] Enjoying the summer weather - (2009-06-04)
  [2264] Learning about others private lives - (2009-06-30)
  [2371] Quiet summer days? I think not! - (2009-08-22)
  [2401] Back Tomorrow - (2009-09-10)
  [2450] Family Gathering at 404, The Spa - (2009-10-11)
  [2580] C course inspires new teaching examples - (2010-01-16)
  [2868] A move towards the family - (2010-07-12)
  [3125] The family is defunct. Long live the family. - (2011-01-09)
  [3316] Twitter Phishing Trips ... and a great new alert service - (2011-06-04)
  [3319] Moving on - a task for the hotel staff! - (2011-06-08)
  [3463] Busy weekend of contrasts. - (2011-10-03)
  [3553] Changes to morning routines - (2011-12-16)
  [3743] Sunday - no longer a day of rest - (2012-05-28)
  [4222] Five lessons learned or re-learned on my travels - (2013-12-15)

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Tcl - lappend v concat
Separation and Integration
The fragility of pancakes - and better structures
Weekend in Ireland
On Crosby sands
Naming Rooms
Do not duplicate your code
Bed and Breakfast, or Hotel?
Breaking bread
Training in Liverpool