The week after the trip to Southwold we drove up to Cleethorpes to see my folks for the Bank Holiday weekend.
It’s a fair old way from the Isle of Dogs to Cleethorpes, about 180 miles, but we made good time on the journey up there on the Friday evening,
On the Saturday morning we had a walk around Cleethorpes followed by lunch at the Ocean Fish Bar, and in the afternoon drove to Grimsby Docks to take some photos.
We didn’t manage to find our way to the actual dockside but did spend some time wandering around the Fish Market area and the fish processing buildings.
At the weekend, the docks are pretty much deserted apart from a few people working on their boats in the marina area.
When I was young, growing up in Cleethorpes, you could always smell fish near the docks, and quite a long way down Freeman Street, which used to the main shopping area in Grimsby before most trade moved to the Riverhead Centre now known as Freshney Place. Now that much of the fishing industry has gone, the smell isn’t quite so pervasive, but the actual dock area still smells fishy.
These days most of the fish that is sold at the Fish Market and processed in Grimsby is caught by boats based in Scotland and there are a lot fewer boats based in Grimsby. The food processing industry still provides a lot of employment in the area, and the combination of Immingham and Grimsby docks are the UK’s largest port by tonnage, with lots of car and food imports passing through.
Sunday morning, I got up early and went to a car boot sale with my Dad. Lots of junk with a few interesting items scattered about but nothing worth buying.
On Sunday afternoon, my brother, sister-in-law, Vic and I went for a walk along Cleethorpes beach where there are some wild orchids growing. The weather wasn’t as chilly as it usually is on the beach so it was quite pleasant and we took some time taking photos.
Monday morning saw another trip to a couple of car boot sales. This time I found something interesting enough to buy. There was a stall selling old computers, including an old Amiga 500 and a Toshiba MSX machine, but I couldn’t really justify buying either of those, and they looked in pretty dirty condition. However on another stall I found a Psion Series 5mx in good condition along with a mains adaptor which I bought for a bargain £15.
I have the slightly older Psion Series 5 already, and to be honest I’m not sure that I’m really going to use either that much, but they’re nice machines, able to read and write to CompactFlash memory cards. The Psion Series 5 machines were pretty much the last great British-designed computer.
In the 80’s the UK lead the world in designing home computers with the Acorn and Sinclair machines, and Psion were one of the few companies that survive from that era. Sadly, they don’t made consumer devices any more, concentrating on handhelds for inventory tracking etc.
