Back Once Again

Blimey, it has been a while since I posted, but I am still alive and the sun is shining and Clevedon is indeed still beautiful.

I have removed a load of spam comments from dodgy Japanese websites, none of which were particularly constructive or indeed linked in any way to Clevedon.

Related to Clevedon though, we had a friend come over from Australia last weekend, who is doing a tour all around England visiting all of her old acquaintances. She is mad keen on hashing (an international group of non-competitive running, social and drinking clubs - for the uninitiated) and was due to go off hashing in Wells the next day and so took our big scrobbly Labrador out for a practice run down on Marshall's field and along the sea path. Anyway the point of the story is that she came back amazed as everyone she met had said "Good morning" to her. Of course they did, Clevedon is a friendly, beautiful place, but sometimes I forget that the rest of the world is not like that.

It reminds me of when we first moved down to Clevedon - the week before someone had been stabbed in our local and the paper reported it on page 4 in a small paragraph - when we got to Clevedon the front page news in the Mercury was drugs come to Clevedon - a couple of teenagers had been caught having a spliff in the car park of the Bristol. Yes!! we thought, if that is the nastiest that happens here then we have found or own spot of heaven and more or less that does tend to be the nastiest that happens here and as for the nice, there is a lot of it - just go down to the sea front on a sunny day, watch everyone on the promenade and have a ride on the train. Clevedon you are a marvellous place to be and I have been remiss in not espousing your beauty more regularly. Ladies, gentlemen please raise your glasses in a toast - To Clevedon!

Clevedon Pier

The nice people at the Pier dropped this site an e-mail to say:

"This weekend we will have the sailing ship 'Matthew' visiting us. She hopes to dock at the end of the pier Saturday around 12noon and again on Sunday.

Come and get the best view in town of the Fireworks on Marine Lake Saturday evening. Half price for Adults. Just 50p per person. All proceeds to the pier maintanence fund.

Can we make the Guiness Book of Records?
Come to our tombola Sunday 17th September 2pm-5pm.
Some wonderful prizes to be won. "

So why not pop along and give them your support?
If you are wondering what the Matthew is by the way, it’s a replica of John Cabot’s sailing ship. As Wikipedia puts it:

“The Matthew was a ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497 from Bristol to North America, presumably Newfoundland. After a voyage which had got no further than Iceland, Cabot left again with only one vessel, the Matthew, a small ship (50 tons), but fast and able. The crew consisted of only 18 people. The Matthew departed either 2 May or 20 May 1497. She sailed to Dursey Head, Ireland, from where she sailed due west, expecting to reach Asia. However, landfall was reached in North America on 24 June 1497. His precise landing-place is a matter of much controversy, with Bonavista or St. John's in Newfoundland the most likely sites.
Cabot went ashore to take possession of the land, and explored the coast for some time, probably departing on 20 July. On the homeward voyage his sailors thought they were going too far north, so Cabot sailed a more southerly course, reaching Brittany instead of England. On 6 August he arrived back in Bristol.”

Clevedon, NZ

Following on from the post re Clevedon, New Zealand (named by a resident of our town settling in New Zealand - and, apparently, much to the annoyance of the locals who were mostly of Scottish descent), I have been getting some e-mails expressing interest in the story. I’ve got to admit it is also of personal interest, so I e-mailed the Clevedon, NZ information centre who were kind enough to e-mail back to say that they would confer with an “elder” and get back to use with any useful info. So when anything comes in, I’ll post it.
It’ll be interesting to see if the chap who named Clevedon, NZ still has relatives in our Clevedon….

Clevedon Seafront Festival

Don't forget (I'm sure you haven't - there are signs all over town!) that this weekend is the Clevedon Seafront Festival (see the events calendar for details).
The bbc website says the weather is going to be fine, so I'll be down there - hope you will be too!

Business Directory

As promised I have now completed a local business directory - see links to the right - it is the top one.
At the moment it is populated by about 400 businesses based in Clevedon - so please do use it to find a local business and help boost the Clevedon economy.
If you are a business owner or manager in Clevedon, please have a look in the Directory. If I have got any of your details wrong or if you don't want to be listed (or you do want to be but are not!) then please let me know and I will change it.
In terms of being listed in the directory, just having your basic details there won't cost you anything.
If you want features that cost time to implement and webspace to host then there may be a charge - again please contact me to discuss this. Given the spirit of this website any charges will be biased against big national and multinational business and for local family run ones. Sorry - just the way it is!

Happening Clevedon

Theres lots going on in Clevedon at the moment, so whether you are a local or a visitor, why not check out the events calendar to see what you could be doing in Clevedon?
Recently added are details for:

• Clevedon Farmers Market
• Summer Family Fun Days
• Clevedon Art Club 50th open Art Exhibition
• Clevedon Flower Show & Festival
• Open Air Theatre ‘Hamlet’
• Clevedon Seafront Festival

As I say, I've added the details to the Calendar, but if you want any more information about any of the events then contact the Clevedon Visitor Information Centre on Tel 01275 873 498, or e-mail Clevedon.library@n-somerset.gov.uk.

And.. as ever if you have a comment on an event or one you want listed then just drop me a line

More photos for the gallery

Nathan e-mailed me to say

"Hi,

I was in Clevedon a few weeks ago visiting family and took a few snaps while I was there. Copies are attached to this email, and I'd be very grateful if you could put my name on there with any of the photos if they're used.

Thanks,
Nathan"

I've got to say thanks to Nathan - as you can see, he has a really good eye for a nice photo. In fact I'd recommend that you have a look in the gallery and see what you think. Very talented!

Good food in Clevedon

Mr Austin just dropped me a line to say:
"First time visit for us the other lunchtime to 'Mon Plaisir' restaurant in Hill road and it will not be our last ! friendly helpful staff and the food was excellent, ambiance very good."
Just having a quick search on Google brought up this link to their website. I've got to agree with Mr Austin - it certainly looks the biz (see the photo to the right)!
Be interested to hear if anyone else rates it - I might even have to go and, in the name of investigative journalism, try it myself...

A bit of live music!

Ok this site is not just all about Clevedon, but for people who live in Clevedon as well so heres info for when you fancy a night out in Bristol. Heres a real treat of a site. Follow this link to Podbop for listings of gigs coming up in Bristol, but... thats not all - as well as the gig info the site has MP3s for the bands, so you can check out whether they are your thing before you go. Very nice!

New Zealand

This site receives RSS feeds - and I was somewhat annoyed to see that our top story today is about Clevedon New Zealand (thought I had set it up to filter these out). However it got me thinking about whether there was a connection between the two and wikipedia confirmed it - see below.
Now I will have to research who named it and where they came from. Any leads, please let me know!

Clevedon is a town within a city - a semi-rural settlement that is officially part of the Manukau city, one of the four cities that make up the conurbation of Auckland, New Zealand.

Clevedon by Murray Helm
The town and surrounding rural area has a population of 3,294 (2001 census), and is the centre of an administrative ward of Manukau which takes in much of the largely rural area to the east of the urban heart of the city.
Clevedon is located on the Wairoa River five kilometres from its estuary and outflow into the Tamaki Strait, an arm of the Hauraki Gulf. It is 14 kilometres from the centre of the city of Manukau, which lies to the northwest. To the south of Clevedon rise the rugged hills of the Hunua Ranges. Several popular beaches are located on the coast close to Clevedon, including Duders Beach and Kawakawa Bay.
Clevedon was named for Clevedon, England, in 1866. It was previously known as Te Wairoa (Māori: 'the Long River').

One for the diary....

I'm sure you are all geared up for this, but if you haven't already seen the posters everywhere - a date for the diary is the 26th/27th August when the Clevedon Flower Show and Festival will be held at Salthouse Fields, Clevedon. As well as the flower show - the Mangled Wurzles will be playing - in fact theres going to be loads going on - I had a quick look at the Flowers Show Website (click here for the link) and the entertainment programme contains, amongst other things, puppets, face painting, a Beech Boys tribute band, an Abba one, Jazz, craft stalls, dog obediance training etc, etc!
Should be fun and hope the weather holds.
For further information tel. 01275 343132 and as ever if you have any photos / info etc, then feel free to e-mail it me to add to the site.