Well here we are on the Suffolk coast in eastern England , miles from home. Last evening we drove a couple of miles to the beach at Sizewell. This name is familiar to all English people as it is home to a pair of nuclear power stations - imaginatively named Sizewell A and Sizewell B. Sizewell C is still under consideration.
I would have given them different names - perhaps old-fashioned women's names - Rosemary, Jennifer and Doreen - after my late mother. This would have helped improve public attitudes to the site.
Offshore there are two ugly platform towers. You can see them in my last picture. They are connected with Sizewell A's water cooling system. One tower is over the inlet pipe and the other is above the outlet. By the way, Sizewell A was decommissioned in 2006.
At the beach cafe I noticed a rather disturbing portrait of cafe customers painted on the black chalkboard outside. You can see them in the third photograph. They appear to be power station workers - their appearances badly affected - presumably by radiation. If that picture was meant to tempt us inside I am afraud it didn't work.
Close to the power station a small family huddled behind a blue beach umbrella and further along the shingle strand two men were sea fishing. The creatures they brought in were illuminated by radiation and monstrous too. I made the last bit up.
It does look an odd place, like the setting for a slightly disturbing film.
ReplyDeleteThe men on the blackboard would definitely scare me off with their lecherous grins and tombstone-like teeth!
I hope you don't have nightmares or imagine that those four men have arrived in Ludwigsburg to find you!
DeleteAnd the attraction is...?
ReplyDeleteThe employees of the power station need a community and services but it does not seem like a place where one would choose to holiday.
The Suffolk coast is beautiful and Sizewell is just a little part of it.
DeleteYP I do enjoy the program Escape to the Country which features your country. So much of the UK is very beautiful and indeed Suffolk stands out. These installations while they answer an energy need create all sorts of dire consequences of which we are all aware and are very afraid.
DeleteOh good. I see you know about Suffolk then Elle. Today we visited Snape and Aldeburgh.
DeleteHa! Yes, a better PR campaign was needed. Mr P and I drove straight down through the middle of France, once, and as we travelled along the banks of one of the rivers, maybe the Rhône?, we passed a nuclear power station where the cooling towers were painted with enormous murals of smiling children (and kittens and puppies? or maybe that's just my lurid misremembrance!). Anyway, soothing images designed to make you feel Safe. We were slack-jawed at the overt propaganda, from our perspective coming from a non-nuclear-powered country, of course. (We just dig the uranium out of the ground and ship it far, far away...)
ReplyDeleteThank you for your gift of uranium Pipistrello. There was no need to wrap it!
DeleteSizewell A & B is right up there for original thought!
ReplyDeletei was tempted to call my kids progeny 1 & 2 etc but i figured if i was going to call them by the wrong names, they might as well be interesting
You gave the young Tais good names Kylie. Apart from Un.
DeleteTwo thoughts: 1. Your mother’s name was Rosemary Jennifer Doreen? 2. I hope you and the lovely Shirley are not glowing when you return to Sheffield.
ReplyDeleteIt was very sunny today so our faces are indeed "glowing" Bob! My mother was called Doreen.
DeleteNuclear power plants are just scary as hell looking. There's one south of here about two hours drive down the coast. You're driving along and it's simply beautiful and then suddenly you see these huge, hulking things and I don't know about everyone else but my heart quakes.
ReplyDeleteJust like D.Trump and A.Hitler we all need power.
DeleteSurprised to see that the cooling apparatus is so mindlessly placed on the beach.
ReplyDeleteMost countries with coasts have their nuclear power stations close to the sea.
DeleteI never thought of Jennifer as an old fashioned name.
ReplyDeleteI put that in just to rouse you Jennifer. I am pleased that my little plot worked. Tee-hee!
DeleteExcept that maybe you didn't make it up at all. Did you see their catch at night?!
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Sizewell at all. Somehow that escaped my British geographical radar! But now, if I go on Eggheads and there's a question about three similarly named adjacent nuclear power stations in Suffolk, I'll have an answer.
You and Dave and maybe Olga would love Aldeburgh.
DeleteI see you have decided to go to Suffolk only since I left. I can take a hint.
ReplyDeleteDid you go inside the Maltings at Snape? Natalie and I had a lovely picnic by the river there when she was 14.
PS. Hadleigh is lovely. I stayed there for three weeks - left a month ago.
ReplyDeleteWe went to Snape Maltings just yesterday after visiting the Sunday car boot sale at nearby Friday Street. I will look for Hadleigh on a map and also - I remember you blogging about Sutton Hoo long ago and we plan to go there this week.
DeleteYes! Sutton Hoo! I had a profound and very moving personal experience there - I felt most strongly my ancestors stretching back and back... an immensely strong feeling of belonging that I have never felt to any degree the the same in NZ.
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