It was Masham Sheep Fair at the weekend, so my camera and my phone worked overtime. More another day- maybe.
My feature photo – from my camera – is appropriate: one happy farmer at the end of the day displaying all the cups she’d won. The one below is from my phone, and shows my favourite 400 Roses taking to the floor – well, the town square.
For Brian – Bushboy’s – Last on the Card
Just over ten years ago, we moved back to England from France. And we had a plan. We’d move to Ripon. It’s a smaller town than Harrogate, where we’d lived before, and which now seemed a scarily huge megalopolis (population 160, 000) compared with small-time Laroque d’Olmes (population 2,700). We were quite clear. We wanted to be in town, so we could make use of public transport and be within walking distance of shops and local amenities. But first of all, we’d rent somewhere so we could take our time choosing the right place.
The very first place we looked at ticked none of those boxes. It was just outside a village with not so much as a shop, five miles from Ripon, has four buses a day, none in the evening and on Sunday. The place on offer was the upper floor of a house attached to a gracious 18th and 19th century country house, set among large gardens, a wooded area and pasture. We fell for it. And ten years later, we’re still here, with no plans to move on.
The gardens, the woodland are not ours, but we can use them freely. Our landlord lives in another house on the same site, while other family members occupy the bigger house.
Our house is probably no longer recognisable as the dwelling it once was, but parts of the original are still here. It was occupied from the 1200s by lay brothers from Fountains Abbey, who managed sheep and some crops. They slept in a dormitory – the first floor. The house was only re-configured so that it had separate rooms in the Victorian era, when it provided living accommodation for the servants working for the residents of the house next door. So much history here, yet most of it remains unknown.
Views from various windows
Why would we ever want to move?
For Tina’s Lens-Artists Challenge: Walking the Neighbourhood
For this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Egidio urges us to share those images which epitomise what ‘fun’ means to us. I’ve settled for something slightly different. I’m going to showcase having fun watching other people having fun.
And I thought I might try an Alphabet of Fun, Let’s see.
Athletic aerobics: a community keep-fit session at the Festa de Gracia in Barcelona this year.
Bubbles and Books. Who doesn’t love chasing big bubbles? Or settling down with a really absorbing book?
Construction. And refurbishment, if it comes to that. One a would-be builder, the other, part of Masham’s Steam Rally earlier this year, working in miniature, to the delight of the crowd.
Dancing. Always good for a bit of fun, whether Catalan traditional, or English Morris-mixed-with-belly-dancing.
Exploring. In this case, discovering climbing and scrambling at Brimham Rocks.
Fairgrounds for fun: an old-style ride at Beamish Museum.
Gifts. This is one of my favourite photos, even if it would win no prizes for technique. A joyful moment at the Spanish Festival of Reyes – Three Kings Day – when my daughter was given a silly present for their equivalent of Secret Santa.
Harmony. Gotta have a little music to bring joy. And in England, that might well be in the form of a brass band.
Indulging and imbibing. A family meal, an evening round the table with friends, perhaps outside, in the town centre. What could be better?
J is for jugglers. Always guaranteed to raise a smile. Here are a couple from Ripon Theatre Festival.
Oh, I say. I think that’s quite enough fun for one day. Letters L – Z will have to sit and sulk. Their moment of fame may arrive. Or not.
I’ve not even mentioned the joy of spending time in the natural world. I’ll content myself today with a single sunset as my featured photo. A frequent evening source of joy when looking out of the bedroom window.
For One Word Sunday this week, Debbie asks us to provide an image, a ‘framed’ image. Luckily, at Brimham Rocks, there is a ready-made frame available for us all to use to capture that Perfect Picture Postcard.
This week, Leanne’s Monochrome Madness has no theme. She has chosen to showcase lighthouses. We’re rather thin on lighthouses round here, so I won’t join her. Instead, I’ll show just a few towers I’ve seen this year.
My first tower of the year was a human one, seen in York.
Then we went to Spain to meet our new granddaughter. And do a spot of discovering too.
And later, I went back to Spain again, to lend a hand as my daughter’s maternity leave ran out. I still had moments of sightseeing.
And most recently, it was off to Holgate Mill, a fully functioning windmill slap in the middle of a housing estate in York. I must introduce it properly soon.
My featured photo is of Christ Church Hartlepool, now an Arts Centre. I was going to add in an AI generated photo too. Just for fun. But they were no fun, so I abandoned the idea.
I feel so lucky that the area where I live is rich in trees, because not so very long ago, the local copses were woods, and the woods were forests. Here’s one favourite, an ancient oak: frustratingly, it’s not possible to stand far enough away to get it all in frame. But I love visiting this near neighbour of ours. How many centuries ago did it begin its life?
There are trees that flourish against the odds. The feature photo shows two trees at Brimham Rocks. Where have they burrowed their roots? Where is the soil that nourishes them? And here are two we meet when walking near Coniston in Yorkshire.
I’m always fond of this tree near Jervaulx Abbey. And I always wonder who the lucky child was who had a second home there.
Here’s another from Jervaulx Abbey itself that always makes me laugh.
This one’s a favourite in our nearby woodland at West Tanfield.
And here’s just another local specimen. Not weird. Just wonderful.
For Sarah of Travel with Me’s challenge for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.
Here are some more images taken in Masham as dozens of historic vehicles trundled slowly through town last Saturday in the early evening sun to take their place in the Market Square to be gazed at by the curious – or closely inspected by fellow enthusiasts.
And some children, schooled by the parents – or grandparents more likely – rushed out into the road before each vehicle passed to place pennies in the path of oncoming vehicles. Malcolm remembers the excitement, as a boy, of finding their now unspendable coins flattened into large discs by those trundling steam rollers and similar. My London childhood denied me such pleasures. Though I do remember fire engines like the one shown as the fourth image here, with one frantic fireman at the front constantly pulling at a rope to ring the tinny bell urging people out of the way.
And here are the children and their pennies …
And here are some of the characters we saw. Though what one little group was doing canvassing for Votes for Womem (sic) escaped me.
Midweek Monochrome
This last weekend saw the annual Masham Steam Engine and Fair Organ Rally take place. Unaccountably, we’d never been before. But at 6.00 in the evening we turned up to watch these lovingly restored vehicles parade through the town. And before the Parade Proper started, these rather charming miniature engines had their moments of fame.
The parade of the Real Steam Engines is for another day.
Perhaps only British readers will be interested in this one. Let’s see. We’re going to visit Masham, our neighbouring market town: population – just over 1000. Main employers: two breweries – Black Sheep and Theakstons. It’s an attractive place, much loved as a stopping off place and watering-hole by visitors to the Yorkshire Dales. But it’s nobody’s idea of the beating heart of the country, or even the county.
What I’ve only just found out is this. Boris Johnson, one of our (several) recent Prime Ministers (2019-2022), and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party from 2015 – 2020 both had antecedents in Masham. No love was lost between the two politicians as they faced each other across the despatch box. Yet once upon a time – about 170 years ago, when Queen Victoria was on the throne – their ancestors were neighbours up here in Yorkshire.
A saddler called Mr. Stott lived in the Market Square. He was twice married and fathered 7 children, so you might think this makes him Boris Johnson’s forbear. No, he’s Jeremy Corbyn’s ancestor. His neighbour was a confectioner, a widow, a Mrs. Raper. And her sister-in-law was Miss Raper, who married the Prime Minister’s great-great-great grandfather Thomas John Johnson.
Both families had probably lived here for generations. Mr. Stott and Mrs Raper were certainly neighbours from before the census of 1851, and still lived next to each other when Mr Stott’s second wife Sarah died in 1871.
And both were buried in Masham Churchyard, though I haven’t yet spotted their graves.
*This is a reference to the BBC documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? which traces the family history of people in the public eye.
Monochrome Madness this week asks us to feature statues. I could show you Michelangelo’s David. I could feature statues of The Great and The Good, as featured in all big cities everywhere. Or Nymphs and Greek Gods from set-piece fountains everywhere. But I’ve decided to go low-brow and show you pieces destined to appeal to children, or adults in search of their inner child.
Let’s begin at the Arboretum at Thorp Perrow.
Then we’ll stay local and inspect the Alice in Wonderland characters you’ll find in Ripon Spa Gardens. Lewis Carroll spent part of his childhood in Ripon, because his father was a canon at the cathedral here.
I hope you recognise the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts.
Then there’s this fellow, part of a sculpture trail promoted recently in London by the children’s charity Whizz Kidz.
Here are some gargoyles, not necessarily designed for children, but certainly appealing to them: from the Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona, and the Església de Sant Julià in Argentona.
Monks and the Christian faithful – or certainly the masons working for them – generally weren’t above fashioning satisfyingly scary pieces. Here are two battered relics: one from Rievaulx Abbey, and the other from Rheims Cathedral.
My last image isn’t of a statue designed to be amusing. But Neptune at Studley Royal always makes me and any children I happen to be with laugh when the poor fellow is sporting a seagull headpiece.
And my feature photo? Are they even statues? Well, I don’t know what else to call these two. They’re from Valencia’s annual Fallas Festival, where humorous figures, originally made of wood, are toted round town in March each year to celebrate the arrival of spring.
For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, hosted this week by PR, of Flights of the Soul.
And Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.
And Natalie’s Photographing Public Art Challenge (PPAC).
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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