The Palace of Earthly Delights

This is a Bolton week.  This is the week for Ellie’s second dose of chemo. As we feared, it’s made her feel very nauseous, despite apparently super-efficient state-of-the-art anti-sickness medication.

So I’m in loco parentis.  One of my duties was to take the boys to what Ellie cheerfully calls ‘Grief Club’.

‘Once upon a Smile’ supports bereaved families in all kinds of ways, practical and emotional.  The children often have fun together – and appreciate being with other young people who share their unwanted feelings of raw emotion and grief.  Yesterday they were at the Trafford Centre, so I had an hour to waste there while the boys got competitive on the bowling alley.

‘Waste’, because shopping is no kind of therapy for me.  And the Trafford Centre is a château, a folly, a temple to consumerism.  Just look at this.  Look at the kitsch statues, the faux gold, the marble, the sweeping staircases and the wannabe classical fountains.  And this palace, which dates from as long ago as 1998, is merely a home to the likes of Marks and Spencer, Boots, Next and Paperchase.  I got crosser and crosser as I thought of what fun I’d be having if instead I was at a community market, chatting to the locals.  And I was cross with myself too, for feeling so holier-than-thou.

Perhaps the Trafford Centre wasn’t built with me in mind.  The boys had fun though, which was the entire point of the excursion.

Snapshot Saturday: a heartfelt wish

This week’s WordPress photo assignment challenges us to share a wish.

Seokbul-Sa Temple, near Busan

I have chosen an image of the cheerfully optimistic and colourful prayer lanterns we saw so often suspended from the ceilings in the Buddhist temples of South Korea to illustrate our family’s wish, which will come as no surprise at all to regular readers of this blog.

We’d like my daughter Elinor, aka ‘Fanny, the Champion of the World‘, to be cancer-free by the time her twin boys become twelve.  Then they, and we can truly celebrate their birthday, shadowed since they were eight by the cancer firstly of their father, then of their mother. It’s chemo-time at the moment.  Not much fun, but all in a good cause.

It’s everything to ask.  But surely neither greedy nor unreasonable.

 

 

A lunch stop with sheep

I’m having a busy week.  I’ve got far too much to do to take a day out walking with friends.

Except that on Tuesday when I woke up, the sun was already bright and the sky was clear.  We haven’t had days like that in a while.  And John, who always knows a good walk, had planned to take us near Thruscros Reservoir.  The jobs could wait.

Here’s the reservoir, offering a home to wildlife, and panoramic views to us, while supplying clean water to the population of Leeds.

We walked through woodland and through Daleside pasture with moorland views beyond.

And at lunchtime, we found a sunny drystone wall to rest our backs against as we picnicked.  The local sheep were interested.  Picnics mean tasty snacks, perhaps.  They organised a mass silent and peaceful demonstration for food.  We resolutely ignored them, and finally they mooched off to nibble at their pastureland once more.

The morning had been all uphill, which meant the afternoon was all downhill (well done, John!).  Soon we were at the reservoir again.  A fine day’s walking was had by all.  And my jobs remain uncompleted.

Since writing my last post, I’ve discovered that my friend Janet Willoner has written a wonderful piece describing a murmuration of starlings, in Melissa Harrison’s equally wonderful anthology ‘Winter’.  Here’s the link.

 

 

A murmuration of starlings

The bush telegraph was busy.  It’s that time of year, and starlings are murmurating.  Spotted south of Ripon, they’d also been seen at Nosterfield, only a couple of miles from us.

Sunset over Nosterfield Nature Reserve.

Down at the nature reserve, just at sunset, cars gathered.  Their occupants waited, enjoying the spectacle of the nightly sunset.  Then most of the cars  just – went.  What did they know that we didn’t?  Then Malcolm spotted what we’d come to see, over there in the north.

The starlings gather.

Thousands upon thousands of starlings in a dense cloud that spread, re-gathered, swooped, dived and soared  like one of those unending computer-graphic screen savers that used to be all the rage.

We left too,  We needed to be nearer.  And sure enough, there in a lay-by near Nosterfield village we re-grouped, our binoculars to the ready.  The starlings formed an immense cloud, sometimes dispersing to blend in with the grey cloud behind, sometimes wheeling together in sinuous black streaks of snake-like movement.  For half an hour we watched.

 Then this impressive partnership of birds pulsed lower, then lower, then dropped out of sight.  They’d finished their performance for the night.

Snapshot Saturday: The Road Taken through Colsterdale

The road less taken from Scar House Reservoir
The road we could have taken to Scar House Reservoir

I love Colsterdale.  It may be my favourite Yorkshire dale.  It’s an isolated area, tucked away, north-west of Masham.  Not a single main road goes through it. There are no traffic jams here, just local cars (4x4s are useful), vans and tractors.

Walking these tracks, be prepared to share your route with a few sheep.

There are routes though.  Ancient routes forged as long ago as the 14th century, when there was a long-gone coal mine here, or more recently by stockmen driving their flocks over the harsh moorland landscape.  These days, it’s hikers and ramblers who are more likely to use these tracks. Perhaps they’re completing the Six Dales Trail, or finding out the history of the Leeds Pals.  Perhaps, like us, they’re enjoying a walk from Leighton Reservoir, and enjoying long distance views of Scar House Reservoir.

This week’s WordPress photo challenge: The Road Taken

Pancakes at the Cathedral

Ripon Cathedral – viewed from High St Agnesgate  (geograph.org.uk)

One of the bells of Ripon Cathedral sounded this morning: sonorous, measured and slow.  The pancake bell.  It’s rung out every Shrove Tuesday for centuries now, just like other bells in other churches, countrywide.  It reminds good Christian folk to come to church and confess their sins, before Ash Wednesday.  Some also believe it was to remind thrifty housewives to use up their eggs, butter and milk before fasting during Lent.

Gentlemen of the press outside the cathedral to record the action.

Nowadays it’s a signal to gather outside the cathedral and have a bit of fun.  Somebody has already cooked a pile of pancakes.  No point in making lacy delicate crepes.  These pancakes are in for a tough time as props in the annual pancake race. Contestants have to run from the Cathedral, down Kirkgate, pan in hand, tossing as they go …. onto the pavement, as often as not.

I watched teams from the Rotary Club, from local primary schools, from the Italian restaurant down the road.

The lads from Valentino's Italian Restaurant arrive to do their bit.
The lads from Valentino’s Italian Restaurant arrive to run in style.

 Sadly though I missed seeing the clergy do their bit: things to do, places to go.  It all seemed amiably uncompetitive.  Just a chance to chat to the Hornblower (who keeps us safe through the night here in Ripon), to friends, and to take a few snapshots of this happy little Shrove Tuesday tradition.

David from the Rotary Club gets a bit of practice in.
The Ripon Hornblower keeps a friendly eye on the proceedings.
Children from Holy Trinity School tussle it out.

Later, much later, Malcolm and I had pancakes too, delicate lacey ones, served with lots of sugar and lemon juice.  We tossed them of course.  But we didn’t run down the street with them.

Snapshot Saturday: a Good Match for Newcastle and the River Tyne

The Millennium Bridge, looking along the Tyne towards the Sage concert hall and the Tyne Bridge.
The Millennium Bridge, looking along the Tyne towards the Sage concert hall and the Tyne Bridge.

We were in Newcastle last weekend, and we spent much of our time admiring the fine buildings of the city centre, and mooching about the Quayside.  That Millennium Bridge! What a perfect match for its surroundings.  It links the proud Victorian architecture of Newcastle with contemporary work housed in the Baltic Centre just on the Gateshead bank of the River Tyne.  Its clean soaring parabola provides a perfect complement to the more long established city bridges.

‘The bridges over the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead are justifiably famous. They are not merely bridges, but icons for the North East. Over the years the single (Georgian) bridge existing in the early Victorian period has been joined by six others. First the High Level Bridge, giving the river its first railway crossing, then the Swing Bridge (replacing the Georgian bridge), and the first Redheugh Bridge, replaced twice, to be followed by the King Edward Bridge and the most famous of them all, the new Tyne Bridge. After many decades came the Queen Elizabeth Metro Bridge and finally, in 2001, the Gateshead Millennium Bridge opened to provide a stunning pedestrian and cycle link between the redeveloped quaysides on either side of the river. In the space of less than a mile seven bridges link Newcastle with Gateshead.’

From ‘Welcome to Bridges on the Tyne‘

The Baltic Centre and the Millennium Bridge.
The Tyne Bridge seem from the Millennium Bridge.
Dusk at the Baltic Centre.
The Tyne Bridge, the Baltic Centre and the Millennium Bridge.
Looking along the Tyne from the Baltic Centre.

A response to this week’s WordPress Photo challenge, ‘A good match‘.

Time travelling to the past in Nidderdale.

If you come for your holidays to Nidderdale in the Yorkshire Dales – and my goodness, I do recommend it – you’ll want to have an afternoon pottering around Pateley Bridge.  It’s just won Britain’s Best Village High Street 2016 award.

Pateley Bridge High Street (geograph.co.uk via Wikimedia Commons)

And if you come to Pateley Bridge, you jolly well ought to visit Nidderdale Museum.  Tucked behind the High Street near the Primary School and the Parish Church on the site of the former Workhouse,  it’s a little treasure trove.

A photo in the museum collection of Pateley Bridge High Street in the very early twentieth century.

This little museum is entirely staffed by volunteers who cherish each donation and display as many as they possibly can in an engaging and informative way.  You’ll punctuate your visit with delighted cries of ‘I remember that!  My granny had one!’  Or ‘Oooh, I never knew the railway went there.  I wonder where the station was?’. You’ll have an animated discussion with a fellow-visitor about being an ink-monitor at school, or about the mangle that was hauled out on washdays when you were a small child.

You’ll also see things that were not part of your own heritage, but which were an important part of Nidderdale’s past. You’ll discover that this pleasant rural area was once an industrial power-house, with textile workers by the score and lead mines dotted over the landscape. You’ll be reminded how very tough day-to-day life was on a Daleside small holding or farm.

Here’s a very quick tour:

We had a Ewbank carpet sweeper at home … and this splendid bed-warmer, simply heated by a light bulb … and a cream-maker.

A Ewbank carpet sweeper.
A 1960s Belling bed warmer. Known in our family as ‘the bomb’.
A 1960s cream maker (milk and butter required) with contemporary beakers.

We had inkwells like this at school, and I spent many painful hours in the company of copy books like these.

But look at this parlour:

I don't quite remember a room like this.
I don’t quite remember a room like this.

And this wholly intact cobbler’s shop, transferred to the Museum in its entirety.

I definitely remember a cobbler's shop like this.
I definitely remember a cobbler’s shop like this.

And here’s a glimpse of life on the farm, before labour-saving machinery came along.

Tools both heavy and huge in use on the farm.
Tools both heavy and huge in use on the farm.

We’ll be going again and again.  So much to see, to reminisce over, to learn from.  This engaging museum is a treasure in its own right.

My visit was one of the perks of being a National Trust volunteer. Brimham Rocks is Fountains Abbey’s nearest neighbour, and staff there organised this trip – thank you!  The museum is open at weekends until mid-March, then daily during summer months.