From Pyrenees to Pennines

Bored now………

There are quite a lot of life-changing illnesses that I’m glad not to have personal experience of. And in the great scheme of things, ‘flu isn’t a big deal. But in our own little world, it has assumed a far too important place.

Here we are, more than one week on, and for both of us, day-to-day life is defined by what we can’t do, rather than by what we can. No energy to eat, which is as well, as we have no energy to cook (‘cooking’ in this context, means boiling an egg). No energy to get out and enjoy the frosty sunshine. No energy to keep the house tidy. Not even the energy to read anything but the most appreciated old favourites (thank you, Donna Leon, for reliably transporting me this week to the sights, sounds, smells and flavours of Commissario Brunetti’s beloved Venice).

We’ve both got what it takes to cough, loudly and constantly: we bark our way through morning, afternoon and evening, finally shutting up when sleep overtakes us. Talking makes it worse: not that we have much to say after our long-enforced house arrest. Maybe later I should find the energy to throw away all the uneaten Christmas treats that we didn’t have the foresight to freeze once the ‘flu took its stranglehold on everyday life.

Maybe later today I could resume my Spanish studies. I’ve been learning on-line the last few weeks, though much good it did me when Miquel came to stay: well, how useful is this? ‘Las tazas son feas’ (the cups are ugly): ‘La niña duerme cerca del gato’ (the girl sleeps near the cat). It wasn’t the stuff of fascinating conversational gambits.

Bits of gossip reach us from the world beyond our front door. That other friends had equally ‘flu-blighted Christmasses. That local seasonal gatherings saw the guest list diminish, thanks to ‘flu, from 20 friends or so to merely 7. That even households in far-flung Birmingham and Norfolk have not escaped. That even America is in the grip of The Epidemic.

So we can continue to feel sorry for ourselves, secure in the knowledge that at least we’re not alone.

Some fellow-survivors called by yesterday, and left us some of these. They haven't kicked in yet. — Some fellow-survivors called by yesterday, and left us some of these. They haven’t kicked in yet.

Oh, and by the way. Happy New Year, dear readers.

In which nothing works out quite as planned….

There's a rainbow on the walk to the gravel ponds - before the lurgie set in. — There’s a rainbow on the walk to the gravel ponds – before the lurgie set in.

We’d been looking forward to this Christmas, our first in England, and in our own home here, for some years. Son and daughter-in-law planned to come from London, and Emily was arriving from Barcelona, bringing her boyfriend so he could enjoy his first English Christmas. The Bolton Posse were also booked in for parts of the time. We’d spent time making things ready for a real family Christmas …. and then the day before Christmas Eve, I got a cold.

Only it wasn’t a cold. I kept on giving myself severe talkings to, and pointing out to myself that a hacking cough and a swimmy head could all be kept firmly under control. Then, at a neighbour’s Christmas Eve party, I passed out. And had to be helped home and put to bed by the family.

The next day, I wasn’t up to anything. Everyone had to turn to and cook and prepare – which actually they didn’t mind at all. I somehow got up for Christmas dinner, which I couldn’t bring myself to eat. I was going to bow out before I put too much of a damper on things when Malcolm too succumbed and retired to bed …. where he has remained, and has refused food for several days.

It’s been such a disappointment. I don’t think we were guilty of setting the bar too high, of wanting an unattainable Christmas ideal. We just wanted time together, having fun in a low-key kind of way. In fact, the rest of the family has. And I too have been able to join them for some of the time. So long as I don’t move around too much, I can join in the games we’re all so fond of. ‘Bananagram’ has been the all-out winner: at most times of the day, you could find at least a couple of people hunched over alphabet tiles, competing to construct their grid of connected words. But we’re keen on ‘Scattergories’ too, and ‘Balderdash‘, which involves writing definitions for words nobody’s heard of, alternative plots for long-forgotten films, and unlikely explanations for various acronyms.

None of this would do while Catalan Miquel was still here of course, so there were plenty of card games, and, for those with steady hands, the chance to construct increasingly wobbly wooden towers in games of ‘Jenga’. But I don’t know what the poor bloke made of our Christmas -in-the-sanitorium.

The family pronounced themselves satisfied with this low-key celebration. But for both Malcolm and me, still nowhere near to feeling healthy again, it’s been a bit of a let down. And it’s not just because of Christmas. Today, we should have been setting off to drive to Laroque, to spend New Year with our friends there. We’re simply too ill to consider driving the 1000 mile journey at the moment. Let’s hope we can delay our journey by only a few days.

Happy Christmas!

...though actually, it's bright and sunny today.... — …though actually, it’s bright and sunny today….

In the bleak midwinter….

Winter has arrived. It’s taken its time. We’ve been accustomed to mildness, and lots of mud. Suddenly though, sunrise has been that rich blazing orangey-red, with vibrant yellow, that seems to arrive only on very cold days. And Jack Frost has been amusing himself by designing complicated patterns on car windscreens, making sure they’re good and hard to scrape off by a would-be early driver.

Last Friday, we travelled over the Pennines to Bolton. The hills were, for the first time this year, covered with snow. We even had the mini-adventure of battling through a mini-blizzard. And the next day, we travelled back. Cars slithering and careering wildly, or worse, along icy roads, closed our usual road home: instead we diverted across bleak moorland via Todmorden, Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Howarth and Keighley – a real Wuthering Heights landscape, meeting only very hardy sheep for much of the way. These were the views.

Pub grub

I’ve never been one for an evening down at the pub. When I was younger, I hated going out to meet friends there, for all it was a rite of passage and part of growing up. The smell of cigarette smoke, mixed with that of alcohol and under-ventilated space was the first downer, and then there was the problem that I didn’t – and still don’t – like beer. If weaker, to me it tastes of soap, and if stronger, of iron filings. What, really, was the point?

Over the last few years, pubs have had to re-invent themselves. Now that beer is cheap(ish) and cheerful at the supermarket, and now that people can relax at home in front of ever larger TV screens, fewer and fewer people want to dig themselves out of their cosy homes simply to go to their ‘local’ and have a drink with friends. So some offer Quiz Nights, or the chance to watch the Big Match on the Big Screen. Many many more have given up the unequal struggle and simply closed for ever.

Some though are doing well because they’ve chosen to offer good food, and those are the ones we like these days. The area we’ve chosen to live has more great pubs than seems entirely necessary. There are at least four within very easy reach. Get talking about matters of food when you’re out with your friends, and everyone will have yet another favourite haunt which they’ll insist you should try. What all these pubs have in common is cosiness. They’re warm and welcoming: muted colours and old oak furnishings, and often a slightly idiosyncratic lay-out which guarantees you a degree of privacy whilst also enabling you to people-watch . At this time of year, there’s sure to be a log fire flickering in the corner. Cheerful young staff will whisk you to a table as you arrive and summarise the ‘daily specials’. These pubs tend to have a limited range of dishes on offer, but that’s because the menu is designed round what’s available on the day, for that day.

There’s beer to drink – of course there is, it’s a pub after all – but these days there’s a decent wine list too, although the mark-up’s way beyond what we got used to in France.

So we’ve traded treating ourselves to a ‘formule’ at some local French restaurant, sitting outside and relaxing under the welcome shade of a large umbrella in favour of a cosy hour or two over a meal in front of the fire in an English pub. And do you know – they both have their special charms.

Here we are today at the Freemasons Arms in Nosterfield. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

A quiet drink, watching others having …. a quiet drink

The end of a good pud.

…and we were the last to leave.

What a difference three hours make……

Since we Yorkshire folk are from the Pennines rather than the Pyrenees, we’re inclined to make more of a fuss about steeply climbing roads. The main road from Thirsk to Helmsley is the notorious A70 via Sutton Bank, and no sooner have you left Thirsk than the warnings start:

25% gradient ahead.
This way for the alternative route for caravans.
Last year, 74 HGVs marooned themselves on the slopes… and so on, and so on.

Certainly, it is a dizzying climb, with the patchwork fields of the Vale of York laid out far below. Then suddenly, you’re at the top. You’d have to be in a real hurry not to park and get out for a while to enjoy the view, as we did twice today, once on the way out, and once on the way back. It’s winter now – not long to the shortest day – so these sunset scenes were taken at just after 3.00 p.m., a mere three hours after we’d climbed upwards, only shortly before midday.

Eeh bah gum, it were grand.

Stir up Sunday

A Christmas pudding surrounded by brandy-induced flames. Wikimedia Commons.

I hope you made your Christmas pudding today, the last Sunday before Advent. It’s more or less obligatory.

Once upon a time, if you were a good housewife of the parish, you’d have been kneeling at your pew in church as the vicar intoned the words of the Collect for the day:

‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…..’

‘Stir up? Stir up? Oh, goodness me, I haven’t made my Christmas pudding’. And church service over, our good housewife would scuttle home and make it. She’d assemble dried fruits, suet, flour, rich dark muscovado sugar, cinnamon, cloves, eggs, a bottle of barley wine or some other hooch, grate an apple and some lemon zest . Then she’d tip all the ingredients into a bowl, and gather all her family around to stir the pudding too, and make a wish as they did so. Then she’d spoon the lot into a pudding basin, firmly tie a greaseproof paper lid over it, and steam it for 5 hours or so.

On Christmas day, she’d steam it again. She’d heat brandy, pour it over her pudding, then set the alcohol alight and bring it, flaming bright, to table with a jugful of sherry sauce for all the family to enjoy. We’ll be doing that too.

Stirring the pudding mixture and making a wish.

Today I went walking as usual with Ripon Ramblers, and told them I’d be making my pud later on. They thought I was frankly bonkers. Everyone, it seems, plans to buy their puddings. I don’t care. We’ve had fun measuring, mixing, stirring and wishing. The pudding is steaming as I type. This is the recipe I chose this year. The kitchen’s smelling pretty good at the moment.

Three Christmas puddings, waiting to be steamed.

A walk by myself

Ever since our friend Micheline had a nasty fall on a walk, three and a half years ago, and had to be air-lifted to hospital, I’ve been slightly wary of walking alone in the countryside.

But sometimes, only solitary will do. Never more than 4 miles from a village, always with a farm somewhere not too far away, I set off for a solo walk this morning, even before all the Grammar School pupils had got on their bus to whisk them off to school in Ripon.

From your point of view, as you look at these photos, you may feel it was all just a repeat of my Sunday morning stroll. But it wasn’t at all, not for me. My path drew me in a big eight mile circle to the west of our village. It took me past a working quarry: always good to watch men at work. It took me past ancient trees: our home patch is particularly good at oak trees which are very old indeed. As I was passing through a wood, an anxious Wensleydale sheep cantered up to greet me. I saw why she was worried. There wasn’t another sheep like her in sight anywhere – she was lost. But I never found anyone I could report her to. I hope she’s alright. There were fungi. There were delicate and skeletal winter seed heads. I saw a pint of milk delivered to someone’s gate, and took a picture of it. Home milk delivery’s getting scarcer here now than it was in my childhood, but I’ve never seen milkmen in other countries I’ve visited. I saw Autumn leaves still clinging to the trees, and plenty more in vibrantly coloured heaps at the base of trees.

Best of all – and I have no photo to prove it – shortly before the end of my walk, as I was climbing steeply through woods with the River Ure below me, three white-rumped deer leapt out of a clearing, and with three rapid yet elegant and beautifully choreographed bounds, disappeared from view, only to re-appear and disappear for good, moments later.

All in all, a pretty good use of a Friday morning, I thought.

Winter birds

Leaving home under the watchful eye of the Jacob sheep

An early morning sky

Big machinery at the quarry.

An ancient oak

This woodland will be deep in bluebells next April

She has erred and strayed from her ways……

A graceful pair of winter trees

Funghi

Winter seed heads

The morning milk delivery

A brief stretch of road down to Mickley

Autumn leaves carpet the path

Discarded wool: surplus to requirements

‘One misty-moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather…..’

Today was indeed a misty morning. Ripon has no fewer than three rivers in town, and a canal too, and one of those three rivers, the Ure, passes our back door. So it’s no surprise that we do ‘misty-moisty’ mornings, evenings and nights on a regular basis.

But mistiness is no excuse not to walk the mile and a half along the Ure to visit the village shop at West Tanfield to buy a Sunday paper. Here’s my journey:

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This is how the old nursery rhyme goes:

One misty, moisty morning,

When cloudy was the weather,

I chanced to meet an old man clothed all in leather.

He began to compliment, and I began to grin,

How do you do, and how do you do?

And how do you do again?

Though I didn’t meet any old men clothed all in leather, I did meet quite a few dog-walkers. And quite pleasant chats were had with nearly all of them

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

Today is the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Remembrance Day. This year has been the one in which we’ve all been encouraged to focus on the horrible loss of life in the First World War: a war in which there were 16 million military deaths worldwide and 20 million casualties.

‘Casualties’ sounds such a, well, casual word. In fact many of these ‘casualties’ were unable any longer to work, to form sustained relationships, or in any way able to re-join normal life. And the communities from which the dead and injured came were also maimed, losing many or in some cases all of their young men. The way of life in such communities changed forever.

The most telling way of appreciating the scale of this loss, for me, has been the sea of poppies at the Tower of London. I’ve been unable to witness it in person, but this blog, which I came by thanks to fellow blogger KerryCan, brings the whole project to life in a most moving way. Thank you, Silver Voice from Ireland. Here is your post:

A SILVER VOICE FROM IRELAND

I have just returned from a short trip to London, England,where we lived for almost two decades before returning to Ireland. London is a city that I love and I look forward to each return visit. This year marks the centenary of the start of the First World War which has been commemorated in the most astonishing way at the historic Tower of London.

The ‘Weeping Window’ the source of the wave of poppies that will fill the moat

Some decades ago, when I worked in the banking area in the City of London, summer lunchtime would be spent sitting on the grass looking down at the Tower and enjoying the sunshine. We happily munched on our ham and mustard or cheese and pickle sandwiches while enjoying the historic view and discussing the gruesome executions that took place just yards from where we dined! The Tower itself dates back to…

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