Sue's stockings....

“You’re the bridge…. Bridges have two sides….”
Sue and Brian have featured in previous blogs (Pushing The Boat Out and Bring Me Laughter.) They live near York (and there’ve been plenty of blogs featuring York – see Tags opposite.) But the generosity of Sue and Brian is what has prompted me to reboot my blog in the 24 Days of Advent leading to Christmas Eve 2019. The quotation in the sub-heading is from Frozen II (yes, I’m a sucker for Disney films) and, although we have plenty of robust debate with Sue and Brian, there is a pretty sturdy bridge between us – ironic, really, since to get to their house you have to cross a very rickety wooden-slatted toll bridge!

Epictetus
The stoic philosopher from Ancient Greece, Epictetus, suggested: “Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.” Sue (Sally’s longest-standing friend from Primary School) gave us a present this year (the pictures in this blog should make it obvious what that present was.) That present became an example to follow – something borne of sheer will, love and dogged endeavour. Mark Twain might cynically suggest that “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” But Sue’s Advent Stockings had the opposite effect for me – they inspired me.

Daily Treats
It was a blast each day finding quizzes, walking routes, toiletries, sweeties, chocolates, coffee gizmos, useful gadgets (excellent torch, by the way) and miniature bottles of alcohol…. Sue and Brian are the kind of friends who build metaphorical bridges for others to walk across (click here for an example.) The 24 Advent Stockings spurred me on each day to walk across another bridge, post another blog, catch up with events over the past year. (I’d been a tad disheartened at the state of national and international politics and the only thing that made sense was to bury myself in the ongoing editing of my retirement hobby, Rhenium Tales. My imaginary planet made more sense than the real world.)

“All you can do is do the next right thing”
Yes, another quotation from Frozen II, this time from the Grand Pabbie (which Anna thankfully recalls at a key moment….) – so Sue’s stockings (as it were), made me do the next right thing. One day at a time. One word at a time. One picture at a time. All you can do is the next right thing. You can’t beat an inspirational Disney quotation! (Unsentimental Disney haters, look away now! - you might vomit....):

• A dream is a wish your heart makes
• A true hero isn’t measured by the size of his strength but by the strength of his heart
• If everybody got somebody by the hand, maybe everyone could learn and understand
• Our fate lies within us – you only have to be brave enough to see it.**

** OK, OK – Pinocchio, Hercules, Little Mermaid and Brave.

Sustainable Christmas

Sustainable Christmas Decorations
Last year (pictures click here) we made a pilgrimage to the different Christmas decorations in Burton Agnes Hall, Chatsworth House and Harewood House. We return to Burton Agnes as often as we can for two reasons: the Hall and Gardens are beautiful, and the Cunliffe-Lister family marshall friends and colleagues to create very distinctive decorations, sometimes hand-knitted, sometimes using folded paper; often using foliage from the grounds to mount the displays and this year there was a focus on sustainable decorations.

Friendly staff and welcoming atmosphere
Often the room guides can point out their own individual contribution so there is a team-spirit and homemade feel to the Burton Agnes Christmas celebrations. This year snowmen were “hiding” in every room for the eagle-eyed and I was glad to see the local primary school’s regular contribution, this year made of recycled items (in top picture above.) Our Christmas Crackers this year are recyclable and homemade and presents are wrapped in old paper or newspaper. Every step, they say, is a step in the right direction….

Next Christmas….
The Hall dates from 1598 and there are three features that impress me every time I visit: the Great Hall is awe-inspiring; the Oak Staircase is a marvel of engineering and restoration; and the Long Gallery at the top of the house is perfect for “taking a turn about the room” with its curved ceiling. I’m already looking forward to visiting next Christmas. Meanwhile, here are my immediate families' four trees: two in Bradford, one in Leeds, one in Badby...

No Excuses Now

 

I hope Tory Voters are right
I hope the new government will turn the UK into a huge post-Brexit success. WHAT DID THE TORY MANIFESTO PROMISE?

• Get Brexit Done
• Take measures to reverse the climate emergency
• Protect and enhance the NHS
• Boost the Education Service
• Improve the national Criminal Justice and Penal systems
• Develop an immigration service appropriate to the 21st Century
• Build enough social housing
• Protect and enhance the lives of all vulnerable people
• Unleash the potential of the UK’s forgotten towns with major investments
• Improve our transport infrastructure
• Protect jobs and human rights
• Be taken seriously on the World Stage.

THAT’S WHAT THEY’VE PROMISED IN THEIR MANIFESTO. That’s (I hope) why TORY VOTERS voted for them because TORY VOTERS BELIEVE THIS WILL HAPPEN. I hope so too. Really hope so. I love the UK. I love its history, its culture, its countryside. I wish we had voted to remain aligned to Europe in the Referendum back in 2016 but we didn’t, so I have always thought that Brexit in some form should happen, despite my reservations about the honesty of the original exercise.

Well, the Tories have had three-and-a-half years to deliver Brexit. They haven’t – and for two of those years because of their own in-fighting – and NOW the country has voted to give the mendacious Boris Johnson a chance to Get Brexit Done. So, I watch with fascinated interest – and hope the Tory Voters are right – and within months the country regains its pride, strength and stability. Time will tell.

Right Left Divide
My final comfort is that (in the graphic below, with one result left to call):

• the Right of Centre Vote Share (Con + Brx) = 45.6%
• the Left of Centre Vote Share (Lab + LD + SNP + GRN) = 50.3%

with the rest made up of Northern Ireland parties and Independent individuals. If only a New Left Alliance could emerge from the ashes of the 2019 election…. a Rebel Alliance?

Rolled on by a horse....

(Genuinely) Clever Clive and (Genuinely) Buffoonish Boris
The late (clever and funny) Clive James wrote after an early Boris Johnson appearance as (short-lived) Foreign Secretary:

Boris gave an immediate impression of total dishevelment. It’s not his clothes and coiffure, but his personality that makes him look as if he had been rolled on by a horse and then seduced by it.

Clive James’s later poetry, like his TV and cultural criticism disarmed as well as skewered pomposity – he was that rare beast in public life, someone who wore his learning lightly. Unlike our current Prime Minister who likes to obfuscate the truth beneath bluster. Only Boris Johnson could answer a question on the traitorous Fake FactCheck site set up by the Tories with reference to:

“hunting the snark.… Fermat’s last theorem…. the riddle of the Sphinx…. the Bermuda triangle…. croutons….”

(Search for it on the internet if you don’t believe me – Boris Johnson answering question about fact check website.) His answer was designed to provoke laughter and to deflect from the serious accusation in the question. It’s a well-known technique that clever students use in Debating Societies in schools and universities time and again.

A sheep, a shark, a drunk and a lozenge
Check out the Jeremy Vine account admiring Boris Johnson’s apparent genius when Johnson gave what seemed like a spontaneous after-dinner speech…. It’s a clear example of our current Prime Minister’s elusive smoke and mirrors trickery. The winter election next Thursday seems to be framed around the future. Promises, promises…. But I find myself considering the present and the past decade. Do I want more of the same? Do I believe the Tories? Since the imposition of austerity in 2010, has the UK become a stronger, safer, more prosperous, more cultural, more law-abiding, more civilised country? If not, who has been in power since 2010? Answer: the Tories, along with five years of LiberalDemocratEnablers. They have presided over:

• an increase in the national debt (so those austerity measures worked, didn’t they?)

1. £850 billion in 2010 to £1.786 trillion by December 2018
2. £175 billion spend on Emergency Brexit stimulus by Bank of England (Brexit, remember, was initiated by the Tories and they have had over three years to implement it and the first attempts to make it happen were THWARTED by the Tories themselves)
3. 86 million pounds spent on non-existent ferries
4. £1 billion to bribe the DUP into a form of coalition that ended disastrously
5. shameful increase in child poverty (32 - 35% of UK children in this category now)
6. 80% of the 5.3 million self employed live below the poverty line
7. 185,000 deaths attributed to the austerity measures brought in by the Tories and LibDems
8. 150% increase in student debt (student fees up 300%)
9. GDP fallen to -0.1%
10. Sterling against the Euro and the USD fallen by 15%
11. 25 – 30 % cut to all government departments
12. 25 – 30 % cut to local councils, mainly centred on Labour councils

• a degrading of health

1. 2400% increase in the use of food banks
2. 10,000 fewer medical professionals and there is now a dangerous nurse shortage
3. 25,000 fewer bed spaces for mental illness
4. 25% cuts for our disabled community
5. 80% cuts to Mobility allowance
6. increase in teenage suicide by 70%
7. suicide up 12% in the year 2018
8. self harm among young women up 70%
9. life expectancy down 3 years
10. NHS satisfaction level at lowest recorded rate
11. and don't get me started on the current lies about what hospital "buildings" they are currently promising

• education

1. over 1000 Sure Start centres closed
2. over 700 libraries closed
3. eradication of the Education Maintenance Allowance
4. 36,000 teachers have left the profession and there is now a teacher shortage

• crime and justice

1. 25,000 fewer police
2. 20,000 fewer prison officers
3. increase of 50% in hate crimes
4. increase of knife crime by 150% to 22,000 per year

• infrastructure (especially housing and transport)

1. 1000% increase in homelessness
2. 1,200% increase in rough sleeping
3. mass evictions caused by the bedroom tax
4. Zero starter homes built, despite Tory flagship programme
5. Council home building down 90% since 2010
6. 200,000 social homes lost since 2010
7. one million families on council home waiting list
8. 100,000 increase on the council home waiting list since 2010
9. 10,000 fewer firefighters
10. over 650 football pitches closed
11. manufacturing, contruction and auto industries in recession
12. half of local councils are facing bankruptcy
13. Claims of “job creation” are masked by self-employed, ZeroHoursContracts and gig economy causing the OECD to suggest the unemployment rate in the UK is really 13% if you calculate the 3 million hidden unemployed

Voting for more of the same?
We are an entrenched country of foodbanks and multimillionaires. How can that be? And yet it is likely that many people in the UK will still vote for the Tories, the “nasty party.’ The party of the few, not the many. How long, in normal life, would you give someone the benefit of the doubt? Has almost 10 years been long enough to make improvements? 10 years! Are you going to vote for more of the same?

Pasta fresca

la madre e la figlia producono la pasta

Bright Cold Skies
Whilst I hacked and coughed with a dispiriting bout of man flu and eldest daughter Emily got to grips with nurse training, youngest daughter Harriet went walking with Sally along the river in Otley, soaking up the low sun, avoiding slipping in muddy patches, chuntering and chatting and setting the world to rights and, more importantly, planning an evening meal of pasta fresca – pasta made from scratch with flour, eggs and old fashioned table-top kneading.

Along the River Wharfe in Otley

Fresh, Dried or Freshly-Made?
The prevailing wisdom, I’m told, is that good dried pasta is better than the “fresh” sold in supermarkets but that better than both is the pasta made by hand using the techniques of swirling the eggs in a flour well, then rolling the springy dough until you can read a love letter through it. Job done, I’d say. I can testify it was delicious with the garlic and artichoke sauce, not to mention the crumbly parmesan biscuits (see BBC recipe below) which got everything off to a zingy start.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep"

Frosty afternoon at Bolton Abbey
Walking to the Strid or to Barden Bridge on the estate of Bolton Abbey ranks as amongst the best pleasures in life. Even on cold days when icy trails of white decorate the trees and your feet feel numb. A recent walk reminded me of the enigmatic Robert Frost 1923 poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

The darkest evening of the year
Like all the best poetry, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening raises a series of questions in the mind and heart: Are the woods real or metaphorical? Who is “he”? Where is the village? Why doesn’t the voice think “he will not see me stopping here”? Why does the voice of the poem “stop…. Between the woods and frozen lake”? What do the harness bells signify?  Why does the horse think instinctively a mistake has been made? Why is "downy" flake descriptive but the wind mysteriously "easy"? What promises have to be kept? Is sleep the sleep following tiredness or the sleep of death? Is the “darkest evening of the year” literally the winter solstice (21st December) or an imaginary“darkest” evening personal to the narrator?

Hand holding mine to the end of the line

Baby Harriet meets her family (including Annie Oakley aka Wakefield Grandma) and years later Harriet takes her Dad to the German Market in Leeds....

Next year our troubles will be out of sight….
Daughter Harriet had a great idea for a New Year’s Resolution last year to plan a unique outing with each member of the family. This week was my turn: cinema, a curry, a museum – and, most importantly, just BEING with a loved one for some quality time. The day started with a delicious breakfast at New Farnley Cricket Club and a morning cinema trip to the visually audacious The Aeronauts with a compelling central performance by Felicity Jones. Who knew weather forecasting had such dangerous origins? The Royal Armouries in Leeds was our next stop for a Movie Props exhibition where highlights for me included Darth Vader’s mask and the Lancelot armour from John Boorman’s Excalibur.

The Cat's Pyjamas and the Royal Armouries

Germany to India to Missouri
Quaffing mulled wine at the German market in Leeds Millennium Square prepped us for an affable curry at The Cat’s Pyjamas in Headingley and we ended the splendid day with some 1944 nostalgia looking back to the 1904 World Fair in St Louis with the genius of Judy Garland, the sumptuous Irene Sharaff costume designs and the Vincente Minelli marshalling of many talents, cast and crew, for Meet Me In St Louis, a special screening at the Cottage Road Cinema.
Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow…
Great resolution, Harriet. Thanks for a memorable morning, afternoon and evening.

New Farnley Cricket Club breakfast, The Aeronauts and Meet Me In St Louis

The Last Post

2019 Remembrance

Today is 11.11.19 – and exactly 100 years since the very first Remembrance Sunday in 1919. At the weekend, the great and the good (in particular the surviving veterans – very few now from The Great War, The War To End All Wars) laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in London and remembered “The Glorious Dead.” In addition to the current (imo unworthy) office holder, five former prime ministers attended – Sir John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May – and, overlooking the ceremony from a balcony the one queen who has presided over 15 prime ministers (and grown up under a further six.)

No brainer

For me, I respect the concept of Remembrance. Apart from anything else, I believe the Royal British Legion to be a fantastically effective charity. Its campaigning and support – practical, financial, and emotional – are all essential, especially given the way successive governments have treated and continue to treat veterans and their families. All wars produce great art, and the poetry of the First World War is rightly lauded. In 2009, to commemorate the deaths of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, two of the last few combatants surviving, Carol Ann Duffy used an extract from Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est to produce a poignant and cinematic rewinding riff on remembrance – if we could only wind back time and the dead could “lean against a wall.”

Last Post

by Carol Ann Duffy

'In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.'

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin

that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud…

but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood

run upwards from the slime into its wounds;

see lines and lines of British boys rewind

back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –

mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers

not entering the story now

to die and die and die.

Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.

You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)

like all your mates do too –

Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –

and light a cigarette.

There's coffee in the square,

warm French bread

and all those thousands dead

are shaking dried mud from their hair

and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,

a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released

from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,

your several million lives still possible

and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.

You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.

If poetry could truly tell it backwards,

then it would.

East Riddlesden Hall

Chameleon building
Cobwebs and faux giant spiders, as well as a red floodlight or two, added a spooky Halloween atmosphere to the Great Barn at East Riddlesden Hall, not far from where I live. A building has been on the site since the 7th Century so an Anglo-Saxon owner seems to have been forced to give the land over to the Norman de Montalt family and traces of manor buildings from the medieval period can still be detected. The Paslew family are known to have built extensions in 1466 and over the next hundred years the place doubled in size. The Rishworth family sold the Hall to James Murgatroyd in 1638 and a visit today shows all the weird alterations and quirky features resulting from the changing ownership. I understand it’s one of the most popular sites in the National Trust for wedding parties today and has appeared in a number of TV programmes and movies, most memorably for me in the Charlotte Riley/Tom Hardy Wuthering Heights (not to mention the Juliette Binoche/Ralph Fiennes Wuthering Heights and the Kit Harington Gunpowder.)

Andrew Lincoln, Charlotte Riley, Tom Hardy at East Riddlesden Hall for Wuthering Heights

I want to break free

Pumpkins by Family and Friends and Bolton Abbey 2019....

I'm a shooting star, leaping through the sky....
To the pounding, anthemic sound of rock group Queen, this year’s Bolton Abbey Bonfire and Fireworks may have been the best yet. We’ve been attending since the first year in 2015: the James Bond Themed Music set a very high bar; in 2016 the Best of British went a bit wrong (probably because of the result of the 2016 EU referendum….the universe was taunting me…); in 2017 it was Music from the Movies – a match for the first year; 2018 had problems with strong winds and the Musicals accompaniment didn’t always match the display. 2019, however, was a Top Year – the music of Queen, a superb firework display, a much better layout of the stalls and facilities – and a perfect night for pagan customs. It’s a fantastic treat and a great way to herald the approach to Christmas and Winter….
Previous blogs about Bonfire Night have included:

• Chubbing as a nipper – click for my memories of childhood bonfires in Wakefield
• Burn bonfires, clear and bright – click to read about the symbols of burning with pics of the first Bolton Abbey Bonfire Night
• Halloween – click for the traditions of Halloween season
• Catherine and Guy – click for an explanation of the Catherine Wheel firework!
• Gunpowder, Treason and Plot – click for the gruesome realities behind Guy Fawkes

Jura

Wild Ride 

Thursday was a squally day with whips of wind and froths of foam. Would our sea trip be cancelled? No such luck! So we boarded the Jura Passenger Ferry from Tayvallich and bounced across the waters in a cabined box with a bear of a driver/pilot/skipper to Craighouse where I was very very happy to step onto dry and steady land.

The Wicker Man meets The Angel’s Share

I felt there was something other-worldly about Jura – and wondered whether the whisky fumes had infiltrated the bloodstreams of the islanders. Sally and I enjoyed a sticky treat in the Anchors Café with its super-friendly owner (who, reminiscent of Denis Lawson’s character in the film Local Hero, seemed to have a finger in every island pie.) Chris and Harriet took a full tour of the distillery and emerged alive!

Craoibh Haven

Jura felt stranger than many of the Scottish islands we’ve visited so far, although it ranks as one of the Inner Hebrides and I’ve yet to travel to the Outer Hebrides. A display of Ye Olde Photos of Jura in the local church had some quite disturbing historical visual records but I imagine many remote islands would have similar dark episodes in their past. During our week we had one meal out at The Lord of the Isles in Craiobh Haven (pronounced Croove Haven.) The restaurant served excellent food (monkfish, steaks, fish n chips) and had welcoming and jolly staff, as well as locals dining in alongside tourists like us.

Bonnie Scotland

It’s hard to explain why our holidays in Scotland always seem to suit us as a family: the awe-inspiring landscapes, the twisty, fascinating history, the welcoming people we always seem to meet… the habit we have on these holidays of hunkering down in the evenings with good food, good wine (and beer), a tiptop jigsaw (see bottom collage), playing cards (Uno), board games (Ludo), reading books and putting the world to rights.

Releasing cares

Scotland feels like a place where I can forget the cares of everyday life. I’m sure there are economic and cultural pressures on those who live there permanently, particularly in the remoter regions. But the rewards of the seasonal lifestyle seem, to me, satisfying. The views certainly are.

The Crinan Trail and Chamber Tombs

Crinan Harbour to Castle Dounie

Crinan Harbour was peaceful and still. The Crinan Trail began on a seaweed-strewn rocky beach and wound upwards through wet, muddy forest to coastline views. We had coffee on a bench overlooking the Argyll skerries and then climbed higher and higher to Castle Dounie, the ruins of a fort on a headland peak with a staggering view north and south along the coast.

Down to the coast again

The descent was through sap-dropping, moss-blanketed, lichen-sprouting forest glades on paths that merged and emerged, twisted and meandered back to the surprising sight of the car – a metal incongruity in such a primitive, natural landscape. 

Arduaine Gardens

Arduaine Gardens is a lovely, lush semi-tropical paradise with winding paths and yet more romantic views of the Argyll coast. Rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias, giant Himalayan lilies and forget-me-nots compete for attention in what seems like a series of hidden “garden rooms.” Very relaxing. The garden was begun in 1898 when collecting exotic flora from around the world was a favourite pastime for intrepid plant hunters who had the resources to fund journeys of discovery, sympathetic retrieval, and collection.

Kilmartin Glen's Prehistoric Treasures

An imaginative guide gave us a guided tour of Kilmartin Glen taking in prehistoric burial cairns, stone circles and standing stones. There was a Canterbury Tales-style hotchpotch of eccentric fellow travellers from around the world to keep the guide on his toes. I learned a new word: cists – meaning a stone-built “coffin box”to hold the bones or full bodies of the dead. A deluge fell from the heavens as we returned to the on-sight café – were the ancient gods displeased with us for disturbing the ancient burial chambers?

Lochgilphead

Corlach Peak

Our first adventure on our September 2019 Scottish holiday was to heave ourselves up to the top of Corlach Peak (above our rented house) to gain an appreciation of the jagged coastline stretching across the horizon. The cows and sheep were very adept at negotiating the scrubby thistle-tangled rocks and tussocks, but we had to proceed slowly, especially on the downward trajectory.

Corlach

Paul and Mary (our hosts) welcomed us and revealed the quirks of Corlach (our rented house, not far from the town of Lochgilphead.) The view was mesmerising, and it was hard not to simply gape, slack-jawed at the waters of Loch Craignish which fed into the Sound of Jura and the distant Paps (the high peaks) on Jura. Somewhere out there was the Atlantic Ocean and so, facing west, we had a good chance of a picturesque sunset or two.

Loch Coille-Bharr

Our first big adventure was a hike around Loch Coille-Bharr and through primeval forests to the end of the peninsula (24,614 steps!) A miraculous picnic table appeared in the unlikeliest of spots right at the furthest point of the walk – a wonderful reward. Boy, did we need it, since the blustering wind on our backs and faces was a challenge but a challenge we faced like the intrepid explorers we were. Not another human being appeared all day.

The Living Dead

The sun sparkled on the loch on our return journey as further reward for our efforts and we traversed areas that had been reclaimed for a family of beavers, an eery, primitive wetlands. The path went up, down, high, low, in and out of mossy trees covered in lichen.

Immersion in Nature

We stepped over hoppity frogs and marvelled at weird mushrooms – it felt like a total immersion in nature – no neon signs or concrete pavements to be seen…. The final treat was an authentic Celtic cross, always something that triggers the pleasure zones in me (not to mention a good few minutes of imaginative time-travelling fantasy daydreaming.)