Great British New Year

Resolutions, resolutions....
I think my close family have given up on Resolutions because they seem to cause unwanted pressures and annoying feelings of failure when they're abandoned by the end of every January. Instead, we just enjoy the New Year (now traditional) reunion with the Thompsons and a wintery walk around the Bolton Abbey estate.

Wheelchair at The Strid

Since Alex had an injured leg, hitching up the wagons for our New Year walk involved a wheelchair this year. Still, plenty of laughter, anecdotes, catching up of the past and imagining the future and, of course, reviewing the evidence from last night's Murder Mystery....

Tripping the Light Fantastic

"We came this way to explore the Moon and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth...." Space exploration has featured in many people's imaginations in the last year as we celebrate the anniversary of the Moon landings (July 20 1969.) One of the Saltaire Advent Windows naturally paid tribute to it (see above.)

If a spark can start inside your heart....

As always we enjoyed the atmospheric walk through the streets of Saltaire seeing the witty and sometimes religious, sometimes topical, sometimes sentimental, sometimes charming solutions to the challenge of decorating windows with craft materials that look good when lit from behind.

Hope in the Dark

2018 ended with Theresa May as "strong and stable" Prime Minister of the UK (she is anything but; and her government seem to be presiding over cruelty to vulnerable citizens and the decimation of public services, all in the false name of "Austerity".) At least she is a grown up which is more than can be said for the 45th President of the United States, the reckless (frankly unintelligent and often unintelligible) Donald Trump. History will evaluate the legacy of this strange time of increasingly right-wing populism. The past suggests that everything comes in cycles and I hope compassion and kindness are back in vogue before too long. In the meantime, I take comfort in loved ones, places like Bolton Abbey and the messages on the windows of Saltaire's Living Advent.... hope in the dark.