Delicious

We have had a busy couple of weeks transporting offspring to universities, which meant we enjoyed another trip over the Pennines to Lancaster, and also one down via Derby to Newcastle-under-Lyme. The weather held fair, although the roads were horrid a couple of times.

The Newcastle trip is a new one for us, and we were pleased to see the JCB World Parts Centre en route. Thank goodness someone is making parts to keep the works working; if anyone can do it, JCB are the people for the job!

Anyway, that isn't what  wanted to tell you about at all.

What I was going to tell you about was the mouth-watering day we had in Malton yesterday enjoying the Food Lovers Festival.

As you can see, we had lots of people at lots of stalls selling lots of delicious things. I was personally delighted to find baclawa as well as a good selection of beers from the local brewery at Suddaby's. The beers were particularly interesting as there was a new brew I hadn't tried before (Malton Goddess - excellent) and some Lavender Beer. I was a little cautious with that one, but in fact it was lovely too - made with honey from lavender, just to put your mind at rest.

To make sure everyone knew what was happening, the Town Crier was out.

And in case anyone got bored they had a band.

I am glad to say I now have enough olives, cheese and sundry breads to last a while. I probably should have got more of the beer though. Still, no doubt I can pop into the Crown Hotel and pick some up easily enough. It's a hard life!

Spider sense

There was a strange claim made on TV today; I don't know if it is true or not, but here it is anyway. To keep spiders away, place conkers in the room.

Why would that be?

And why would I want to do it? Spiders are creepy, true, but flies are worse.

Autumn Sojourn

The past week I have spent down south in Hertfordshire, on a training course for work. It reminded me how lovely other parts of the country are, especially as we were blessed with the kind of lovely late summer weather that so often seems to accompany the children's return to school. We stayed in a conference centre set amid several acres of woodland, inhabited by deer descended from the herds maintained for King Henry VIII. Good old King Hal liked nothing better than hunting deer when he wasn't behaving outrageously with women or picking fights with the religious establishment.

As well as being the home of Tudor princesses (I think both Hal's girls spent some time there), the estate was a favourite haunt of the young princess Victoria before she was called to greatness. There is a tree in the grounds allegedly planted by her, although it didn't look too old to us - perhaps she only planted it later in her life...

The trees across the country have started to turn their colours recently, and most importantly the horse chestnuts have been producing conkers ready for the tournaments due to take place in numerous school playgrounds throughout the land.

Kirby Misperton is lucky to be the home of some pretty substantial specimens, and the pavements are becoming littered with the spiky shells and glossy, glowing fruits dropping from their branches.  The regular reader may recall that I am rather fond of horse chestnuts in general; at this time of year they remind me of that "back-to-school" feeling - new classroom, new teachers, new topics, and time to start endless rehearsals for the end of term Christmas concert and almost unbearable wait for Christmas Day. To me this is a more real new year than the one in January.

The other big signpost of the seasons was the Last Night of the Proms, which indeed happened last night, as rowdy and rambunctious as ever, despite the lack of sea shanties and Hornpipe. We were more than compensated by the fireworks and by Sir David Attenborough playing the floor polisher (Sir Malcolm Arnold's "Grand, Grand Overture") - and the weather was good enough for us to have a barbecue beforehand.

All the old seasonal traditions will soon be kicking in: Harvest Festival, putting back the clock, Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night and then Advent. Somehow the long summer days seemed relatively empty; with the colder, darker nights we need to huddle together with ceremonies and rituals to keep the wolves outside.

So here's to the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, apple crumbles and wellington boots, crisp mornings and bright blue skies, less grass mowing and more bonfire building. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

The Rolling English Road

Partly because I can't wander the roads as freely as I'd like just now (lower lip quivers pathetically), I have been thinking of a poem by G K Chesterton that I came across in my poetry-reading teens...

I took the photo at Kirkham Abbey a couple of years ago.

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

G K Chesterton

After the summer

It's been a long, grey summer. It has also been an unintentionally quiet one. I had planned to bring you thrilling tales of Highland derring-do, and dreamy missives from beside the misty loch; unfortunately I have damaged both my plantar fascia so our trip to the Scottish Highlands, while lovely, was somewhat less mobile for me than I could have wished. There are only so many photos of views from the cottage you can take.



We stayed near Inveraray,



close to a waterfall and surrounded by mountains. Loch Fyne was nearby, and it was an easy drive to Oban for the distillery (delicious - I do like a single malt), and to Ardfern



for a boat trip to see the sea life around Jura, where George Orwell wrote "1984".


The sound of the Falls was a constant, soothing drone while I sat reading in the cottage and the rest of the family got tired and muddy tramping the hills.


Scotland is one of my favourite places to go on holiday. It's heart-stoppingly gorgeous, friendly, fascinating and varied. Consider if you will the options we had before us: the Highlands and Islands were the focus of our trip this year, but we could have gone to Edinburgh for the Castle and Old Town, the Fringe or the main Festival and Tattoo; to Glasgow for the 13 Museums including St Mungo's Museum of Religious Life and Art and the Burrell Collection; followed the Whisky Trail; gone north for the Aurora Borealis or the Loch Ness monster; in fact I had better stop before the Internet runs out! You will have gathered I like the place.

It's just that I wouldn't want to live there. It was a joy to come home. The rural areas are very rural and the cities are very, well, urban. They are both great to visit. However, what I want from life is a blend of the two - and I am sure it exists somewhere in Scotland although I haven't found it yet - where I can live quietly in the country but, in under an hour, get to a decent facility with reasonable choice or for an occasional shot of culture. Or a hospital. Or have a reasonable chance of an Internet connection. I like to take the middle path, never fully town nor country mouse, neither yin nor yang, but able to sample the full range of experiences life has to offer. I am not sure if that is indecisive or just keeping my options open...

Meanwhile, all praise to my local general store, Yates, which ordered specially my new boots to support my poor feet. I'm breaking them in now.
My doctor kindly explained that I will have to wear cushioned shoes now, probably forever, and that as DMs were made just for that he recommended purple. I love the NHS.

Moon thoughts

Strictly speaking, this is about something as far from Kirby Misperton as you can get, but it's my blog so I can do what I want!

Forty years ago today (because I was too little to stay up the night before) I saw men walking on the moon, and it was amazing.

To celebrate, therefore, I thought I would share with you a picture of an early morning moon in the village from 2003, against the old ash tree that was felled to build some new houses. It seemed appropriate somehow.

There and Back Again

Recently we had a bit of a drive around and the journey brought home yet again how great a place Yorkshire is to live. As we did not stop en route I can't share pictures, but I'll take you along the way with us.

Firstly we had to go up to Northallerton to the County Records Office - a little bit of local research on both the village and our own house. We took the scenic route - avoiding Sutton Bank as we needed to pick up diesel. However, it meant we enjoyed a drive via York and then up the A19 instead, which has its own views and which we usually miss when heading up north. We didn't miss seeing the White Horse though!

The White Horse at Kilburn is not a neolithic entity like its cousin in Uffington. It is a Victorian creation (or Folly) which is maintained today by a dedicated group of people, and achieved brief notoriety when it was defaced, along with Uffington, as part of the protest against the Bill outlawing hunting.

Northallerton itself is another town similar to our own Malton, but seat of the North Yorkshire County Council. The Records Office presents a humble face to the public, but I am assured by staff that there is in fact a genuine Tardis behind the public building, and certainly the collection housed there must take up considerably more space than the frontage would indicate. We had a good day and found some great records, both photographic and written; I was particularly taken with the Servants' Wages Book (although it turned out this related to a different hall owned by the same family as owned the Hall at Kirby Misperton). The other treasure was the School Log Book from the 1870s up to 1916. I am definitely going to go back to get more on that!

The following day we drove from Northallerton to Lancaster - from White Rose to Red Rose country. But my goodness, I always forget how far west Yorkshire goes! We drove along the A684 through the Dales, past endless dry stone walls and boulder-strewn streams, fields dotted with sheep, and the Settle-Carlisle railway viaduct at Ribblehead.

Lancaster, whatever its historic rivalry with York, is a lovely old city with a 1960s university, a mirror image in fact of York itself. Coming home we took the alternative but equally lovely route via the A59 all the way to York, including a detour through Knaresborough by mistake. Mea culpa!

That allowed us to look at the chequered houses though, as we drove past them and Mother Shipton's Cave. I shall have to write about Mother S. another day I think...but here are some of the houses from a visit a few years ago.

The best bit of this trip, though, was collecting my son.