Monday was Scarborough

 

and a School Gate Friend from Leeds. M lived quite near us and her son was the same age as Son No 1 and they were friends with one another so that was all nice. I occasionally looked after her daughter after school when M was working so we knew the whole family. We were still in Leeds when they moved away, to the Lake District and then, much more excitingly, to teaching posts for the parents first in Cairo and then in Hong Kong. Her son and ours have long since lost touch but  she and I never did although we hadn't seen one another since they left Leeds. So 20+ years. 

When they returned to Britain M and her husband settled in Scarborough but although I've been near there once for the Gaskell Society Conference it wasn't possible to see her then as the Conference program was packed and then I was on another whistle stop tour of people in Leeds before getting back to Orkney. So I was keen to catch up with her this time.

We had a lovely day although the weather wasn't particularly kind. We went to a viewpoint where I took the photo of the headland and we had lunch, and we also had a long walk around Scarborough Mere (of whose existence I had, until very recently and despite several trips to the town when  we lived in Leeds, been in total ignorance.) There were swans. Greedy swans. 

The OH is braver than me. I fed them on the water and on the ground but I didn't feed them from my hand! 

We had a walk along the front and a cup of tea and a visit to a lovely little craft shop where they had some amazing hand made stuff. I splashed out on a bar of rhubarb and rose soap. I have to say that we didn't buy much on this trip at all, the greatest  expense over the week was parking charges. Although we did buy a couple of presents for upcoming birthdays and Christmas for other people. 

Talking of parking charges on M's advice we had parked at the Scarborough Park and Ride and she had picked us up from there in her car. When she dropped us off we were approached by an official little man who informed us that we shouldn't have parked there at all if we weren't using the bus for the ride. We'd had no idea, and although I can see the point when we arrived there had been 4 cars in the car park including ours and when we left there were two, again including ours, and as the car park holds about 200 I did wonder why he was making such a fuss. I mean he was quite within his rights to tell us, and to warn us that if it wasn't  for him we would be facing a £60 parking fine when we got home, but he didn't really need to tell us that five times. Still we won't be doing it again. And M won't be advising anyone else to do it either! 

An Unexpected Trip to York

In all my arrangements for our stay in Yorkshire I had made huge efforts to keep one day free just for the two of us, because I knew that ten days of constant socialising would do nothing for my stress levels, except send them up. Happily the OH discovered that the North York Moors railway was having a celebratory weekend. Fifty years of volunteering or something. Great I said. We'll do our best to fit in Mount Grace sometime or other and we can go to the NYM celebrations on the Sunday. 

I am not, dear reader, a fan of narrow gauge railways or indeed of steam trains, but I am a great believer in doing things that make my husband happy, so although I was guaranteed a day of boredom I was perfectly prepared to make the sacrifice. In the end it was not needed, as the OH, who is very fond of recalling every time I have muddled up a date or a time, had not focussed properly and he had got the dates of the NYM celebration a week wrong. Pots and kettles come to mind. 

This meant we were at a loose end on our first day, and given that we were in North Yorkshire the default answer to the where shall we go on a Sunday? question was York. And so to York we went. 

I have still not been to the Quilt Museum in York because every time I go to the city the quilt museum is closed. Including on this occasion. We did however go to York's Chocolate Story, something I have often wanted to try but have generally not been near at a time when my stomach could thole the idea of smelling chocolate. I have to say that this attraction is Not Cheap, but imo, it's good value for money. Very well presented, done with imagination and flair, I learned things, got lots of samples and we even got to make our own chocolate lollies. These were not,an unqualified success. 

Mine is the one on the left. It was supposed to look like an apple tree and it did, before the stick fell out and half the apples fell off. The one on the right is the OH's. It broke in the bag but looked a bit of dog's dinner even before that. I don't think he was trying to make it look like anything in particular but it resembled a meat feast pizza more than anything else. 

After the Chocolate Story we wandered around for a bit but the place was rammed so we didn't stay all that long. I did take a random photo of an interesting  place in York  I don't think I already have a picture of. I'm unclear what it is, apart from a ruined church, but I think it's been preserved as a sort of monument to peace. I do not mean this to sound flippant; I wish I could remember more about it, but it was hot, and there were lots of people about and it's behind a fence so I was taking the picture thorough that. I'm amazed the photo came out at all under those circumstances. 

When we returned to the car we discovered that not only is York ouch!ouch! expensive for parking, but that some people in the city don't actually know how to do it. I give you -

our car is on the right as you look at the picture and we were there first. The only way we managed to get out of the car park was by dint of the OH getting into the car on the passenger side and climbing over to the driver's seat. This is no mean feat a) in our car and b) at our age. Kudos to him. 

I think my overwhelming take away from the day was that it will be a very long time before I darken the (metaphorical) door of York again,. 

Lergy Squared

Oh dear. As I had promised myself I took things easy for a couple of days. Tuesday I was feeling so much better that I did a few things, including taking some post to the post box on foot.  Big mistake. Sore throat has disappeared, place taken by really heavy cold and chesty cough. I managed to drag myself out of bed half an hour ago, so about quarter past four in the afternoon, having passed the rest of the day curled up with a bottle of cough mixture, a large box of tissues and a new audible book so badly read by Robert Glenister that I fell asleep every ten minutes. I dragged myself up to nibble a couple of cracker biscuits and my place in the bed was immediately taken by both the cats so I am now barred by the OH from doing anything that might upset them, such as trying to get back into bed to coddle my cough. 

I should have been blogging about our unexpected day in York but I haven't the energy. However as I don't like to do posts without photos, here's one of The Cat Lorenzo I took recently.  

Our Home Away from Home

 

Our rented cottage was near a large village in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park called Kirkby Moorside. It hadn't been possible to get anywhere that was dead centre of all the places we were intending to visit as there really wasn't one, and as all the lovely places I found in my favourite North Yorkshire village, Middleham were vetoed by the OH on the grounds that he would have to park the car - shock! horror! - on the street , we opted for this one. 

Small but perfectly formed I think is the phrase. Actually although it looks quite tiny it was plenty big enough. There was a large open plan living space, two bedrooms one with a king size bed and a large bathroom. The heating worked, there was constant hot water (such a change from home) and we were very cosy and comfortable. 

The OH doing something useful in the kitchen.

Spot the bag I made in sewing class, as previously featured on the blog. 

And behind the car was this beautiful rose tree

which I had to take a photo of, as it reminded me so much of the roses in Waterhouse's painting, The Soul of the Rose. 

A Birthday Surprise, A Spoilt Surprise and a Day of Damp Calm

We had wanted our time in Yorkshire to coincide in some way with the 90th birthday of my uncle who lives in Northumberland. We didn't tell him we were coming, so our visit was a surprise. I'm not sure what you buy for someone who is 90 so I knitted him a pair of socks. Naturally. These ones. 

non-boring without not being manly I thought! 

We had a good chat with him; really he is remarkably fit and mobile for 90 although sadly his sight is severely limited by macular disease in both eyes. He is also quite a technophile and uses Alexa with more confidence than I could muster. Not that we have an Alexa, but....

After that we spent the night in a nearby hotel before trying to surprise my aunt the following morning. however she had been forewarned by a phone call from her brother so was expecting us. Great to see her too. I keep in touch with both of them by phone, but it's not the same as seeing them in person, and visits become more precious as people get older. 

After that we pressed on south. We weren't in any hurry, we had rented a cottage in North Yorkshire which we couldn't enter before three, but there was no time limit on how much later we arrived as the key was in a key safe. So we took the opportunity to visit Mount Grace Priory. We knew we were going to have very little time indeed to ourselves over the next week so snatched the chance to go somewhere which, when we lived in Yorkshire I had always valued for its peace and serenity. 

It's still peaceful and serene but the day was damp and the cafe, new since our time and where we had lunch, was disappointing. The rain meant we couldn't look around the gardens which have had a lot of work done on them since we were last there and that was a shame, but we still had a wander around  the ruins of the priory itself and visited the restored monk's cell, which I always think would have been  some sort of earthly paradise were you a medieval monk. A living room and sleeping space below and a workroom above, and the only visitor a lay brother who delivered your meals. An enviable life in many respects. Experience slightly marred by a woman inside who had injured herself and was being attended to by a first aider. No idea what she had done but she was holding her right arm aloft and it was bandaged between wrist and elbow and she was there all the time we were inside. Comments by staff in the shop on the way out indicated that she may have been slightly over egging the pudding.

As well as the ruined priory there is a manor house which is furnished in  Charles1/Civil war style.  We didn't go round that, we've done it before and it wasn't the house we used to visit for. I did take one pic inside though as entrance to the priory is via the house. 

Yes, I Am Back

I am also exhausted and lergied, and although I expected the exhaustion I wasn't counting on the lerginess. I have taken a test and it's not Covid, much to my relief, so I'm going to take things easy for a couple of days and hope the headache, the sore throat and the general  yeuch feeling all gradually recede.

I have achieved more today than I thought I would, but what I can't achieve is anything very coherent in the form of a blog post. I'll write up the trip, with one or two photos over the next few days; all I will say here is it was 1870 miles over ten days and we saw nineteen people, without managing to fit everyone in that we would have liked to. Also, the roads in West Yorkshire are rubbish. 

More Books I Like - Historians and Spies

 Not real historians in fact. but those who inhabit St Marys, a semi-official offshoot of the University of Thirsk, who 'investigate historical events in contemporary time' ie go time travelling. Their escapades are documented in a series of fourteen novels under the general title of The Chronicles of St Mary's. My friend V told me about them when I was last in Edinburgh and I used an Audible credit on getting the first one. So far I've read the first four and, tempted though I am to race through them all one after another, I'm not going to because that is a sure fire way of getting sick of an author very quickly. Warmth, wit, drama, good plots (if a bit timey wimey as Dr Who aficionados say), lovely characters, and a lot of small but interesting historical facts get smuggled in too. Like the origin of the V sign. Never knew that. These are not going to be to everyone's taste and I had doubts about whether I would like them myself,  but a combination of the history, the characters, and the humour have all drawn me in. Time travel isn't really my thing, as it throws up too many paradoxes but I just go with the flow, in order to enjoy the rest. I am even  the proud possessor of a University of Thirsk T-shirt. 

I'm not a great reader of the spy novel; I did John Le Carre up to a certain point but that was enough. It's partly because spy novels  tend to be  thrillers ( James Bond casts a long shadow) and partly because I get fed up with all the double agent/triple agent stuff. I just lose patience. At this point, enter the great Mick Herron, master of the combination spy/tedious office life novel. Yes, really.  I can't remember how I came to read the first of his Slough House books, Slow Horses but I'm very glad I did. I love them. Well plotted,  with wonderful characters - a collection of MI5 failures who it isn't expedient to sack so who are banished to the revolting Slough House, and its even more revolting boss, Jackson Lamb -   in the hope they will get so fed up they will resign and save everyone a shedload of bother.   Again very funny in places, especially in the interplay of the Slow Horses themselves. There are also some very recognisable figures from our current political scene, scathing satire being one of the books' many features. I can't tell you with what joy I read of the fate of the PM's Special Adviser in the latest one, Bad Actors. He bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain real life Spad with bad eyesight and a belief that rules are only for the little people....

Some of the earlier books have been made into an Apple TV series and, whatever you may read to the contrary in the newspapers, Gary Oldman is not the ideal casting of JL. (IMO) If an author actually describes a character as looking like ' Timothy Spall gone to seed' then you might take the clue when you go calling the casting agents. Apple TV didn't. I've only seen the first 6 episodes, when we had a free Apple sub for some reason which escapes me, but which probably had something to do with the OH's baseball watching, and they weren't anywhere near as good as the books. So I wasn't tempted to pay so that I could continue watching. 

Herron's latest has just hit the shelves and I downloaded it this morning. It will make good company as we embark on out Great Trek South. The GTS itself is going to be fun (I hope) but also exhausting (I know) and is probably not the wonderful idea I thought it was when I came up with it. I fully expect to need six weeks solitude and silence when we get back to recover. We'll see. Anyway we leave this evening, spending the night on the boat as we're on the very early ferry tomorrow and this means the OH will be well rested for the long first stage of the drive. We're not back until late on 24th of this month so the blog is going silent for a while. All other things being equal I'll see you on the far side. 

Some Books I like - Crime

 

In an effort to prove that I don't turn up my nose at everything I read I plan a couple of posts on books I have enjoyed recently and this is the first one. I've mentioned before that my friend E has a habit of passing along carrier bags full of books and her latest one, a wee while ago now, included several of Val MacDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books. I have avoided these in the past, largely due to the fact that they were televised with Hermione Norris as Carol Jordan. I didn't watch them because Hermione Norris has one of those little sneery faces that I don't like, totally unfair I know, she's probably a good actress but I don't like watching her and so I didn't watch them. Also I tried a Val MacDermid once years ago, and obviously it was one of those times when you just pick up the wrong book and it puts you off the author forever. 

But I thought I would give one of these a try, so I did. And got hooked. My interest in deviant psychology possibly has a lot to do with that; I don't want to come up against an instance of it IRL but I like to read about it. Incidentally MacDermid's deviants are shocking and generally kill women, so I was rather annoyed when a man opined on Saturday that her first Tony Hill book was to do with a man who captured gay men and tortured them to death and he 'didn't want to read about that sort of thing'. Which is totally fine and a valid position to take but I thought it was interesting that he didn't want to read about the murder of gay men, but didn't mention not wanting to read about murdered women. I should have challenged him on it at the time but I didn't think of it. 

Anyway, no-one more surprised than me that I enjoyed these so much. There were three in the bag and I've since borrowed another in the series from the library, plus read 1989, which was long listed for several crime novel prizes this year. I've also just embarked on one about a female DI in Edinburgh. I'm pleased really. I've seem Val MacD interviewed and heard her on panels at crime reading festivals and always thought she seemed a lively warm funny person and it was a case of 'You seem fine, I wish I liked your books better'. And now I do. 

We read an Elly Griffiths once at Saturday Slaughters; one of her Ruth Galloway series of which I am a big fan. Most of them moaned about it. I forget what their problems were but possibly they didn't like  the archaeological background. They also thought there was too much of normal life woven in around the detective story; good heavens, there were even mentions of Radio 4. The Galloway series recently ended and I was quite pleased that Griffiths had seen that it was time to do that. She has two others which I have sampled and enjoy but not as much as the RG ones. 

Two crime writers I've come to recently are Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee, British Asians who set their work in India. Mukherjee's take place just after WW1, as some Indians are starting to agitate for independence from Britain and Khan's are set just a few years after Independence has been gained. Both are excellent at depicting the difficulties of Anglo-British relations during and just after the time of the Raj., Their books are also well plotted and with some good central characters who develop as their series go on - always a plus. 

So there you go. I'm not really a negative Nelly. Next up - Historians and Spies. 

Saturday Slaughters; A Beginning and an End

Saturday Slaughters reconvened yesterday after the summer break. The summer read had been The Cliff House   by Chris (aka Christopher ) Brookmyre. I did not enjoy it. It was one of those 'women (all with terrible secret in their past) trapped on island with mad axeman' type things and I loathed it. Not quite credible setting, not very credible characters, totally non-credible plot and a perpetrator you could spot a mile off.  

I haven't read much Brookmyre but I know enough about his work  to know that sub 1980s Shirley Conran isn't really his style so maybe he's 'reaching out to a new demographic' as someone put it yesterday. Or maybe he just wanted to turn a quick buck and looked at the sort of thing that's selling just now. 

It was a minority opinion. Everyone else thought it was a real page turner, and an ideal summer read, and a good book.

And I'm done. I'm done with reading books I really don't enjoy or admire for the sake of going out once  a month to disagree with people.  I'm done with being (usually) the only person with anything critical to say about the book of the month. I'm done with being the sole voice of negativity and looked at like nothing ever does or could please me, because that's just not true. In short, I'm done with Saturday Slaughters. 

Catch Up - A Good day Out No 2

We'd arranged to meet up with some friends who were  on holiday from Cornwall for lunch in Inverness, which was the whole purpose of me coming up by train and the OH coming down from Orkney to meet me there really. We had a free morning so we decided to go to the  Inverness Botanical Garden which we've been sort of saying  we should go and  see for years now, without ever getting around to it. 

And it was lovely. Helped by the fact that it was warm and sunny - not blindingly, stiflingly hot and sunny like it has been these past few days, just pleasantly warm. The gardens aren't huge but they are obviously much loved and I took a shedload of photographs. Here's a selection. 

That tree is really scary, isn't it? 

Lunch was lovely, although we took no photos and in the afternoon we went off to a large garden centre with the idea of perhaps buying some furniture for the patio now that we have a weather tight byre to store it in over the winter. We'd seen some lovely garden furniture there last autumn. Alas, I think! They had restocked and nothing that we saw really sang to us. So we still have no patio table and chairs but it did save us the money, which is a good thing I suppose. 

Catch Up - A Good Day Out No 1.

The past couple of posts have been such downers that it seems more than time that I recorded some very successful days out from earlier in the year. Because when I came back from Paris - (remember that?) I spent a few days in Glasgow and then caught the train up to Inverness where I was met by the  OH and we had an overnight stay there and 'did' a couple of things before returning to  Orkney. And it was all lovely, bar the train to Inverness being well late.

The reason I stayed in Glasgow was so that I could go over to Edinburgh, meet my friends V and D and  celebrate V's 70th birthday, slightly early but not by much. We did this in style, by visiting the Kaffe Fassett exhibition and then having afternoon tea at The Scotsman. The exhibition was amazing; such a riot and celebration of  colour.

Some photos

                            Loved this dress

Amazing to think this is all done with small pieces of quilted and appliqued fabric

Possibly my favourite, although it was hard to choose and the photo does this little justice

I would totally wear this given half a chance

Many of KF's cushion designs from over the years

V's birthday present - as a self confessed pedant she was delighted with her mug which declares 'I am metaphorically dying for a cup of tea'

And the tea at The Scotsman. Not quite Gleneagles standards but it was very very nice. 

Anniversary Adventures

 Although we forget our wedding anniversary more often than not, this was one of the years we both remembered in good time. We thought we might go to Flotta as we've never been and the clock is now ticking, slowly but inevitably, and if we want to visit the rest of the inhabited islands in Orkney that we haven't yet made it to, then we need to get on and tick those boxes. 

The weather forecast for the day itself was not good so instead of going to Flotta that day we booked to go the day afterwards instead and in an unusual Fit of Frivolity went out to our local hotel for lunch on the actual day. We had fish and chips to start with and then dessert. There is little point in taking pictures of fish and chips, but dessert was another matter.

Mine's the sticky toffee pudding and the ice cream is the OH's. 

Thursday we took off for Flotta. It's a small island and the weather was supposed to be good so we had decided not to take the car, just walk. I dithered between a jumper in case it got chilly in the afternoon and my anorak in case it rained. Decided on the anorak. Naturally it didn't rain. We had a picnic and a map and we were all set. 

It all started well. We got off the ferry and walked around the west coast of the island. At some point we sat down and took some photos. Since Flotta is right in the middle of Scapa Flow Harbour there are spectacular views of many of the other islands. We had our picnic and resumed our walk. The day wore on and the sun got hotter. The land started to go a lot more uphill a lot more often than I was comfortable with. And them suddenly I was just in a state; running a temperature, nauseous, breathless, and slightly disoriented.  We were about two thirds of the way round, we had a deadline to catch the ferry and I couldn't manage walking uphill longer than about two minutes without stopping. I did a but better on the flat but basically I had had too much sun and I was suffering. 

We staggered on, constantly checking Google directions for a comparison of how much further there was to go, and how much time it was going to  take against the available time to get to the ferry terminal. With something just under a mile to go and 30 minutes to do it  in, it was looking good. Except that I just couldn't walk. Not properly anyway. I could just about put one foot in front of the other and not feel sick for about five strides at a time. 

We were saved by the  appearance of a car which the OH flagged down. The couple inside it couldn't; have been kinder. They gave me a bottle of water, and took us to the ferry terminal and settled me down inside the waiting room and opened the windows and checked we would be OK before driving off. I staggered onto the ferry and slept all the way back to mainland Orkney (via Hoy - it's a circular route), staggered to the car feeling infinitesimally better, slept all the way home in the car and staggered to bed as soon as we got back. I did very very little yesterday. 

Until I felt too ill to bother I did take some photos of which the following are a selection

Lessons Learned. 

1 Next time the OH says 'it's a small island, let's not bother taking the car' insist that we do.

2 Always take a hat.

3. Always take a bottle of water. 

4 Do not overestimate your lung's capacity for walking uphill.