News from Nowhere

Breakfast of champions?

2026-06-01T16:10:53Z

The breakfast menu offers, among the cooked dishes, "Parisian breakfast". If pushed, I would have guessed that rhe classic Parisian breakfaast is a p'tit noir and a Gauloise. But the Fell Hotel interprets it differently.

( Here, a Parisian breakfast is - )

Still, je ne regrette rien...

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Somewhere in Yorkshire

2026-05-31T21:04:46Z

The latest iteration of the occasional gathering which took us to Ironbridge two years ago has brought us to Bolton Abbey.

There was a small excitement just as we were ready to set out. durham_rambler took the first of the luggage across the road, and returned to report that the battery was completely dead, so dead that he could not even unlock the doors. This was unexpected. We had been philosophical about whoever it was (and we think it was a neighbour) who had parked in front of our house on Wednesday, and not returned since: we would have liked to top up the chrge on the car, but no matter, we had - we thought - enough to reach our destination. So we called out the AA and instead of lunching en route, ate while we waited for them to arrive. Which they did, and diagnosed a flat battery, not the main one but a lesser battery which powers such fripperies as locks. This was easily (for a fee) replaced, and we set off.

We paused to visit the Coldstones Cut, which durham_rambler had spotted was very near our destination. This is a massive piece of land art built on top of a hill which has been substantially quarried away, so that you overlook the quarry from within the monumental walls of the cut. Visit the website for impressive views of the artwork itself, because from within you can't see the whole thing:

Parallel walls of huge stone blocks lead from the entrance to a platform looking over the quarry. On either side a passage coils up and into a circular enclosure; the lower one has a central plate illustrating the variety of local wildlife, but the higher one is much more fun - a metal strip all around the permeter gives distances to such noteworth locations as the Orkney islands, Durham cathedral, Mt Erebus and Andrew Sabin's studio. It was a long climb up, and (because I don't like descents) an even longer climb down, but I think it was worth it.

We are now at the Fell Hotel. We have met with the other early arrivers of the group, we have dined, with a view of a beautiful landscape enlivened by the intervention of all the emergency services (including an air ambulance). Clearly something unpleasant had happened, and we weren't exactly grateful for our ringside seat - but this isn't about us.

And that's enough excitement for one day.

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Pride and preparations

2026-05-30T17:52:23Z

When Reform gained control of Durham County Council last year, one of the first things they did was withdraw funding from Durham Pride.

Today, to no-one's surprise, the annual procession and festival have gone ahead without them. durham_rambler put on his (Parish Council issue) rainbow lanyard and joined the procession from Palace Green down to the Sands. The Parish Clerk had offered him a VIP ticket to the entertainments, which he had declined: "Don't you want to meet Steps?" asked the Parish Clerk, and he admitted that he wouldn't recognise them if he saw them. (But he did allow our County Coucillor to invite him into the VIP tent and buy him a half of lager.)

Meanwhile, I stayed at home and made progress with things - website update, loaf of bread, laundry - that I wanted to get done before we head off for a couple of days tomorrow.

And that's where today went.

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Whit Sunday in the garden

2026-05-25T17:07:50Z

We might have gone to the Amble Puffin Festival yesterday; it's something we've enjoyed in the past. But it's a long wy, and it was hot - not as hot as it has been in the south of the country, but hot enough that the lazy option looked very attractive. So we went for a stroll in Crook Hall gardens; the kind of stroll that consists mostly in moving from one seat to the next, making the most of every patch of shade.

This particular green shade is in the 'Shakespeare Garden':

I know that the idea of a 'Shakespeare Garden' is to include every plant mentioned by the poet, but all I could find about this particular one is this ten-year old article, which describes it as an aspiration. I suspect that the yew tree is carrying a lot of the load here, though the dominant theme seems to be the purple globes of alliums.

Meanwhile, the cathedral supplied a musical background with a sustained peal.

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In other cultural news...

2026-05-23T18:15:56Z

... last Saturday wasn't just about great novels, it was also the Eurovision Song Contest - a somewhat depleted contest (and no, I have nothing useful to say about the boycott that caused that) but still quite long enough. And that's just the Grand Final, we don't watch the semi-finals: we may be missing somew good stiff, and feel free to point me towards it (was that really Boy George representing San Marino?) but three nights of Eurovision in one week? I don't think so!

I was intrigued by Croatia's entry, and "ethno-pop group" called Lelek, whose song Andromeda was staged in a way that suggested they were aiming to found a new religion. The BBC crib sheet says:

Performed in beautiful close harmonies by ethno-pop quintet Lelek, it discusses the suppression, abduction and forced marriage that Christian women endured in the Ottoman empire, and how they'd protect themselves by tattooing their bodies with symbols of the cross.

Looking now at the translated lyrics, this makes sense - but suggests no-one is hoping to lure Turkiye back into the contest.

Talking of "ethno-pop", all credit to UKraine, for its use of traditional instrument the bandura, and for keeping bandurist Yaroslav Dzhus on stage throughout. "His costume," it says here, "references Cossack-era musicians as keepers of oral and musical tradition," though that is too subtle for me to have picked up even if he hadn't been in the dark most of the time. (More about this on Instagram.)

I have a soft spot for Greece's offering. It has the best knitwear, and includes someone actually knitting. Can you combine rapid, video game themed glitz and sentimental shout-outs to mother? Greece will give it a try, and throws in a couple of statues (one golden, one marble white) for good measure. I thought it deserved to do better han 10th, but what do I know?

As witness, I didn't mind the UK entry. Going hard for quirky is a gamble, and it didn't pay off (we came last, with one vote, from the Ukrainian jury). Whereas the song I actively disliked was Bulgaria's - which naturally won, and not only won, but topped both popular and jury votes and set a new record for the margin by which it won. I thought it was loud and brash and - well yes, very Eurovision. "brilliantly unhinged and full of sass," says that BBC guide.

Very Eurovision now, anyway. T he interval act looks back over 70 years of Eurovision, and has fun reimagining some classic entries in a contemporary style. Don't miss Lordi taking on Papa Pingouin, Papa what? Oh, I'm so glad you asked:

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Flamingo, pot plant, Middlemarch

2026-05-18T17:09:36Z

Saturday's Guardian released its list of the 100 best novels of all time. From the way they released it in installments online, not to mention the invitations to engage: how many have you read? what would you put top of the list?, I'd be tempted to dismiss it as clickbait. I also react badly to the application of "of all time" to an art form as recent as the novel. How far back can you trace the novel? The earliest on the list is Don Quixote (1605, #26) which is fair enough, but "of all time"? Seriously? But I can't resist a list, especially not a list of books, so without taking it too seriously, some thoughts.

( Down the rabbit hole - and not finding Alice there... )

We could go on playing "what about?" more or less indefinitely. But this has gone on long enough, so let's stop there.

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Quotation of the week

2026-05-18T16:24:10Z

I do not belong to that school of thought which says in the face of extreme horror, suffered by others, one should be silent. On the contrary I believe that all the forces of imagination should be employed to speak of their suffering.

Carol Rumens, interview with the Poetry Book Society.
Guardian obituary

With the caveat that the opposite is also true: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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Reinventing the wheel

2026-05-17T17:01:07Z

Last week in the Guardian Zoe Williams tested celebrity drinks brands. I'm interested in drinks (if not celebrities) and anyway, I'll read anything Zoe Williams writes. This is what she had to say about Emma Watson's Renais gin:

Watson is the closest you'll come to a celebrity with an authentic purpose and hinterland in this market. With her brother, she's created a gin from salvaged grape skins, on the Burgundy estate where their father has been making wine for 30 years. Watson senior has an award for his chablis, which they almost never give anyone who isn't French...

She goes on to say nice things about it. But I was distracted by the way she presents the source as a creative, new idea: distilling the must that remains when the grapes have been pressed for wine, how clever, who would have thought of that?

...The photographer was Italian and raised the inconvenient objection that a spirit made of grape skins is a grappa. That just wouldn’t sound very Watson, though.

Also, while a spirit made of Italian grape skins is a grappa, a spirit made of grape skins from Chablis is a marc de Bourgogne. Which I think of as a product with much higher prestige than gin: but I'm probably out of touch.

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Centenaries

2026-05-08T11:43:05Z

Today is the hundredth birthday of David Attenborough. I have no particular opinions about this, beyond a general "that's nice." Or at least, that was my initial reaction, the first time the BBC mentioned it. But they are making such a fuss about it, I'm becoming quite irritable. I have nothing against the man, but his birth is not the only thing that happened in the spring of 1926.

Why yes, I am thinking of the General Strike. I have been surprised at the general absence of comment on its centenary: it was quite a big deal at the time, you know.

There are some commemoative events going on, but you have to look for them: and while I was doing that, I found a couple of links which I will stash here to come back to when I have time, one from Hansard in February 1926, and one from Beamish Museum.

And one other (because I haven't forgotten that I have a post pending): on Good Friday, 2nd April 1926, The Portmeirion Hotel opened to guests.

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Obituaries

2026-05-04T17:13:33Z

Have I written before about the guilty pleasure of obituaries? I don't want to treat anyone's death as a good thing, but sometimes an obituary for someone I had never heard of makes me less sad that they have died, more glad to know that they lived in the first place.

Last Saturday's Guardian carried an obituary for sculptor Lloyd le Blanc (Why the delay between online and print, I don't know. It's just one of the Guardian's little foibles.). I admit, it was the giant bronze artichokes that caught my eye (another reason to dream of visiting Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons), but I also admired Le Blanc's career path: with a fine arts degree from Yale, followed by a stint as a welder on North Sea oil rigs, what else would you do but set up a foundry?

More pictures on the Le Blanc Fine Art website.

My newspaper of choice lets me down when I try to quote the counter-example of Nicole Hollander: I am a long-time admirer (my 1991 diary was 'The Sylvia book of days') and I was sorry to hear of her death. But it's possible, I suppose, that someone may read this who has not already encountered Sylvia, in which case the information might be a source of happiness. Since the Guardian is silent on the topic, here's The Chicago Sun-Times. And - not an obituary, but a reference work - Lambiek Comiclopedia is generous with examples of her work.

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Interpretation through story

2026-05-02T17:17:14Z

We spent the afternoon at a lecture jointly organised by the City of Durham Trust and the World Heritage Site. The speaker was Colleen Batey, currently World Heritage Site Honorary Professor: a new post, and one which sounds as if it will give her scope to do all sorts of interesting things.

The original plan was for the session to be divided between two speakers: but then Jane Lovell looked at the Bank Holiday rail timetable, and realised that it couldn't be done, so instead we had a single talk with a dual focus. Colleen Batey's revised title was Interpretation through storytelling: case studies from Orkney and St Kilda. I'm not convinced that these two cases cast much light on each other. The Orcadian example looked at the interpretation of the Earl's Bu at Orphir, as described in the Orkneyinga Saga, and camre to the conclusion that the Saga gave an accurate description, but that subsequent interpretation had settled on the wrong building as the drinking hall. At St Kilda, the question seems to be, who gets to tell the story? But if you'd announced a talk on "Some digs I have worked on in Orkney and St Kilda (with pictures) I'd still have been there...

Most tantalising prospect: the possibility of a projct to research the mason's marks of Durham Cathedral and compare them to those found in St. Magnus' (which I think must refer to this project, and see whether the same masons really did work on both...

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The Imagined Village

2026-04-27T16:54:39Z

In 1925, Clough Williams-Ellis borrowed "a modest amount" from the Midland Bank, and bought the estate of Aber Iâ on the coast of North Wales. The name means 'glacial estuary', but the first thing he did was change it to Portmeirion: 'port' for the coastal location and 'meirion' because it was in the county of Merioneth. On this site he set about building his village - his very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar village. It isn't fake, exactly, because there's no pretence that it's anything other than one man's dream, take it or leave it:

If you take it - if you step through those inviting gates - you accept the sense of unreality as part of the deal. For those who (like three of our foursome) had first met Portmeirion through The Prisoner, there's something sinister about this: just enough to add spice to all that prettiness. We discussed something that hadn't occurred to me before, whether some genius came up with Portmeirion as a location when The Prisoner was being planned, or whether it was Portmeirion that shaped The Prisoner; and on no evidence other than what seemed more likely, inclined to the latter. Back home, the internet provides evidence for this several episodes of Danger Man, the precursor to The Prisoner, were filmed here.

( Shall we explore...? )

Because it is only too easy to escape from the Village; the car park lies through that tunnel...

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Welcome to Portmeirion

2026-04-21T20:21:44Z

To celebrate my significant birthday, we spent the weekend in Bwthyn Deudraeth, a cottage on the Portmeirion estate: not actually in the village (or should that be The Village?) but just outside, and a few steps away from Castell Deudraeth, a Victorian 'castle' which is now Portmeirion's other hotel. My birthday being the Friday, it was the day we were in transit, so we didn't actually visit the village until the day after - but that will be another post, once I have sorted out some photographs.

Just one picture, for now. I had completely forgotten about Portmeirion pottery, until I saw the fruit bowl in our dining room: but then I couldn't resist unloading all the fruit and photographing it:

We did manage to celebrate on the day with a birthday dinner at the Brasserie at Castell Deudraeth: but don't be fooled by the name, this was a very grand brasserie. We were ushered to what at first appeared to be a delightful table, with windows looking onto the garden on two sides - but it was right next to the piano, and then the pianist arrived. It's not that he was bad: I suspect that he was very good at his job. He certainly had stamina, starting at 7.30 and still going strong when we left, and the piano is not a quiet instrument. I was amused by the presence on the wine list of a range of 'Portmeirion' wines (and even more amused when I saw them in the shop: chardonnay, Rhône, picpoul de pinet, each label adorned with a village landmark...). I might have chosen the sauvignon blanc, to accompany a vegetable risotto in which asparagus had lead billing, but I ordered a Sicilian grillo and was well pleased with my choice, not only because the dominant note of the risotto was pea. Its mild smokiness was also a good match for the cheeseboard (though I also had a glass of muscat de saint-jean, just to be on the safe side).

Back at our cottage, we didn't have room for birthday cake, but we did play with the television set: no internet and therefore no catch-up, but it did have a channel which showed nothing but The Prisoner. This was not only thematically perfect but also convenient, as GirlBear had never seen the show; unfortunately, the episode then screening happened to be the final one, not an ideal introduction. Another evening we saw the second half of a more typical story, after which she declared that she had now sampled quite enough, and didn't need to see any more. (Further research reveals that the entire series is available on itvX, and yes, I may well revisit it.)

On Saturday and Sunday we explored Portmeirion, and there will be more about that later. But on Saturday we also went out in search of provisions, and it's a sign that we were in holiday mode that we decided that it was worth going as far as Anglesey to shop at Waitrose: about 20 miles, 40 minutes, a lovely scenic drive around the fringes of Snowdonia. As a bonus, this took us across the Menai Bridge. Leaving, GirlBer fell into conversation with the cashier, and told her we were staying in Portmeirion: I got married at Portmeirion, she said. Was it closed? Oh, no, there were lots of people there. And when my father led me down the steps, they all applauded. A beat, then: I'm divorced now.

I can't follow that.

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Going back and doing it again

2026-04-17T17:19:47Z

On Wednesday we went back to Oswestry, because it was market day. It was a wet and gusty day, and the outdoor market had very sensibly decided not to happen, but inside the market hall there were many sparkly things to entertain us, like this little café-bar.

Upstairs in the gallery was a guitar shop, where boybear eyed up a guitar with rainbow strings, while the rest of us watched the proprietor unpacking a box of 78s, reading the name of each while we - and another (even older, I suspect) witness - identified as many of them as we could. GirlBear won this game by singing Zambezi. We returned to the Beech Tree for lunch (the falafel were even better than the Turkish eggs I had eaten last time), and paid our respects at St Oswald's Well: I do like a tiny place of historic interest tucked in to the side of a housing estate. Then we returned to visit K. again. We had all, I think, been hesitant about whether she would welcome four visitors at a time, but she seemed to be feeling better than she had on Sunday, and I think it was all right.

On Thursday we returned to Trevor, to take the canal boat across the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, and the sun came out and the guide was excellent, so that was fun and not at all terrifying (even when she informed us that the joints in the ironwork were sealed with Welsh flannel soaked in sugar-water and pigs blood, and that the structure was therefore held together with treacle). We headed in to Llangollen in search of lunch, and would have liked to patronise the tearooms at Plas Newydd, but they were only serving cake, so we went into the town and found a pleasant little café next door to the delightful Courtyard Books.

We have now relocated to Portmeirion: a drive through beautiful scenery, though sometimes swathed in cloud. boybear has been here before, and surprises me by how clearly he remembers it: it has been a constant of this holiday that we remember different fragments of childhood holidays in Wales, but on this occasion he is on his own, it is my first visit to Portmeirion. Which seemed like a good way to celebrate my birthay.

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Sun and rain

2026-04-14T16:49:21Z

Yesterday was sunny and mild; since the Bears were due to arrive on an early afternoon train, we didn't stray far, so here's a picture of the gates to he park in Chirk:

It's about time we had a picture of a red dragon! Also, the "bloodied hand of Chirk". It's worth persevering through the many advertisements on this page for two explanations of this badge, one colourful, the other plausible.

Today we were more ambitious: we would head for the Pontcysllte aqueduct, and see whether we were brave enough for the boat trip across the aqueduct, the 'stream in the sky'. Naturally, it rained. Worse, the boat was out of service for maintenance: but the staff were very reassuring, we strolled along to the start of the aqueduct and decided that although we were not tempted to walk across, we might well return for the boat trip later in the week. Meanwhile, durham_rambler wanted to take the advice of our host and visit the Horseshoe Pass. It was a scenic drive up to the viewpoint, provided that your definition of the scenic encompasses low cloud, muted colours and hazy visibility: "a watercolour view," says GirlBear.

By the time we came back to the Horseshoe Falls, though, it was hardly raining at all. The Falls were not what I had expected.

Not a high cascade, but a weir, a marvel of engineering constructed by Thomas Telford to manage the flow of water to his canal, and part of the associated World Heritage Site (oh, yes, in this respect too we are not so far from home). We admired the view, spotted a couple of violets hiding in a bramble bush, and were entertained by the efforts of a pair of kayakers to manoeuvre their craft through a kissing gate. Then we relocated to the Chain Bridge Hotel (no, not the Union Chain Bridge, a much smaller affair) for lunch. Our table looked out onto the river, where the kayak-related entertainment continued: a group of kayakers were removing a boat that seemed to have been abandoned on a bank in mid-river.

And home via Aldi, to buy provisions, which I should now prepare for an early supper ahead of a visit to a folk club.

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Home from home

2026-04-12T17:28:02Z

We drove right across England, from the north east to the western borders, to find ourselves back in sheep-rearing, coal-mining country.

And more. Our plan for yesterday was a lazy Sunday morning, a visit to K, who is in the orthopaedic hospital near Oswestry in the afternoon. Having no better idea, we filled the gap between the two with a gentle stroll round Oswestry. "Oswestry, a historic Shropshire market town almost surrounded by Wales," promises the 'visit Oswestry' website. This doesn't mention either of the things that most intrigued me.

First, as we drove into town, we passed the church of Saint Oswald. I think of Oswald as a Northumbrian saint (and king), and that's not wrong, but it turns out that he was not, as I assumed, killed at the battle of Heavenfield (near the Wall). He won that battle, defeating King Penda there, and was killed in the rematch here (they have a miraculous well to prove it). The town is named Oswestry fo Oswald ("Oswald's tree", apparently).

It is also the birthplace of Wilfred Owen, though it's only now in the comfort of my own computer that I realise that he never lived there as an adult, which my explain why we encountered so few traces on the streets (though there is a walking tour which manges to find some connections.

And, as promised, it is a market town with an independent bookshop and some interesting old buildings. We lunched at the Beech Tree café, and would happily do o again. I'm hoping to return on Wednesday, which is market day, and explore more of Oswestry's street art.

On our way home, forewarned, I made durham_rambler pull in for a better look at a building that had caught my eye on the outward journey: red-brick, Arts & Crafts inflected, pointed tower... It turned out to be the Quinta Sunday School, and while I don't have a photo I'd want to post here (high walls, intrusive hedges, sun in the wrong place), there does seem to be a whole lot of history behind the estate, including a private (mineral) railway line and a stone circle (early Victorian). So well worth the stop.

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Initial explorations

2026-04-12T17:16:47Z

Yesterday's first task was to charge the car, and there was a charge point i the car park in Chirk. From here it was an easy walk, back the way we had come, to the Chirk Aqueduct.

This is less spectacular than the famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, which we hope to visit later in the week, but forms part of the same UNESCO World Heritage site. I walked across it into England, where I was greeted by a banner advertising the Samaritans, and back into Wales, where a bilingual information board proclaims the canal a pioneering engineering achievement: and both of these things are useful information. I saw a train go past on the railway bridge above, and I watched a canal boat make its way into the tunnel, and by this time the car was ready, and we reclaimed it and went to the Co-op for a few necessities (the day's newspaper).

We followed the canal along until we found a pub that backed onto it, where we stopped for lunch (the Poachers, I recommend the chips) and another view of the canal. The intermittent showers were becoming less intermittent, so we headed for the shelter of Chirk Castle: from the outside it's a very impressive medieval fortress, but has escaped falling into ruins. Usually I would be disappointed at this, but given the weather I was prepared to take advantage of its roof, and explore the stately home incrusted in Roger Mortimer's Marcher stronghold. Of the treasures within, I liked this pair of beasts the best:

According to the information sheet, they are a pair of Charles II newel posts, carved in elm (probably by Nicholas Needham, not a name I recognise) and they are wyverns. I don't have a clear mental image of a wyvern, but that pointy, cartoon-mouse face is definitely not it. We lingered at the castle over tea and lemon drizzle cake, and were rewarded with a rainbow as we left.

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I dreamed I saw Phil Ochs last night -

2026-04-10T18:14:12Z

No, I didn't really. I drifted off into sleep from half-dreams about packing, and what I needed to remember to bring with us, and how much of the lurking washing-up I'd be able to clear before we set off. It wasn't until I was clearing away the breakfast things that durham_rambler pointed out that yesterday had been the 50th anniversary of the death of Phil Ochs - I knew that the date was approaching, but my mind had been elsewhere... So:

I dreamed I saw Phil Ochs last night
Alive as you and me
Says I to Phil "You're ten years dead"
"I never died" says he
"I never died" says he

Not ten, fifty. Fifty! How is this possible? If there's one songwriter I've been turning to lately, it's Phil Ochs - and I'm not the only one.

Anyway, packing was completed, and we set off - as much as packing is ever completed. But it wasn't until we were crossing the high Pennines that I gazed at the misty landscapes of Cumbria and realised I had forgotten to bring my camera. Yes, I am very annoyed about this. But I have my phone, and durham_rambler has offered me the use of his camera, so it isn't the end of the world. Later on I thought I should probably have brought some olive oil, too, but it shouldn't be hard to buy some.

We lunched at the ice cream parlour in Brough, though we did not go overboard on ice cream (I had a single scoop of biscoff, which was fine). We had planned a stop for a cup off tea and a recharge of the car, but the place where we had intended to do this never presented itself, so we carried on to our destination.

We are spending a week in Little Cowhouse, a converted barn near Chirk, which is in Wales, though we are just across the river which forms the border, in Shropshire. We have a view down onto the bridge: the border, says our host, is right across the middle of the bridge, with the result that neither country fixes the potholes. On Monday the Bears will join us (travelling by train) and we shall have fun together.

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Easter Sunday or not

2026-04-05T17:21:16Z

Happy Easter! Though these are in fact the eggs I ate a week ago, at Isla.

Easter Sunday or not, this is the first Sunday in the month, which is the date of the Farmers' Market. Storm Dave blew through in the night, but the morning was bright, and we were prepared for the market to be busy. But what we weren't prepared for was a convoy of a thousand motor bikes bearing Easter eggs: we arrived at the New Inn just before they did, and were held up by the police while they went through (we tried taking a different route, and met them again further along their route). It took about 20 minutes, and we were not amused. There was much muttering about being intimidated by public displays of religion, and about the evil influence of the sugar industry. We got there eventually, though, and not everything had sold out...

Easter Sunday or not, April 5th is/was my father's birthday, and we marked the occasion as we do whenever we can by visiting Finchale Priory where he spent holidays as a boy.

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In search of the English Folk Song

2026-04-04T17:03:20Z

In the run-up to Easter - yes, two weeks ago, and this post has been in progress ever since - Washington Arts Centre hosted a mini folk festival: this preview gives more information than anything else I could find. We attended two events, one of which was only semi-attached to the festival: another we would have gone to, if it hadn't been sold out (an evening with the Davy Lamp Folk Club). Swings and roundabouts.

( Ken Russell )

( Martin Simpson )

To complete this survey, on Tuesday the Bears steered us to Treuddyn Village Hall for the Dragon's Breath folk club: a very friendly singaround club, not English but Welsh, though you couldn't have told from the material. Donovan's Colours, "one of my own poems," and a generous admixture of self-penned material, none of which was actively terrible. Also some classical recorder and flute, Stan Rogers' Tiny Fish for Japan (I hadn't met this before, had to look it up and was delighted to learn who it was by), O'Carolan's Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór and the real blast from the past, Roy Harper's Tom Tiddler's Ground. The Bears made me particularly happy by doing Raglan Road. If there is any line you can trace through all of this and say, That's folk music! I am no closer to discerning it. But maybe if you take the mixture as a whole...?

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That was the week that was

2026-03-29T16:45:50Z

D was with us last week, Monday to Saturday: he's an easy enough guest, familiar enough with the house to look after himself while he's here, and with other friends in the north to visit, to keep him entertained. Despite which, I seem to be catching up with things that I have been neglecting. And this journal is one of them. Where was I...?

Well, even before D arrived, we spent Saturday at the County Durham Archaeology Day; we have attended something similar in the past, though I can find no record of it here. That was in Bishop Auckland Town Hall; this was in a lecture theatre on the Science Site, and the more local venue did not make things as much easier as you might expect. One of the talks I found most interesting was on a bare hilltop near Newton Aycliffe, which found the boundary enclosure of an Iron Age fort, with a large unidentified structure in the middle. But others were on high-profile subjects - the Stockton & Darlington 200 celebrations (and how to exploit railway archaeology all the time, not just every 50 years), the wall painting discovered at Durham Castle (as reported by the BBC) though I warn you, it's a painting of one flower, don't expect too much; and an update from the always riveting Gary Bankhead about recent discoveries including a whetstone factory on the banks of the Wear.

I was sniffling through much of this, and hoping it was caused by spending the day in an enclosed lecture theatre, but no: by Sunday it was obvious that I had a streaming cold. Luckily, that was also the worst of it, and by the time D. arrived on Monday, he was asking why I had thought it worth warning him.

Thursday was the day none of us had any other engagements, so we went out to lunch. We thought we had identified somewhere (the Vane Arms, at Thorpe Thewles) that was new to D, but of course as we came into the village he realised "Oh, yes, I recognise it now...". The menu has perhaps skewed further towards the things-on-flatbreads than we were expecting, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. And afterwards we indulged D's desire to frolic on a beach by taking him to Seaton Carew, for the full Out of Season vibe:

On Saturday morning D set off for home, and we headed out for lunch with the pub quiz team. We operate a kitty, paying our winnings in and our entrance fees of a shared purse, and win (or place) often enough that we build up a surplus. From time to time we take ourselves out for a meal to spend it, and since we don't manage to organise this very often, we feel an obligation to be as extravagant as we can. On this occasion, we decided that lunch at Isla would be a good compromise between comfort, convenience and grandeur - and I'd say it delivered. The food was very pleasant: I had the first asparagus of the spring, a handful a thin stems (perhaps you should call it sprue) with a perfectly boiled egg; and grilled cod in a sauce billed as rhubarb, but in which the rhubarb was subdued by just slightly too much cream. I should have ordered chips with it - or actually some more of the bread we'd shared as a starter - and then I would have mopped up all that sauce, so the cream can't have been disastrously excessive.

The particular pleasure that follows a restaurant meal with the smug feeling that yes, I made precisely the right choice there, though, came not from the food but from the wine. It wasn't a long wine list, but it had some good things on it: we had a bottle of cava, more or less out of a sense of obligation - we ought to start withsome fizz - and it got us off to the right start; since everyone was eating fish, we went for a Swiss white, and enjoyed it enough that we had another; and my dessert was a glass of Uruguayan dessert wine. This was wonderful, but also completely unexpected: I've had dessert tannat before, but I wasn't expecting anything this rich, this dark, this caramel- or even coffee -flavoured. I am embarrassed not to have realised (blame it on the excellence of the lunch) that this had not been attained by tannat alone, but also involved fortification and aromatics...

We went on to the even fancier wine bar along the road, and since there was no going back from that dessert wine, I had a glass of muscat, which at first seemed thin in comparison, but I lingered over it, and it became rich and grapey and a pleasure.
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Manuscript discovered in library

2026-03-23T12:59:22Z

When you hear that a fragment of "lost" medieval manuscript has been discovered, you can be pretty sure that it was found in a library, and specifically that it has been used in the binding of a more recent volume. What is different about the recent story about the discovery of a page of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin is the astonishing tech that was used to examine it.

Cambridge University explanation, with lots of technical details, excellent graphics and - thankyou, Cambridge University - a summary of the contents. This explains, for example, why the manuscript (whose existence was already known) had been catalogued as part of a Gawain story: part of the narrative is indeed about Gawain.

The BBC reports the story under the heading 'Futures': they are more interested in the technology than in any literary content. Which is fair enough, but doesn't explain their summary of the fragment:

In it, the magician becomes a blind harpist who later vanishes into thin air. He will then reappear as a balding child who issues edicts to King Arthur wearing no underwear.

I know nothing about the Vulgate cycle (it's in prose!): this doesn't match Cambridge University's account of their fragment, but does it come anywhere else in the romance?

There's a talk later this week, as part of the Cambridge Festival.

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Spring migrants

2026-03-17T20:42:47Z

It must be the season when visitors head north. Next week D. will be with us, just for a break and catching up - with us and other friends in the north. And we have just had a flying visit from helenraven, on her way even further north to a family celebration.

We took her to lunch at our favourite wine bar: a little nervously, because what makes it our favourite is not that the food and the wine are superlative - both are good but not stunning. helenraven is a person of taste and discernment, and I was afraid they might not meet her standards. But being a person of taste and discernment, she enjoyed the ambiance, the friendly service, the good food, the opportunity to have fun with wine - and besides, we had so much talking to do that durham_rambler had to prod me and ask, wasn't I going to take a picture?

All three of us opted for one of the flights of wine on offer: mine, as you see, were the four reds, helenraven had the 'family flight' from the business's own vineyard, and that lightweight durham_rambler chose a platter of nibbles with only three glasses of wine. That's an impresive eleven glasses on the table (there was some duplication, but not much).

We came home via Collected Books, where I was good, and just bought some cards, and via the North Road, which is looking terribly down at heel, and not just because of the Bus Station, where building work is still in progress (not that it does seem to progress) and where the usual handful of police cards were in attendance. And spent the rest of the day and much of the morning after, catching up - with breaks for reading when all this socialising got too much for us.

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Not celebrated, but observed.

2026-03-14T18:28:26Z

Thursday was durham_rambler's birthday. This is not a plea for messages of congratulation: he really doesn't seem interested in celebrating it. I asked him several times if he wanted to take a day out, or do anything special, and never got an answer - and then the weather was horrible, so it's just as well. The most birthday-related activity of our day was organising a card for his sister-in-law, whose birthday is today. Maybe I exaggerate a bit: there were cards, and we opened a bottle of wine with our dinner, but I stand by my title: not celebrated, but observed.

Despite all of that, it did seem celebratory to go out to a concert yesterday: Kathryn Tickell and Amy Thatcher at Ushaw. I don't enjoy all of Kathryn Tickell's projects, and we didn't enjoy Amy Thatcher's Re:Vulva at Hartlepool, but this collaboration is solid Northumbrian tradition, fiddle and smallpipes and accordeon and clogs and just the right amount of chat. Here's a taster - but imagine it without the band lurking in the shadows (the lighting wasn't as good, either):

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I think it was the guitarist John James who said that the Welsh have no folk music, because 'we know who wrote them all'. Kathryn Tickell takes the opposite position: a tune can still be traditional even if you know who wrote it, even if she wrote it herself, because tradition is a living thing. (As the Incredible String Band sing: The opposite is also true.) So we had songs by Kathryn and Amy, songs by the Northumbrian shepherds with whom Kathryn played as a child, Alastair Anderson's Dog Leap Stairway and some genuinely old pipe tunes, and I enjoyed them all. So when I said "solid Northumbrian tradition," what makes it solid is the geographical unity.

With one exception, and perversely one of my favourite pieces: a tune called The Joy of It by Shetland fiddler Catherine Geldard.

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Seen in Lidl

2026-03-06T18:07:37Z

The latest in an ongoing series of how other people reconsider their shopping:

"I thought I wanted some nice healthy cashew nuts - but now I see those chocolate buttons..."

We've all been there.

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