News from Nowhere

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 visitirs 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 Scool, 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 fiest 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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...but the melody lingers on.

2026-02-28T12:57:13Z

It's more than a week since we watched a virtual Live to Your Living Room concert with Nancy Kerr and James Fagan. It was a great show, of course: LTYLR seem to have come up with a formula for hybrid events that really works (they organised an in-person concert themselves). And ten days later, it is still with me in more than one way.

In the course of the evening, Nancy talked about the Music Heritage Place project - and specifically that it was the subject of a series of talks on Radio 3. So I've been listening to those: visits to county archives round the country to see what music might have found its way into their collections, and turning up a wide variety of stuff. I haven't yet heard anything that has stayed with me, despite the best efforts of the Melrose Quartet, but I have thought many interesting thoughts about how we define folk music, and who gets to make the definitions, and what gets included and excluded as a result...

This reminded me that there is always something worth bearing in Thank Goodness It's Folk, the show James Fagan co-hosts. How can you not love a programme that sets itself to work in order through the Child ballads? They have just reached 'Geordie', and devoted much of the show to compare and contrast.

But more than either of these, the gig stayed with me because it restocked my inner jukebox - that's an archaic image, and perhaps I should learn to think of it as a playlist set to 'shuffle', but I'm archaic myself, so a jukebox it remains. Anyway. Nancy Kerr's infectious melodies are weapons-grade earworms, liable to start up at any time, let alone in the aftermath of a gig, so it was inevitable (and not on a bad way) that Queen of Waters would be following me around for the next week. More surprisingly, it was accompanied by Now is the time, which I wouldn't have claimed as a particular favourite. And just occasionally, for a change, the algorithm would offer me Robb Johnson's Spirit of Free Enterprise.

All of this makes perfect sense: what really set me thinking about earworms was the Monday morning when I found myself earwormed by The Manchester Rambler. Where had that come from? I may be a wage slave on Monday / But I am a free man on Sunday... Was that it? But though it was Monday, I'm not exactly a wage slave (I was lazing in the bath at the time). Can an earworm be triggered, not by a fragment of tune but by an idea? Certainly the news headlines have had Cops of the World on pretty constant play (and I'm not the only Guardian reader to have that one).

To which you can add: One - two - three / What are we fighting for? / Don't ask me... A whole other sense in which the song has ended, but ...

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Miniature worlds

2026-02-27T18:17:51Z

By a lucky fluke, I learned about the 'Miniature Worlds' exhibition at the Lang Art Gallery before it closed. Here's an introduction:

I'm always happy to admire Bewick's tailpieces; I enjoy the crazy grandeur of John Martin's massive scenes, and was curious how this would translate to a small scale; and was that really an invitation to meet Tenniel's original Alice? So last Thursday I called in on my way to my reading group (the gallery is conveniently next door to the library).

Verdict in short: there were many good things, not all of them the ones I expected.

( Verdict at length: )

Most of the section devoted to 'Contemporary Considerations' left me completely unmoved. But I did enjoy the selection of Paul Coldwell's miniature Antarctic scenes, including this bronze killer whale threatening some penguins:

Note the thumbprints, a reference to the human impact on the Antarctic landscape, but also a nod the tailpiece in which Bewick carves his own thumbprint across whatever subject might have been planned. Which is where I came in ...

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Rory Stewart's legacy

2026-02-25T21:16:31Z

Local councils have a degree of flexibility in the recycling services they offer, and hitherto food waste collection has been optional. Some councils collect food waste, others don't, and Durham doesn't. But legislation is about to come into effect, which will require all councils to collect food waste: I've been thinking this was new legislation, but no, according to the Council officer whose talk we attended on Tuesday, this is something we owe to Rory Stewart, back when he was a junior minister (before he found his career in podcasting).

( Talking rubbish )

tl:dr; version is that it doesn't really matter. We can carry on composting, and although we don't actually use compost, it means that we produce very little food waste. I just wish the County Council wouldn't behave as if I didn't exist. (I blame this less on the political make-up of the council, more on being a unitary authority; but that's another rant.)

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The evergreen equivalent of carrying personal defence spray

2026-02-21T11:44:51Z

I always rnjoy Rachel Roddy's coolery column in the Guardian, more for her descriptions than for her recipes. I was not in the slightest tempted to cook last week's chocolate and rosemary panna cotta - I didn't even feel much desire to eat it - but I loved what she had to say about aromatic herbs. Their scent, she argues, seems made for our culinary pleasure, but a form of self-defence, a weapon against both both predators and competitors.

Rosemary is particularly kick-arse in this respect, with those volatiles (mostly organic compounds called terpenoids) synthesised and stored in minuscule glands that project from the surface of each dark green needle, which breaks when brushed against or bitten, releasing an intense, hot, bitter shot. It’s the evergreen equivalent of carrying personal defence spray. The needles also mark territory. By leaking their volatiles into the nearby soil, they inhibit the seeds of other plants (maybe even their own) from taking root and, in turn, taking space, water and precious minerals in a challenging environment.

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Of kindness and rereading

2026-02-20T12:08:12Z

Amazon has just e-mailed to tell me that the next volume of Chaz Brenchley's Outremer will be out next month: I won't be buying it from Amazon, but hooray, here it is on the publisher's website! Grounds for rejoicing, but also a reminder that I still haven't posted about his Of the Emperor's Kindness, although I bought my copy when it was published in the autumn, and read it as a Christmas treat. Actually, reread it, because Chaz was kind enough to send me a copy when it was first completed "just for fun..."

Which surely renders superfluous the traditional disclosure: Chaz is a friend, and I am a fan. This isn't going to be a balanced review, because I loved this book. In fact, here's what I wrote to the author at the time:

... For values of "fun", obviously, which include grief, mourning and exile - still writing about exile, then?

But seriously, I enjoyed this twist on the fantasy / comedy of manners; I loved the way that the place of magic is occupied by mind-boggling amounts of money, and the impossibly competent staff that money can buy. Hooray for an aristocratic fantasy in which a character actually notices and thinks about those staff and what it is like having them around, even though they are, to an almost magical degree, practically perfect in every respect...

The one shadow on all this pleasure is that this is a book by Chaz, and therefore there will be betrayal, so I was braced for that, and wondering when it would come - only to realise at the final reveal that it has already happened, happened way back at the beginning of the story, which I might have realised if I had remembered to look for the crime story, for the whodunnit at the heart of the book by Chaz - which I didn't because I was so dazzled by everything else.

Rereading, of course, is a different experience, because you know the story and are looking out for how it's done: and that's a joy, too.

But something else was different about this reread: I don't think it's spoilerish to say (see the publiher's plot information) that this is a story of what happens when a large country invades, tries to absorb, its smaller neighbour. Malance, bereft of her country, must depend on the kindness of the world's other great power. How had I managed to read it without thinking constantly of Russia and Ukraine? And - well, to go further would be a spoiler, but this delightful fantasy is certainly talking about some very current real-world issues... So I checked back. When had I written that initial response? Ah: it was in the spring of 2021. That unmissable contemporary relevance was pure prescience, issues that were in the world but not yet all over the headlines. New proverb: You can never read the same book twice.

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House and garden

2026-02-17T21:14:59Z

So, as I was saying, we plan to return at midsummer to that part of Scotland where we celebrated D.'s birthday last year. It must be time to resume the unfinished account of that trip. Starting with where we were staying.

D., as we know, has a taste for grand and historic dwellings, and on this occasion had booked the North Wing of the house in Pitmedden Garden:

That's our back door, giving directly onto the garden: and while the house was fine and comfortable (if a little lacking in internet, which is often the way of such places) it's the garden that's the main attraction. ( So let's go for a walk in the garden... )

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Grandfather rights

2026-02-16T12:58:43Z

Flickr wants me to verify my age. They explain that this is a result of the Online Safety Act.

It's irritating, but not impossible. The first time I encountered it, it tool me by surprise, so I just backed off, and did something else. When I had durham_rambler ready to advise, and some pieces of ID handy, I logged in to Flickr only to be admitted straight off, and couldn't find any way to call up the relevant screen. Eventually, no doubt, the stars will align and I will persuade Flickr that I am over 18.

But while I was there, I checked my profile: I opened my Flickr account in February 2006. Which is surely evidence that I am over 18.

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Lundy: variable

2026-02-15T12:48:14Z

We were in two minds last night over whether to watch Sailing the Shipping Forecast with the Rev. Richard Coles. On the one hand: the Shipping Forecast! On the other hand: the Rev. Richard Coles! I don't actually dislike Richard Coles as much as that might suggest (though I'd like him better if he didn't use the 'Rev.' outside a professional setting), but I have very little tolerance for travel shows with celebrity presenters...

But we watched it, and I was glad we had, because not only did it start in the sea area Lundy, it did actually visit the island of Lundy, somewhere I have never been and have not quite given up the hope of visiting.

Unusually, it managed to visit Lundy without uttering the word "puffin", though I spotted two representations of my favourite bird. One was a picture on sale in the island shop (an unexpectedly large and well-stocked establishment); the other - well, this was something new to me. In the 1920s, the owner of Lundy issued his own currency: the programme didn't mention that the coins were the puffin and the half-puffin. Nor did it mention that he was prosecuted for it, under the Coinage Act of 1870. The House of Lords found him guilty in 1931, and he was fined £5 with fifteen guineas expenses.

But you can't visit Lundy and not mention the seabirds, so instead of the eponymous puffins, the island warden took Richard Coles to see the manx shearwaters. Not just manx shearwaters, but manx shearwater chicks, which are balls of soft grey fluff, and larger than I expected: Coles was allowed to hold one, and it overflowed his two cupped hands. He was also tutored in how to imitate the call of the manx shearwater. To my delight, it sounded very much like a fairy being sick.

The Lundy segment was only a fraction of the hour-long programme - but it made the whole thing worth my time. I'd be willing to watch the episode on the Faroes, too (though I'll probably give the Isle of Wight a miss).

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Holiday plans

2026-02-14T19:17:07Z

My birthday this year will be a semi-significant one. Five years ago I had a proper, significant, ends-with-a-zero birthday (I wrote about it at the time): but of course it was not a good time for special birthday holidays.

This year, therefore, I have some catching up to do. I was just beginning to think about how I would like to do it - France by train, perhaps? It's about time I visited Strasbourg... Then GirlBear suggested that - well, I think she suggested that she and boybear come and visit, but we decided that the really fun thing would be to go somewhere together. So now I was looking for somewhere that had something special about it, but was also Bear-friendly (not Abroad, not too far north): and I booked a long weekend in Portmeirion, which I have wanted to visit since - well, you can probably guess. I have added a week beforehand in north Wales (actually near Chirk, which I had never heard of, but which sounds interesting).

I was very excited about this that I carried on planning. D. has already booked our midsummer getaway, near the Moray Firth (that is, not far from where we spent his last birthday in Aberdeenshire, but nearer the coast). It has been my plan all along to go on from there to Orkney, and now that is also booked - nothing ambitious, but overnight ferry north, and a few nights at the Foveran...

durham_rambler has found a travel company who do rail holidays in France, so maybe we'll make that happen in the autumn - last week's travel section had a piece about Metz which would combine nicely with that trip to Strasbourg. And we have other things planned: the home-town-reunion get together (not in his home town), the Folk Festival...

It could be quite a fun year, in fact.

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"I don't want a happy ending..."

2026-02-08T11:56:18Z

At the pub quiz, we have just reached the end of our Book Of The Moment, Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night. The BOTM supplies one question a week, working through in a fairly orderly manner; so regular quizzers can pick up a fairly reliable point, if they are prepared to read a chapter or so each week. Fly By Night was my nomination (but the Quizmaster's choice) and I am very pleased with how well it worked. For me, that is: obviously I'd love to have converted other readers to one of my favourite writers, but I have very little feedback. People do seem to have been reading the book, and I wasn't hearing the sort of complaints I've heard about previous BOTMs. I know the First Reserve Quizmaster didn't enjoy it, but you can't win them all...

Anyway, two reasons for this post. First, to record how very much I enjoyed this re-read. It's a book that responds very well to being read slowly, with attention to every detail. I remember the first time I read Fly By Night, I reached the end of - I think it was the third chapter (they are quite short) - which ends with a line that just made me laugh out loud. This time I wondered, what took me so long?. So many lovely phrases, such wonderful descriptions, so much fun...

The final question in its tenure related to this line from the very last chapter. Mosca Mye says "I don't want a happy ending - " What does she want? Well, that's easy: she wants more story." And what makes it even easier is that this quotation constitutes the entire text on the back cover of my (hardback) editions of the book: "I don't want a happy ending. I want more story." It's a great line, but also I was delighted that it runs counter to my usual complaint about cover copy which tells you too much about what comes later in the narrative. It seems that you can get away with quoting even the last chapter, if you do it right.

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... a sea of stones that have been displaced by burials

2026-02-06T13:05:24Z

Against all precedent, my morning was brightened by an item on the Today programme.

Not only has a new prize been announced, which will give serious money each year to an artist to create a work somewhere in the UK that is free for the public to visit, the first award goes to Andy Goldsworthy.

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A Royal Palace Revisited

2026-02-04T12:25:50Z

On Tuesday we went to a North-East England Research seminar - that's what the invitation calls it - in the History Department, to hear Sarah Semple speaking about recent archaeology work at Yeavering. This was an update of a lecture which we had already attended virtually, courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, as I noted in an (undated) addendum to my description of a visit to the Ad Gefrin museum.

We've made several visits to the History Department recently, so I thought I was prepared to find my way through the warren: it's a cluster of old houses in the North Bailey, and ypu have to choose the correct staircase at entry level, because they don't communicate at the top. We ignored the obvious staircase, and found our way through to the other one, which we climbed. The only sign of life at the top was alurking student, who denied that anything was happening there. Back downstairs, then, and upstairs again, knowing that there was no seminar room here, and found the office of the lecture organiser: who accompanied us back downstairs, and up a third staircase... Attendance at the seminar was much smaller than I anticipated: which was cause and which effect I could not say, but if they actually wanted an audience, maybe someone on reception, or failing that, an information board?

As it was, we were five: the lecturer, her associate, the organiser, durham_rambler and me; someone else who was clearly familiar to the team turned up halfway through. This could have been awkward, but in fact made for a comfortably informal session, and I got to ask the question which had so puzzled me last time round. The original excavations in the 1950s had identified an extraordinary 'grandstand' structure - imagine someone had seen a Roman amphitheatre, and decided they wanted one of those, but made of wood, and not the full arc, just a segment): when I saw the model in the museum I thought someone was hallucinating. Could the more recent dig cast any light on this? It hadn't been mentioned in the Antiqs' version of the lecture, but in this update there were descriptions of the postholes on which the model was based. So I asked, was this thing really as bizarre as it looked? And was relieved to get the answer, yes. And watch this space, because dating is still in progress.

We went out to lunch, at Turkish Kitchen, where we ordered All The Mezze:

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To Richmondshire and beyond

2026-01-25T12:55:31Z

Last Wednesday we collected one last Christmas present. J had been at a WI meeting where there had been a speaker from Coghlans at Barningham, which she described as a farm shop and restaurant; she had been very impressed, and wanted to take us there to lunch, as our Christmas present. This sounded like a long way to go for lunch, but a fun excursion as a special treat, and we scheduled it for last Wednesday.

Barningham is in County Durham, but in Startforth Rural District, that very southerly part of County Durham which was in the North Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. It was, as we anticipated, a long drive (we had to cross the Tees) but a scenic one - until the weather closed n and the clouds came down. We arrived rather flustered, having been wrong-footed by an oncoming car which gave way to us while we were still trying to work out whether that turning was in fact our way, only at the last minute deciding not to turn into the pub car park, and taking instead the first driveway when we should have waited for the second. It didn't look very like a farm shop:

Teesdale is another country; they do things differently there. This was Barningham Park, but it was indeed the right place, as the sign boards confirmed: the restaurant was in the carriage house of the hall, and the farm shop was through a side entrance (vegetables on display under the canvas shelter, where the splash of yellow just visible in the picture is durham_rambler). There was a notice on the door saying that the tea shop was open today for bookings only, but having come all this way (and being by now both cold and hungry) we weren't so easily deterred. And once the staff had conceded that they could serve us lunch, they did, very pleasantly. It was the hunting season, they explained, and they had been serving large parties all week; that morning they had served lunch to (I think) thirty six beaters... You can take Barningham out of the North Riding, but you can't take the North Riding out of Barningham.

The shop was teeny tiny, and some of its shelves were dedicated to 'village shop essentials' rather than farm pproduce. Also, much of the space was full of cakes. But they had some good, very local cheeses (including a young Swaledale which reminded me of Cotherstone before they started to pasteurise it - they also had Cotherstone); and I was able to buy a haggis for last night's supper.

Would visit again, if I were anywhere near (but that's unlikely).

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