News from Nowhere

We returned from holiday on Saturday. But the fun wasn't over. On Sunday I made a start on the laundry, and dealt with the most urgent of the e-mails: I did a little work, and wrapped a birthday present ready to post.

On Monday we had a lunch date in York. The Bears came up from London to see J. and J., and we joined them to eat tapas: same restaurant chain as the previous time we did this, but a different branch, and for whatever reason, I was less impressed (maybe I just made bad choices, but several menu items were navailable, and things arrived in an order that didn't entirely work). Pleasant but unspectacular food, good wine, great company: no complaints.

We brought the Bears home with us for a lightning visit. On Tuesday boybear wanted to go for a walk, and GirlBear's knee was giving enough trouble that she didn't. So we all went to Tynemouth, and boybear walked along the seafront, while the rest of us explored the local shops, and bought goodies from not one but two tiny but well-stocked delis. Then we brought the spoils home for a late lunch and a lazy afternoon. And yesterday morning we sent the Bears home on a morning train, in time for durham_rambler to go to his exercise class.

The team was on spectacular form at the pub quiz: the questions went our way, which was particularly pleasing, as it was the last appearance of one of our number, who is moving away.

Tomorrow I have an eye appointment, which I am not looking forward to...

Our return from Shropshire was altogether more leisurely: taking a reasonably direct route and breaking it almost exactly halfway would allow us to spend a day in Halifax. How could we resist?

But first, we visited a friend who lives in Wem, which is still in Shropshire. Shropshire is a large county; the largest of the shires without a coastline. (And the County Flower is the Round-leaved Sundew - though Wem is the home of the Sweet Pea.) We had such fun, and were made so welcome, that what we had intended as dropping in for coffee turned into a very leisurely lunch, we hit end-of-day traffic and barely reached our hotel in time for dinner.

I had wanted to visit Halifax - specifically, I had wanted to visit the Piece Hall - ever since J. told me about her visit. Somehow it had been just out of range when we spent our week in Saltaire, but now my chance had come. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting: I knew it was connected with the wool trade, J. had enjoyed shopping there, so I pictured something along the lines of Salt's Mill.

Actually, Halifax does have something very much like that, but it's not the Piece Hall, it's Dean Clough, which also looks worth a visit. The Piece Hall belongs to the previous generation of the textile industry, before the huge mills when weaving was still farmed out to individual handloom weavers, and the lengths ("pieces") of woven cloth were traded at this immense market place. Each clothier had an individual room, a little cell arranged in arcades around a vast open square, and these are now occupied by independent businesses, mostly arty crafty shops and cafés.

This is impressive, but pretty much impossible to photograph. In addition, it is used as an occasional summer music venue, and on the day of our visit was set up for a concert, with a marquee in one corner, and random barriers scattered about. So it wasn't looking its best overall, but there were still plenty of details to entertain us: the arcades, the displays about the history of the Piece Hall, the truly magnificent cast iron South Gates (newly restored), and yes, I admit it, the shops...

One thing that puzzled us was a church spire looming above the arcades. It must be very close outside the Piece Hall: was it the Minster? We asked a couple of staff members for directions, and they warned us that Anne Lister's grave wasn't easy to find; so we explained that we hadn't actually been thinking of Anne Lister, we were just intrigued by the spire. That, they told us, wasn't the Minster, it was the Square Chapel. Most of the Chapel had been demolished and incorporated into the arts centre (pointing to a big copper cube - and now that I've read a bit more about it, I wish that I'd looked more closely) but the spire had been built into the library. We were a bit startled at this, but yes, they said, really, it's in the library, you can go and look. So we did.



And the next day we came home, via Booths in Ripon.

Today is Harry Houdini's 150th birthday, and I didn't find out until tea-time. That's how much I am not keeping up.

People whose kind comments have gone unanswered already know this, of course. I have been amazed at people's thoughtfulness and support - InRealLife as well as online, but given the constant background noise about the evils of social media, I love this reminder that the opposite is also true. I like, too, the mixture of who comments: people I have actually met, people with whom there's a constant give-and-take, but also the reminder of the goodwill of lurkers.

The same is true off-line. Friends and neighbours have been helpful, and sometimes quite unexpectedly. J and J came from York for a cup of tea and a chat, bringing a Victoria sponge and a posy of pale yellow daffodils. They were certainly, for a number of reasons, people I would have chosen to see, but I was surprised when they offered, out of the blue, to make it happen.

We had a date to meet S. for fish and chips before she goes to the (livestreamed) opera; we won't do that, but she will call in for a cup of tea.

This morning we went to Lidl: durham_rambler hunted for (and found) treasure in the middle aisle, and I bought some emergency supplies. There's a lop-sided chicken in the oven right now.

Hello to new things, goodbye to old things, what could be more appropriate for a January post?

I am writing this on my shiny brand new laptop. My little notebook has finally died. This wasn't unexpected, and I would have replaced it long since if I could simply have bought another the same, but they just don't make them any more: if I wanted something as small, it would have to be a tablet; if I wanted a keyboard (and I do) it would have to be larger. So although my notebook was just not holding a charge, and occasionally took 20 minutes plugged into the mains before it would even switch on, I put off replacing it. Eventually, last week, it gave up the ghost altogether, in the middle of streaming a Martin Simpson concert (fortunately, a YouTube link was provided after the gig, so we watched the second half the following evening). durham_rambler researched the options, and a replacement was delivered to our door within days. Now I have to get used to its foibles - and it has to get used to mine!

A sad goodbye to our lovely greengrocers, who have struggled on through lockdown and through all the disruption of the very much extended building work on the new bus station, directly across the road from them, but have now decided to close: family circumstances played a large part in this. They will not be so easily replaced.

An entirely new toy - well, new to me, because it was passed on by J - is a Kindle Fire which enables me to listen to podcasts. We had talked about this during her very snowy visit to Durham: I said this might yet be the thing which would persuade me to get a smart phone, and she not only recommended this technical alternative, but handed on one of her cast-offs. My gratitude grows greater each time I discover another thing I can listen to: time to write and tell her so...

On Friday we attended our first funeral of the year: someone who was more than a neighbour, however long-standing, but not quite a friend. Long ago, we met him and his wife at the Sunday lunch / buffet / wine tastings conducted by our favourite restaurant (gone but not forgotten); more recently, he was the treasurer of our residents' association. We knew just enough of his life beyond this to know that when there was conflict between the schedules of the residents' group and the choir, his was one of the voices we could hear making music in the hall above our meeting room. So I wasn't surprised that the choir played a part in the funeral: but I had not known, for example, about the passion for trains...

On the way to the Farmers' Market in Sedgefield this morning, I saw the year's first rainbow: just a fuzzy stub of colour in a grey and drizzly sky, but welcome nonetheless.

First Farmers' Market of the year, too, and it too was just a promise of things to come - maybe hald the usual stalls, no baker (there are usually several), no cheesemaker... But it's worth the trip just for the winter veg. We supplemented this shopping with a visit to the Co-op: bananax, moustrap and - since they have a shelf of books on sale for a donation to charity - the first books: a biography of Kirsty MacColl, and Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories.

We visited Marks & Spencer to buy a pair of slippers for durham_rambler: this was urgent, because he was wandering about the house, up and down stairs, with the soles flapping off.

But while we were there, I wanted to look for a new winter pullover. It's winter, this is what I wear, and my current collectioin is aging - to the point that even durham_rambler has noticed the holes in one old favourite.

Women's knitwear is between the entrance of M&S and the stairs, so we started there. It was very dispiriting: there was a wide choice of jumpers in all shades of beige. Light beige, dark beige, creamy beigr, greyish beige, and just for variety some plain cream. Not plain grey, that must have been last year. I tried on one that was almosr not beige, and almost my size, but couldn't bring myseld to buy it.

So we went upstairs to menswear, and slippers, and there was the knitwear for men: blue, green, purple, a glowing dark orange ... WTF, Marks? And in a choice of [ahem] generous sizes, too.

I would just like to say that it is my conviction
That longer hair and other flamboyant affectations
Of appearance are nothing more
Than the male's emergence from his drab camoflage
Into the gaudy plumage
Which is the birthright of his sex...

I bought two jumpers: one purple ribbed, one an irresistible blue green. The earworm was free.

We were awake at seven o'clock this morning; as we quite often are. But today, instead of letting the radio lull us back to sleep, we got up and headed out early to the Farmers' Market in Sedgefield. Usually we arrive as the market is nearly over, and we buy whatever has not yet sold out; today we had choices to make, which was strange, but good. And I remembered to take my stash of empty jars back to the lady who makes jam (she had made some gooseberry chutney this month) so I felt doubly smug.

Just a fortnight ago, on our first day in Fife, we went to Kellie Castle (we went because we wanted to, but we went that day because it was Sunday and Kellie Castle was in a minority in being open). Since our previous visit, in 2014, there have been a couple of organisational changes. Entrance to the castle was by guided tour, whereas I'm pretty sure we were permitted to wander freely, before, with volunteers in each room - some of them in period costume - to provide information and make sure we behaved ourselves. Our guide was very thorough (he told us that the tour was supposed to take 40 minutes, but somehow he always needed a full hour) which is mostly a good thing, but a discouragement from asking too many questions.

The other change is that - inevitably - they have given up on banning photography inside the castle. In celebration of which, a truly magnificent plaster ceiling:



Our guide wanted to tell us about the dogs looking down from the central painting, King Charles spaniels, in anticipation of a visit from one of the Stuart kings. I wondered what the long-necked birds were, but didn't ask...

( More photos, all exterior )

And girl it looks so pretty to me
Like it always did
Oh like the Spanish City to me
When we were kids

On Monday, for my birthday treat, we went to the seaside.

We spent the day in Whitley Bay: a bright, breezy stroll along the front, brunch in Valerie's Tearoom at the Spanish City, and then we hit the shops... Fewer artisan speciality shops than I had expected, but plenty of charity shops, and durham_rambler indulged me, so we went into them all. And bought a surprising variety of books: from a nice little copy of Daisy Ashford's The Young Visiters to Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great, and even a detective story for durham_rambler (a Martin Edwards, whose title escapes me at the moment).

Then we came home, and I cooked a fennel risotto and opened a bottle of Jurançon. A day well spent.

We have shopped. Everyone told us we were crazy even to consider going to Sainsburys today, but we've been away, we had a visitor yesterday, so today it had to be. Not that we couldn't have got through the holiday without buying more food, there was already enough in the house that we wouldn't have starved, but there were things I wanted (a mixture of treats and fresh vegetables) so we ventured up to the shopping centre on the understanding that if it was too horrible we could turn round and come home.

And it wasn't too horrible at all. It was nowhere near too horrible.

We went first to Broom House Farm, then to the big supermarket, and both were busy, but both were well organised and good tempered. At the farm shop they were handing out cloakroom tickets, so you could be called when they were ready to serve you: we were still browsing when our turn came, but another customer was eager to swap.

The atmosphere at Sainsburys was cheerful too. One of the shelf stackers said it was less busy than yesterday, but they had run out of more things. Certainly there were gaps on the shelves: I'd have preferred organic onions, and double rather than single cream, but the only thing for which I found no acceptable substitute was raw beetroot. And we met someone we know, a member of a rival pubquiz team, and were able to congratulate her on her performance on Wednesday's University Challenge (alumni edition).

durham_rambler has just returned from hand delivering the last of the cards. Time to get on with some cooking.

It says much about how quietly we live that these were the excitements of the weekend, the things that made we want to record them, and share them.

Excitement at breakfast time

It's not unusual for the phone to ring at breakfast time, but it's almost always a spam call. On Saturday, though, it was my cheesemonger. They had delivered to us the previous afternoon, and at the same time had made a delivery across the road - but the door had been locked, and now A. was not answering the phone, and they were worried. So while I finished making toast and coffee, durham_rambler went across the road and told A. that people were worried about her. Needlessly, it seems: she had been out, had returned just as her shopping was being delivered, had seen them and assumed they had seen her...I liked this example of community mediated by shopping, even if the shopping is carried out by telephone and the shop is half a county away.

Excitement in the post

Saturday's post brought me a client's new book. A book in the post is a pleasure that never gets old, and this one was inscribed with a very kind message.

Building excitement

The Bears have builders: serious builders, with scaffolding and all. This is less fun, but it's certainly exciting.

Shopping excitement

More of a disruption than an excitement. I had, almost accidentally, secured a Waitrose delivery (the Ocado website was not responding, so I had idly checked Waitrose, and found a few slots, including this one, just when I would be preparing dinner) and taken the opportunity to add some favourite Waitrose products to my list (walnut oil, tinned tuna, talcum powder...). I had somehow managed not to ask for delivery in carrier bags: since Waitrose don't take back their bags for reuse, there are reasons why this is the right decision, but it did mean some hasty transferring of purchases into bags so we could carry them downstairs.

Musical excitements (1)

I was flustered by this awkward delivery, because we wanted to finish dinner in time for a Live to Your Living Room concert with Nancy Kerr and James Fagan. To our living room, it turned out, but not from theirs: they were coming to us from Nancy's mother's house in Northumberland (that's Sandra Kerr, of course), so we had some fine Northumbrian tunes, alongside the Leon Rosselson and the Australian songs and Nancy's own songs...

Anniversary excitements

Sunday, being February 13th, is a day we observe as an anniversary. We no longer get excited about anniversaries, if we ever did: or, if you prefer, we are excited about every day. Certainly it never occurred to us to go out to dinner, and I hadn't even planned an elaborate meal: but there were parsnips, of which durham_rambler is particularly fond, and we opened a bottle of fizz.

Musical excitements (2)

We spent Sunday Night at the Shoreham Palladium - that is, watching a Robb Johnson gig over Facebook. I love the immediacy of these performances, and thought Sunday's a particularly good one. Here's a song I hadn't heard before, topical when he played it on Sunday and even more topical today:

Watch on YouTube