News from Nowhere

I was sorry to leave Roscoff, but we had plans - not all of which turned out to be completely weatherproof. After Wednesday's glorious sunshine, we woke to rain, and the threat of strong winds later. A gap between showers gave us a chance to visit the Chapelle Sainte Barbe on the edge of town - it's not about the chapel, it's about the viewpoint - but we decided against the Exotic Gardens (even though at least some of these are within greenhouses).

This left us with time in hand on the way to our next hotel, and we decided to spend it in Saint Pol de Leon, which was on the way. All I knew about Saint Pol was that it is in the centre of the Breton vegetable farmlands - the cauliflower and artichoke capital, says the guidebook. It turns out that it also has two spectacular churches. The one about which the guide is most enthusiastic - it has the tallest spire in Brittany - was closed, but we plunged out of the rain into the cathedral, and had a lovely time looking at its many curiosities. .But it makes sense to defer describing these until I can post more photos, so I'll add that to the list of things-to-post-later...

Instead, some pretty pictures: the otherwise delightful bookshop between the two churches didn't have any postcards of those curiosties, but I was rather taken by their cards from the Eor Glas Studio: have a browse. I like the sleeping sailor best (yes, even better than the puffin).

Today we are in Carantec, at the seaside. The little town occupies the center of a headland, and all roads lead down to the sandy beaches which fringe its perimeter. We walked down to 'the port', which seems to consist of two restaurants, a shelter where you can sit and enjoy the book exchange until the rain blows over, and a causeway which allows you to walk across to the island for about two hours on either side of low tide. Then the path climbs up between the houses, and down again to the next beach; it's a bit of the GR 34, in fact, the sentier des douaniers (I've probably wondered before what it says about our two nations, that the English prefer to ascribe footpaths to smugglers, the French to customs officers...):



Photo chosen because, although it doesn't make the most of the beach itself, it does show some of the most impressive of the local architecture. There are plenty of more conventionally seaside houses: Carantec would seem to have attracted people who could afford to build themselves holiday homes with a sense of fun. But this little ensemble takes the biscuit.

Easter Monday was World Heritage Day, apparently, and there was a festival on Palace Green. I don't know exactly what the point of it was, but the City of Durham Trust had a stall, and durham_rambler had volunteered to spend some time there, so we went along. I would have preferred to take the shuttle bus up to Palace Green, but it wasn't running, so we just enjoyed a leisurely walk in the sunshine, followed by an hour or so sitting in the sun, greeting friends who stopped at the stall. It wasn't really a promotional event, and there wasn't much interest from people we didn't know: it would have been difficult to talk to anyone who did show interest, because there was a drumming troupe giving a very energetic performance for most of our stint. I enjoyed the "reenactors", people wandering around in period costume, especially the gentleman who asked if he could leave his top hat and cane with us while he went off for a smoke.

When we were released, we lunched in the cathedral undercroft, then walked home over Prebends' Bridge - or, in my case, almost home: durham_rambler very kindly saved me the last climb up the hill by fetching the car and giving me a lift. So I had time to linger over the walk past the allotments, and take pictures of the blossom and the cathedral: yes, the emphasis on the blossom in this picture was deliberate:



Last weekend was Bishop Auckland Food Festival: we were last there in 2019, which is probably the last time it happened. Encouraged by surviving our Easter walk into the city, we parked by the river and climbed the hill into town, which worked very well. The publicity claimed over 150 stalls, which may well be true, but I'd guess that more than half of them were offering street food to eat on the spot, and we opted for the greater comfort of the tapas bar at the Spanish Art Gallery (which was having a soft launch with a limited menu, and has a way to go before the staff have really got their act together; since we were in no hurry, this didn't matter). The remaining stalls could have done with more variety: more bread and less gin would suit me better, and there was no-ne at all selling fruit and veg. But I stocked up on Lacey's cheese, and bought some beeswax wraps, which I have been wanting to try.

We were still up for walking a little further, so we went in search of Bishop Auckland's latest mural (not quite a native of the town, but moved there when very young):



And then I bought some ginger biscuits from the Gingerbread Mam, and we visited J. and drank tea.

A week's holiday goes by so fast...

On Thursday we had a rendezvous with J and J: Salt's Mill had been a favourite destination of theirs when they lived in Keighley (it is possible that it was they who sent us to Saltaire on our long-ago first visit), and it was easy for them to catch the train from York where they now live and join us for lunch and a little light shopping. We met them from the station, and pointed out "our" chimney from the railway bridge; we had coffee and talked about alpacas (J pointed out that Titus Salt was not only a philanthropist, he was also an experimenter and innovator in the dyeing process, which is why he was able to make use of that initial batch of "Peruvian wool"); we went for lunch, and discussed their recent holiday in Cornwall and our plans to meet again in York, with added Bears; we returned to Salt's Mill, where J communed with the Hockneys, J made a mystery purchase, and I enjoyed the exhibition of watercolours by Simon Palmer. Inevitably, the ones I liked best didn't seem to be included in the accompanying book, weren't available as postcards and aren't to be found on the internet: his pure landscapes are pleasing, and his scenes from the mythical history of Saltaire are great fun, but my favourites were the landscapes with a twist of the unexplained.

After these excitements, we were all quite weary, and J and J wanted to get the train home before the rush hour struck. So durham_rambler and I took a boat ride along the canal - accompanied, again, by a small and very squeaky dog (on first hearing I thought that can't be an oyster catcher...) and a helpful guide who was able to tell us about the warehouse we'd noticed on our first day. We could have asked to be dropped at that end of the trip, and shortened our walk home, but we were enjoying the ride...

Friday was the last day of our stay, and we had been promising ourselves breakfast at Copper and Moss, the bar within the development (I'm guessing the name refers to stuff used in dyeing, but I don't know what colour you'd get from that combination), so we headed over there for juice and eggs benedict - I chose the yellow juice, and the egg yolks were quite a startling yellow, too. Then home for coffee, to recover. We had thought of visiting Halifax, which also has some fine industrial architecture, but roadworks meant our route would have taken us through the centre of Bradford. Instead we had a very gentle day, a little further along the Leeds and Livepool canal, at Bingley - to be precise, at Bingley Five Rise, which sounds like a secret password but describes a staircase of five locks and completely eclipses the three-lock flight not very far away. It's a short walk between the two, but very green and peaceful:



The trees reminded me of those in Simon Palmer's watercolours: the tall straight trunks, the heavy balls of foliage - I had thought he was exaggerating, and maybe he was, a little, but not entirely.

Skirting the edge of Saltaire on our way home, we noticed some sort of market in progress in the square, surrounded by signs saying 'Parking suspended - Saltaire Festival'. Oh. We had seen something about the Festival when we first arrived, triued and failed to find out more, and had completely forgotten about it. That was a disappointment, but not enough so for us to walk all the way back from the car park, so let it go. We went home and bullied the oven into cooking our Co-op pizza.

We came home via Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal - but that deserves a post of its own.

Our apartment is in Victoria Mills, a development of renovated historic mills and newbuild, between the river Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool canal. It's not exactly a gated community, but it is sufficiently security conscious that access to either of these is not as easy as the map might suggest, but after a few wrong choices yesterday morning we found our way to the canal and almost immediately we were within the World Heritage site of Saltaire village.

Our destination was the Shipley Glen Tramway, a cable-hauled tramway run by volunteers, and only open on Sunday afternoons - so we turned away from Salt's Mill and through Roberts Park, to the bottom station of the tramway. There are two canopied tramcars, one red one blue, and as one rises, the other descends. As we rode up the wooded hillside, the voice of one of the volunteer staff behind me asked: "Did we all watch the tennis last night?" and durham_rambler admitted that he had. (My impression is that he was not the only person who had watched, and I was not the only one who had not). From the upper station it's a short walk to a country park, but we didn't really investigate this: we had just come for the ride, so after a drink and a sit-down in the pub, we returned to the tramway, and back down to the park.

This time instead of skirting the park, we went straight through the middle, to the bandstand (where people in 'Yorkshire Choral Group' - or something close to that - were massing) and the statue opposite, which is, of course, of Titus Salt, erected to mark the centenary of his birth. If the light had been favourable, I might have put some effort into taling his portrait, but as it was what caught by eye were the plaques on the sides of the plinth. On one side was a splendidly horned 'Angora goat' and on the other this - as the label says - 'Alpaca goat':



This was unexpected, but makes sense: these magnificent mills were all about the textles. ( More alpacas under the cut. )

- just flew by: after that post from Berwick, I didn't switch my computer on again. The next day (Wednesday. I think) we crossed the border, dipped into Eyemouth but didn't stay, lunched at St Abbs and went on to explore Dunbar a bit more. Thursday was our last day on the island, so a last change to do all the things we hadn't yet done: I spent the morning on the beach by St Cuthbert's island, listening to the seals singing, and the afternoon orchid spotting in the nearer reaches of the nature reserve. I didn't go far at all, but my knee is still complaining (get used to it, knee, we need to walk more). All three pubs were fully booked, so we dined on takeaway paëlla from the Ship, and unfolded the table indoors, because it was raining (first meal of the holiday not eaten at the table on the patio). It was still raining this morning, and a cold, mean wind, so we didn't linger on the journey home; a visit to the farm shop at Blagdon, and home to lunch.

I took many, many pictures, of course. Here's St Cuthbert's island in a sea of daisies:

Eight days ago, we drove through the rain to visit J., and I noticed how green the hedges were: not a may blossom to be seen. Today durham_rambler suggested we go for a stroll. He took me to the picnic area which is our easy access point for the network of railway walks (we have lots of disused railway lines, most but not all of them mineral lines) and all the short way there, the hedges were so heavy with hawthorn ...

Plenty of blossom along the walk, too, hawthorn and rowan and wild flowers, and it was lovely. We didn't walk far, maybe a mile and a half there and back, but it's better than nothing...

durham_rambler said "I didn't rememer how open the views are from the walk." Which is odd, because I didn't remember how much woodland it ran through. But it's a long time since we walked that way, and as durham_rambler pointed out, some of those trees probably weren't there then. This signpost was certainly new:



So was the On the Hoof café in a horsebox, where we stopped for a drink (have to support local businesses).

Yesterday afternoon the sunshine lured us out; durham_rambler took me up to Aykley Woods, to show me where he had been on Parish Council business earlier in the week. This is the area around County Hall (due for redevelopment) and the Police Headquarters, and an enormous amount of new housing, but there is also some open land on the edge of the city, and ot was a joy to be somewhere that was not deeply familiar. The sunshine wasn't reliable - it was cold, and occasionally there was rain in the air - but it had its moments:



( A couple more pictures ... )

I'm in no hurry to rush out and enjoy the new freedoms the government has given us: I'll spare you the scare quotes in that statement, but feel free to envisage them pretty much anywhere, and you won't be far wrong. I'm lucky enough to have a life which can continue comfortably in lockdown, and the things I miss are not the things which have been restored this weekend. Nonetheless, I'm seeing changes, for us and for others:

Friday

durham_rambler went shopping - for the first time since the lockdown started, and shopping solo is not something he did often, even before. This was for essentials: he had to collect his beer order from Fram Ferment. But he asked if I needed anything, and since I had strawberries, I asked for cream, so he went to the Co-op - and bought crisps and whisky while he was there, because he could.

Saturday

The students have returned to the house next door. There are five of them, and while you could argue that they were a single household back in March, before they scattered to their various homes, I don't think the rules allow them to resume that status as if it hadn't been lost. They sit on the decking in the garden, and talk loudly, which is probably healthier than sitting together indoors, but is also more annoying. But does it actually matter? I don't know. It may be trivial, but then all we can do is stack up the details to nudge the odds in our favour. I think it bothered durham_rambler more than it did me, and he talked about phoning the police. Eventually, we settled on calling the university's liaison person (who recommended calling the police, but we let it go).

On Suday, though, they had visitors: there were a dozen of them out there, and durham_rambler did call the police (who said they would come and have a word with them, but Sunday night is music night, and I don't know what happened). To judge by the noise from the back lane, though, Monday night is party night...

Sunday

We had been talking about local sculptures: the County Council has announced that it is carrying out an audit of monuments and statues in its care to ensure that they are consistent with its values (I suspect that Durham doesn't have many monuments to slave traders but might want to consider contextualising its monuments to mine owners - and that's not entirely a joke). Anyway, durham_rambler told me that there were some sculptures I hadn't seen, not far away, and we went out for a walk to look at them. Before we were even out of our road, while I was busy photographing a flower:

we met a fellow-member of the pub quiz team, and were able to do actual, unplanned, face to face conversation, which was very pleasant in all sorts of ways.

( Sculture: words and pictures )

On our way home, we paused to chat with a neighbour who was in her garden: a day of two unplanned conversations, things really are changing!

Monday

The Prime Minister informed us that now shops were beginning to open again, it was our patriotic duty to get out and buy inessentials. I'll consider going into town when the market reopens, but just to show willing I ordered a couple of Sunday Night at the Hove Palladium t-shirts: I love the idea of a gig t-shirt for a virtual gig.

Tuesday

This morning, over breakfast, durham_rambler announced that he had a meeting this evening, at seven o' clock. Since I had Reading Group at six o' clock, this completely scuppered any plans I might have had for the catering. Now, that really is like old times!