Monthly Archives: March 2017

Gibraltar Point

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No, it isn’t as far as it sounds, just a trip to the coast near Skegness. That’s 81 miles. The proper Gibraltar is 1,611 miles away and too far for a day trip. It’s a nostalgic trip. I first visited it with school 50 years ago. Twenty years ago we took the kids. Now we do it for fun. Of course, Visitor Centre and windmills weren’t there in the old days.

Nor was the bagged dog excrement left neatly by the side of the centre.

Here are a few shots of the day – more will follow later, with more details.

Spring at last!
Present from an idle dog owner
The Visitor Centre
Peaceful use for military gabions
Skegness Yacht Club

The Titles That Never Were

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I just loaded this by accident, which shows what sort of trouble you can get into when you’re blogging. It’s ironic, since the post is partly about the trouble I could get into from Julia if I posted some of these unsuitable drafts. Fortunately it was ready to go, though it was intended for Tuesday morning.

If I tell you I still have posts about Free Range Rats and Hitler and Birdwatching in the pipeline you’ll get some idea of where I draw the line.

Julia draws it in a slightly different place. Which is why you won’t be seeing the following posts.

Nursery Crime: I was saving that for a blog about horrible young visitors to the Ecocentre, but as we were ejected from the centre and no longer deal with schools I don’t think I’ll be needing it. It’s a shame, but it didn’t take much creative effort to adopt a Genesis song title.

My Life and Times in the Urology Ward: It starts when I walk into the wrong clinic – mistaking  genitourinary and urology. Easy mistake if you don’t have medical training. As a general rule, a room filled with middle-aged men looking embarrassed is urology. A room filled with youngish people of both sexes looking shifty is genitourinary. After that, the tone of the piece goes downhill.

Cheap Toilet Rolls – The Curse of Modern Society: Julia has vetoed this one. I’ve edited it several times to make it more socially acceptable but she remains intransigent. To aficionados of  toilet humour this will surely rank alongside Shakespeare’s Cardenio, Love’s Labour Won or the musical version of Macbeth as a lost gem. Oh yes, there (probably) was one. Thomas Middleton is thought to have edited it in 1615 to allow more time for musical interludes, because nothing says tragedy like a musical interlude.

 

Mass Observation -2017 style

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Typical Blogger?
Typical Blogger’s Wife
And again…

I’ve been sitting and thinking again; thoughts went from blogging to diaries to Housewife, 49 and finally to Mass Observation.

It occurred to me that one day our blogs might be used as historical documents, like the Mass Observation archive or the Domesday Book.  At that point I started wondering just how accurate all these other historical documents are. The Domesday Book, being a tax document, is probably very accurate, though limited. The Mass Observation diaries are probably accurate as far as they go, but represent the views of people who aren’t necessarily representative of the population as a whole – described (by Wikipedia)  as “middle-class, educated, literate, and left of centre”.

I’ve never read Housewife, 49 but I have seen the TV adaptation and I’m not convinced by the “left of centre” but I can see that a group of diarists or bloggers could fit that description.

According to a blog I’ve just looked at, bloggers are, in general, ambitious, self-reflective and forever learning. I agree that most bloggers seem to be self-reflective and forever learning, though I’m not sure about ambitious. There are other qualities mentioned, but I’ll let you follow the link if you want to discover more about yourself.

Meanwhile, let’s consider my blog as history.

If anyone tries to reconstruct a picture of the 21st century using my blog as a source, they are going to think that the average UK citizen was more concerned about cheese, brown sauce and words to describe book hoarding than they were about Brexit, global warming and Trumpageddon. (In the UK trump is a slightly archaic word for breaking wind in the UK, and cows emitting methane as a result of the digestive process are said to be responsible for destroying the ozone layer, so those last two items could be the same thing.)

It also explains why, despite the example of Sir Toby Belch, nobody in the UK actually thought he was going to win. Joke names, like bald candidates, tend not to win. That’s why Derrick J Knight is always going to be top dog in the blogosphere, and I, with my shiny head, will always be second.

I wonder if that was why Samual Pepys, a somewhat retro blogger, wore a wig.

However, I digress. I really meant to discuss how representative bloggers are in the scheme of history. It seems to me that we are more interested in health, food and books than the average person. On the other hand, that might be the effect of blogging about those subjects, and following people with similar views.

If I blogged about body modification, manga and mud wrestling I would probably have a completely different view of my fellow bloggers. (Ask your grandchildren if you need any explanations).

So, how representative do you feel?

 

 

Fish Pie

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I need to brush up on my food presentation technique and buy plain plates, but I think the photograph gives the general idea.  It’s fish pie with peas, sweetcorn, onions, mushrooms and dill in the sauce. It’s topped with sweet potato and served with carrots, asparagus and a cabbage and broccoli mix. They aren’t all full portions but I imagine there are six portions lurking in there.

Yes, I feel guilty about the out of season South American asparagus but nobody is perfect.

At one time I would have sat back with a snug expression on my face, having done a day’s veg in one meal. Since recent changes to government advice it’s now only 60% of my day’s intake. Even with thick cut marmalade for breakfast, a pickled onion with my lunch and two bits of fruit I’m falling short of the new target.

Looks like I’m going to have to rethink breakfast and eat vegetable soup for lunch. Or salad. For the rest of my life.

That’s the paradox. The healthier my diet (which is something achieved by eating food I don’t enjoy) the longer I will live. And the longer I live, the more salad I’m going to have to eat.

 

 

Time to Sit

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I’m having a rest now and feeling virtuous. This really should be the action of a man who has filled his day with industry and is now taking a well-earned rest after a hectic day of cooking, shopping, polishing, dusting, hoovering, gardening…

I’ll stop there. Just thinking about it makes me feel tired.

In reality I dropped Julia off at work, came home, went back to bed, read more of The Most Perfect Thing, wondered why the author decided to have a quick pop at battery cages (as so many people do), then cooked three fish pies, two vegetable curries and Sheep’s Hearts with Plums.

I’m just starting to get my head round tonight’s tea – carrot, cabbage, broccoli, sweet potato (for the topping)- that should about do. I already have onions, peas, sweetcorn and mushrooms in the pie. It’s not easy, this ten a day.

Just about to start reading  A Corner of a Foreign Field. Guess what it’s about? Yes, war poetry, how original. It looks quite good, with some poems I’ve not seen before, so I’m looking forward to it. It cost £2.50 from a charity shop in Whitby on Friday. I’m telling Julia it’s part of an economy book project I’m doing for the blog.

She may believe me…

 

 

The Best of Times… etc

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Yesterday was, as I said yesterday, a good day.

It was also, which I didn’t say, a bad day at times. I generally try not to mention the bad times unless I can see humour in them, as I don’t want to depress readers or transfer my real life reputation for moaning to my blogging life.

That’s why I didn’t mention the Gregg’s breakfast at the M18 Services. It featured an idiot, filthy tables and ketchup. I could have dealt with the idiot and the filthy tables, but I asked for brown sauce. If I’d wanted ketchup I would have asked for it. And the day I ask for ketchup in a bacon sandwich will be the day we see Satan wearing ice skates.

In the afternoon I hit a wooden post in a car park.

It wasn’t easy. First I had to reverse past it without either seeing it or hitting it, then I had to pull forwards and damage the door and wing in one easy motion. Two months ago someone scraped the car while it was parked and three weeks ago a bus clipped my mirror and took the cover off it. I’m hoping that bad things really do, as my mother used to say, come in threes.

As I took the final photos at Bempton my camera card filled up. I cleaned a few off and managed to get all the photos I wanted. After fitting the other card I took some shots in Whitby, including a Cormorant, a Redshank and eight Pied Wagtails at the side of the harbour. I also had a go with some of the camera settings taking shots of the Abbey and churchyard.  You could almost see Dracula. Some of them were really good shots, as were some of the shots of fishing gear. I was quite pleased with them.

Unfortunately you’ll have to take my word for it. After viewing that card I put the other one in the computer to load shots for the blog.

Twenty four hours later I still can’t find it or remember where I put it. Nor can I think of anything else to write about.

So, as I say, borrowing heavily from Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Tomorrow I may find the missing card, but if I don’t I hope to find some inspiration.

Bempton Cliffs again

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We saw these beak fencing Gannets at Bempton Cliffs today. It’s part of their mating ritual. He later went fishing and came back with a gift of fish. It seemed to work, as I had to delete the ensuing video rather than become known as an avian pornographer. I reminded Julia that I bought her favourite – smoked mackerel – earlier in the week. According to her answer it seems that gifts of fish don’t have the same significance in the human world.

Some of the birds are on the cliffs, but most of the auks (including around a dozen puffins) are content to sit on the sea for the moment.

Have to be quick, as I need to post this before midnight. Here are a few other pictures.

Razorbills at Bempton Cliffs
Gannets beak fencing
Kittiwakes on Bempton Cliffs
Rock Dove
Viewpoint at Bempton Cliffs
Herring Gull

It was a good day and the telescope came in useful for looking out to sea. Those Puffins were miles away!

Paths of Glory

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The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
         And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.
         The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard – Thomas Gray
I’ve just finished reading The Final Whistle: The Great War in Fifteen Players . I bought it last week when I was supposedly getting rid of some books at the Oxfam shop. It is, as you may be able to guess from the title, a book about the Great War and rugby. I’m not one of those people who can quote details of Divisions and battles and all that stuff but I do have an interest in the subject, and I also like rugby.
As a result, I am now motivated to finish a post I began after visiting Southwell Minster. For me, the most interesting part of the visit is the original wooden grave marker of Major J P Becher. It’s on the wall of the graveyard at the east end of the Minster, and I always worry that one day it will disintegrate.
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Original wooden grave marker at Southwell Minster

In this case, Major Becher is commemorated in many other places, as are his brothers-in-law. The brothers-in-law were both killed on the day that Becher suffered his fatal wounds. He lived on for another ten weeks before finally dying, having been too badly injured to be sent home from France.
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Grave marker – Major J P Becher

His son, as seen from the small cross in the picture, died in the Second World War.
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Father and son

Families were allowed to have the original wooden grave markers returned to them when the permanent stone markers were erected, though I’m not sure how many actually applied for them. I imagine that although it represented closure for many families, it was far too painful for others.
One of my great grandmothers, having lost a son and a son-in-law and seen two other sons seriously injured, refused to even to discuss the war. Another one, having been widowed and left with three young daughters, died in the TB hospital in Lancaster five years after the death of her husband.
It was International Women’s Day yesterday, so it might be appropriate to spend a moment thinking about the women in this story, who also suffered in the war, though nobody erected a memorial to them.
The above link to my great grandmother’s headstone was a complete surprise to me. I was going to add CWGC details but browsed a few others and found that. Though I’ve been in that church and graveyard several times in the past I never thought to look for family gravestones at the time and it was on the list of “things to do”.
That’s the wonder of the web, and a whole new post.

 

 

A Walk Round the Lake

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Life can’t be all nature reserves and rarities, so yesterday saw us back at Rufford Abbey. There was, as usual, nothing rare, but there’s always something worth seeing.

The Robins were in good voice.

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Singing Robin – Rufford Abbey

We spent a while watching two Magpies building a nest in the tree tops (without being able to get a clear shot) and a pair of Nuthatches popped out of the woods to have a look at us. They are always a challenging subject as they tend to flit about without regard to the needs of photography. This was the best photo, despite only showing one of the pair.

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Nuthatch in an Elder tree

We saw two Wrens and managed to get a couple of shots (they are worse than Nuthatches for flitting about), checked out the Great Crested Greebes (now in full breeding plumage) and watched a Grey Heron drop in to fish. Great Tits and Dunnocks also cooperated by posing.

Dunnock
Wren at Rufford Abbey
Grey Heron at Rufford Abbey
Great Crested Grebe in breeding finery
Great Tit with fat ball

Despite the fact we walk here most weeks, there’s always something new to see and always something new to learn. I never knew, for instance, that magpies build nests using branches that are nearly as long as they are.