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Well that was close….

Finally had a trip to see the local Rugby League team. Perennial game underdogs and lower league residents, but this year, they are in The Super League. We chose an ‘easy game’ against a truly massive club, a team who have won the world club challenge cup 5 times. In contrast the local club has basically never won anything apart from maybe a couple of best half time pie contests.

Can you guess from the big screen, which team is the perennial underdogs and which one are the 5 times world champions.

Yep, the local team got properly hammered…. At one stage it was going to be a record breaking loss. One hopeful local supporter kept shouting ‘BELIEVE, we can still win this….”

Whisper it, York must have listened to him, they had a mini late fight back. Given another 3 days, they might have even won. 😂😂😂

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Peak District

A rare UK sunny day, so off we ventured to the Peak District. For a walk around the Ladybower Reservoir. It’s a big old piece of water, takes hours to walk around it.

It took 8 years to construct it and then 2 years to fill it to a depth of just over 40 metres. When it was filled, two beautiful villages were sadly, no more.

During WWII, RAF bombers practiced here with bouncing bombs for future raids on German Dams, as seen in the old Dambusters Movie.

The Reservoir also features two massive plug holes, that control the level of water and power huge hydroelectric generators.

If you ever get the chance, it’s a great place to visit and walk. But sadly NO Swimming allowed.

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Treasure hunt…

Proper Summer Weather..

Before the rain set in, the garden called. But before I started, it was the Strimmer Treasure Hunt. I wonder just how many do this at some stage. A break in the weather, you get out the Strimmer and then you remember…..

I didn’t order a new bag of blades..

No blades, so the Strimmer Treasure Hunt begins. You search every corner of the shed and garden. And then, BINGO…. It’s Jackpot…… One previously enjoyed blade hiding in the undergrowth.

The gardening can now begin.

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Summer

Hot Summer lasted 2 days in Yorkshire…..

We headed to the coast on NOT one of those 2 days. Brave Souls still taking on the NOT so tropical North Sea.

Huge queues for the hot drinks, no takers for the ice cream. Perfect day for a stroll along the promenade.

A good place to recharge and forget the torture of A-Level exams, now it’s a waiting game until grades get published in August. The frustration is that two years of study, come down to exams scheduled over a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks that just happened to coincide with Hawklad battling a really heavy cold and rasping chesty cough. Just how many have to sit exams when they are not feeling well. Also not helped by the dreaded exam clash. Two exams scheduled at the same time, so feeling like crap, you sit one exam, then get a few minute break and then you dive straight into a second exam. But exams are the best way to assesses ability, that’s what we are told, so it must be true.

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Bees….

The village has its own population of bees, they help make the most wonderful honey. It’s amazing how those little chaps can get the honey into those jars…..

Every year apparently the Village Bee community splits into two groups. Well this year, one group has gone wondering. Having a temporary residence right next to the lane we walk the mad dog every day. The couple who are the official beekeepers, have provided a temporary home for them. Fenced it off, the Bees are very docile, but don’t want dogs sticking their curious noses too close.

It’s not a great photo, but there are lots of them to make honey….

Soon the Beekeepers are going to try to encourage this lot to move to a new palatial home, in the old graveyard.

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Old and New

This is a traditional village graveyard. Small, quiet, attended by sheep and very very old. Apparently there are graves here from the 14th century. It’s hard to confirm as many of the stones have had to survive way too many hard Yorkshire winters, the names and dates are lost in time now. Many graves are unmarked or missing stones.

Time moves on, newer graves are still added here, but the graveyard is filling up. The free ground left for new graves is only the size of a small garden now.

So New Graveyards are being opened up…..

The New Ones around here are still very beautiful, set in beautiful moors countryside. But they are in many ways, VERY different. Neat lines, immaculately well kept grass, symmetrical, concrete paths, tarmac roads.

I was running past one of these new sites recently and I had to stop, yes I had to chuckle. This new Graveyard had a new sign on the Main Entrance Gates.

“One Way System in force in this Graveyard.”

Oh the irony…….

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Strikes

Walking on the Moors and another childhood memory floods back in. Walking above the wonderfully named village, Chop Gate. In the distance the huge Bilsdale Transmitter. Before Satellite and Cable, that mast sent out the TV signal across North Yorkshire and Teesside and when I was a kid, to our little black and white family TV. Every Lightning strike here (and there was many) and we lost our 3 TV channels (Hawklad thinks I’m joking when I say only THREE channels). It was radio or nowt for days, sometimes weeks,until some poor soul, climbed this monolith and fixed it. It’s over 300 metres to the top. No internet back then to keep you constantly informed of service restoration, Dad just would keep the TV on, static relentlessly flickering across the screen, waiting patiently. I remember Dad setting off to the Working Men’s Club and leaving me on TV watch, with instructions to come and fetch him if it came back on. He didn’t want to miss the Horse Racing and Wrestling. I wanted it back on as well, they scrolled the latest football scores across the bottom of the screen while the likes of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks lumbered across the ring. I lived with the faint hope that my so called football team would manage to actually win a match. Bilsdale got hit by lightning more times than that happened…..

Chop Gate, pronounced here as, ‘Chop Yat’ is a proper Moors Village. If we had been a day later, Hawklad could have seen his first Brass Band concert in the Village Hall.

A few minutes steep climb and you are in the wilderness.

We walked for 3 hours and only encountered sheep. Even walking through the village, we never saw another soul. It’s wonderful that we still have places like this in our crazy, mad world.

We so need places like this. Trump Free Zones……Quiet, Peaceful, Unspoiled.

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Easter Storm

Easter brought more rain, thankfully some Sun and a Storm. 90mph winds brought some trees, some poor folks lost their roof slates and chimneys. One household in the next village lost a large stone chimney, which crashed down conveniently perfectly between two cars parked 3 ft apart underneath. Not a scratch on either vehicle.

A common sight currently around here is Farmers walking around fields like this, checking just how wet the fields are. Like this Field, very very very WET indeed.

As one of the Farmers said to me, ‘Not Good, Way TOO WET. Over my Boots in places. Ducks have even moved into one of my Fields, I wonder if they are cheaper and easier to keep than Sheep.’

That took me back.

When I was a kid, my Dad decided to build a goldfish pond in the garden. I’m not sure Mum was entirely impressed by the eventual size of the pond, Dad had a tendency to get carried away with his plans. It was a big old pond in what was a not very big garden. Only problem was as soon as Dad had filled it with water, two ducks arrived from out of nowhere and claimed Squatters Rights. On and off, we had those ducks for weeks. These days, I would have shed loads of photos to show you those ducks but not back then. No photos, just faded memories. Thankfully I can still see those Ducks and the Pond, but only after the Farmer reminded me.

But without the aid of ever expanding data clouds filled with digital photos, I wonder just how many memories of my childhood are hidden from view. A few too many I FEAR.

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Holes

The Hole of Horcum. That’s a big old hole on the Moors, 400ft deep and over half a mile wide.

Some of the potholes on our roads feel almost as big…

There are so many potholes, thousands waiting to catch unsuspecting drivers or riders. The days of a relaxing drive in the countryside replaced by a never ending slalom, trying to avoid a suspension killing impact. Every week more and more appearing as the local Council has adopted a ‘no intervention policy’. Every week more and more getting deeper. On the way to our closest store there is one pothole almost in the middle of the road which is 6 inches deep and two foot wide. Drivers now resorting to leaving warning cones all over the roads to try and ward off more cars dropping into the abyss.

As currently there is no fuel in any of the local petrol stations, maybe it’s all part of a secret rewilding of the roads project.