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So worth it.

Nothing screams more a festive morning without enough sleep than trying to shake a full protein chocolate drink without putting the lid on…..

It was all over the blinds, on me, even on the ceiling.

Definitely self inflicted sleep deprivation. A concert finishing in London at 11pm, followed by a 5 hour drive back to Yorkshire. Add another 2 hours for road closures designed to keep you from making any progress around the dreaded motorway that inspired Chris Rea’s The Road to Hell.

But it was all worth it. You don’t often get the chance to see Paul McCartney in concert and unbelievably get to see him play once again with Ringo Star. Duets via the magic of technology with John and George. Throw in a bit of Ronnie Wood and it was a truly unforgettable night.

We will even forgive Paul for playing that Christmas Song….

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Christmas Trees

I’ve finished putting up the Christmas Trees. A small one just in front of our front door.

And another tree in our small entrance hall.

Hopefully not too pretentious this year…..

In my dreams.

Maybe in reality we went to see how Castle Howard does Christmas…..

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Dracula at Christmas

An early online college finish for Hawklad and off we went for an adventure. Into the mist and drizzle…

We found ourselves by the famous old fishing town, Whitby. As the light faded, the weather closed in…

Definitely felt a bit more Gothic Dracula than Festive Cheer, but still fun. On nights like this you can imagine how Whitby inspired Bram Stoker to write the famous horror masterpiece.

Finally a few signs of the festive period…

Could the diet survive walking past one of the countries finest Fish and Chips restaurants…

NO…..

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Windy

The last day of the season at The Arboretum.

A few days later and a storm blasted through the area. I wonder how much damage was done here. Just a bit up the road and we had some wood down outside our house.

Some trees around the village came off far worse.

The tree busting winds from the North were so strong that wind assisted Santa has arrived 14 days early….. That’s definitely way too early to find that I’m still on the naughty list.

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Just before the Storm

We arrived as the clouds started to roll in. The clouds definitely looked increasingly threatening as darkness rolled in.

Storm Darragh is coming.

Part of the Christmas tradition now is to visit the December Illuminations at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. They are definitely the largest illuminations around here, taking at least a good hour to walk round. Looking at the forecast, wind and rain due to hit Doncaster just after 5pm, this year time was short. Maybe I’m old fashioned but walking around outside illuminations works way better when you’re not dripping wet and frozen.

We made it to the last section before the heavens opened up. I really felt for the families (lots of them) arriving as we headed out to find warming hot drinks and food. There would be no cover whatsoever for them on their 2 mile trek from the now set in wind and rain. I so hope they could still enjoy the experience, we definitely did.

We were so lucky to get to see the lights as the site was closed today on weather safety grounds.

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Perfect Timing

Is there anything more festive than hanging precariously off the side of a tree, trying to hang some Christmas lights. Yes there is…

Hanging precariously off the side of a tree, trying to hang some Christmas lights, in the freezing Yorkshire rain. Wow it was pouring down. The ladder was slowly and relentlessly sinking into the ground. Why do Christmas Lights instantly form into multiple wire knots that increasingly form into a massive birds nest like lump.

Unbelievably I managed to finally get some lights up, with just two mini wire ball nests. No time to bask in the sodden glory, a village resident approached with a bundle…

“Hi, just give you this leaflet. Great news, the Village has been successful in getting Dark Skies accreditation. We are officially a great place to see the stars and planets now…”

Perfect timing as I’m just about to switch on some 80 outside lights. I could see the look I was getting, one of those LOOKS….

Still that LOOK didn’t take into account two important factors.

ONE…. These are solar powered lights needing many hours of sunlight… Apparently 6 hours of Sun produces 12 hours of Christmas Lighting.

TWO…. This is YORKSHIRE, we don’t do hours of sunlight.

A rough calculation based on the last few weeks weather would seem to suggest we should get about 10 minutes lighting sometime in March…

I think the Dark Skies Accreditation is safe…..

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Air

Definitely a seat with a view….

I had a chat with one of these nutters just before he ran off the top of a very tall mountain. It was his last trip of the day and he was aiming to land in his garden.

Apparently he frequently took paying passengers. As he put it with a cheeky grin… “for a couple of hundred Swiss Francs, it’s either going to be the best ever, life changing experience or without doubt the longest, worst and most terrifying 20 minutes of your life.”

Guess who took the train down….

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Dark side of the moon

Early afternoon in the Dark Side of Yorkshire.

Our 98 month old puppy with his way too full Dark Side of the Moon toy basket. I wonder if Pink Floyd ever imagined that their iconic 1973 album cover would reach these heights in 2024.

That box has seen many uses prior to being a well chewed soft toy repository. From LPs to loose photos to work documents. The box started to spilt with the weight of my records (a few Floyd ones as well) ….Too many records bought over the years. Photos, too many photos taken over the years…. Finally they got filed away neatly in albums. Work documents, well to be more precise, problems to be sorted. Overdue invoices, out of balance accounts, complaints, that kinda thing. Lots and lots of staffing issues. A bit too often this box was mostly filled with what felt like scripts from The Office. Let’s just politely say larger than life characters. Our Yorkshire equivalents of an Angela, Ryan, Andy and unbelievably TWO Dwights. Add our human (I think) version of the paranoid android Marvin from Hitchhikers Guide and someone who could out swear Gordon Ramsey. Oh let’s not forget the chap who thought it was ok to use a work credit card to buy stuff for his house including a PlayStation. The problems that box contained, Dark Side of the Moon definitely the perfect moniker back then.

But now it’s full of dog toys that have definitely seen better days. The abuse those poor things take on a daily basis. How does that fit in with the albums original themes of time inevitably passing, madness and the conflict between light and darkness. When the mad pup stops chewing his tennis ball, I will ask him.

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30 minutes

Late afternoon walk on the North Yorkshire Moors.

A three hour walk and not one sign of another soul anywhere on these moors. Definitely felt like a proper wilderness only 30 minutes drive from our front door.

On the drive home we got stuck in a traffic jam, a farm tractor decided to break down on a steep, narrow hill road. Just goes to show that we are also less than 30 minutes drive from a traffic queue.