This week I booked the Christmas food delivery from the local supermarket. It’s arriving on the 23rd December, that’s over THREE MONTHS away…. For years I was the supreme last minute panic shopper, now I’m living the dream as Mr Forward Planning.
I’m on a roll now.
Time to book a Christmas trip out. Tickets pre booked for the Pantomime at the local theatre.
I could get used to this. Maybe I can start buying presents, booking family visits. I could start writing Christmas Cards…..
BUT you can never take the MUPPET out of my personality. Muppets don’t forward plan, they just move cockups into the future. I’ve just realised that I’ve double booked my two Christmas bookings. Food coming at exactly the same time as the Pantomime will be starting…..
I’ve started messing Christmas up and it’s only early October. Marvellous…….
Maybe it’s like this everywhere but wow there is a shed load of roadworks right now. A few weeks back a motorway trip from here to London was like a Chris Rea, Road to Hell video. On this weekday, the 200 miles we travelled was for over half of them within roadworks. 3 lanes down to 2 or 1. Most of that done at crawling speed. Usually you can divert down the other possible motorway but that was basically a car park due to its own road work hell. A 4 hour journey ended up being double that. We even had traffic jams on the way back, at 2am…
It’s not just the motorways sadly….. Around our little bit of the Yorkshire countryside, the road work plague has gone into overdrive. We don’t have many roads here and at this time of year they should be muddy but quiet. They are definitely quiet as a good proportion of them are closed, partially blocked or about to be hit..
The Weather is fighting back and vandalising.
Mr Saddo got his map out and counted. I really need a life….
Our village has basically one road which then eventually branches out into 10 smaller roads heading out in various directions. Of those 10 branches 6 currently have road works badly effecting them, 2 more are closed for months and one of the last untouched roads is about to be hit for weeks…
Here when a road closes down the diversion takes you miles and miles in completely the wrong direction. So much worse when the diversion has to avoid other diversions. Deep sigh.
But there is a scary underlying thought here. All these roadworks around the world need lots and lots of signs, cones, barriers, speed cameras, portacabins, trucks, lighting, diggers, steamrollers and traffic lights. A mind boggling amount of stuff. For that motorway I mentioned at the start, apparently someone worked out that in the last 5 years it’s had over 100,000 different road works…. Imagine that spread across all the roads. Now imagine road utopia and there are no roadworks anywhere. WHERE DO THEY STORE ALL THE SIGNS and BARRIERS and EVERYTHING.
They can’t store it, we don’t have the storage capacity anywhere. There won’t be anywhere we can put this stuff except on the roads and motorways. Put the stuff on a road and it becomes a road works…. So we have to have roadworks and lots of them just to put stuff somewhere never mind if we actually need to fix a bit of tarmac.
We have created a Frankenstein Invasion, the Roadwork Monsters are among us permanently. All those dystopian movies about AI being the biggest threat to humanity and actually we end up losing control to ROAD CLOSED signs. I guess we had better just get used to being controlled and diverted in wrong directions.
The day started with me sat up in bed trying to get my head round one of those bizarre dreams. This dream jolted me awake just before the story played out.
A right racket coming from my neighbour’s garden had me heading outside. I bump into the disgraced wrestling promoter Vince McMahon who he is clearly dressed for manual labour also carrying a hammer and chisel. I ask him what on earth he’s doing in the next garden and get a one word reply “Stonework….”. Bemused at why a Fallen American Wrestling Billionaire is doing stonework in a small Yorkshire Garden, I ask WHY… The growled response “I can’t tell you”. The dream ends….
The day ended up being like so many other days, seemingly sleepwalking through the day. Basically functioning in autopilot mode. Doing things like I always do them. Doing things without thinking. Never stopping to ask
What am I doing?
Why am I doing it?
Am I doing the right thing?
Am I doing it for the right reasons?
Is it working?
Are there better ways of doing it?
But I just switch off and plod on. All the more worrying is that in reality I am deeply flawed. Too reliant on my questionable judgment. I make mistakes, I get lots of things wrong. I have little faith that my autopilot mode will safely land the plane. So why do I way too often just switch off and let it randomly fly. Maybe it’s the reason I so often feel like life is drifting aimlessly, the bucket list of must do adventures keeps on growing without any items getting crossed off as completed.
Back to that weird dream. I initially just assumed that Vince McMahon didn’t tell me why he was working in my neighbours garden just because he was being secretive, protecting his business. But hang on, maybe “I can’t tell you” means he is just as bemused as me, he doesn’t know why he’s doing it. Is he flying autopilot as well.
A few hardy souls braved a distinctly cold and windy Yorkshire beach.
Definitely felt like Autumn.
Definitely looked like Autumn. The small rides, the cafes, the ice cream vans had mostly all closed down and boarded up for the year. No more intrepid crazy golfers until next year.
I wonder what it feels like to be a resident here in Filey right now. Sadness that the summer season is over with the crowds departed OR relief to get their seaside town back again. The chance to walk quietly along the seafront again, to breathe.
I guess it’s a similar feeling that this time of year brings to our little hilltop village. With no village shop or school or pub or cafe. A church with only one service a month. It’s not unusual to not see another village soul for week upon week upon week. The short days, bleak weather and zero street lighting all ramp up the feelings. So what’s it going to be this time around. Peaceful solitude or suffocating isolation…..
I don’t know just how many times I’ve driven past this reservoir and never stopped. Decade after decade of driving past here, always wondering what it’s like. Well finally, with Hawklad, Scaling Dam became the destination. Now I know.
It’s one of those reservoirs that looks natural apart from one side which is a bit too artificial.
I once knew someone who bought a sailing boat here. Apparently he saw an advert for it in a newspaper. Yes that was in the time before THE INTERNET….
He had no interest in sailing, I mean ZERO interest. To my knowledge he never once sailed his craft, it just sat tethered to where he found it. Yet virtually every Sunday he would drive here and spend hours sat on board. He would do nothing apart from eat his packed lunch and just relax. It worked for him. Maybe it saved him. I know that he had suffered from mental health issues for years. I remember at least two breakdowns and one suicide attempt. Nothing seemed to work for him. But suddenly on this boat, he found a place he could relax. A place he could actually enjoy. He talked about finally having something to look forward to, something he could rely on. This made such a difference to him. The last time we spoke he had even started to plan his next unmoving boat purchase. This time somewhere warm, maybe The Mediterranean.
For a relatively small land, Switzerland often feels like it has so much space.
Sometimes we can have too much space….
When Hawklad was at Nursery and First School he had plenty of friends but things change.
Aspergers, going from a Tiny School to a huge Main School, Covid Insolation, Home Schooling, Rural Life, LIFE.
Currently Hawklad now finds himself self with only one Friend he has contact with, and that is only sporadically. Been like that for over 4 years now. No sign that position will change imminently.
A thought struck me as we ambled towards the light. I would have loved to have done something like this with my Dad. Don’t get me wrong, we occasionally had trips out, but they were pretty rare. Looking back to my childhood I can still count the trips. I remember Dad taking me to see the 125 High Speed Locomotive, back then it looked like a Space Age Rocket rather than a Passenger Train as it passed through Darlington Station. I remember a trip to a Train Museum where I found an old ticket machine that dished out things that looked like raffle tickets. As we walked around the museum he eagerly checked out each steam train while I trailed a few paces behind. There was another trip to see a charity cricket match featuring the sporting legend Fred Truman. That was the trip Dad sent me into the players showers to get Fred’s autograph…. Not sure that’s happening these days…. A few trips to the coast to see a storm, sat in Dad’s banged out car, I’m eating chips while Dad is silently smoking.
The whole family would have an annual trip to Scarborough. Dad would frequently disappear for most of the days to do his thing. I can remember seeing him sat on a bench some distance away from the rest of the family as they tried to stop me from falling off the Donkey Rides on the beach.
That’s it, I can’t remember any other trips with Dad. Definitely no walks through a Forest….
To be completely fair, back then in our northern working class town travel was way less accessible. Few cars, even rarer aircraft tickets…
At home there was similarly limited Dad time. Dad might be briefly pulled away from reading the newspaper to talk, I might get a few words before he buried his head back into the racing and obituary pages. As Dad listened to his radio on an evening I would clearly annoy him with interruptions, you just know when someone wants you to shut up. Volunteering to take him a cup of tea to him while he sat in his Greenhouse might yield me a few minutes being told all about how to grow tomatoes or raspberries. Even when I was sent on a Sunday to the local Pub to tell Dad that his meal was getting cold, I would be lucky to get a brief nod before I was pointed in the direction of the door. On the way home again I trailed a few paces behind while. We just didn’t talk that much. So few chats with Dad.
Those times were so frustrating to me. I would have loved ME TIME with DAD, yet in reality MY DAD TIME felt very distanced. I’m sure it wasn’t the case but it just felt like I was often a nuisance, a bit in the way, an interruption to Dad’s routines.
The end result was I always felt distant from him. He didn’t understand me and I didn’t really know him. I knew he liked trains, liked cricket, he liked fishing, he liked gardening, he liked beer, he smoked, he was in the army. Looking back, I now realise that he wasn’t happy, probably chronically depressed and I still don’t know him. I will never know him.
Another late evening trip out for Hawklad, this time a couple of hours drive to the beautiful Peak District. It might well have been quicker but I managed to get lost in the dreaded Yorkshire Twilight Zone, otherwise known as the city Sheffield’s road network.
On the bright side, while lost we discovered a Dunkin Donuts store. One of those occasions where I happily ignore any gluten issues I may have for the GREATER GOOD….
The downside of evening trips is that you can far too quickly start to run out of light, BUT for those couple of hours, having somewhere as amazing as this place basically to ourselves, absolutely wonderful for Hawklad.
Summer poses its own set of challenges. This season’s weather hasn’t been great with few warm weather days. Yes there has been sun but it’s often felt more like late October than high Summer. But the weather hasn’t deterred the crowds. Try to go anywhere around midday and the car parks are mobbed. Hawklad doesn’t do mobbed car parks….
But leave it until the evening and suddenly the car parks are empty. Ok that usually means the venue is shut but not everywhere. Just like Dalby Forest. A few hours earlier this walk would have been rammed with hikers, dog walkers and mountain bikers but now at 6-30pm it’s all change. It’s quiet, we are the only car in the car park. A 2 hour walk and we didn’t see another soul.
Or just like 6-30pm on the North East Coast. A couple of intrepid surfers enjoying warming drinks on the beach. A couple of ball chasing dogs with well wrapped up owners. That’s it. Solitude.
Yes 6-30PM cuts down the places open but it opens up so much space and peace. It works for us. Just don’t forget the Woolly Hats, it is Summer here.
I ended up with way too many missing pieces from the jigsaw which painted the life of my parents before they had our family, before me. I never took the time to ask for those missing pieces when I had the chance…..DEEP SIGH.
But I can sketch some details with the pieces I do have.
Dad loved playing cricket, loved to go and see Yorkshire play. He would go for long bike rides, go fishing, loved to ride on steam trains. He was also a bit of a party animal, putting on his suit and heading to the dance halls. He liked to look after himself, liked to be fit. Apparently he was also a bit of a comedian, very gregarious.
Mum loved to dress up and go dancing with her friends. Way too much dancing for her parents liking. She loved music, especially the likes of Crosby, Martin and her always favourite Sinatra. She also loved the cinema but only to see musicals or romance. She also really wanted to travel, wanted to see Paris and New York. In a word, apparently she was FUN.
Then they had three daughters and two sons.
Dad never talked about it, but looking back I’m convinced he fought depression for years. Boughts of heavy smoking and drinking. Hours sat in his chair, pretending to read the same newspaper page yet eyes fixed on a blank wall. Volcanic eruptions of anger, followed by days of silence. Those eyes, eyes filled with suppressed tears, frustration and anguish, was that why he frequently avoided eye contact. Some days he seemed unable to function, rooted to his bed, did sleep bring some temporary relief. Maybe he opened up at Work or at the Pub, not to his family. At home, one word summed the mood, UNAPPROACHABLE. Maybe DISTANCED is better. One word definitely didn’t fit Dad, HAPPY. I can’t remember him smiling or laughing. He worked, he gardened, he went to the pub.
Mum was more open. She said she struggled. She would apologise sometimes simply saying something like she wasn’t feeling like herself. Yes I can remember Mum laughing and smiling, but I can also remember way too many tears. She often seemed so sad. I remember a doctor visit, mum rooted to a sofa, talk of a nervous breakdown. She soldiered on. She had never touched alcohol but started to drink some sherry to calm her stomach. She went shopping, went to see her parents, went to her part time job, went to school evenings when school needed to see a parent, she looked after the house and US. She never went out socially, never met friends, never seemed to listen to music. She never put on a dress, she never made it to Paris or New York.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 