We are so blessed to live on the edge of The Moors. Close enough that just 30 minutes after Hawklad’s last lesson of the afternoon we can be here…
The Bridestones…..
The name is likely to come from the Norse Brinkstones, stones on the edge.
Natural sandstone sculptures formed through an Ice Age and shed loads of Yorkshire Weather….
I always wanted to stay a night here. Maybe one day. Almost touching distance of The Eiger, the famous mighty Swiss mountain.
The winter months, the inhospitable weather, deserted paths and seasonally closed cafes. This time of year always makes me more reflective, some would say EVEN more reflective.
I’ve been thinking about parenting, specifically before our family world changed and I fumbled my way into single parenting. With parenting you sometimes get things right, sometimes get things wrong and sometimes you kinda just drift about on the tides of life. Given that there is no parenting blueprint to follow and the propensity of our little raptors to transform the seemingly straightforward into sleepless, stress filled angst maelstroms, we can forgive ourselves for not always being perfect. As a couple we were very different with very different takes on how to bring a child up. Sometimes we agreed, more often we negotiated (possibly argued) our way to compromises. And YES we didn’t get everything right, sometimes we got it spectacularly wrong. Looking back that doesn’t frustrate me, we did our best.
But now, in 2025 something does bother me, frustrates me, makes me feel sad. It’s not the decisions we got spectacularly wrong, it’s the decisions and opportunities that we kicked into the future. We didn’t say NO, we just said not now. ‘Not now’ because of some fairly unimportant work stuff, because it took us slightly out of our comfort zone, because it will complicate things, because we don’t need to push now because we have loads of time to sort this out in the future….
Let’s think about it again next year…
Let’s not do that now but maybe later….
Let’s talk ourselves out of this even though it could be so wonderful, no pressure, plenty of time to get round to it….sometimes sitting doing nothing can seem better than having the time of our life’s.
We were fooling ourselves, time ran out….
I keep going over those moments. Often trips, adventures or holidays that didn’t happen. Like the big Christmas adventure, the chance to take Hawklad to Lapland to visit Santa. Never happened even though we could have done it and we both knew it was a great adventure. Yes just the two of us could do it now but it’s not quite the same after the pesky Art Teacher decided it was time for some festive tough love… What a missed opportunity because we thought there was plenty of time.
Then there are those moments, missed opportunities that yes we can still do (and sometimes have already addressed) but we left it too long for his mum. She missed out. Hawklad never got to experience these moments with her. Disney Florida, Panto, trips to see Whales, Horse riding, skiing, Yellowstone, Kennedy Space Centre, Patagonia….. I could go on. Especially this little beauty, I managed to film Hawklad’s first walk on an old video camera, his mum was at work. The camera wouldn’t connect to the TV, so I needed to get the tape converted to VHS. I never did get round to it, I put it off (plenty of time) and then it was forgotten in both our life’s. She never did get to see that special moment.
Now I feel sadness over those moments, moments his mum never got to experience, Hawklad never got to share with her. It’s a painful lesson.
Time will run out……
Can you figure out what this years Christmas Theme is at Castle Howard?
Alice Christmas Wonderland….
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…..
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….
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.
For days this part of Yorkshire has been weather stuck. Stuck under mist, grey clouds and no sign of the sun. Apart from a few dog walks, the kind of weather that keeps you not too far from the fire. Trying to keep warm, I was sat going through some old photos and came across similar greyness in Switzerland. Rather than sat by a fire, here we were sat inside a warm lake boat, with hot drinks and breakfast, watching the world go reassuringly slowly by. Not belting anywhere at 100mph, just leisurely making our way across lake water. Savouring the journey rather than just impatiently trying to get somewhere fast.
Too often I find life goes by way too quickly, way too much stress, feeling out of control with no time to contemplate life. Even when the weather was grey, I treasured those moments of stillness on that lake. A chance to quietly think and breathe.
Those boat trips are years back, definitely well beyond my rear view mirror now. They haven’t really been replaced with anything similar. Life happened, a new reality dawned. A reality which often seemed like constantly moving from one activity to the next. Constantly busy, constantly occupied, rushing, maybe not achieving anything, maybe not feeling like making progress, just always doing stuff. Feeling like I hardly had any time to stop and breathe.
I love nature, I find so much peace there. When was the last time I spent real time gazing at a real mountain, a lake, out to sea. Not just a a fleeting glance then off again, actually stopping and taking the time to take in the wonder and the beauty. I’m tempted to say I don’t do this enough, but sadly the real answer is NOT AT ALL….
Living in the UK has many negatives, things like the weather, road potholes, useless Water Companies, Nigel Farage, Fuel Prices, Morris Dancing, late running trains, Brexit, did I mention the WEATHER. But then again we have some beautiful landscapes and CASTLES. Lots of Castles.
So when the clouds parted we headed off to one such castle. Helmsley Castle, over 900 years of history. It’s a wonderful adventure.
Somethings never fail to work. With Hawklad it’s HISTORY. So what better way to spend an unusually sunny day than to walk around a city with a shed load of history.
YORK
The Viking Capital of England, once for a brief time the political heart of the Roman Empire, Saxons, Normans, Middle Ages. History on History.
And wonderfully still no skyscrapers…..
If you get the chance, come and see it for yourself.
Autumn in Yorkshire seems to be set in now. Day after day of dark, damp, dreary weather. The heating is now on full time now, guess it will be till 2025.
But then out of nowhere, an unexpected weather gift. The Day Forecast was really poor and the morning brought rain, lots of rain. But without warning the clouds parted. The first sight of The Sun in days.
Got to seize these gifts.
Three hours later we found ourselves 100 miles north, on a beach in Northumberland. With Cloudless skies and a Castle on the beach.
Bamburgh Castle, a setting for many a movie and tv show. It’s something like 1400 years old but unusually for round here, it’s not a ruin. Stately Home, Museum, Luxury Hotel, Wedding Venue. Definitely worth a visit, but with one piece of warning. Don’t bother bringing a bucket and spade to build your own sandcastle. It’s the finest sand ever, like walking in a Desert. Sand gets everywhere and I mean everywhere….. but it will not hold together. Definitely only one castle here.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 