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Sayings

Yorkshire between the rain storms…..

Talking to a fellow Yorkshire Citizen this morning and as he tried to navigate his possessed General Waste Wheelie Bin passed his brand new electric car. Very Carefully passed as the Wheelie Bin looked like it would win in any head to head contest. I asked him how is new car was and the reply was

“Sound as a Pound”….

Instantly I was taken back to my old Dad, that was one of his favourite sayings. Sadly since Brexit, even Dad would have to concede that there are way more financially stable currencies than ours.

But it did make me think about all those old sayings that were such a part of the cut and thrust of Yorkshire life back then. Most are now probably not best said before the children are safely in bed. But a few just about ok for polite conversation. I have also tried to write these in English rather than in Yorkshire. Trust me people in deepest Yorkshire don’t speak like those folk in that quite famous Yorkshire posh house, Downton Abbey.

“Where there’s muck there is brass”

As an Accountant I can confirm that is true.

“Back in my day”

Hawklad will confirm that I’m saying that one more and more along with the Danny DeVito line ‘Getting Old Sucks, don’t let anybody tell you any different’.

“Eat your crusts as it will make your hair curl”

Dad would say that one even after he had gone bald and now I’m getting to that stage where I would happily settle for curls, settle for any hair really.

As we continue the food health advice…

“Eat your carrots, you never see a rabbit with glasses”

That’s very true but unfortunately I’ve eating a shed load of carrots over my many centuries and it has done nowt for my Lazy Eye.

“I’m off to see a man about a dog”

That one is easy, Dad would say that when he was off to the pub for a drink.

“There’s no accounting for taste”

Our old headmaster would always say that to any child with a new haircut. Plus as I became an Accountant then clearly there is no accounting for taste…

“As fit as a butchers dog”

I’ve never seen a butchers dog so can’t confirm and deny that one.

“You would make a better door than window …”

Basically get out the way I’m trying to watch the TV.

“You don’t get owt for nowt…”

Never trust anything that is given to you for free. Strangely although Dad would say this one, I also never saw him turn down anything for free.

The best one I can remember was a favourite one Dad would say down his allotment. You can explain this one to me…..

“Never trust a man who doesn’t know his Leeks from his Scallions”

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A Castle with a Legend

A late October trip to another Yorkshire Castle. This time Richmond Castle.

Richmond is a beautiful part of the country and it’s definitely a Castle With A View.

And here, in this cliff that the castle is perched on is where the legend can be found. King Arthur and his Round Table Knights are said to be asleep in a secret cave below this wall, waiting to come to save the Country in its hour of need……

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Castle time once more ….

Castle Bolton in the heart of Yorkshire. Set in Wensleydale, yes the home of Wallace & Gromit’s favourite cheese…… A castle with a stories to tell. Damaged in the civil war, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned here for 6 months.

The castle really comes alive when you climb towards the top battlements. The views are stunning. Quite unusually you can still get right to the top.

It definitely tests your head first heights, some parts feel a little too precarious.

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We need a bigger bin.

‘We need a bigger bin’ doesn’t seem to have quite the same dramatic ring as ‘we need a bigger boat’ from Jaws….

Houston We have Problem….

In the great scheme of things, it’s not an Apollo Spacecraft is running out of fuel level crisis. It’s not even anywhere near the patio weedkiller isn’t really working with the Red Weed from War of the Worlds emergency.

Ok it’s just a wheelie bin issue…

But a common one round here.

As a cost cutting idea the local Council changed our recycling collections from every 2 to 4 weeks. To be fair they did give us a slightly bigger bin but in the good old days, every two weeks you would just pile up all the cardboard next to the inevitable full recycling bin and it would be collected. Now if it’s not in the bin, it ain’t being collected….

So these days, after about 2 weeks you see local residents employ various strategies to fit more and more into the already packed bin. Some carefully cut up the cardboard into smaller pieces (takes them hours), some madly folding and refolding as if in a crazy origami tournament, others have bonfires, others just start cramming cardboard into the normal refuge bin. I’ve elected for the get the ladders out, step into the full bin and start jumping up and down to compress. I dread to think of the internal pressures being applied to that poor wheelie bin. You never see good old Dr Who having to do that with his Tardis.

Anyways enough of Yorkshire Troubles.

We clearly haven’t had enough Castle trips this summer. Let’s have a look at Warwick Castle, one of Britain’s finest historic sites. Brings back a ton of memories, I went to university many many moons ago at Warwick.

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Coast to coast

England is a relatively small country.

You read these epic driving blogs, taking days, weeks to travel across a land. Less so epic here. On a good afternoon you can get from North East to North West coasts, the biggest challenge being the never ending motorway roadworks.

This week we kinda did that mini adventure. A trip from our Yorkshire home to the North West edge, Liverpool….. Took just over two hours.

Then 2 days later we stood on the North East edge of England. From our home, just over 40 minutes….

122 miles apart. A famous old city port versus a small old fishing village. Vastly different accents, same WIND….

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Swan Lake

Whisper it, a few days of nice weather in Yorkshire, we can do it…

A bit of Sun brings out the hooligans.

This Swan is a bruiser.

Swims about on the lake until it sees someone he or she doesn’t like and then…. races out of the water to stand on the narrow lakeside path. That’s it, wings spread, puffed out chest and the path is closed. As we were walking towards the danger zone, we passed a couple heading back saying an aggressive Swan had forced them into a hasty retreat. As we passed we got a good staring at, but were granted a pass. The walker following us was not so lucky and after a brief standoff, the swan won….

Wonder why some people are allowed through and others are chased off. It’s not a nesting thing, as the nest is on the other end of the lake, and apparently the Swan is never aggressive there.

Bizarre old bird. Definitely swan of a kind….

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Reasons

Midday, perfectly sums up the Yorkshire weather currently.

In a few months, is it really coming up 9 years…..

The latest Bridget Jones movie got me thinking. Good job we didn’t see Alvin and The Chipmunks, lord knows what I’d be thinking about then. Pest control maybe 😂😂😂

That first morning, waking up and everything had changed. Who am I kidding, no sleep that night. Trying to figure out what words to say to Hawklad. Trying to get my head round the new reality. Even the house seemed changed, very different. We often talked about the house being cramped for 3 but on that morning it seemed cavernous for just two of us. It wasn’t just too much space, it was too quiet. But there was something else. Everywhere I looked I could see objects that now had no purpose.

A cup…

A plate …..

Women’s clothes, coats and shoes….

A pile of 80s pop cds

Romance books….

A toothbrush …..

Study books…..

Makeup….

Perfume….

Hair products…..

Set of car keys….

Set of house keys…

So much more…..

Everywhere I looked there was now redundant items. Items that were never going to be used again, glaring reminders of loss and bereavement. Feeling like I needed to get those items out of the house as soon as possible.

Yes some redundant items found a new life through Charity Shops but other items stayed.

It’s 2025 and there are still items scattered around the house that have no purpose anymore. Untouched in 9 years. But something has changed, redundant items now making perfect sense. Making perfect sense that they are staying exactly where they have been for years. No use, will not be used again but they have a reason to be there. The house wouldn’t feel right if they weren’t there.

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Stones

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….

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Ice

Cold cold cold….

You know it’s cold when you can step across ice and not hear a single crack or ice groan. Even having gingerly tottered halfway and inevitably hitting the ice with the force of a giant meteor about to wipe out the dinosaurs…. not the slightest ice indent.

Now filled with unbounded hope and belief in that ice, I visioned the perfect opportunity to excel in life once more….. I can do this. Sprint like a cheetah, build up vast amounts of momentum, jump on the snow sledge and majestically sail across the mighty ice lake. The first human ever to successfully sledge from East to West on this huge swath of lake ice (sounds way better than a big pond)… A cold Yorkshire hill, the theatre of dreams…..The beauty and grace of Swan Lake seamlessly combined with the power and agility of an elite sporting superhero.

Once again reality rips asunder unfounded hope….

A few moments later I’m stranded halfway, now face down in the ice and with the sledge riding on top of me. Going nowhere, unable to even get any purchase on my limbs to get up.

Spreadeagled on ice….. That’s probably a video title from the very top row section of Blockbusters….

It took me 5 minutes to find dry land again. It’s incredibly emasculating to be basically pushed by your sniggering son, helplessly across the ice like a curling stone….

Bring on summer……

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In the dark

York Minster and the surrounding streets after dark.

It’s hard to avoid the countless city ghost tours, apparently it’s one of Europes most haunted cities. Any city with this much history is inevitably going to be on that list I guess. It’s hard not to walk past one of these tours and not shout ‘he’s behind you’ or hum the ghostbusters theme. The actors doing these tours are super talented and I’m sure they are more than use to that kind of terrestrial intervention from muppets like me.

I love the city at this time. It’s almost quiet, peaceful with the heaving daytime crowds having largely ebbed away. You can almost hear yourself think, you can remember, reflect. Recall a world which is now gone, feeling like it’s rapidly receding in my rear view mirror.

Christmas can be the most wonderful of times but it can also be the most painful of times. Isolation rather than solitude. A life that is out of reach.

Time to think.