The Humber...

Barton-upon-Humber feels like the back of beyond. It’s been cut off… not by a retreating tide, twice a day, but by the Humber Bridge, once and for all. A road leads down to the Humber and the ‘Humber Bridge Viewing Area’; it’s a cul de sac today, though it must have been a busy thoroughfare in years gone by, when it led to the Humber Ferry. There’s a house which, according to a plaque on the wall, used to be the Waterside Inn, a small coastguard station and a row of cottages built for the coastguards, but none are now used for their original purpose.

The bridge dominates the view; for those travelling across the bridge, Barton-on-Humber barely registers. I had a chat with a guy fishing from the breakwater, his regular fishing spot, who had a similar 'blind spot'; “I hardly notice the bridge any more”, he said. He had just caught a cod - “must be five pounds”, he reckoned - and was taking it home for his tea. It would feed a family…

The Humber Bridge...

Scruffy boatyard, Barton-upon-Humber...

Moon under Water...

Wetherspoons have 15 pubs around the country called the Moon under Water, and one of them is in Boston, Lincolnshire. The Moon under Water was the name of George Orwell’s ideal - and imaginary - pub. Though I use the free wifi - and toilets - it’s as hard to be enthusiastic about a Wetherspoon pub as it is to be critical. They must be doing something right, as the public are voting with their feet. When other pubs are empty, Wetherspoon pubs are always busy. They really are all things to all people: a conjuring trick that they pull off with ease. Breakfast? No problem. Beer with breakfast? No problem either. You can have morning coffee, a light lunch, an afternoon session, an evening out out with the boys, or the girls, or the family or a date. If you want a meal afterwards, you can order off the menu till 11pm.

George Orwell might blanche at the way Wetherspoons have appropriated Moon under Water. His ideal pub is just about everything that Wetherspoons isn’t…

A pub in Boston that's more to my taste...

Boston...

In Boston today I’ve heard more foreign tongues - East European, mostly - than English. The area of town around the bus and train stations is full of food shops catering for an East European clientele. I’ve never eaten Lithuanian food in a restaurant, but I could in Boston. I’m assuming - without asking anybody - that the immigrants are working in agriculture. And I have no idea how the locals get on with the in-comers, and vice-versa…

Mabelthorpe...

Drove over the Humber Bridge, and down into Lincolnshire. Explored Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe and Skegness, to reacquaint myself with some traditional seaside resorts. Cleethorpes and Mabelthorpe looked tatty, tacky, down-at-heel, but rather appealing too. Skegness - with its Butlins campus - just looked too big.

There’s talk of seaside resorts reinventing themselves, to meet the needs of 21st century holidaymakers, but Mabelthorpe didn’t seem to have bothered. It was like going back 30, 40, 50 years. It’s not an aspirational place (and that wins points from me). The food is fish ’n’ chips - simple as that - and the beer is cheap. The amusement arcades still attract enough punters to pay the rent. The shops are local, even the charity shops… which raise money for Keith’s Rescued Dogs Charity, the Great Dane Adoption Society and the Butterfly Hospice Trust (I trust that’s not a hospice for butterflies).

If there’s a capital of mobility scooters it has to be Mabelthorpe. I don’t know if the locals are incapable of walking - or just full of fish ’n’ chips ’n’ beer - but it didn’t look like a good advert for getting old. I’m in Boston now: it may be inland, but the river is tidal…

The City of Gold... in Mabelthorpe...

Books...

Slowly, surely, I’m turning my Romahome into a mobile library. I may have left my home behind, but I haven’t - yet - moderated my book-buying behaviour, almost exclusively from charity shops. The accumulated weight of books is starting to slow me down; time for another session of sorting out. Some books - about what to see, and where to go - will stay in the vehicle; they’re useful for reference and planning an itinerary. Other books, once read, will go back to another charity shop. But the biggest pile of books will need to be bagged up and put into my tiny storage facility…

I got bitten by a Yorkshire Terrier in a pub, last night, in Market Weighton. The landlord wasn’t very sympathetic, merely pointing out that it hadn’t actually broken the skin. I refrained from drop-kicking his mangy little dog over the bar, due to my love of animals. At the time I was watching New Zealand thrashing Namibia at rugby on the pub TV, alongside a guy who had watched every single World Cup match from the same bar stool, and was planning to watch all the games to come as well…

Princes Quay Shopping Centre, Hull...

Beer & skittles...

Busy taking pix today, then editing and uploading them. My target is to have 15,000 online by the end of the year, which works out at 117 pix uploaded each week for the next three months. It’s not all beer & skittles being a nomad, y’know (except Monday, which is beer & skittles night in Market Weighton, where I’m kipping tonight).

Workmen on the roof of Princes Quay shopping centre, Hull…

Hull...

Spent a pleasantly boozy evening with friends in Scarborough, before motoring down to Hull. With Hull being the City of Culture in 2017, it makes sense to take more stock shots (my biggest-grossing license, to date, is an uninspiring pic of the Prince’s Quay shopping centre). I’ve already filled up a card with images, and swapped it for a new one… which suggests I’ll need a couple of days to sort the wheat from the chaff, then edit and upload them. In the meantime, while the weather and the light are good, I’ll carry on shooting. When I’m done, I have an article to finish…

Saw a solitary swallow today...

Footbridge in Hull...

Slipping and sliding...

Kipped in the cobbled market square, Thirsk, last night (handy that the town has free wifi), and drove to the east coast this morning. I decided that Sutton Bank would hold no terrors, because the Romahome took the steep gradients in its stride the last time I was here. But it was drizzling today, which made the road slick and greasy. When I saw a couple of lorries slipping and sliding, on the steepest section, I decided to turn round and take an alternative route to Scarborough…

This shot, of a pub in Otley, reminded me of a weather house (the woman comes out when it's sunny, the man comes out when it's rainy. Both coming out out at the same time? Broken cloud, perhaps!)...

Otley Folk Festival...

Had a fun day at the Otley Folk Festival with my oldest chum, sinking the first pint of the day at 12 noon, having watched some Morris dancers. We spent the afternoon doing a steady pub crawl, with plenty of - free - entertainment. The collection of musicians at the White Swan grew from about ten to a roomful, with fiddles, guitars, banjos, squeezeboxes, penny whistles and a woman on spoons. The music rose and swelled like waves in the ocean; it might not be the kind of music I’d choose to listen to on CD, but live it was spellbinding.

These informal groups seem very democratic; when one tune ends, someone else starts up another one, and everybody joins in… sooner or later. Democratic… except one guy on fiddle seemed to be the best musician in the room, and the music wasn’t so dynamic when he put his violin down. Saw a guy who looked - a bit - like Pete Townshend, but wasn't... and a guy who looked - a bit - like Mike Harding, who was...

We ended up with more Morris dancers: traditional Morris men - with handkerchiefs or, better, sticks; clog dancers; ageing goths (unless they were undertakers). A troupe I remember from last year, called 400 Roses, consisted of about a dozen women, various shapes and sizes, who combine belly dancing moves with Morris dancing moves (or “tribal folk fusion dances”, according to one website). Very watchable… especially as they seemed to be really enjoying themselves…

Wayzgoose Morris...

400 Roses...

Pendragon...

Only planned to have a quick drink at the King’s Arms in Ravenstonedale, but plans are subject to change…

This morning I drove down the Mallerstang valley, getting a few shots of Pendragon Castle on the way. I look for the first swallow every spring, and the last swallow at the end of every summer. Spotted a pair of swallows flying in and out of a doorway in the castle. Are they the last?…

Rugby...

The cricket is over. Yorkshire won the county championship, England won (back) the Ashes; all’s well with the world. The next big tournament on the horizon is the Rugby World Cup, starting on Friday, for which I cannot summon up even a glimmer of enthusiasm. It seems a pointless enterprise: throwing the ball backwards - always backwards - makes going forward almost impossible. The scrum seems to collapse every time; anyway the team that put the ball in almost always wins it, which makes the scrum pointless (and dangerous, because players are picked for brawn, not brain, these days). Most games are decided by penalty kicks. And in no other sport is a team rewarded for kicking the ball out of the field of play. If there’s two minutes of exciting running rugby, during 80 minutes play, the commentators are ecstatic. The other 78 minutes are just dull.

I played rugby at school… because I had to. I used to run up and down the wing, in the hope that the other players might think I was a spectator, and the spectators might think I was playing...

Sheep...

The sky today is an unrelieved paper white: low cloud and mist. Having reversed without due care and attention into an immovable object, I’ve replaced the damaged plastic cover for the offside rear lights. The Romahome looks better now, without the unsightly addition of gaffer tape; after a wash it will look brand new…

Nonchalant sheep on Birkrigg Common...

McDrive...

This drive-in McDonalds reminded me - a bit - of an Edward Hopper painting…

Corbyn's coronation...

A quiet day today… having spent yesterday drinking beer in the sunshine, at Headingley, as England won, to level the five-match ODI series at 2-2. The decider is tomorrow, at Old Trafford.

I saw Corbyn’s coronation this morning. There was a tear in my eye, as he gave his acceptance speech. Since this result was seen as “impossible”, just a few weeks ago, I wonder how many more impossible things will happen in the months to come…

Blea Tarn and the Langdale Pikes…

Broughton Mills...

I’m sitting outside the Blacksmith’s Arms in Broughton Mills, which sounds like it should be in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, wedged between Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge. There should be smoke-blackened mills, and chimneys, and rows of terraced houses. But no… Broughton Mills is an idyllic little spot, so compact, so secluded, that you could drive past without noticing anything except a rather appealing pub. Anyway, you’d probably be lost, and looking for directions.

Broughton Mills isn’t really on the way to anywhere. The gated road to the north delivers you into the Duddon Valley; the road south leads to Broughton, which, for the people who live round here, in the Lickle Valley (yes, really), is ‘town’. In a few minutes I’m meeting a fellow writer who has found a new career, post-retirement, as a chronicler of life in Broughton Mills over the last 80-odd years. His three memoires, published locally, are both funny and true; volume four - Whisky with Mother - will be out “soon” (when you’re publishing for pleasure, rather than profit, you can watch deadlines come… and go).

The last swallows are circling overhead, before their long flight south. There’s a nip in the air and the nights are drawing in (as I’ve heard on three separate occasions today). Summer’s almost gone…

The author of Whisky with Mother, hard at work...

Rooney...

The nomadic life frees up a lot of time because I don’t commute. I don’t go somewhere, then go home; I go somewhere… and then go somewhere else. According to the statistics, I’m gaining three or four hours every day, simply by not watching TV. I’m vaguely aware that celebrities are made to eat grubs in the jungle (why do they do it? Oh, I see…). I know that people get famous - briefly - by being voted the winner of singing contests. I know that people are locked in a house, so they can flirt, bicker and get drunk live on TV. The ghost of Andy Warhol is watching, and saying “I told you so”…

I save more time by taking no interest in Wayne Rooney beating Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of goals for England. It’s such a long process, starting months ago with breathless conjecture, “Will Wayne Rooney break the record?”, then yesterday’s pronouncement that “Wayne Rooney’s broken the record!”, then the reflective aftermath: “Is Wayne Rooney really better than Bobby Charlton?”. There’ll be those who question the validity of comparing sportsmen who played fifty years apart, suggesting that football is very different in 2015 to what it was in 1966 (we won the World Cup then. No-one remembers it now… but we did. We really did!). There’ll be others who say it simply doesn’t matter, in a slightly superior kind of way… and use their time more effectively by visiting branches of McDonald for cups of tea, bacon rolls and free wifi…

Langdale...

Resuming my football career...

At 11.15 this morning I was kicking a football about with a young woman called Hannah, on the astroturf football pitch at Ulverston Leisure Centre. It’s not how I’d planned to spend my morning; I’d only gone there for a shower. ”Are you here for the walking football?”, she asked, when I arrived. I said no, just a shower, but then thought… why not? It was something new they were trying, she said, though I’m not sure the word had got round to many of the old geezers in town, as nobody else turned up.

Undaunted by the poor turnout: Hannah had me passing, dribbling and belting the ball into the back of the net. She took a video of me dribbling the ball - with no detectable skill - between a line of cones. "For the website", she said. By noon I was panting. Walking football will be a regular date - every Tuesday, 11.15am - and if a few people turn up, it could be fun, and a bit of exercise. I’ll be back for another go…

Stoat... or weasel...

A pretty good day, starting off with getting a new wheel… and getting it under warranty. Good job, Citroen. Did a couple of drives, which means driving the miles, writing up the route and taking pix.

I spotted either a weasel or a stoat dashing across the road. I must have learned this rhyme about 60 years ago…

The stoat is easil-
y told from the weasel
by the simple fact
that its tail is black,
and its figure slightly the bigger…

No help on this occasion…

Brough...

Parked up in Brough last night. It must have been a busy spot at one time; now, though, the traffic rushes by on the A66, and nothing Brough has to offer encourages people to slow down. There must have been plenty of coaching inns too; now there are only two pubs left. One is rough and ready, for locals; the other, bizarrely, has lurched upmarket. It’s now called The Inn at Brough (written in a curly script on the wall), with pretentions to become an upmarket eatery.

Before I was able to tuck into my pie and chips, the waitress slid a piece of slate in front of me. “An amuse bouche” she said, “with the compliments of the chef”. On the slate were two smears of something pale and translucent - wallpaper paste or, just possibly, chef’s ejaculate - plus a bit of greenery and, the piece de resistance, a piece of damp toast about the size of a postage stamp. An early night beckoned…

Brough Castle...

Joseph Heller...

After a morning editing pix, I’m in Carnforth. Had a look round the charity shops and added to my collection of DVDs with Bill Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl. I found one of Joseph Heller’s novels, Closing Time, but I left it on the shelf. Catch 22 must be my favourite novel, and I don’t want to ‘revisit’ that same cast of characters many years later, when death isn’t something that may happen on a bombing raid over Ferrara… but is a grim inevitability. I wouldn’t read Closing Time, for the same reason that I wouldn’t read Go Set A Watchman, by Harper Lee: for fear it might diminish the original.

I've been reading a memoir by Joseph Heller, about growing up in Coney Island. It was pretty poor, considering. He managed to produce one literary tour de force, Catch 22, but maybe he had nothing left to say after that. He was troubled, in old age, by the fact that he hadn't produced anything else of real quality.  I read one of his other novels - Good as Gold - and can't remember a thing about it. Catch 22 is, in contrast, unforgettable...

The garden terrace at Muncaster Castle...

Wheels...

A frustrating day of faffing about. Before driving off this morning, I saw I had a puncture, so I pumped it up and headed for a little tyre place in Ulverston, near the canal. The guy got the tyre off, and put it in a waterbath, only to find that the problem wasn’t with the rubber at all, but with the wheel. Bubbles were rising from a welded ‘seam’ in the metal: something I’d never seen before.

The next stop was a car-breakers yard, on the other side of England’s shortest and straightest canal, but they didn’t have a wheel of the right size. The sat-nav lady directed me to the Citroen dealership in Barrow; they’ve ordered a replacement wheel, and I’ll be back on Monday for them to sort things out. In the meantime I’ll need to keep an eye on the tyre, and keep it pumped up.

Seeing some chums this evenings, in a little South Lakeland pub…

Sculpture... the spirit of Barrow...

Muncaster...

Called in at Muncaster Castle to get some pix. £10.50 just to wander round the gardens: bloody hell! The lady who took my money smiled sweetly and said the price included access to the shop and café... as though you have to pay to walk into a shop or a café.

Having got some decent shots, I stayed around for the display of owls and birds of prey, if only to get my money’s-worth. It’s the kind of event I’d normally pay good money to avoid, but it turned out OK, with a good crowd there to watch. The Lanar Falcon (a bit like a Peregrine) was fantastic, like something from another dimension altogether. I felt the wind on my cheeks as it flew past. The handlers brought out an eagle, an owl and a vulture, finishing off with a trio of Black Kites…

Walney Island...

Parked up in the car park of the Queen’s Arms, in the village of Biggar, on Walney Island. Visitors to the Lake District don’t come here. The road to Barrow is known, rather unkindly, as the longest cul de sac in the country, and you have to drive through Barrow, and over the Milennium Bridge, to get to Walney. When you’re on Walney your’re somewhere between the middle of nowhere and the back of beyond; it’s bandit country.

I’ve only been in the pub a few minutes, and already I’ve had more fun than I had over ten blighted days in the Hebrides. The locals are friendly. One guy said “You could leave your doors open, and your wallet on the table, and it would still be there in the morning”. I told him I’d leave my doors open, and my wallet on the table, but if it wasn’t there in the morning I’d now have a pretty good idea where to go looking for it.

The pub is like somebody’s front room. In the next room there are people having guitar lessons: hesitantly butchering some much-loved songs. I like it here…

Dusk in Penrith...