Burton Agnes Hall...

Licensed yesterday: Burton Agnes Hall, near Driffield...

Crowland...

A few days ago I was in the village of Crowland, Lincolnshire, which boasts a unique, three-way, medieval bridge. Many years ago the bridge spanned the River Welland, and a tributary, at the rivers’ confluence. The water has long since been diverted away from the centre of the village; the bridge now offers pedestrians a choice of three routes, none of which lead anywhere in particular: as apt a symbol of Brexit as I can imagine.

Nearby is Crowland Abbey, partly in ruin. I wandered around the graveyard, noticing the modern taste for euphemisms in the face of death. People no longer die, it seems; they ‘pass away’, they ‘fall asleep’ or ‘depart this life’. A child (no name given, except ‘our precious little angel’, so presumably stillborn) was ‘born sleeping’. The headstone of a boy, who died at the age of two, was inscribed ‘Jesus called a little child; of a man who died aged twenty, ‘the Lord hath need of him’.

For those who weren’t ‘called’ too early, the same phrases kept cropping up. The dearly departed are at rest; reunited; together again; in God’s safe keeping; in the arms of Jesus; in heavenly love abiding; resting where no shadows fall; gone from our sight, but never from our memory. Time moves on, but memories stay. Death is only a shadow across the path to heaven. To have, to love and then depart, the saddest story of the human heart. Our family chain is broken, nothing seems the same, but as God calls us one by one, the links shall join again.

On the hundreds of headstones in the graveyard, the sentiments were similar. There wasn’t a single word about the judgement of God. No one goes to hell; everyone is assumed, optimistically, to go to heaven. Though the Bible suggests that hell is very crowded, none of the damned appear to hail from Crowland. I’m not mocking sentiments such as these; if I allowed myself the luxury of imagining a life to come, it would be equally restful and carefree. However, the scientific view, held by most neuroscientists, is that once the brain stops functioning at death, consciousness stops as well…

Licensed today: the River Nene in Wisbech...

Poundbury...

Well, it’s taken a while, but I've finally licensed a pic of Poundbury, Prince Charles’s vanity project near Dorchester…

England resurgent...

I watched the England v Montenego game in a pub, with a couple of other guys. It was an enjoyable game, with England continuing to rattle in the goals. One of the guys was getting particularly excited when first Barkley, then Kane, put the ball in the net. He said had a bet, at 80-1, that England would win, and that Barkley, Kane and Sterling would all get a goal. He said he’d buy us a drink if he won the bet, and, when Sterling scored in the 81st minute, he did. Cheers!

Licensed today: a shot of cricket at Hartley Wintney...

Otters...

Licensed today: traffic chaos on Harris...

Scott Walker...

The Walker Brothers weren’t brothers, and none of the trio was called Walker. They were Scott Engel, John Maus and Gary Leeds, who, for a few years in the sixties, created anthemic pop songs such as No Regrets, Make it Easy on Yourself and The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore, with Scott Walker’s rich baritone voice to the fore. The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore was playing on the jukebox in The Blind Beggar pub in east London when George Cornell was shot dead by Ronnie Kray, a ricocheting bullet hitting the jukebox to leave it playing the refrain on repeat.

I ‘remember’ The Walker Brothers topping the bill at the Grand Theatre in Leeds some time in the sixties. I went with an old friend, David Buchanan; it was the first ‘proper’ gig either of us had ever been to. Second on the bill were The Flowerpot Men (a load of guys wearing Kaftans who had one hit about wearing flowers in their hair). Bottom of the bill was the Jimi Hendrix Experience, who were incendiary in every sense of the word (Jimi's guitar burst into flames). It was a bizarre line-up!

However, I've discovered that my memories are faulty. Thanks to the internet, I now know that the concert was at the Odeon Cinema, Leeds, and not the Grand Theatre. And it didn’t feature The Flowerpot Men, but another bunch of kooks called the Californians. Apparently Cat Stevens and Englebert Humperdinck were on the bill too (though I have no memory of seeing them). And the date was April 5, 1967, according to the poster below, so I was just 16 years old. My memories of Jimi Hendrix are clear and bright. Hey Joe had topped the charts, and Purple Haze had just been released.

Dissatisfied with the peculiar demands of being a teenage heartthrob, Scott Walker broke up the band and went on to make a series of idiosyncratic solo albums (managing to lose most of his teenage fans along the way). And he died today, aged 76…

Scottish football...

I’m not a fan of Scottish football, and I wasn’t unhappy when they were trounced a few days ago by Kazakhstan, 3-0, in a Euro 2020 qualification match. Today the Scots take on the might of San Marino, the lowest ranked team - 211th - in world football. Today’s game will be San Marino's 155th match, of which they have lost 149. It would cheer me up no end if the Sammarinese were able to record their second-ever win. C’mon San Marino!…

Complete attention (from Krishnamurti)...

What do we mean by attention? Is there attention when I am forcing my mind to attend? When I say to myself, “I must pay attention, I must control my mind and push aside all other thoughts,” would you call that attention? Surely that is not attention. What happens when the mind forces itself to pay attention? It creates a resistance to prevent other thoughts from seeping in; it is concerned with resistance, with pushing away; therefore it is incapable of attention. That is true, is it not?

To understand something totally you must give your complete attention to it. But you will soon find out how extraordinarily difficult that is, because your mind is used to being distracted, so you say, “By Jove, it is good to pay attention, but how am I to do it?” That is, you are back again with the desire to get something, so you will never pay complete attention. ... When you see a tree or a bird, for example, to pay complete attention is not to say, ”That is an oak,” or, “That is a parrot,” and walk by. In giving it a name you have already ceased to pay attention... Whereas, if you are wholly aware, totally attentive when you look at something, then you will find that a complete transformation takes place, and that total attention is the good. There is no other, and you cannot get total attention by practice. With practice you get concentration, that is, you build up walls of resistance, and within those walls of resistance is the concentrator, but that is not attention, it is exclusion.

Licensed today: the Basingstoke Canal in autumn...

Tophill Low...

Spent the best part of the day at Tophill Low Nature Reserve, between Driffield and Beverley. The habitat - open water and woodland, mostly - reminded me of Rutland Water, though on a smaller scale. It really did feel like the first day of spring, as I watched marsh harriers hunting over the reedbeds. Heard my first summer visitor - chiffchaffs calling - about ten days early. Also cetti's warbler and woodpeckers drumming. Lots of wildfowl: curlew, redshank, shoveler, teal, wigeon, shelduck, gadwall, goldeneye, cormorant, lapwing, great crested grebe, little grebe, etc. I heard, but didn’t see, a water rail. I chatted with some local bird-watchers, who recommended other good spots in East Yorkshire…

Big city blues...

Having left the van at the Park & Ride at Moor Allerton, I got a bus into Leeds. It’s only since I’ve had the Romahome that I’ve used this facility; it’s easier than driving a bulky vehicle into town and trying to find a parking space. Leeds was busy. For the last five years I’ve tended to stop at small market towns, so a few hours in the big city represented sensory overload. The city has changed so much, making me feel like a hick from the sticks. A lady looked lost. Fortunately she was trying to get to City Square; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to help.

There was something I wanted to buy - a particular brand of slow cooker - so I wandered around Debenhams and Curry’s and House of Fraser. In a men’s clothing department a sign welcomed me to the ‘new season’ of clothes. What, men’s clothes have a season? Who knew? A seductive image in the women’s department was promoting “The new blotted lip… introducing pillow pout.” Huh?

An old Japanese man was singing Elvis songs to a backing track (he was rather good), and another old guy was carrying a sign, informing the citizenry of Leeds that 'Jesus Christ will return soon' (not that they took any notice. They were too busy drinking cups of fancy coffee and staring at their smartphones). By lunchtime the noise and the clamour was too much for me. Having spent nothing - apart from dropping some money into a busker’s hat - I took the bus back to the Park & Ride…

Mark Twain...

Few writers are as quotable as Mark Twain. Though I required 135,000 words to complete my belief book, he summarised the contents in a single sentence. “Faith”, he wrote, “is believing what you know ain’t so”.

Here's another favourite quote, which needs to be read more than once to get the full devastating effect. “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

And now I’ve found a new quote (well, new to me) which reflects how I feel about the passing of the years: “I have no objection to retirement… as long as it doesn’t interrupt my work”…

Quakers...

Went to Quaker meeting at Adel this morning. One old guy asked me where I lived, so I pointed to the van parked outside. “That’s very Christ-like”, he said. “Jesus didn’t have a home either”. This is the first time that I have been compared, favourably, to the Son of God, and, I imagine, the last.

Licensed last week, Bramham church, North Yorkshire, for a price that wouldn't even buy me a bag of chips...

Hebden Bridge...

In Hebden Bridge today, where, to judge from the height of the river, it’s been raining for days. I’m parked up the hill; for a flood to reach me here it would have to be biblical in scale…

Licensed last week: a shot of Amblesdide...

Beverley Minster...

Licensed today: Beverley Minster. I like the contrast between the austerity of the grey columns and the frivolity - and golden glow - of the Christmas trees...

Poetry...

Had an enjoyable evening with my old mate, Gordon, in a couple of York’s characterful local boozers: one just inside the city wall, the other just outside. It was open-mic night at the Golden Ball, and Gordon’s contribution to the live entertainment was in verse… including an ode to the clitoris (a body part too little celebrated in the poetic tradition). Returned to Otley last night, where I caught the last few songs played by a local duo in the Junction. I couldn’t believe just how much noise two guys could make (though there was some technological jiggery-pokery going on as well). The highlight was a blistering, wall-of-sound version of Leaving on a Jet Plane.

Licensed today: the main staircase at Cliffe Castle in Keighley...

River Nene...

Another narrowboat pic licensed today: the River Nene at Peterborough...

T20 cricket...

I watched the last match of England’s tour of the West Indies. As a biff-bang run-fest, T20 cricket isn’t really my cup of tea, but the West Indies couldn’t even bat out their twenty overs, being bowled out for just 71. England knocked off the runs for the loss of two wickets. When it’s as one-sided as this, the shortest form of the game can be quite boring, but one moment stands out. Adil Rashid bowled a leg spinner to Fabian Allen, who hit it out of the park. The next ball was a googly, which fizzed past an outstretched bat and clipped off-stump. The batsman looked up and down, and left and right, totally confused by the flight, the guile and the spin. He stared at the pitch, he stared at his bat; he looked back at his shattered stumps, before walking off, shaking his head…

Licensed today: one of the first pix I uploaded to Alamy...

Football...

I'll shortly be heading to the pub to watch Liverpool play Burnley and, hopefully, keep their title challenge alive. The game starts at noon, presumably to prevent two volatile sets of fans getting too drunk before the game starts. It's a forlorn hope, since football fans can start necking cans of extra-strong lager at any time of the day...

Cottages at twilight in Blanchland, Northumberland...

Harriers...

I spent a couple of hours at Blacktoft Sands, an RSPB reserve south of the Humber. If February was unrealistically warm, March has reverted to something more normal. I sat in a hide for the duration of a violent hailstorm; it only lasted a couple of minutes, but for those two minutes I thought the roof would come off. There were plenty of ducks on the flashes: wigeon, teal, tufted duck, pochard, gadwall, shoveler, shelduck and mallard, plus half a dozen little grebes. I watched marsh harries in display flight, trying to cope with the strong winds. The sky was big, and constantly changing: it was a better day for cloud-spotting, perhaps, than for bird-watching. Then, as I left, frozen to the bone, a flock of twenty black-tailed godwits flew in.

Licensed last week: the Huddersfield Canal at Uppermill, West Yorkshire...

Boston...

Licensed today: another little local boozer at twilight, in Boston, Lincs...

Beamish Museum...

Sales of Greggs pastries have apparently topped £1bn for the first time, thanks to the introduction of their vegan sausage roll. I’m a regular visitor to Greggs, but only in the sense that I often walk in the door. Then I take a look at the undistinguished fare on offer, sniff the air and walk straight out again.

A working tram at the Beamish Open Air Museum, Co Durham...

Levens Hall...

Selling a few pix I actually like, for a change. I'm no expert on gardens, with a low boredom threshold for herbaceous borders, but the topiary at Levens Hall is spectacular...

Campsite...

After the preternaturally strange weather, it's back to normal for March: driving rain and a wind that rocks the van when I'm driving. I'm in my favourite Yorkshire Dales campsite, to process the pictures I've taken since Christmas.

Licensed today: the quayside at St Ives, in Cambridgeshire...

Editing...

Still editing the belief book. By now, though, the process amounts to little more than reading the text, making very minor changes and dispensing with anything that, on further reading, sounds self-indulgent.

Licensed today: an estate of affordable houses, with solar panels, in Kendal...

Pacific Radio Fire...

I used to be a big fan of Richard Brautigan, even though, as a novelist, his books were slight, quirky and so much of their time - the 1970s - that I wonder if anybody reads them now. I downloaded a collection of his short stories - The Revenge of the Lawn - onto my Kindle, and I’ve enjoyed becoming reacquiainted with his idiosyncratic prose style and very short stories. This is Pacific Radio Fire, in its entirety…

The largest ocean in the world starts or ends at Monterey, California. It depends on what language you are speaking. My friend's wife had just left him. She walked right out the door and didn't even say good-bye. We went and got two fifths of port and headed for the Pacific. It's an old song that's been played on all the jukeboxes in America. The song has been around so long that it's been recorded on the very dust of America and it has settled on everything and changed chairs and cars and toys and lamps and windows into billions of phonographs to play that song back into the ear of our broken heart.

We sat down on a small corner-like beach surrounded by big granite rocks and the hugeness of the Pacific Ocean with all its vocabularies. We were listening to rock and roll on his transistor radio and somberly drinking port. We were both in despair. I didn't know what he was going to do with the rest of his life either. I took another sip of port. The Beach Boys were singing a song about California girls on the radio. They liked them. His eyes were wet wounded rags. Like some kind of strange vacuum cleaner I tried to console him. I recited the same old litanies that you say to people when you try to help their broken hearts, but words can't help at all. It's just the sound of another human voice that makes the only difference. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to make anybody happy when they're feeling shitty about losing somebody that they love.

Finally he set fire to the radio. He piled some paper around it. He struck a match to the paper. We sat there watching it. I had never seen anybody set fire to a radio before. As the radio gently burned away, the flames began to affect the songs that we were listening to. A record that was #1 on the Top-40 suddenly dropped to #13 inside of itself. A song that was #9 became #27 in the middle of a chorus about loving somebody. They tumbled in popularity like broken birds. Then it was too late for all of them.

Mind growing old...

Found in my in-tray this morning: another thought-provoking passage from Krishnamurti...

"Why does the mind grow old? It is old, is it not, in the sense of getting decrepit, deteriorating, repeating itself, caught in habits, sexual habits, religious habits, job habits, or various habits of ambition. The mind is so burdened with innumerable experiences and memories, so marred and scarred with sorrow that it cannot see anything freshly but is always translating what it sees in terms of its own memories, conclusions, formulas, always quoting; it is authority-bound; it is an old mind. 

You can see why it happens. All our education is merely the cultivation of memory; and there is this mass communication through journals, the radio, the television; there are the professors who read lectures and repeat the same thing over and over again until your brain soaks in what they have repeated, and you vomit it up in an examination and get your degree and go on with the process—the job, the routine, the incessant repetition. Not only that, but there is also our own inward struggle of ambition with its frustrations, the competition not only for jobs but for God, wanting to be near Him, asking the quick road to him.

So, what is happening is that through pressure, through stress, through strain, our minds are being crowded, drowned by influence, by sorrow, consciously or unconsciously... We are wearing down the mind, not using it"...