Lakeland logjam...

A mundane subject - a tractor holding up traffic on Kirkstone Pass - but it was licensed today... for the best price of the month...

Back to the book...

As anticipated, the everyday comforts of a less-mobile lifestyle are proving irresistible. I can get online without eating in - or parking near - McDonalds. I can access a clean toilet without visiting Wetherspoons. I can hop in and out of the shower without requesting the satnav lady to find me a swimming pool. I can make myself a cup of tea whenever I want (instead of stopping at a roadside caff for a cuppa, a bacon sarnie and some mildly racist banter).

The woodburner provides both heat - and, in the absence of a TV, a focus - to the room. Best of all, perhaps, I can switch on the electric blanket half an hour before bedtime, and enjoy the pleasure of anticipation. I wander round the Old Sunday School, marveling at the headroom. I flush the toilet, again and again, just to see what it can handle. There’s a kumquat stuck in the U-bend, but handyman Darren will sort it out later today.

However, after a fortnight of faffing about, it’s time to open up the laptop and get some writing done. My first job is to do what I can to get the belief book profitably into print. I’m also giving the book another edit; there are still improvements to be made… and anomalous passages to delete.

Licensed today: Lewis Castle, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis...

Goole Docks...

After Paul the postman, and Darren the handyman, Helen was the first visitor to the Old Sunday School. We spent a couple of hours at Blacktoft Sands, watching greenshanks, ruffs, avocets and the ever-present marsh harriers. Yesterday we visited the Yorkshire Waterways Museum, situated at the end of a cul de sac in Goole, and took a boat trip around the docks. Ah, the romance of Goole Docks!

It was a desolate scene: quays, cranes, derricks, coal hoists, warehouses, rust… and not a boat in sight. I wasn’t aware that Goole had been a planned town (according to Google, the name ‘Goole’ suggests either an 'open sewer', or an 'outlet to a river’), with town, canal and port declared open on July 20, 1826. Goole has known prosperity, and we were assured, by the guys in the museum, that goods were still going out and coming in, but there’s little doubt that Goole’s days as a busy port are in the past.

Licensed, for a sum that would barely buy a couple of beers and a bag of pork scratchings: The Black Bull, in Otley...

Listening without effort...

A quotation from Krishnamurti's Book of Life arrives in my email in-tray every morning. Sometimes they are provocative. Sometimes - like this morning - they echo what I'm writing myself. Always they are worth reading...

You are now listening to me; you are not making an effort to pay attention, you are just listening; and if there is truth in what you hear, you will find a remarkable change taking place in you—a change that is not premeditated or wished for, a transformation, a complete revolution in which the truth alone is master and not the creations of your mind. And if I may suggest it, you should listen in that way to everything—not only to what I am saying, but also to what other people are saying, to the birds, to the whistle of a locomotive, to the noise of the bus going by. You will find that the more you listen to everything, the greater is the silence, and that silence is then not broken by noise. It is only when you are resisting something, when you are putting up a barrier between yourself and that to which you do not want to listen—it is only then that there is a struggle.

A pic, licensed today, of the half-timbered Guildhall in Lavenham, Suffolk...

 

Dun Carloway Broch...

Licensed today: Dun Carloway Broch on the Isle of Lewis, a fortified dwelling that's more than 2,000 years old...

Asselby...

When I left West Witton, in Wensleydale, many years ago, I vowed I would never again live in a village. So here I am, the newest homesteader in Asselby, an entirely unremarkable village in East Yorkshire. The Old Sunday School was the big attraction, of course, but it’s also handy to be over the road from the village pub. So many villages are losing their pubs. If the Black Swan were to close, there would be nowhere for the locals to congregate and slag off their neighbours.

Unusually, the village of Asselby is on a cul de sac. Drive a couple of miles further and you reach Barmby on the Marsh, and another pub, at the confluence of the Rivers Derwent and Ouse. From here there’s a panoramic view of Drax power station. In years gone by there was ferry across the river; now, though, Barmby is literally the end of the road.

Asselby is wedged between Howden and Goole. Howden is an attractive little market town, with a partly ruined Minster, while Goole is a bit like Barrow in Furness: while you can’t imagine any good reason for going there, once you get there you find it’s not as bad as you’d imagined. And that’s high praise for Goole. I’ll be going to Goole library tomorrow, to see if the archivist can help me find a date for the Old Sunday School. My guess is about 1850.

Just licensed: Otley's statue of Thomas Chippendale, wearing the disappointed expression of a man trying to assemble an IKEA bed-frame...

Car booting...

I visited a couple of huge car boot sales over the Bank Holiday, armed with a shopping list of stuff I need for the Old Sunday School. I found a good work table. The legs unscrewed, otherwise it wouldn’t have fitted in the van. I found a few other bits and pieces, but what struck me was just how much of the stuff on display was surplus to the requirements of any sane person. Who has gone out and bought a foot spa at full retail price? Who thought that a fondue set would add a touch of glamour and sophistication to their lives? And a peppermill which lights up? WTF?

I saw Polaroid cameras for which the film is no longer made, and charging cables for now-obsolete phones. I saw Princess Diana memorabilia. I saw, boxed and ready to sell, a scarf with pockets, which has to be one of the worst ideas anyone has ever had (and actually brought to market). I saw a wooden kitchen table, whose four corners looked like they’d been nibbled by a horse. I saw a book called The English Lowlands. Has anyone ever decided to go and visit a place called the English Lowlands? I saw a virtual reality headset amongst the tat; how quickly last year’s tech becomes this year’s junk. A woman running a bookstall which seemed to feature mostly women writers, had the books neatly organised by authors’ names… except one category which was entitled ‘Disturbed Lives’.

Thumbs-up from a narrowboat captain at the Goole Marina...

Exploring the Wolds...

I've had a wander round the wolds, a part of Yorkshire which gets few visitors (at least compared with the moors and dales). This is Warter, which, like many other wolds villages, still has its duck pond...

Smartphones...

The backlash has begun. A Guardian article recommends getting out into the spring sunshine, over the Easter holiday, without mediating the experience through the screen of a smartphone. “Like the old-fashioned tourist’s camera, a smartphone swaps the immediacy of experience for an anticipation of its memory”.

People are spending ever more time engaging with their smartphones: tapping, scrolling, swiping, taking selfies, receiving notifications, updating their Facebook profiles, uploading pictures of their lunch to Instagram, or just gazing at their handsets, waiting for something - anything - to happen.

The article writer ends with this heartfelt plea. “Put your phone down and leave it there a while. Grab the world with both hands instead and get them dirty: garden, make something, or cook a meal; eat without photographing it first. Lose yourself in the present around you”. Amen to that…

The docks at Goole...

Shopping...

I don’t enjoy shopping, and I’m a bit out of touch with the requirements of a 21st century household. When I walked into Homebase and asked to see their top-of-the-range mangle, I was met with blank stares. Imbeciles!

I bought a second-hand, king-size, bed frame, to go with the second-hand mattress. I’m no push-over and I know how to haggle. With the mattress being heavily bloodstained, I demanded - and got - a heavy discount. Unless it was a heavy discharge. Either way, it’ll be fine once it ’s dried out, though I’m going to need help to get it up the stairs.

When I tried to buy a bog-standard electric kettle, I found they were all either futuristic or retro. What’s that all about? The slow cooker, at least, is great: it takes ten minutes to prepare the ingredients for a stew which will feed me today and tomorrow (and I don't have to be around while it cooks).

The Morrisons in Goole. How many other supermarkets can boast a windmill?

Into the rafters...

It brought a smile to my face to turn into Blacksmith Lane last night and see the lights on in the Old Sunday School. Already it feels like home. The wall lights are discreet and upward-facing, illuminating the roof-beams with a peach-coloured glow (there’s a hell of a lot of carpentry up there). In lighting the room, the last occupiers obviously believed that less is more. The result is restful, I think, rather than gloomy, although, for comfortable reading in the evening, I’m going to need an extra light source. In the hands of a more sensitive person - a woman, say - the Old Sunday School might have made a good meditation centre.

With space at a premium, it will require some ingenuity to fit everything in, without making the room seem cluttered. Inspired by the wonderful drawings of William Heath-Robinson, I’m tempted to store a few things in the space above my head. For starters I’ll get one of those old-fashioned clothes driers, which can be loaded up, hoisted out of the way and secured. I’ll need a good length of rope, because a load of damp clothes could easily be lifted about fifteen feet into the rafters (the Old Sunday School is not just square; it’s very nearly a cube). This would also be a good way to store a bicycle, should I ever decide to explore the flat landscapes of East Yorkshire on two wheels (or a sleeping house-guest, as in the picture below)…

The Old Sunday School...

My nomadic days are over, kind of. I didn’t want to blog about my change of circumstances, in case I jinxed the deal, but this morning I collected the key to the Old Sunday School in the village of Asselby, which is situated halfway between the middle of nowhere and the back of beyond. I viewed the Old Sunday School in the first week of February; it was love at first sight!

The property is small, just 21 feet square, yet, because the main space is undivided, it feels very spacious (it helps, of course, to have spent the last five years living in a small Romahome). The floor is stone-flagged, the windows let in a lot of light and the room is open to the roof-beams. A small bedroom, and an even smaller storage area, have been created in the rafters; a bathroom has been shoehorned in downstairs. And that’s it!
  
One of the property’s many attractions is that I don’t have to open a tin of paint or borrow any power tools. The kitchen area is usable as is, and a washing machine was delivered this afternoon, to fill a gaping hole. I’ve also bought a slow cooker, so my first meal, this evening, was a tasty stew. The Old Sunday School is heated by three wall-mounted radiators. Everything is electric; there’s no mains gas in the village. Best of all is the woodburning stove, though, having forgotten to buy any logs, I’ll have to wait to try it out.

My first visitor was the postman (“I’m Paul, your regular postman”, he said), who delivered my BT broadband hub. I’ve had a busy day: unloading stuff, washing the worktops and flicking a duster around. I feel elated… and exhausted.

The Old Sunday School: what's not to like?

Gallows Hill...

I’ve learned two new things about Otley today. I learned that the grassy area on the south side of the River Wharfe is called Tittybottle Park, because it has long been a favourite place for mothers and babies to congregate. I also learned that a nature reserve, on the outskirts of town, is known as Gallows Hill. It has been a site of execution since Anglo-Saxon times, with the last execution taking place in 1614. It was here that I heard - and saw - my first blackcap of the year, and a pair of kites…

No more Page 3...

After fifty years the tradition of featuring topless women on page 3 is coming to an end. There’ll be no more ‘stunnas’ in the Daily Star. Under the guidance of its former proprietor and pornographer-in-chief, Richard Desmond, the paper had defended the inclusion of topless pictures and suggested they were a core part of British culture. “The Daily Star is proud to continue the great British page 3 tradition,” Desmond said in 2015. “It brightens the day for our readers during tough times and has launched many successful careers. We will continue to listen to what our readers want and put a smile on their faces with our lovely, bright, talented and independent young ladies. Page 3 is as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pud, fish and chips and seaside postcards. The Daily Star is about fun and cheering people up. And that will definitely continue!” Four years later, the tide appears to have turned…

Back from the dead...

One of the best things about tennis is that a match is never over until the very last point is played. In theory, you can be 0-6, 0-5 and match point down, and still come back to win. Unlikely as it seems, this was the score faced yesterday by Tara Moore, Britain’s number 9 player, in her match against France’s Jessika Ponchet. Having saved match point with a fortuitous net-call, Moore rallied to win the second set on a tie break, then the third set 6-3. According to her tongue-in-cheek, after-match tweet, the result of the match was “Never in doubt”. Despite being number 479 in the world, I hope her ‘never say die’ attitude will take her up the rankings. She literally doesn’t know when she’s beaten. I wonder if she has any good ideas about Brexit…

The bus-drivers' prayer...

A Cockney chum used to recite this parody of the Lord’s Prayer (apparently known as the bus-drivers’ prayer). It always made me laugh: especially the ending. According to Google, there are a vew variants, but this is the version I remember.

“Our father which art in Hendon, Harrow be thy name. Thy Kingston come, thy Wimbledon, in Erith as it is in Hendon. Give us this day our Berkhampstead, and forgive us our Westminsters, as we forgive those who Westminster against us. Lead us not into Thames Ditton, and deliver us from Ealing. For thine is the Kingston, the Purley and the Crawley, for Iver and Iver, Crouch End”…

Disturbed sleep...

I parked up in the market place last night, between the kebab shop and a Chinese take-away called Golden River (erm…I thought ‘Golden River’ was a fetish foreplay: the kind of thing you pay extra for, in a brothel or bordello). The market place is, apparently, where the young people of Driffield congregate, after the pubs have shut on a Saturday nigh: shouting, screaming, fighting, vomiting and eating crap food (though not necessarily in that order) into the early hours of Sunday morning. Which is why some drunk beat on the door of the van with his fist about 2am, and ran away laughing. It’s amazing how quickly you wake up when the adrenaline is pumping. I’m surprised I got back to sleep at all.

Went to Quaker meeting in Malton this morning. Meeting is supposed to be peaceful, but a woman turned up, twenty minutes late, with two dogs and a hyperactive child. I won’t be going there again…

Licensed today: kite-surfing and offshore wind turbines at Redcar...

Leighton Moss...

I spent a morning at Leighton Moss, near Carnforth. I never get tired of watching marsh harriers hunting and displaying. A family trio of otters were frolicking in one of the pools. In addition to the usual wildfowl, I saw a female scaup: a duck I haven’t seen for years. Best of all, I saw my first swallow of the year; I celebrated with a shave and a haircut…

Prestbury...

First pic licensed this month: Prestbury in Cheshire...

Pocklington Canal...

Not a lynching... but wet suits drying out next to narrowboats on the 9-mile Pocklington Canal...

Ice cream man...

Drove past Seacroft this morning, where, for a few short weeks, I had an ice cream round. It must have been in 1971, because Rod’s Stewart’s Maggie May was the song I heard on the radio all that summer. I worked for Mario and Johnny Guiseppe, who had an ice cream business in Chapeltown. They used to give us all a little waxed cup of Martini, before we headed off in the vans, to start the day off right.

It was a fun job. The kids used to call me ‘Chucky Man’ - can’t remember why - and I used to hand out free ice creams on their birthdays. Some birthdays seemed to come around very quickly. If I had time, I’d head over to Leeds Grammar School, for a very busy lunchtime. The golden rule was to make sure the whippy machine was full of gunk. I learned what happens if it runs out: the whole machine exploded and covered the inside of the van - and me - with sticky ice cream. The kids were merciless. “Come and look”, they crowed, “Chucky Man’s covered in ice cream!” Happy days...