Bird news...

Licenced today. I can never guess which picture will sell next! Before Afghanistan, Covid, Brexit and climate change, this was the kind of news which engaged our attention...

Top Withens...

I’ve been accepted - finally! - into village life, having been recruited to Asselby’s vigilante group. We meet, every other Wednesday, down at the docks (knock three times and ask for Vince). The vigilantes don’t aim to throw foreigners out of the village; they prefer to exclude them before they arrive. 

Licenced today: Top Withens, possibly the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, on Haworth Moor…

Scouting for boys...

Just been reading an article in the Guardian about ‘champing’: camping out in old churches. For £49 (£25 for kids) you can spend the night in St Mary’s Church in Longsleddale, St Leonard’s Church in Old Langho or any of a dozen other churches dotted around the country (though none, as yet, in Yorkshire). With so many churches now surplus to all religious requirements - yet still requiring money to maintain them - this sounds like a good idea. Further info on the champing website.

Licenced last week: the statue of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the boy scout movement, on the quayside at Poole in Dorset. He's looking across to Brownsea Island where, in 1907, twenty boys pitched their tents and learned about self-reliance and the outdoor life…

Joe Root...

Despite a big crowd turning up at Headingley, in expectation of a day’s cricket, the Indian batsmen subsided tamely before lunch. England’s victory, by the huge margin of an innings and 76 runs, made Joe Root the most successful England captain in the history of the game, having notched up 27 wins in 55 games (as well as centuries in the last three matches). According to a report in the Guardian, he celebrated with the team, before enjoying “a golden afternoon on the outfield where, in his socks, he and Jos Buttler, and later Anderson, played cricket for more than an hour with their young children”.

Seen in the Guardian this morning: Ghaistrill's Strid, on the River Wharfe near Grassington...

Glimmers of light...

Since the news is bad, and getting worse, I’m trying to find a few glimmers of light in the gloom. McDonalds have run out of milkshake. England are thrashing India at Headingley. Belgian nuns have sold their convent and relocated to a castle in southern France, along with a Mercedes-Benz and a stable of racehorses. A white-tailed plover has appeared in Yorkshire for the very first time (I’d drive the ten miles to see it, at Blacktoft Sands, if it didn’t mean queuing up outside a hide with a load of twitchers).

Licenced today: walkers in the village of Rosthwaite, Borrowdale… 

'Lord Ted'...

My first taste of live cricket came in 1963, when my dad took a 12 year-old me to see England playing the West Indies at Headingley. Though I can still remember the names of all the West Indian players, my memories of the day’s events are patchy. I recall Wes Hall’s run-up: so long that he pushed off from the pavilion steps. And whatever Gary Sobers did - batting, fielding, bowling fast, bowling spin, or just putting his collar up - he did with a languid elegance. We talked to the players - it was all very informal in those days - and got a few autographs. Ted Dexter captained England throughout that summer… and he has died today.

Window shopping in Grantham...

Basingstoke Canal...

Sister Kari on the towpath of the Basingstoke Canal...