Gosforth Cross...

It may be harder than I’d imagined to avoid the coronation of our jug-eared monarch, because the BBC is planning to suspend the licence fee as part of a one-off dispensation for the coronation weekend in May. Every public place will find room for a big-screen TV and bunting; no doubt the marquee will be erected next to the Black Swan. I may take the opportunity, instead, to put all my CDs in alphabetical order or re-watch Sex Lives of the Potato Men on DVD.

Licensed today: the impossibly slender, 10th century, sandstone cross at Gosforth in Cumbria: the tallest Viking cross in England…

Southwell Minster...

A packed house yesterday at Southwell Minster, in Nottinghamshire...

Bernard Ingham...

Bernard Ingham, my nemesis, has died, aged 90. Born and raised in Hebden Bridge, he began his journalistic career as a junior reporter on the Hebden Bridge Times. In later years he penned a regular column in the paper, though, since he lived in Purley, he had little idea of what was going on in the Calder valley. He complained about the influx of gays and lesbians, and even, bizarrely, that there were too many trees. To keep his memory alive, the council is planning to fell a tree every year, on his birthday, June 21st.

Licensed today: two women in wetsuits wading into Semerwater, Yorkshire Dales…

Bungay...

Didn’t get much sleep last night. Well, not during the hours of play, anyway. England had slipped to 21-3 when Joe Root and Harry Brook came together. By the time the rain came they had put on 294 runs together: just about the best batting partnership in a test match I have ever seen. If the rain hadn’t come, England might be starting day 2 on 420-3. Every one of Brook’s runs came off the middle of the bat, and Joe took his ones and twos in his typically graceful fashion. I can’t remember a chance being given by either of them. Sublime stuff, and the New Zealanders didn’t know what to do. Brook didn’t treat the bowling with contempt, exactly (he wasn’t showing off), but he just leathered every ball that wasn’t going to hit his stumps. Amazing. I’ll be watching again this evening. The Ashes? Bring them on!

Licensed today: a street in Bungay, Norfolk… 

Reeth Show...

Licensed today: heavy police presence at Reeth Show, Swaledale, Yorkshire Dales…

Goldeneye...

Took off, this afternoon, for Blacktoft Sands. The last hour, as the light faded, was wonderful. A barn owl quartered over the reed-beds, marsh harriers too. A buzzard caught the thermals and a kestrel hovered. Wigeons whistled, and a cetti’s warbler sang (once heard, never forgotten). Best of all, two pairs of goldeneye seemed to think that spring had already arrived, with both males displaying to the females. They shook their wings and threw their heads back, a performance accompanied by a rattliing call which sounds like a stick being dragged along cast-iron railings. Then the males started fighting – on the water, under the water – while the females looked on impassively. For an hour the world belonged to the birds.

Pic: Creative Commons…

Hebden Bridge...

Licensed today: Market Street in Hebden Bridge...