Rambling

Hawthorn blooming in the Hope Valley

This has been the driest spring of my life. It's not just me saying that - it's meteorologists too. And today - Monday May 12th was another gorgeous day.

With my blood flagging up diabetes like a flashing light on a police car, I need to keep getting out exercising which for me can only mean walking. At one o'clock in the afternoon, I parked Clint at Leadmill near Hathersage and set off on a two hour walk that took me to Mount Pleasant Farm, High Low, Offerton Hall and then back down to the Derwent riverside path that led me all the way back to Leadmill.

The old dove cote at High Low Hall

I was wearing blue shorts, my Panama City Beach T-shirt, sturdy walking boots and faded sunhat. I also took along a litre of tap water, an apple and my camera which provided the five photos that accompany this blogpost. The afternoon walk ended in "The Plough Inn" where I treated myself to a pint of cold bitter shandy. Mmmm...lovely.

"The Plough Inn" at Leadmill.

A cock pheasant near Mount Pleasant Farm

⦿

In other Yorkshire Pudding news, something nasty happened at the weekend. Frances, Stewart and their little daughters were down in the Bristol area visiting Stewart's parents. For a special treat, they all went to an adventure farm in the countryside. They had just emerged from a maze made from high hedges. Margot, who is now eighteen months old, had been left stationary in her pushchair (American: stroller).

She was strapped into the pushchair but she must have leant over somehow and the pushchair toppled over. I think it had been "parked" on uneven ground. Anyway, she bashed her head on the ground before her parents could grab her. There was blood and she was understandably screaming - very distressed.

At the adventure farm, medical staff checked her out and then she was taken to a nearby NHS minor injuries unit. She had a concerning bump on her forehead, a grazed chin and she had bitten into her lip and mouth. By all accounts she was quite a mess but there didn't appear to be any major injuries.

We got to see her late on Sunday afternoon and she was in good spirits but because of the soreness in her mouth, she was very reluctant to tuck into her Sunday dinner with her customary gusto. It is highly likely that she will recover fully from this horrible incident and before too many days have passed, it will just be part of her history. Something she survived. I hope so.

She is such a sweet child with a ready smile, strutting around like she owns the place and beginning get to grips with the English language. I hope her teeth have not been damaged. Apparently one of them is "loose" though Shirley and I have not seen that.

Offerton Hall

Ugliness

 

These are the faces of the "men" who cut down the beautiful tree that once grew in Sycamore Gap - a natural hollow that is located half way along the course of Hadrian's Wall in the county of Northumberland, England.

It was a famed, iconic and much-loved tree but those two ugly men came along in the dead of night on September 28th 2023 with the sole intention of felling it. They were equipped with a chainsaw and a mobile phone to film the  awful act of destruction.

I find it quite ironic that such a unique and lovely symbol of Mother Nature should be destroyed by two such ugly nobodies. That's Graham (39) on the left and Carruthers (32) on the right.

During their recent trial in Newcastle, they sought to wriggle out of their guilt, accusing each other, lying and refusing to explain why they had done it. Maybe they didn't even know themselves. It was just a moronic, ignorant act which at first they boasted about until they realised  the level of disapprobation the felling incident had sparked all around the world.

Their conduct in court left a lot to be desired. At one point, one of them asked if he could have a quiet word with the members of the jury and seemed miffed when the judge refused this ridiculous request. There were also a few angry retorts to the main prosecuting barrister as if they found the process of being questioned  somehow beneath them.

Anyway, they were found guilty of criminal damage and soon they will be sentenced.  Both of them can expect to spend significant lengths of time behind bars. It is impossible to have any sympathy with them whatsoever.

R.I.P.

Rain

                                                                                                                                                                                        

What happened to the rain? Not a drop of rain has fallen upon the city of Sheffield in the last twenty days and even then the paltry amount that fell on April 19th was not enough to wet a vicar's silk boxer shorts - accidentally left flapping on his mistress's washing line.

No rain to wet the soil and make things grow and plenty of sunshine too since the end of March. If this carries on much longer, I am going to need to purchase a camel to get to the supermarket. I will call him Humpy Dumpy and he can live in our back garden. I hope he won't spit at me. Apparently, many camels have adopted that foul habit.

In an average year, Sheffield gets 32.17 inches of rain. This year, the rain clouds have got a lot of extra work to do if they are going to catch up. Already, levels are sinking in our local reservoirs -  at Redmires and in the Derwent Valley.

Regarding water use, I was thinking the other day about how often people washed their bodies when I was a child. Mostly, I had one bath a week. Like most other Yorkshire families - we didn't even have a shower.

In contrast, nowadays most people have showers or baths every day of the week - even when their bodies are not dirty. That's a hell of a lot of extra water being used day after day - whereas back in the fifties and sixties, each Briton's weekly water usage score was pretty low. No wonder today's reservoir levels are sinking fast.

No rain is predicted for the week ahead. If this continues, collectively, the citizens of Sheffield  will need to perform a rain dance like native American shamen of yore...

Come ye rains from the sky!
Let the clouds begin to cry!
Please rain afore it is too late
Water, Lord! Our need is great!
Bumba-bumba-bumba
Plother-plother-plother!
Eeek!
(All jump high at the end)

                                                                                                                                               Camel photo © AzizAlbagshi

Turnip

David Burnip - aka The Wandering Turnip

Well, I knew nothing of The Wandering Turnip until I encountered him on Thelma's "North Stoke" blog that currently comes to us from Todmorden, West Yorkshire. This also happens to be The Wandering Turnip's home town.

The Wandering Turnip - whose real name is David Burnip - likes to visit rather obscure places with his selfie stick and drone, creating YouTube videos of his travels. He also brings to those videos his innate curiosity  and his enthusiasm for simply being alive. Sometimes he meets local people and sometimes he recites poetry. There is a charming and engaging innocence about David's delivery.

As a wanderer myself, I also sometimes feel like a turnip so I find it easy to relate to David Burnip. He could easily be a younger version of myself. Please see below two YouTube videos that exemplify his explorations...

Lincoln:-

New Quay, Wales:-

In David's wake, I may become The Rambling Parsnip. Visit The Wandering Turnip's YouTube site here.

80

Eighty years ago today, Great Britain and presumably other countries who had fought against Hitler and the Nazi menace celebrated the first "V.E." Day - Victory in Europe. By all accounts, there was a wild nationwide party. Pubs stayed open late and young Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret mingled with the happy crowds that thronged the streets of London.

My own parents did not witness this special day for they were both still serving with the Royal Air Force in India and "V.J." Day - Victory over Japan did not happen until August 15th, 1945. Even so, they heard about V.E. Day and knew that it marked the beginning of the end of World War II.

I know they cannot hear me but I want to send out a personal message to all the young Britons who sacrificed their lives for the future of our country. We lost  383,700 military personnel - my Uncle Jack included - and a further 67,100 citizens lost their lives in Nazi bombing raids.

To those who died, I say thank you and thank you again. That is my simple and heartfelt message. I for one will  never forget. They were the best of us and we owe it to them to continue striving for peace as the decades flick by.

If

                                                                                                                ©Markus Grolik

If I had the opportunity to interview Donald Trump on behalf of  "Yorkshire Pudding News", there are a few questions I would like to put to him.

Firstly, I would ask about the southern wall that figured so much in his speechifying  both before and during his first term in office. Do you remember? He said he would build a wall all along the Mexican border and that Mexico would pay for it. In the event, only 52 miles of new, primary wall were built during that first term with a further 400 miles of dilapidated or insubstantial existing wall being rebuilt. By the way, the total length of the border is 1,954 miles so the wall construction still has a very long way to go. During his second term, I have heard no mention of the southern wall or indeed the pledge that Mexico would pay for it.

Also looking back on Trump's first term, I would ask what has happened to the family members that regularly and visibly supported him? Eric, Don Junior, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner. They played significant roles but where are they now? You just don't see them during the second term.

At a more personal level, I would like to question Trump about his fake appearance - his strange hair and the hideous orange concealer or foundation cream he uses. Who styles his hair and where does he purchase his make-up products? Why is he so intent on showing the public a rather fraudulent version of himself?

Not a week seems to go by without Trump coming up with some outrageous proposal or claim. It's all a rather crude and obvious distraction tactic. I would like to ask him if he watched "Escape From Alcatraz" on TV during last weekend's golfing weekend at Mar-a-Lago and was this what gave him the idea of resurrecting Alcatraz as a penal institution? Had he really thought it through or sought any kind of professional advice about the proposal?

Of course, when Trump faces difficult or challenging questions from journalists, his "go to"  reaction is to attempt to belittle them and to accuse them of being representatives of the so-called "fake news". I would be ready for that predictable response and I would have a rolled up magazine behind my back, ready to whack him round the head a few times.

I would say, "On behalf of humanity, take that you bounder!" before being whisked off to a holiday camp in El Salvador. It would be worth it.

Is there an awkward question that you would like to put to Trump?

Deep

 

In 2022, when Shirley and I had to clear up the detritus of my brother Simon's life, I saved a few of his books. One of them was titled "Deep Country" by Neil Ansell. It is an account of "Five years in The Welsh Hills". I have just finished reading it.

Earlier in this millennium, the writer lived in a remote, abandoned house in the middle of Wales without electricity, running water or even a telephone. In place of those things, he observed the nature that he found himself amongst - most especially the bird life.

"The place was a Victorian gatekeeper's cottage. ... You could cross two fields and you were on open moorland; you could walk west for twenty miles without seeing another house, or a road, or a fence. This uninhabited swathe of the Cambrian Mountains right in the heart of the country has been called the green desert of Wales, its empty quarter. Just downhill across the track there was once a farmhouse, presumably Penlan Farm.."

He writes about birds - not like a matter-of-fact ornithologist but with tenderness, curiosity and joy: "My days were spent outside, immersed in nature, watching. I saw as much as I did because of two things: the first, quite simply, was time, the long hours spent out in the field; the second was alertness, a state of heightened attentiveness. My attention was constantly focused away from myself and on to the natural world around me.”

I found "Deep Country" a very peaceful read with almost zero attention paid to world affairs, human relationships or modern technology. It's just one solitary man whose only companions are goshawks, ravens, yellow hammers, wood pigeons and the bats who live in his roofspace. Most days involve chopping wood and a walk down to the river. He notes the signs of seasons evolving and then changing. He is pretty much at peace with himself though I noted that he never once mentioned his parents, his siblings, his past history or the natural quest for romantic love.

In the video below, you get to meet Neil Ansell briefly and to taste more of the rather sweet flavour of "Deep Country":