I didn't get round to blogposting yesterday. Sorry about that. Clint and I were out of the house by nine fifteen. Soon we were travelling down the M1 Motorway bound for Junction 24 which I somehow managed to overshoot. Never mind - after a little delay we reached our destination.
My plan was to walk in what I call "virgin territory" - somewhere I had never walked before and that is what brought me to the village of Gotham a few miles south of the city of Nottingham. I parked Clint in a shady place between St Lawrence's Church and "The Sun Inn", close to the old village water pump.
"Ouch!" yelled Clint as I slammed his tailgate.
The circular walk was all on the flat apart from a short slog up to the village of Bradmore. The weather was gorgeous for late September. I was walking across rich agricultural land after harvesttime. Farmers were out harrowing the fields and I noticed that the soil thereabouts was almost as black as coal.
Bradmore's medieval church is curious because it was badly damaged by fire in 1705. Only the tower and steeple remained and many years later the villagers attached parish rooms to this surviving structure. As far as I can determine, the church doesn't even have a saint's name.
Can you believe it? There's a village in England called Bunny. I kid you not. Bunny! I know because I was there yesterday. It's a mile south of Bradmore. Because my time was limited , I didn't get to visit Bunny Hall. Presumably Daddy Bunny and Mummy Bunny live there with their little bunny children - hundreds of them - all waiting for Easter. I wonder how they spend their time.
And then I turned back to the west - my bootsteps taking me ever closer to Gotham which is the source of a story and a nursery rhyme that both allude to "Three Wise Men of Gotham"...
You must have visited every village in the country.
ReplyDeleteThere are 26,532 villages, towns and cities in our country... and by the way there's a place called ADDY (Addy) in Washington State, USA!
DeleteI didn't notice you didn't post yesterday. To be fair, times zones can be confusing.
ReplyDeleteClint went on the M1!!! Did he get up to 70? He must be exhausted.
The church and the outbuildings are a queer match.
I often wonder about your call centres based in India having to deal with English place names. Even government departments in London. I guess all placenames are in a data base and it works.
Seventy? He travelled at eighty as I sang "Bat Out of Hell" by Meatloaf. You have some strange place names in Australia too - including Bong Bong and Humpty Doo.
DeleteMake yourself a few bob, laddie.
ReplyDeletePurchase that wreck of a lorry from the farmer.
Your only expenditure will be having it towed away, then persuading Shirley to let you keep it in the garden.
With the right kind of promotion that lorry wreck will win the Turner Prize.
Tracy Ermin won the Turner with her unmade bed.
A wrecked lorry beats talentless Tracy any day.
You will be rich, honoured and quoted. Shirley will have a holiday in the sun.
Haggerty
P.S. Bradmore Church is a genuine work of art.
What a pity English churches are locked during the day.
It depends where you are sir. In rural Leicestershire I went inside several unlocked churches including the one in Tugby where we were staying. That old lorry must have been there for decades.
DeleteYour photo of the lorry delighted my eye.
DeleteAny sculptor looks upon rusting metal with interest.
Marcel Duchamp's 1917 china urinal did not mark a Copernican shift in art; to bring in Copernicus was a piece of nonsense, and Duchamp opened the gallery doors to the Tracy Ermins and sharks in formaldehyde. A lowering not a shift.
I was influenced by Peter Fuller (1947-1990) who founded the magazine Modern Art, and who died in a road accident, a terrible loss.
Fuller, who would have championed our neglected churches, was influenced by John Ruskin.
Ruskin and Fuller lost their Evangelical faith but their thoughts about art had transcendent ideals like Bernard Berenson.
Isn't it heartening to see David Hockney on YouTube, painting his native Yorkshire?
The false priests of the art world looked down on landscape painting but it never went away, thank goodness.
Read *Unquiet Landscape* by Christopher Reve now in paperback. Great book.
Haggerty.
Oh yes I say Hockney's exhibition in The Tate in 2017 - mesmerising. By the way I think that lorry is ex-army - probably dating back to the 1950's or even WWII. It is I believe a Leyland Hippo.
DeleteI was intrigued by the village named Gotham. As you know, Gotham City is the fictional American metropolis where Batman lives. It made me wonder about the source of the name. Found a website that said, "English proverbs tell of a village called Gotham or Gottam, meaning 'Goat's Town' in old Anglo-Saxon. Folk tales of the Middle Ages make Gotham out to be the village of simple-minded fools, perhaps because the goat was considered a foolish animal."
ReplyDeleteThere's more to Gotham than meets the eye. I looked for Batman but he wasn't there. Is he perchance fictional?
DeleteI should also add the following sentence for the benefit of the people of Gotham: "Some tales describe the denizens of Gotham as only playing the fool, a ruse used to avert the wrath of the sinister King John."
ReplyDeleteAccording to legend they were trying to avoid extra taxation linked with a potential visit from King John.
DeleteBased on (a) your longtime habit of walking and (b) your comment to Andrew revealing your that you sing songs by Meatloaf (did CliNt say “Ouch” then too?), I think you should change your blog moniker from Yorkshire Pudding to something more appropriate like Wandering Minstrel.
ReplyDeleteIf I change it to anything, it will be Rhymes With Wheel... and by the way Clint did not say "Ouch!" when I sang the Meatloaf hit! That is a hurtful suggestion.
DeleteI've known people at Gotham and Bunny. The don't think that the jokes are so funny.
ReplyDeleteFunny rhymes with Bunny and so does sunny. It's funny but it was sunny in Bunny yesterday.
DeleteWashington Irvine.
DeleteI thought of Batman too. :) I like the name Bunny. There are certainly some unusual place names everywhere. Sometimes I wish I were from George, so I could say that I'm from George, Washington. (but I don't care for that area of my state so I'll stay on the west side)
ReplyDeleteWhen we were in your state we visited Goldendale... Loved that slightly forlorn place. Miles from anywhere.
DeleteIt has some pretty views of Mt. Adams but is so different from the west. Perhaps a good place to visit, but not to live!
DeleteWhat a wonderful photo of the sunflower!
ReplyDeleteYour short rhyme about Gotham made me think of the poem "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod". Every time I hear our Secretary of State's name (Antony Blinken), that it starts going through my head.
Antony Blinken? What's he got in his eye - poor chap!
DeleteDriving Clint and singing Meatloaf. It certainly comes through in my mind visually. Perhaps there should be a movie.
ReplyDeleteI agree - with Brad Pitt playing Yorkshire Pudding.
DeleteBrad Pitt? Not if I am the casting director.
ReplyDeleteJosh Brolin, Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, can all play you. At the same time.
I don't know about Tasker. Woody Harrelson, Bryan Cranston, Nicholson?
Clint will be decommissioned and replaced with an Artificial Intelligence Moon Buggy which drives by itself and decides where you are going.
You may find yourself in a Go-Go Bar in Dewsbury.
Evolution works both ways. I am the proof.
Haggerty
Tom Courtenay will play J.Haggerty.
DeleteCourtenay played Billy Liar, didn't he?
DeleteBilly is now washing the beer glasses in a Go-Go Bar in Dinnington, and walking the girls home in case they get held up at knifepoint.
Haggerty
I wonder how many books have been written about village names. You provide interesting information on most of the village names.
ReplyDelete