"O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." - Hamlet Act II scene ii
21 June 2026
Mona
Wellies
I was Mr Sleepyhead yesterday as I had only managed a couple of hours of fretful sleep on Friday night. Shirley had managed to requisition most of the duvet and I kept playing the passport movie in my head, moaning silently with self-recrimination.
Around midday, it was time to head out to the local primary school's summer fayre. Its purpose was to raise extra money for playground equipment and maintenance.
Naturally, I headed straight for the tombola stall which seemed to be being run by a bunch of incompetents. The queue moved slower than a Costa Rican sloth up a tree. Anyway, after about fourteen hours I managed to reach the front of that line and won a pack of "Frozen" cards, two bottles of flavoured oil, a used cuddly pig and a "Paint Your Own Garden Wellies" set - no doubt an unwanted gift. (American visitors should note that in Britain we call gum boots wellingtons or "wellies" for short).
Phoebe had some glitter applied to her face and had her hair inexpertly sprayed pink and purple. I bought a disappointing carton of vegetable biryani from a stall run by a small bunch of Muslim women.

There she is at our kitchen door holding up said radish. I love the shadow of it on on the door panel - like some kind of cartoon monster. And see how Phoebe has grown. Far from a baby these days. She has become a proper little girl now but we love her more than ever. Filled with character and questions and a joy to be around - just like Little Margot who went to Buxton yesterday with her mama to see a theatrical performance - "In The Night Garden" with Iggle Piggle, Makka Pakka and Upsy Daisy. They missed the summer fayre.
20 June 2026
Calamity
What went wrong?
Simply - I lost/mislaid/dropped/suffered pick-pocketing of/misplaced my passport! I can still hardly believe it. We searched high and low and in the end had to give up. I feel as miserable as sin about this.
We were all set to go and then - when I began to check in online - I discovered that my passport was missing from our little "Travel" drawer where our passports and foreign money etc. are always stored. I feel dumb. I feel stupid and above all I feel sorry to both Shirley and Ian. She was so much looking forward to the whirlwind trip to Hoorn. It was going to be an adventure.
I offered to take Shirley to Humberside Airport so that she could travel to The Netherlands on her own but she declined. In past travel adventures, I have always been "the leader" when it comes to making arrangements and simply leading the way in foreign places. She would be extremely anxious on her own.
Let my passport calamity serve as a lesson to all you blogmates out there. Be doubly careful with important travel documents. Zip up. Pat. Check and double check. I wouldn't want to wish this problem on anybody. I suspect that the only saving grace in this is that nobody died, nobody was injured and in the grand scheme of things it is just a happening that you have to shrug your shoulders about and move on.
Remember the last blogpost and those daunting tower blocks where some people have to live? I was in an impoverished part of Stannington which is a western suburb of Sheffield. I had gone there to visit a designated "Pay Point" shop in order to purchase an international driving permit.
The general purpose shop is cramped and filled with stuff and the area around the till is especially tight. I might be entirely wrong about this but I suspect that I was pick-pocketed. As I was completing my transaction and talking to the friendly shopkeeper, two men came up behind me - invading my personal space. One of them had a dog on a lead. I think this could have been when one of the men put his hand in my deep coat pocket and pulled out my passport. If I am wrong I apologise most sincerely to those two gentlemen who both looked as though they had seen troubles in their lives.
Anyway - just in case - I have reported this matter to the police. There is CCTV footage of my visit but I have only seen the first part of it - not the part where the two men come up behind me with the dog and get too close. No doubt if the police do ask to see the video footage at some undetermined time in the future, the tape will have been wiped by then. That's how these things usually go.
I couldn't sleep last night. I felt so stupid and so guilty and this morning it's pretty much the same. In my sleepy-headed state maybe the pick-pocketing is a figment of my imagination. Anyway, now I've got to get myself a replacement passport before we next travel abroad - in exactly a month's time!
Oh woe is me!
18 June 2026
Pondering
I have noticed that a few of my favourite bloggers have been taking a rest from blogging. Maybe I should do the same.
I have got some things on my mind tonight. Something unpleasant happened today and it has got under my skin. I need a little time to process it and think about how to respond, hoping that the unpleasantness goes no further. I may tell you about it soon.
In other Yorkshire Pudding news, Shirley and I are heading to Amsterdam on Friday morning - thence to a town north of Amsterdam called Hoorn. We will be flying from Humberside Airport - the flight is only an hour long - across The North Sea.
I confess I am a bit anxious about driving a hire car out of busy Schipol Airport but no doubt I will manage it.
We are only staying for two nights. Back on Monday evening. I may tell you the reason for this little expedition tomorrow.
Now back to my glass of red wine and more pondering about what happened.
17 June 2026
Heart
Presently, I am waiting rather nervously for England's World Cup match with Croatia to commence. Kick off in Dallas is at 9pm British Summertime. We have some brilliant players and if they stay fit and gel together my country could go far in this tournament. But this is something that optimistic England fans have said on plenty of previous occasions. Disappointment sometimes seems inevitable but you never know, maybe 2026 will be different. Come on England!
⦿
I found it very readable. One of those novels you want to get back to when matters of everyday life get in the way. I finished it in seven days.
I spotted it in a charity shop and of course it had a particular appeal because in the last six months I have been in regular contact with Barry Hines's younger brother - Richard.
Barry Hines was not an especially prolific writer. He only wrote nine novels and "The Heart of It" was the only novel he published in the 1990s. I noticed the dedication: "For My Mother and Father".
Set in South Yorkshire the novel sees a prodigal son called Cal returning to his roots. His father, who was once a coal miner and ardent trade unionist, has suffered a debilitating stroke and his ageing mother Maisie is charged with looking after him. Cal's only sibling, Joe, had left the former mining village to find work in Manchester.
Cal himself lives in southern France with his French filmstar girlfriend. He is essentially a scriptwriter and has links with Hollywood. He has made plenty of money and in that sense has been rather successful but he is shallow and rather devious. His father Harry, urges him to write something of value, something meaningful.
Cal's trip back to his roots and his South Yorkshire homeland begins to stir something in him. The Coal Strike of 1984-85 is still fresh in people's minds along with the way in which Thatcher harnessed the police and the military to crush Britain's miners and destroy the coal industry. These hardworking people were undoubtedly the salt of the earth and certainly not "the enemy within" as Thatcher described them.
Sadly Harry dies and Cal finds himself drawn away from the Hollywood tinsel and all those dreadfully superficial films. He is at last ready to write about things that mattered in his community..."The Heart of It":-
16 June 2026
IMHO
"Put your phone down, look with both eyes" - David Hockney
Although he was eighty eight when he died, David Hockney did not customarily shun modern technology. In many ways he embraced it and seriously explored the potential of i-pads and art software. He pushed boundaries proving that he was not some old fuddy duddy stuck in his old ways.
And yet like many of us he noted with some disdain how slavishly many people seemed glued to the little screens on their smartphones. He wanted them to look up and see the world around them - perhaps drink in different lights, different shades and the endlessly changing scenes around them. If you are forever looking at your little screen you miss so much.
Today as I was coming back from the hospital, I saw a young father pushing his baby son along Ecclesall Road. The little lad was sitting upright in his buggy, taking in the world around him. In contrast, his father was pushing the pushchair with one hand. In the other hand was his active smartphone and very sadly it appeared that whatever he was looking at on that phone seemed infinitely more interesting than the baby boy who surely deserved his father's undivided attention.
I see this kind of thing very often and as I am walking along I will often stare at these parents who are usually so absorbed in their phone's hypnotic magic that they don't even see me staring in my well-practised condemnatory fashion - using non-verbal signals that shout loud and clear, "That is wrong! Get off your bloody phone!"
Loving a small child requires full commitment. Your smiles and subtle messaging show that you are fully alert to what your youngster is doing. You are meant to be together - parent and child - so please - no Facebook scrolling, no Snapchat, no "X" posts. See your child and be with him or her - in the moment.
Constant smartphone diversion means you are sending out this message to your child: "I do kind of love you but you are rather boring and somewhat irrelevant compared with what is on my phone". In the long run thoughtless phone use when in charge of children could easily cause psychological harm.
Of course the tech companies who developed smartphones and interconnected app and software developers cynically designed their systems to be addictive, to hook users in a manner that has many parallels with actual drug addiction. So in some respects I have sympathy with users. It is not entirely their fault but they need to be bigger, more self-critical and exercise better control over their phone habits.
In short, I am in full agreement with David Hockney: "Put down your phone and see with both eyes!" IMHO* it is a good message.
* In my honest opinion - pub quiz question at "The Hammer and Pincers" on Sunday night.
15 June 2026
Tragedy
14 June 2026
Quiztime
⦿
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
13 June 2026
David
12 June 2026
Ramist
11 June 2026
Pontificating
Yorkshire contains a variety of areas, different people with different accents. There is no single Yorkshire way of speaking - but many.
But the Yorkshire we were in from Sunday morning to Wednesday was very different from that. Take the village of Alne for example. So many big and characterful houses with gravel driveways, neatly trimmed hedgerows and roses climbing round doorways. Girls in hard hats riding horses. Range Rovers splashing through puddles. There in the middle of The Vale of York where the soil is deep and rich and you wake to mellifluous birdsong.
Life is comfortable there. In Easingwold - which is really a small self-sufficient town thirteen miles north of York, I counted five thriving pubs adjacent to the wide Georgian central area. Once this comfortable settlement was the first stopping places for horse drawn coaches heading north from York. "Easingwold" seemed like a very appropriate name - for life appeared easy there just west of the Yorkshire Wolds that rise and fall on their way to Flamborough Head.
I went on two long walks with Tony and Shirley joined us on our second route. Because Pauline has had two hip replacements and a knee replacement in the last eighteen months, she ducked out - quite understandably. On Tuesday afternoon we joined her at the immaculate Aldwark Manor Hotel - for hot drinks and bowls of triple-fried chips with hummus and tomato ketchup.10 June 2026
Back
The 2026 Alne Street Fayre was a big deal and the money seemed to be pouring in. There were over five hundred cars in the big fields beyond Home Farm and thankfully for the community, the weather played ball all day. It was only at 5pm that I was able to bring our car to Celidih Cottage because until then the streets had been shut off. The entire village was a pedestrianised zone for the day.
It was great to spend time with Tony and Pauline. She had some wonderful news to share which I will relate to you in another blogpost. Like us, they don't eat out very often but together we ate out on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings.
Each meal was wonderful and magically, in all three establishments, we were led to the best window tables. I can be quite particular about where I get to sit in a restaurant and in each eatery we got the places I would have picked if left to my own devices.
The Sunday roast in "The George" in Easingwold had been put together with what I often refer to as "love". We all had beef layered on mounds of tasty vegetables and then topped with light and golden Yorkshire puddings the size of side plates. The cauliflower cheese came in separate tureens with extra gravy boats. No morsels were left but I swear we did not lick the plates clean.
On Monday evening we visited the Jaipur Spice curry house by the road to Easingwold from Alne. We all agreed it was an excellent, authentic curry. I ordered onion bhajis before my "Jaipur Special Beef Bhuna" with vegetable rice and one chapati. All quite heavenly and again the conversation flowed like a mountain spring that never dries up.
Tuesday night we went to the only pub in Alne - "The Bluebell Inn" - which is essentially just a restaurant these days. I ordered Italian lasagne with side vegetables. The main dish was gooey and cheesy with a nicely seared top. And I washed it down with a pint of "Theakstons" ale - a famous Yorkshire brew.
8 June 2026
Away
Shirley and I have never been to Alne before. Co-incidentally, yesterday was the village's annual "Street Fayre" to raise money for play and recreational facilities. It is pretty much the highlight of Alne's social calendar with the streets being closed off and various events - including two musical stages.
I sincerely hope that we had a good time!
7 June 2026
Praise
Your order has been refunded
Total amount refunded: £9.24 GBP. It may take up to 10 days for this refund to appear in your account.
6 June 2026
Parklife
We have some lovely parks here in Sheffield - which is officially the greenest city in Great Britain. More trees per head of population here than any other place.
A ten minute walk down the valley from our house brings you to our much-loved Endcliffe Park. Every June, a travelling fair sets up in the park with rides and colours and lights and stalls. I guess it's about two things - bringing fun to local residents and bringing money to the fairground people. A week from now, they'll be gone - off to some other northern city.
Today, Frances and Stew took our darling granddaughters down to the fair. At two years old, it was the first proper fair that wee Margot had ever attended. See her at the top with her big sister in a red aeroplane (American: airplane) and below she's driving a bus which is apparently heading to Manchester. Her favourite children's song is "The Wheels on the Bus" so to be actually driving a bus must have been close to ecstasy for the girl.
5 June 2026
Naughty
The songs that Mum tended to reference were from her pre-war youth here in South Yorkshire and also from World War II itself. How many times did I hear her launch into "The White Cliffs of Dover" in the kitchen? It's a song that we had played over the crematorium sound system at her funeral in 2007. She would have approved of that.
In her prime, she had a strong and tuneful voice. When you have a voice like hers, it is as if you are in possession of a special musical instrument that might crack or wither if you forgot to practise playing it every few days.
This week I found myself singing one of Mum's favourite songs. I had not thought about it in years. It was a music hall song and a little mischievous. It first saw the light of day in 1913, eight years before Mum was even born. I believe it speaks of more innocent times. It is unlikely that Kendrick Lamar or Stormzy would or could ever record a similar song in this current decade.
It's "Hold Your Hand Out You Naughty Boy!"by the Manchester songwriter Charles William Murphy. This is the first verse with the chorus, followed by a rendition I found on YouTube...
4 June 2026
Quiztime
⦿
(a) Ben Hur (b) Ben Stiller
(c) Ben Nevis (d) Ben Down
(a) 17.86 metres (b) 170.86 metres
(c) 7,860 metres (a) 17,086 metres
3) This is the tallest mountain in Africa but what is its name?
Most Visits
-
Last night, we lay down on sunbeds and watched Mrs Moon rise like a tangerine over The Aegean Sea. To capture the beauty of the scene fa...
-
Chavs being chavvish. Just the other day, I spotted a male "chav" down by the local Methodist church. He was wearing a Burberrry ...
-
So there I was standing in the kitchen of our son's terraced house. Something caught my eye outside in his little urban garden. It was a...

