Farewell

Perhaps it's only when you are about to leave something, somewhere or someone that you start to appreciate what is about to be part of your past. Yorkshire - my Yorkshire. Shall I never see your rolling wolds again, your quiet rivers moving perpetually to the vast silted mouth of The Humber - a word that in ancient English simply meant "river". Shall I never see your ancient villages with their medieval stone churches beneath towering sycamore and beech where rooks caw to greet the day? Oh Yorkshire, when I am gone please think of me some times, my sweet, sweet motherland. Home to Captain Cook and Emily Bronte, J.B.Priestley and Ted Hughes, David Hockney and Arthur Scargill, Saint John of Beverley, William Wilberforce, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Brearley and Paul Daniels. Though I am gone you shall liveth for evermore in my mortal heart.

And I shall miss our weather, our unpredictable weather with blue and grey skies, sunshine and snow,  that Forrest Gump chocolate box quality. And I shall miss steak pies from Sean's, "Eastenders", fish and chip specials from "Three Steps" and long walks in The Peak District with camera in hand and the banter in our local and visits to Hull to watch my beloved Tigers. Vegetables growing in our garden. There is plenty that I shall miss.

However, there's plenty I shall be glad to leave behind. The careerism of professional politicians with their weasel words. Reality TV shows and "talent shows" and Simon Cowell and Jordan (aka Katie Price) and "The Sun" newspaper and people rushing their lives away and tattoos. And I won't miss our monstrous supermarkets and our crowded motorways or graffiti or litter or clusters of people standing outside public buildings like lepers under clouds of blue grey tobacco smoke. Nor shall I miss taxi drivers or potholes in the road, drivers on mobile phones, dog dirt on verges or unsolicited calls from money hungry call centres. No I won't miss any of that.

Please don't think I'm having second thoughts. Just pensive that's all. We are the new pilgrims aboard a metaphorical "Mayflower" - bound for a new life in a new world - Blogland - where all of our dreams will surely come true and we can live in peace like our new national anthem says - "far far away from the mad rushing crowd."

I might not get to blog again until I reach Blogland though there may be some spare time when several of us are in transit at Dubai Airport - one of the world's great new crossroads. All human life passes through there. I trust that all emigrants are ready to go and that  private arrangements have been made to get you to your previously nominated international airport. As I said before - tickets will be available at the main information desk. All you need is your passport and luggage. I'm so looking forward to meeting everybody on Thursday when we'll assemble round the social club pool for nibbles, informal drinks and the very start of our new life together in Blogland. Afterwards, there's the arm wrestling tournament which should be a load of fun.

Blogland

Suitcase

Oh lordy lordy, I can't wait for Wednesday to come! Normally I fill my suitcase at the last possible minute but hey - this time long term  emigration to Blogland means I'm being a bit more sensible and have even drawn up a list. I trust that other bloggers are doing the same.

• Seven pairs of underpants
• Sandals with seven pairs of white ankle socks
• Flip flops
• My cuddly toy tiger - Waggy (can't sleep without him)
• Guitar with spare strings and electric tuner.
• Framed photograph of the Yorkshire Wolds.
• Framed photograph of Shirley and the kids.
• Six boxes of instant Yorkshire pudding mix
• Lilac Speedos
• Sports Relief Shorts (2 pairs)
• Camera
• Knotted handkerchief
• Sun glasses
• Laptop
• Ball point pen and A4 notepad
• Seven "Yorkshire Pudding" T-shirts in various colours.
• Linen suit, formal shirt and tie
• Fluffy bath  towel
• "Superman" beach towel
• Watch
• Toilet bag including razor blades and large bottle of "Brut" aftershave.
• "The Koran"
• "Robinson Crusoe", "Swiss Family Robinson", "Coral Island".
• Penknife
• Beauchat Marlin Carbone 95cm spear gun
• "After sun" lotion

It's like that line in John Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane"... "All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go..."

Shining

Departure Day grows ever closer. Born in 1927, Harry Belafonte captures something of the mood of anticipation currently running through the blogging community:-

Today I visited "Matalan" where I picked up some lilac "Speedos" and a couple of pairs of  leftover "Sports Relief" shorts - a bargain at only £2.50 a pair. There were piles of them.

A Hollywood film production company has contacted me and plans for "Blogland - The Movie" are now well under way. Thanks to Earl Gray for hatching this idea. A film crew will join us in Blogland some time in mid-June but most of the steamy love scenes will be filmed in Hawaii. I think the film crew are just coming to capture scenic shots that can then be edited in to the final product. Leslie Nielsen was going to be signed up to play Mr Brague but sadly we discovered that Leslie passed away in 2010 so the producers have managed to tempt Robert Redford out of retirement instead.

How film profits will be used in the end depends upon the assembled Bloggish people. I think one or two emigrants imagine that I will be some kind of leader but please understand that I have only ever wanted to be a facilitator. I would like to think that Blogland won't actually need a leader in the usual sense of the word. Besides, I'll be too busy playing beach volleyball, wrestling on the sand, drinking Tetley's bitter in the social club or kayaking beyond the reef to have any time left over to be a leader. Don't you think leaders are massively overrated anyway?

Preparation

This post has been devised so that it may only be read by bloggers who make up the first wave of emigrants to Blogland . Remember we leave next Wednesday and you should report to the main information desk in your designated airport by midday in order to pick up your tickets. Don't forget your passport.

As well as packing your cases and buying summery shirts, shorts, flip flops, sun cream, bathing costumes and other personal stuff, you need to listen carefully to the following instruction.

It is important that you create a small bank of "typical" blogposts  with staggered publication dates so that while in transit to Blogland and indeed while settling in to your new life, the outer world is blind to what has taken place and imagines that our dull lives are just trucking along the same as ever. If we don't do this we may find that other less desirable people will follow us. Remember what happened with America? A small bunch of settlers went there on "The Mayflower" in  1620, others followed and now that country is like a huge colony of ants with 313 million inhabitants.. We don't want the same to happen in Blogland. So to repeat - create a bank of posts that will publish automatically as dated.

If blogstipated, here are a few suggestions for "ghost" posts:-

Jenny - The History of the Eisteddfod, Wrexham Football Club and Successful Dog Training.
Jan Blawat - How to make a pineapple cheesecake, Sacramento Mountain Lions and American gun laws.
Shooting Parrots - Car Maintenance, Was Bessie Braddock a Sex Symbol?... and Why Manchester people talk in nasal monotones
Rhymes With Plague -  My Swedish love child, Peach recipes from the Peach State, Looking after your organ.
Daphne - Swimming in The River Aire, The ancient roleplay game of "doctors and nurses", preparing tripe and onions for dinner guests.
Earl Gray - Nursing injured starlings and badgers, "If You Look Good You Feel Good" - the history of British tailoring, Why a brand of tea was named after me.
Arctic Fox - Cosmetics for men, Geocaching for beginners, Life without meat.
Libby - Obsessional Home Security, Libby's canned meats including Chicken Vienna Sausages, Alcoholism via red wine.
Katherine - My Secret Muffin Recipe, The History of Cricket in New Zealand, Ode to Edmund Hillary (A poem).
Brian - Dancing the Fandango with a Catalonian Senorita, The real reason why I was expelled from Britain, Famous Brians.
Helen - What I loved about Aussie schools, Cooking with koala meat, Tony's most irritating habits.

Have I missed anybody out? Honestly, I'm starting to feel like Captain Kirk assembling the first crew of the Starship Enterprise... "to boldly go where no man has gone before".

26

Walk 26 - Eyam, Bretton Clough and Eyam Moor - 9 miles. Well that was the plan but in the event I reduced it to around five miles because there was a lot of drifted snow all over the place and the going was sometimes rather tough. This British climate is quite incredible. A week ago I was walking in sunshine without a coat or jacket, beads of sweat on my brow and a cooling pint of shandy on the pub bench in front of me. Today, I was wearing my lined trousers, gloves and waterproof boots and at one point found myself scaling a six foot snowdrift on Sir William Hill Road. 

I parked by the church in the plague village of Eyam, nipped inside to take a photo and chatted to the old lady who was on guard duty there. Then I hiked over the fields, crossing Linen Dale to the pretty limestone village of Foolow, then up on to Hucklow Edge and along to the hamlet of Bretton. I was tempted to enter "The Barrel Inn" but pressed on to Sir William Hill. A farmer with a JCB digger was clearing the road. Soon afterwards, I cut across the fields back down to Eyam but before I could get there I did an impromptu impression of a sack of potatoes being chucked off a lorry. Whoop! Slam! I'm down on the snowy deck expecting an invisible audience to laugh themselves silly. The last time I fell I cracked a couple of ribs but today all was well and fortunately I had just zipped my new camera back in its case.

Statistically, I have worked out that I will probably have a significant fall every two hundred and fifty miles. Perhaps I should invest in one of those padded sumo suits to prevent serious injury.

Walk 26 Gallery:-

St Lawrence's Church in Eyam

Houses in Foolow

"The Barrel Inn", Bretton

Veteran cars parked at "The Barrel"

Snowdrift on Sir William Hill

Rissoles

Up in Yorkshire we love our puddings but we do eat other things too. Here's a recipe I have devised for mince (ground beef). I'm passing it on to you free of charge. Why not give it a go?

Take 500 grammes of lean steak mince. Place in a large bowl and break up with your fingers. Wash hands. Take a medium-sized onion and chop finely. Then fry in olive oil  with a dollop of butter till soft and golden. Season the mince with salt and pepper. Add a little sprinkling of mixed herbs or "Herbes de Provence" - not too much. Then break one and a half beef  "Oxo" cubes into the bowl. Next break an egg into the bowl. Pour in the fried onions and mix it all together with a wooden spoon.

Then put a handful of plain flour in a dish and spread some greaseproof or baking paper over a chopping board. Dust your hands with plain flour and dive into the mixing bowl. Bring out a small handful of the mince mixture and squeeze and shape into a patty. Put the patty on the paper and make four or five more just the same. Let them rest on the paper. These mince rissoles can be fried, grilled or baked in the oven but I prefer to fry them in the same pan that was used for the onions. Add a little more oil and butter and then fry on a medium heat, turning over two or three times till fully cooked.

Eat with whichever accompaniments you prefer - rice or fried potato chips and maybe some buttered green beans or salad. Mmmm...lovely.

Warning

It was a quiet road. We had just driven across New Zealand's South Island and were within two miles of our accommodation, just south of Greymouth. After the roundabout at Kumara Junction, we found ourselves behind a battered old pick up truck as we headed along the Taramaku Highway. The driver slowed down to little more than twenty miles an hour and waved me on but I stayed put until the next corner. I looked down the long gentle hill to the bridge at the bottom and saw that there was nothing in sight on the three lane road so I decided to overtake - which manoeuvre was completed safely within the flash of a kiwi's eye. Oh - the one fact I forgot to mention is there were double yellow lines on the edge of our downhill lane. 

Next thing I know, zooming out of his roadside hiding place, comes a New Zealand traffic cop with his blue lights flashing. After Taramaku Bridge, I pull into a gravel driveway and the little fellow writes me an infringement notice. Apparently, I am going to be fined $NZ150 - around £75. It had been a long drive and I was tired and even though the pick up truck was travelling slowly and even though its driver had slowed down to encourage me to overtake and even though the road ahead was clear, I knew I was in the wrong.

However, we Yorkshire folk are even meaner than the Scots so to try to reduce my fine I wrote to the New Zealand Police in Wellington, apologising and explaining the circumstances. Hearing nothing and with the deadline date looming I decided to pay the fine anyway - avoiding any further repercussions. However, a few days later I received this letter - via Brunei for some odd reason:-

Click to enlarge

And now in our online bank account I notice that they have refunded the whole fine. I have never been a big fan of police forces anywhere but may I say a big public thank you to the New Zealand Police. I accept their formal warning and should I ever be lucky enough to visit that faraway land again I will be even more respectful of their basic road rules.