Stuff

Isn't that all amazing? I remind myself that some of you have been following Ian's vegan journey with me for a long while. Thanks to Lee, Meike, Steve, Kylie. Mary, Bonnie, Red and anyone else who has sent positive vibes in his direction. Lord knows why "Vegan News"(see above)  chose to mis-spell the word "flavour" - opting for the American spelling instead. It's outrageous! Oh, I see they used "chip" in place of "crisp" too!

British readers may wish to note that "Living On The Veg" starts this coming Sunday at 10.30am on ITV 1.

Henry and Ian on the BBC "Breakfast" show this morning.

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On an entirely different note, I wish to share the news that we were given a donkey at Christmas. Well to be more accurate, my brother in France paid an adoption fee so that we are now the proud foster parents of a donkey called  Harbin . He resides at the Leeds Donkey Sanctuary and was found abandoned by a road in Ireland. We received the picture of Harbin yesterday morning and some time in the months ahead we will visit our new four-legged son with a bag of carrots. 

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On another different note, on the grey Sunday just gone I told Shirley that I was heading for a short country ramble  above The Vale of Edale. Surprisingly she decided to come with me and we walked up to Back Tor on The Great Ridge that links Mam Tor with Lose Hill. It is a very popular area for walkers and yet on a blustery day that seemed to threaten rain it was amazing how many other people were out and about burning off Christmas calories. Thankfully the rain held off. Here's Shirley on Back Tor above The Vale of Edale:-

Heroism

Eaves scored a 93rd minute winner

On Saturday I drove over to Rotherham to watch Hull City play Rotherham United in the third round of the FA Cup.

Hull City's supporters had been allocated all of  the south stand. I decided to find a peaceful place to sit up in the top left hand corner. And there I was reading the matchday  programme all on my lonesome with just five minutes to kick-off when around a hundred young men emerged from the concourse beneath the stand to sit in my chosen area. Oh dear.

They were noisy - chanting their support but were generally good-natured. For them it was a fun day out with their mates - supporting their team.

Hull City took the lead and the lads cheered like mad, some of them falling in a heap, laughing like crazed dervishes. Then Rotherham scored an equaliser before one of their forwards - Kyle Vassell scored a wonder goal to put The Millers ahead.

Hull City's fans went silent but an older Rotherham fan - sitting in the adjacent corner of the ground was dancing up and down making rude gestures to the visiting supporters. Amazingly, this grey haired and pot-bellied guy was with two young boys - possibly his grandsons. His "celebration" finished with a couple of straight arm Nazi salutes aimed once again at The Tigers' fans.

The Hull lads around me started aiming abuse at the Rotherham man - their chants even suggesting that he might be a paedophile. I realise that American sports fans will be amazed to learn that such nastiness and personal abuse can often feature in professional football grounds in England. To Britain's working class, football can be far more than sport. Psychological undercurrents run deep and allegiances frequently have the character of religious belief.

Anyway, halftime arrived and a chief steward in a high-vis jacket arrived in my area of the stadium. For some strange reason he singled out one of the lairy Hull City lads for questioning, saying that he had been aiming personal insults at the Rotherham fan and that the abused fellow had complained about this. 

It was at this point that I interjected - explaining to the chief steward that the complainant had wound up the Hull City fans and that to my disgust he had aimed Nazi salutes at them.

The chief steward then said something quite odd - "Well I'm Jewish so I know how upsetting Nazi salutes can be."

I said, "They are offensive to me too and  I have no religion!"

Anyway, the young Hull City fan who had been targeted was grateful of my intervention. We shook hands and I agreed with him that it was very odd that he had been singled out. Some of his chums proceeded to pat me on the back and  shake my hand etcetera as the chief steward retreated to take my complaint to the Rotherham fan. How ever briefly, I became the young supporters' hero - standing up for what is right in the face of what is wrong.

In the second half, City's centre forward Tom Eaves scored his second goal to draw the teams level and then in injury time he sent a looping header over Rotherham's flailing goalkeeper to win the match with a well-deserved hat trick.

Needless to say I went home happy with the swagger of a temporary hero. Eat your heart out Clint Eastwood!

2005

The Golden Gate Bridge seen from Alcatraz Island

2005 was the year in which I truly discovered digital photography. In that year I was of course still the hardworking  Head of English in one of Sheffield's toughest secondary schools. In spite of that I still managed no less than five significant trips of different lengths that year.

In Moravia in The Czech Republic

In March we had a two week family holiday in California. In May, Shirley and I had four days in the Czech Republic with our friends - Steve and Moira. You can see them walking on the left with Shirley in the image above.

In August, Shirley and I flew down to the south of France to spend a few days with my brother Robin and his girlfriend Suzy - twenty miles south of Toulouse. At the start of September I went to western Ireland with our Ian to spend three nights at my brother Paul's place. And then in October, Shirley and I visited Rome for three nights.

In the foothills of the Pyrenees

To tell you the truth, I had forgotten that all these trips abroad happened in the same year. To accompany this post I have chosen just one picture from each of the trips - selected from my digital archive.

Our Ian in Coole Park, Ireland

The Pantheon in Rome

Resurrection

Ten years ago, a young hedgehog appeared in our snowy garden. We
fed him dog meat and warm water but his chances of survival were slim.

Since I first acquired a digital camera early in 2005, I have taken many hundreds of photographs. Digital photography represented a release from the old camera shackles whereby you clicked cautiously, painfully aware that there were only thirty six shots on your film and that you would have to pay for processing and printing.

Window reflection on a fence on Brincliffe Edge Road January 3rd 2010

After fifteen years with digital, I find that I still have to remind myself to click and click again when I have spotted a good subject. Later I can select the best shot and delete the others when reviewing and editing my images.

Carved dead tree in nearby Chelsea Park - ten years ago.
There's hardly anything left of it today., Nature has continued to take its course.

However, there is a big downside to digital photography. Very often when the pictures have been taken they just sit in files and folders on one's computer. As the months and then the years pass by, these files and folders can be metaphorically buried under newer files and folders. The images can be lost in a way that old-fashioned prints never were.

Anyway, with these thoughts in mind, I decided to look back ten years and resurrect some pictures I took in January 2010.  I have dusted them down and given them a bit of a polish to accompany this blogpost.

Rootops of our Banner Cross suburb in January 2010

"Dakota"

"Dakota" is the song that marked the beginning of this new year for me. It was featured on the now traditional BBC TV New Year's Eve show - "Jules Holland's Hootenanny". It is by a Welsh group called The Stereophonics and written principally by the band's lead singer - Kelly Jones. I am sure that several people who visit this blog will be very familiar with the song but for those who do not know it, I hope you will give it a listen. I have also added some of the lyrics so that you can sing along!

Thinkin' 'bout thinkin' of you

Summertime think it was June

Yeah, I think it was June

Layin' back head on the grass

Chewing gum havin' some laughs

Yeah, havin' some laughs

You make me feel like the one

Make me feel like the one

The one

Drinkin' by drinkin' for two

Drinkin' with you

When drinkin' was new

Sleepin' in the back of my car

We never went far

We didn't need to go far

You make me feel like the one

Make me feel like the one

The one

You make me feel like the one

Make me feel like the one

The one

Basmati

What can I tell you?

Tonight I made a chicken curry from scratch with aubergine chunks (American: egg plant), red onion, red pepper, mushrooms and coconut cream. To accompany this we had rice and peshwari nan. Nowadays I rarely cook any other kind of rice apart from basmati and I have learnt how to cook it simply so that the grains are swollen but nicely separate too. It is the best kind of rice and worth paying a little more for it.

Also on the food front, I listened to BBC Radio 5 Live this afternoon - and who should be on there being interviewed by Colin Paterson but our son Ian. The Bosh! Boys were on for forty five minutes - promoting their new recipe book - "Healthy Vegan" and talking about their TV show which begins on January 12th. Over here in England there is a "thing" called "Veganuary" in which people are encouraged to go vegan for the month of January. The BBC clearly thought this would be an opportune time to bring Ian and Henry back into the studio as they have become the country's most prominent vegan cooks.

Ian was relaxed and fluent as he dealt with the questions - some of them being phoned in live by listeners. One guy said he didn't like being preached at about what food he should eat but of course Ian and Henry have never been preachy - they are just putting delicious vegan dishes out there at a time when more and more people and environmentalists are questioning the presence of meat and dairy products in their diets. 

Somebody else questioned the fact that they have both recently been on aeroplanes to distant places - Ian to Thailand and Henry to Bali. But why they should have to defend themselves about this? I just don't understand. They are making vegan dishes - not pretending that their mission is to save the world. That would be ridiculous even though most of us are reconsidering our use of the planet's finite resources. Perhaps I should ditch basmati rice which mostly arrives in Britain's supermarkets from The Indian Sub-Continent but hell - I am not going to do that.

Basmati rice fields in India

2020

Sheep on Bretton Mount

And so another year begins. We are twenty years beyond the very start of this new millennium. That realisation is almost frightening. Time marching on.

Today there was effectively a home match to attend in The English Championship. It finished Sheffield Wednesday 0 Hull City 1 on a chilly afternoon when the misty cold threatened to seep into your very bones. I was there with not one but two of my favourite men in the whole wide world - Tony from East Yorkshire and Wednesday supporter Jonathan who now teaches English in Beijing, China.

Sadly for Jon, our lads won with yet another goal from our star player - Jarrod Bowen. As the match drew to a close our supporters sang, "We can see you sneaking out!" as Wednesday fans began to make their way home.

A view of Abney Low Farm

On Monday, I walked in sunshine above Grindleford - along Sir William Road and then on to Nether Bretton and Bretton Mount. My walk led me past Mompesson's Well  which has a famous connection with Eyam - the reknown "plague village" of the seventeenth century. Please Google it if you are interested.

Mompesson's Well

At Mompesson's Well I was astonished to spot a peacock butterfly sunning itself on the adjacent stone wall but by the time I had got my camera ready he or she had flown off. Imagine that -  a butterfly out and about on December 30th! This is mid-winter - there shouldn't be butterflies.

And now we are all in 2020. I hope that you and all other members of this corner of  the blogosphere have a good year in which happy memories are made and good health is enjoyed. Happy New Year!

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 The accompanying pictures are all from Monday's walk.

Triangulation pillar on Sir William Hill