Pictures

Frankly, I have not got the energy to write a proper blogpost tonight. Instead, I am simply sharing a bunch of images from our mini-break in Bridlington. Above a "dire wolf" made entirely of Lego bricks in Sewerby Hall gardens. There was an outdoor Lego exhibition on the theme of extinction. The dire wolf was native to the Americas but became extinct thousands of years ago.

A view of Kilham from Kilham churchyard

Phoebe delivering a sermon from the pulpit in Kilham Church (With Lam-Lam)

The harbour wall at Bridlington, looking to the chalk headland at Flamborough

Pirate ship heading towards Flamborough Head

Where you used to buy your tickets for the pirate ship at Bridlington Harbour

Bridlington seagull on an old cannon

Coastal observatory at Flamborough

Phoebe and Shirley walking to the old foghorn station at Flamborough Head

Seals seen from Flamborough Head with plenty of camera zoom

Pygmy goat in Sewerby Park Zoo

Our cottage at Marton near Bridlington

Bridlington

 

In East Yorkshire, everyone refers to the seaside town of Bridlington as "Brid". The village of my birth was halfway between the city of Hull and Brid so I have had a fairly intimate relationship with the place all my life.

Anyway, tonight we are staying in a little rental cottage just outside Brid and this my friends is a scheduled post that I  prepared on Tuesday evening. Brid is about two hours from Sheffield. We are staying in two-bedroomed Kibbletree Cottage with Phoebe. With my Booking.com "Genius" account I secured a healthy discount.

During school holidays (American: vacations) many grandparents find themselves undertaking a lot of child-minding duties and this week we were earmarked to look after Phoebe for three days in a row so that's why we came up with the idea of a night away at the coast. 

Mind you, rain is in the late summer forecast so no doubt our coastal activities will be affected. Being in rain will be a real novelty for us after two months of drought.

All being well I will be back to normal blogging duties on Thursday night.

Blessed

Sunday afternoon in our garden before  our long hot summer began transitioning into autumn. That picture says everything. It reminds me just how much I am blessed. Reminds me that only a fool would take it for granted.

Life. For any of us it could all have taken a different turn. The crossroads we arrived at. The bullets we dodged. Health issues. Relationships that broke. The choices that we made - not knowing how things might turn out.

Yes. Blessed. It's those people that I really care about. Not politicians. Not musical heroes or favourite writers or ghost people who remain in my memory nor even Hull City's players!

It's always lovely to see Margot and Zach together. Born just nine days apart, they are very much on the same mental wavelength. Their faces light up when they see each other again. To Margot,  Zach is "Zachie-Boy" and he calls her "Margie".

They can both be unco-operative when it comes to having their pictures taken and on Saturday afternoon, Margot was sulking for England - her bottom lip protruding like the keyboard cabinet of on old upright piano. I should have offered her a couple of chocolate buttons. She would have smiled like a Cheshire cat.

They are both Scorpios - not that I believe in any of that astrological nonsense. However, it is frequently said of Scorpios that "they can be stubborn" so maybe there's something in it after all.

Do you feel blessed?

Potatoes

 

These potatoes were grown on an allotment in Blackburn, Lancashire. The variety is "International Kidney". To tell you the truth, I had never heard of that variety before.

I received them this afternoon as a rather special gift from the long married couple who had grown them, a couple I had never met before. They are currently staying in the Peak District village of Foolow which I have mentioned several times before in this humble Yorkshire blog.

The lady is called Christina and her husband's name is Morris. We talked for three hours - both in their tiny rental cottage called "Villager Jim" and in the nearby village pub - "The Black Bull" which for a few years was called "The Lazy Landlord" before reverting back to its traditional name.

Very generously, Christina and Morris paid for my pub lunch and as I know that Christina will be reading this blogpost I want to send out a big public "THANK YOU" both for the potatoes and the lunch. It was so kind of you and quite surprising really as I previously thought that all Lancastrians were mean-spirited. There are, it seems, exceptions to every rule.

And here's the lovely connection with blogging... The only way I "knew" Christina was that she has been visiting this blog for two or three years and has often left kind, intelligent and supportive comments. She is the same when responding to other blogs too.

Today I told her that the only reason I had agreed to meet her in Foolow was her history of leaving pleasant, thoughtful comments. She seemed like a "nice" person and I was right about that. She was!

And so was her husband Morris - lovely people. It was great to get to know two "strangers" and I hope they were not disappointed with the glowering Heathcliff-like Yorkshireman in front of them.

We learnt more about our families, our histories and the things that make us tick and Christina trustingly showed me a phone picture of her much-loved 96 year old father who has had to go into residential care because of a facial cancer that weeps and seeps and threatens his life. All the more tragic because his mental faculties are as sharp as ever.

And so this is what blogging can do - bringing people together in "real" life. To tell you the truth, I am a bit nervous about in person meetings with other bloggers or blog visitors but today's happy occasion proves that such hook ups can be uplifting and good. There are far more well-meaning people in this world than ne'er-do-wells.

Now for three picture, taken outside "The Bull's Head":-

Christina and Walter

Christina and Morris

Christina and The Incredible Hulk

Cartoons

Trump remains an absolute gift to political cartoonists. Hardly a day goes by without some new stupidity that they can caricature. But what a tragedy that this oaf, this liar, this bully, this felon, this laughable narcissist operates beyond the confines of comic fiction. Sometimes all that you can do is to shake your head in disbelief. How on earth could this moron become the political leader of  what is arguably the greatest country on Earth? It doesn't make sense.

Reflection

Mirrors tell it like it is. We look in them and we see mirror images of ourselves. It was often said that the camera never lies but surely that is more true of mirrors. They reflect back the truth.

It is the same with still water. You look upon the surface and see a mirror image of  the sky above. If birds or aeroplanes fly above the water you will see them too.

Back in 1922, in Washington D.C., a very large reflecting pool was completed between The Washington Monument and The Lincoln Memorial. I suppose its fundamental purpose was to reflect those two stone edifices - endowing them with even greater visual significance and drama.

It was there by that reflecting pool that The People's March on Washington terminated on August 28th, 1963 to listen to Martin Luther-King delivering his iconic "I have a dream" speech. A speech by a reflecting pool that reflected the state of civil rights in America at that time. Later that decade, anti-Vietnam war protesters in their thousands reflected upon a pointless war by that same reflecting pool.

You can see that the Washington reflecting pool is not just a place for literal reflection - like a bathroom mirror, it is also a place for a more figurative kind of reflection about the state of the nation, wars, civil rights and suchlike.

And so we arrived at April 2026. Probably on a whim, the current president of the USA decided that he would have the famous reflecting pool renovated ahead of Independence Day celebrations that would mark America's 250th birthday.

He wanted to see clear water and a bottom surface that might be described as "American blue".

The job was rushed and ill-considered. Contractors did not have to bid for the work. Instead they were simply appointed by the president - trashing normal protocols. It was a case of "jobs for the boys" with one of the lead contractors being one of the president's Mar-a-Lago neighbours down in Florida.

Almost as soon as the upgraded reflecting pool was reopened it began to deteriorate. Algae bloomed rapidly and the floor coating began to peel away. The failure of the hugely expensive project was absolutely down to bad and rushed workmanship . Of course it did not help that a presidential cavalcade  drove over the empty reflecting pool in May. This probably caused damage to the recent paintwork.

One thing is for sure - Olympian canoesist David Hearn did not cause any of the damage even though the current regime tried to nail him in the courts. Eventually the case was thrown out but it should never have been brought in the first place. The cruel vindictiveness shown towards Mr Hearn was terrible and I understand he has not received a word of apology from his accusers. They had no evidence whatsoever.

The reflecting pool that the current president sought to renovate remains murky and green with algae blooming. It's like the water in the nearby river basin which feeds it. And there is no sign of the American blue paint that the president was desperate to see. Nobody cut the new surface on the pool floor and there was no  sabotage. The embarrassing failure of the project was  down to pressure of time, an absence of proper professional advice and research, inappropriate materials and shoddy workmanship.

The reflecting pool accurately reflects America's current political malaise under the leadership of a reality TV host with an enormous ego. The story contains blatant lies, superficial yearnings, cruelty, unjustified accusations, lack of apology and an obsession with the appearance of things rather than fundamental truths.

The pool is like a poem with physical form. Stubbornly, it still mirrors what is going on.  They tried to make it clean and sparkling blue but instead its reflection remains unchanged and familiar as Abraham Lincoln's pinnacle looks down accusingly on the hideousness of the current government with its self-obsessed, lazy and terribly ignorant leader

Summer

Here in northern England, we have been enjoying a record summer. There have been five official heatwaves and even between them the days have still been hot and dry. 

Gardens and parks have been suffering and our poor farmers have struggled with animals and crops. Their fields have become cracked and desert-like with the greenness sucked away. When we flew back to Birmingham from Majorca on July 25th, we looked down upon a very un-English straw-coloured landscape.

Even our trees have been suffering - shedding leaves or simply drooping. Trees are only big plants. They need water like other plants. Up our garden the branches hang heavy with small apples. Their swelling growth has been slowed to a halt and many have fallen as the trees switch to survival mode.

You do what you can. I have constantly put food and water out for our avian friends and  areas of the garden - including our vegetable plot - have been watered regularly. Surprisingly, we do not have a hosepipe ban here in Yorkshire even though most  of our reservoirs are only 50% full.

Doom-mongers will say that this has been a frightening summer that continues to demonstrate the future impact of climate change and global over-heating. They may be right but for me this has been the best summer of my life.

I think of many summers past when the grass stayed defiantly green and hot spells were limited to a day or two if we were lucky.  I call them green summers and it is, I think, very likely that we will experience plenty more of them in the next two decades.

Don't get me wrong, I am not denying the seriousness of climate change. It is very real but I will not be weighed down by that burden in the years I have left. I would rather just say quite simply that the summer of 2026 has been the best one I have ever known.

But we may be reaching the end of it. This evening was a little cooler with an ethereal bright pink western sky perhaps indicating changing conditions. After weeks without precipitation, it seems that rain is predicted in the next few days. It will be very welcome that's for sure.

Scorched Rosehill Victoria Park in Rawmarsh last week.

My mother often played here when she was a girl.