28 November 2020

Elkesley

Window at Elkesley Manor Farm

Elkesley is a strange village. It sits right next to the A1 which is a major arterial road, connecting north and south. I have driven by it many times but I visited it for the first time on Thursday - the day I set the pigs free.

Once Elkesley must have been a pleasant, prosperous place - situated as it was on the main coaching route between Lincoln and Sheffield. Then gradually the modern world took over, stagecoaches were consigned to history and the amount of traffic on the A1 increased exponentially.

St Giles Church, Elkesley - with Clint on the far right

Though it's by the A1, it is a tricky place to access. I arrived at ten in the morning and parked Clint by the wall of St Giles's Church. What I noticed immediately was the noise that filled the air. Not twittering birds but roaring traffic thundering by on The Great North Road. It was unceasing. Huge lorries, white vans, fast cars, slow cars, motorbikes - their engines, tyres and exhausts forming a symphony of unholy muzak.

I walked away from Elkesley through the woods and across The River Poulter then along the path that leads to Bothamsall. However, before I got there I turned westward along a disused country track called West Drayton Avenue. Admittedly, I ignored the "No Public Access" and "Private" signs.

Onward, past an oil well to the Clumber Park estate, turning north to the estate village of Hardwick. Here the wooden walkway over the River Poulter was broken so I had to to splash across the cobbled ford. Looking back, I saw a cyclist following in my wake. He noticed that I had snapped a picture of him and as he rode slowly by me he said he was relieved that he hadn't fallen off. We laughed.

With all the cycle tracks, I became slightly lost in the woods east of Hardwick and missed my intended path. This caused me to wander into the farmland south of Apley Head  Farm and that's where I came across the piggery. Last night, I carefully cut out an image of one of the pigs and stuck it on some white card. It seems to remind me of someone but for the life of me I don't know who:-

46 comments:

  1. I want to be your Gordon Lish, Yorky. Lish was the editor who slashed Raymond Carver's sentences. Lish said he created the Carver style. So now I am reading ...

    *Elkesley is a strange village. I had driven past it for years. I only stopped there on Thursday, the day I set the pigs free.*

    The beginning of a strange story. A quasi-supernatural story. Of the kind written by Robert Aickman (1914-1981) who had your turn of humour. Humour plus the uncanny: I like the way Meike says uncanny in German. I like the fricatives.

    Photos 3 and 4 are wonderful. Photo 4 is of someone I can't quite place.

    Do pigs have souls? Do politicians? What was that man searching for in the woods, east of Hardwick? If not now, when?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't want my sentences slashing. Slashing is what I did against a tree east of Hardwick.

      Delete
    2. Lish said: *I created Raymond Carver. He was a mediocre writer before I edited him.* Not true.

      Delete
    3. I’ve been Feeling weak and always feeling sleepy for some time which I went for a test and I was told i am diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Disease (ALS DISEASE) ever since then I've followed a wide variety of medical treatments, I have even combined with different pills and antibiotics without clear results. My health was deteriorating more and more. But thanks to a Herbal Doctor's herbs method that I found on the internet which has saved so many lives and also helped me to achieve the results i wanted, i knew from the beginning that this could help me after much learning and the cure Dr sent to me and which I began to follow the method from the Herbal Doctor called (Dr Aziba) and the results were wonderful: I recommend you to get in contact with him via Email: priestazibasolutioncenter@gmail.com and on WhatsApp: +2348100368288 for ALS, HPV, HSV, HERPES, Virginal Infection Cure etc.. DR is also available to help!






      I’ve been Feeling weak and always feeling sleepy for some time which I went for a test and I was told i am diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Disease (ALS DISEASE) ever since then I've followed a wide variety of medical treatments, I have even combined with different pills and antibiotics without clear results. My health was deteriorating more and more. But thanks to a Herbal Doctor's herbs method that I found on the internet which has saved so many lives and also helped me to achieve the results i wanted, i knew from the beginning that this could help me after much learning and the cure Dr sent to me and which I began to follow the method from the Herbal Doctor called (Dr Aziba) and the results were wonderful: I recommend you to get in contact with him via Email: priestazibasolutioncenter@gmail.com and on WhatsApp: +2348100368288 for ALS, HPV, HSV, HERPES, Virginal Infection Cure etc.. DR is also available to help!





      I’ve been Feeling weak and always feeling sleepy for some time which I went for a test and I was told i am diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Disease (ALS DISEASE) ever since then I've followed a wide variety of medical treatments, I have even combined with different pills and antibiotics without clear results. My health was deteriorating more and more. But thanks to a Herbal Doctor's herbs method that I found on the internet which has saved so many lives and also helped me to achieve the results i wanted, i knew from the beginning that this could help me after much learning and the cure Dr sent to me and which I began to follow the method from the Herbal Doctor called (Dr Aziba) and the results were wonderful: I recommend you to get in contact with him via Email: priestazibasolutioncenter@gmail.com and on WhatsApp: +2348100368288 for ALS, HPV, HSV, HERPES, Virginal Infection Cure etc.. DR is also available to help!

      Delete
  2. *I believe in what the Germans term Ehrfurcht: reverence for things one cannot understand.*
    Robert Aickman. Wikipedia.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The pig topic is giving you lots to blog about. I wonder where this will end for you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chitterlings? Faggots? Anyone?
      All from the intestines, liver, and shoulders of Piggy.
      You ever wondered how we smelled to those who abstain from animal flesh?
      The Japanese can smell anyone who drinks calves' milk and they don't like it.

      Years ago I was at a party where a beautiful girl told me she could never make love to a man who ate meat or fowl.
      *I'm ready to become a vegetarian tonight,* I said, but she wasn't convinced.

      She looked like Jean Seberg.

      Delete
    2. For a moment I thought Red had written Pig Tonic.
      Now there's an idea whose time has come.
      I'll have Boris Jobby on the label, ripping off Yorky's artwork.

      *Hameld(s) Pig Tonic.*

      Delete
  4. This is sow very im-pork-ant: t would be-hoove you to move on to something else before we are boar-ed out of our minds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have just one thing to say to you Debby: OINK!

      Delete
  5. PS the picture is obvious. It's Boar-ass Johnson.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your powers of observation are quite incredible!

      Delete
  6. It ends when Yorky went into Saint Giles Church and met a woman who asked him the seven names of Moses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And I replied - Jekuthiel (by his mother), Heber (by his father), Jered (by Miriam), Avi Zanoah (by Aaron), Avi Gedor (by Kohath), Avi Soco (by his wet-nurse), Shemaiah ben Nethanel (by people of Israel). Thank heavens for the new god at whose throne we all now worship - Godgle!

      P.S. Did you have a wet nurse John?

      Delete
    2. Thou has spoken well, brother.
      A wet nurse to I was never granted.
      In my youth I had a fling with a nursery nurse, a Cushite from the tribe of Rangers. Blue eyes and blonde.

      Delete
    3. Consorting with the enemy is a capital offence.

      Delete
    4. Nay lad. I call thy enemy a friend. Canny.
      Besides she was gorgeous. What did I care if she had given her heart and soul to the Gers? I only loved her for her body. And she made me laugh.

      Delete
    5. Happy memories often sustain us.

      Delete
  7. One of the many branches of my family tree comes from the other West Drayton area in greater London. Hmmm ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is interesting but there is no connection between the two places. I was at school with a boy whose surname was Drayton.

      Delete
  8. Your photos are wonderful as usual! I especially love the picture of the biker on the bridge with the beautifully troubled sky in the background.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's not a bridge, it's a ford Bonnie. Do you have any fords in Missouri?

      Delete
  9. He looks a right arrogant swine.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You are turning into quite a law-breaker YP, releasing pigs and ignoring No Access signs. Will your next post come from HMP Ranby I wonder?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. More like Rampton.

      Delete
    2. They will never catch me! I am on the loose now. A fugitive from justice. Damn this cannonball they have chained to my ankle!

      Delete
  11. Did you smudge the face of the man by the wall in the St.Giles church photo, they do that on television.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Should have gone to Specsavers Thelma! There's no man there.

      Delete
  12. I have one question- did the piggery smell like hell's darkest basement? I raised one pig once and it was impossible to keep up with her hygiene. Ugh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Being an open air piggery, the odour was surprisingly slight... or perhaps I myself smell like a pig!

      Delete
  13. Ha! Love the BoPig! You are quite brave in your wandering, going down roads with "no trespassing" signs. Being an American, I'd instinctively worry someone would pull out a gun!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I needed to go down that ancient track because the alternatives would have meant a two mile detour or retracing my steps. I suspect that the old lane was once a public thoroughfare and that the neighbouring landowner was overstepping his authority.

      Delete
  14. Painswick in Gloucestershire like Elksley has been spoiled by through traffic.

    Painswick has an exquisite church and lovely yew trees, but I was alone in the churchyard one day (2019) last summer. If Painswick attracts tourists there were none there that day.
    There was a hotel with a wedding reception inside, but I could find no gift shops, tearooms, visitor centre. A very special English village, stranded and cut off.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The yew trees there are expertly manicured. Like giant lollipops.

      Delete
    2. The yews of Painswick are like Chupa Chups, aren't they?
      I never eat hard candy or touch fizzy drinks though I have a weakness for Lindt salted caramel truffles. One with unsugared coffee or green tea.

      Did you like Jamaica-born Millie Small who had just one hit, My Boy Lollipop? Millie died in May leaving one daughter. Great lady, hard life.
      *Interview with My Boy Lollipop Millie Small* (YouTube) Blast From the Past.
      Rest in peace, Millie.

      Delete
    3. "My Boy Lollipop" - one of the most deep and meaningful pop songs to ever hit the British charts. On a par with Lennon's "Imagine".

      Delete
    4. Hey Doc, is this irony or is this irony?

      Silliness can work well in a lyric. Songs make us laugh.
      Larry Hart, Cole Porter, and Alan Jay Lerner knew it.
      *Like a snake who meets a mongoose/ That young lady was a gone goose.*

      John Lennon, peace on his ashes, purchased a huge boat and a sprawling country estate before that creep killed him. Imagine there's no money?

      Delete
  15. What a nice walk although it seems to be a little wet ! Yes the pig looks familiar to me too, when I think that he went to school in Brussels where I live, lol ! Haven't seen him in town, maybe he was performing in a circus and I missed it !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for dropping by Gattina. May I apologise on behalf of the British people that you had to host that particular piggy.

      Delete
    2. Gattina's Brussels has the best food I have eaten, and makes me feel sad we are out of the EU for all its flaws.
      I see you have three blogs, Gattina:
      Countries and Cities, A Writer's Cramp, and a third about cats.
      Cats like Belgium are not to be resisted.

      Delete
  16. Anonymous10:09 pm

    It's a pity about the A1 being right next to the village. Short of monstrous and visually intrusive noise barriers, it will always be what it is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suppose the villagers are used to that noise but I don't think that I could ever get used to it.

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete
  18. I’ve been Feeling weak and always feeling sleepy for some time which I went for a test and I was told i am diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Disease (ALS DISEASE) ever since then I've followed a wide variety of medical treatments, I have even combined with different pills and antibiotics without clear results. My health was deteriorating more and more. But thanks to a Herbal Doctor's herbs method that I found on the internet which has saved so many lives and also helped me to achieve the results i wanted, i knew from the beginning that this could help me after much learning and the cure Dr sent to me and which I began to follow the method from the Herbal Doctor called (Dr Aziba) and the results were wonderful: I recommend you to get in contact with him via Email: priestazibasolutioncenter@gmail.com and on WhatsApp: +2348100368288 for ALS, HPV, HSV, HERPES, Virginal Infection Cure etc.. DR is also available to help!






    I’ve been Feeling weak and always feeling sleepy for some time which I went for a test and I was told i am diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Disease (ALS DISEASE) ever since then I've followed a wide variety of medical treatments, I have even combined with different pills and antibiotics without clear results. My health was deteriorating more and more. But thanks to a Herbal Doctor's herbs method that I found on the internet which has saved so many lives and also helped me to achieve the results i wanted, i knew from the beginning that this could help me after much learning and the cure Dr sent to me and which I began to follow the method from the Herbal Doctor called (Dr Aziba) and the results were wonderful: I recommend you to get in contact with him via Email: priestazibasolutioncenter@gmail.com and on WhatsApp: +2348100368288 for ALS, HPV, HSV, HERPES, Virginal Infection Cure etc.. DR is also available to help!





    I’ve been Feeling weak and always feeling sleepy for some time which I went for a test and I was told i am diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Disease (ALS DISEASE) ever since then I've followed a wide variety of medical treatments, I have even combined with different pills and antibiotics without clear results. My health was deteriorating more and more. But thanks to a Herbal Doctor's herbs method that I found on the internet which has saved so many lives and also helped me to achieve the results i wanted, i knew from the beginning that this could help me after much learning and the cure Dr sent to me and which I began to follow the method from the Herbal Doctor called (Dr Aziba) and the results were wonderful: I recommend you to get in contact with him via Email: priestazibasolutioncenter@gmail.com and on WhatsApp: +2348100368288 for ALS, HPV, HSV, HERPES, Virginal Infection Cure etc.. DR is also available to help!

    ReplyDelete

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