Prisoners get to trudge in circles around the exercise yard but I was permitted to steer Clint to the village of Pleasley near Mansfield. There I took another walk. Eight miles or so. Sadly, Mr Sunshine did not keep his promise. Those pesky weather people said he would illuminate the landscape all afternoon but he remained bashful which meant that many of my pictures were drained of colour.
Still. I got some much needed exercise before returning to serve the remainder of my painting sentence.
Near the war memorial in Pleasley Vale, I conversed with a vicar in full church costume. She was holding a bible close to her chest. I guess she believes in that kind of thing. She was there with a small group of bandsmen to film a service for Remembrance Sunday. Our new, harsher COVID-19 restrictions mean that many Remembrance Day services will not happen this year. This vicar planned to put her church's service on Facebook for her parishioners to watch on Sunday. Lest We Forget.
South of Shirebrook, an ignorant and anti-social sub-human had dumped an old fridge freezer on a pleasant bridleway that winds across farmland. We call this behaviour "fly-tipping". A lot of it seems to happen in that particular neck of the woods. It makes my blood boil.
Ah well, back to the room makeover in the morning. As I complete this blogpost, the people who live in our television are telling me it is more and more likely that Joe Biden is going to win the U.S. Presidency! Maybe there is a God after all...
Derbyshire countryside west of Forge Lane
I know it's a Big Ask, buddy. But is there any chance ye could pick up that fridge freezer for me? I fancy freezing a side of beef during the lockdown and maybe one or two pigs' heads.
ReplyDeleteI'd stand ye a pint for your trouble, Yorky. And I'll bring chocolates and perfume for your wife when I drop in to pick it up.
*If I can help somebody,* as my Mam used to say.
Your wish is my command Lord Hameld of Kelvingrove. The fridge freezer is now waiting for you at my portcullis. All it required was a new fuse.
DeleteAch, cry me Hameld, we can skip *Your Lordship*. As for the fuse, I'll get some Shettleston cowboy to do the rewiring.
DeleteAs for the perfume, I'm launching my own brand. It's called *Transience*, the opposite of Calvin Klein's Eternity.
The bottle is in the shape of the double helix: DNA. We'll get that wee lassie who's playing Princess Diana in The Crown to launch it. Watch your telly.
I had no idea that you were a perfumier your liege. I look forward to filling my lungs with "Transience".
Delete*There is no Eternity. There is only Transience.*
DeleteOne moment the world is a beautiful country church, the next a fridge freezer fly-tipped in a beauty spot.
The TV commercial for my perfume will have Young Diana (Emma Corrin) fleeing all the world's mess, and ascending the lift up the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
At the top she meets the Older Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and each looks at the other with a wide haunted gaze. Music.
*How Emma Corrin found Princess Diana's Voice in The Crown, Season 4.*
DeleteYouTube.
Ms. Corrin said: *I love Diana's voice, I really miss it !.*
Claire Foy, who played young Queen Elizabeth (a very different voice) said her voice coach taught her how to say *house* as Her Majesty would say it.
The trick was to keep saying *dirty mouse* first and then transition into *house*.
See *Claire Foy Teaches Method Man the Queen's English.*
April 27, 2018. YouTube.
The Late Show. YouTube.
Good job Claire Foy didn't practise the Glaswegian manner of saying "dirty moose", ken?
DeleteNobody in Glasgow begins or ends a sentence with *ken* though I am trying to change all that. Two guys talking:
Delete*Ken when ye didnae ever see a security guard in a supermarket?*
*Acht, Ah applied for a job as a security guard, but wi' that conviction o' violent assault, Ah didnae even get an interview, ken.*
Someone told me that if you crossed a bridge (it may have Bridge of Weir) you moved from a non-ken zone to a ken-zone. Don't know if he was kidding on, he had a deadpan way of speaking.
People who leave their garbage and or dog shit wherever piss me off no end. Obviously they had a vehicle to get the freezer there, why didn't they just take it to the dump?
ReplyDeleteGlad you got some exerice. I'm painting tomorrow, still working on ceilings tomorrow. Sigh. Maybe a good walk too.
How good it must be to have enough excess money to just employ a decorator.
DeleteYou cover a lot of territory in this post. Who else could connect , painting, prison and politics in one post?
ReplyDeleteSo many "p's" Redman! I can't answer your puzzling poser properly.
DeleteI'm glad you got a break during your sentence. From what I've seen of you, it certainly was not for good behavior.
ReplyDeleteHow remarkable! Do you see your redcoats banging along regularly?
I hate the trash dumping.
To see that little band in a quiet rural location was quite a surprise Debby and most unusual. I feel hurt that you think I am incapable of good behaviour with a "u"!
DeletePleasley! What a wonderful ring that name has.
ReplyDeleteHere, back in the spring, many communities have set up their own youtube channels or other means for recording or even live streaming their church services.
We have been talking about people dumping their rubbish a few times already, I believe, and I am going to repeat what I always say in that context: I will never understand why people do that. Have they no sense of beauty, no decency?
Your walk must have been a very welcome break from painting. All this week, I have only been able to go walking on Monday, which was a beautiful sunny and warm day. Things are looking good for a hike on the weekend.
I imagine that you and OK sing jolly rambling songs as you march along in your lederhosen.
DeleteThe big baby is not getting it all his own way, I think most people in America are making sure everything is above board. It is a terribly important moment in time to see that such people as Trump do not succeed.
ReplyDeletePleasley is like many villages making the best of the condition it finds itself in. And isn't it good to find many more female vicars;) Watching The Vicar of Dibley for light relief at the moment.
I wouldn't mind being baptised again by a female vicar. It is good yes - a living symbol of the gradual movement to full equality.
DeleteI know a lady Baptist minister in Glasgow who would baptise you, Yorky.
DeleteFull immersion. In a white cotton robe. Robert Duvall had it done in that great movie, *Tender Mercies*.
I am prepared to stand in as your Godfather.
I only attended this nearby Baptist church once, and I had delicious fresh coffee after the service. There was a good mix of old and young. Gay people felt they were welcomed and could be themselves.
I only wish the very Reformed churches I attend were as welcoming. *We Calvinists frighten folk off,* I tell the elders, who give me a strange look.
The juxtaposition of a beautiful church (Exhibit One) and man's capacity to soil nature through thoughtlessness (Exhibit Three) is depressing beyond words.
ReplyDeleteSay you'd find yourself seeking some answers, going on a ramble in the middle of nowhere, pondering the futility of it all, contemplating to cut your existence short - though still undecided - when stumbling on that example of human pissing on nature in your path. It's the sort of trigger that might push some people over the edge, make them tie the rope to the tree next to it, there and then. Without a moment's hesitation. What an even starker photo that would make. Let's call it "Human Waste". The poetry and double meaning of which, no doubt, lost on the original flytipper.
U
He could have checked the opening times of the council's recycling centre and just driven it there for environmentally friendly disposal. I bet he likes Boris Johnson, Trump, nettles, dark chocolate and wasps.
DeleteLeaving aside that you didn't acknowledge my witty contribution, touched by vaguely nihilistic notes with an existential cherry on top, what's wrong with "dark chocolate"? It's not only good for you, it adds an astonishing note to some dishes (ask your son). Admittedly, 95 % verges on bitter when eaten in its raw state.
DeleteU
I herby acknowledge your wittiness Ursula. It was not overlooked. No matter what anyone says I will continue to loathe dark chocolate. Yuk!
DeleteChocolate Noir with an Existential Cherry !
DeleteAs a non-Dessert man, I wouldn't touch it myself, but in the days of my youth, I enjoyed seeing the Lady eating Dessert after Dinner. Never call it a Sweet, for that is very Non-U, as Nancy Mitford said, tongue in cheek like Ursula.
A friend of mine is a pastry chef and she said that Chocolate Noir curls work when delicately applied to a raspberry dessert.
Alan Sillitoe objected (politely) when he couldn't smoke his cigar in a restaurant along with his coffee and Cognac. That was loony, looking back. Fire is a real danger, everywhere.
How lucky you were to come upon the bandsmen filming their Remembrance Day service. I'm glad they're doing something rather than just cancelling it outright.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the flytipping. It's a pet peeve of mine, and it's not like the councils charge THAT much to take away debris. Just pay your ten quid and have it collected!
I used to go to school with a girl named Barbara Peaslee. Maybe her relatives were from Pleasley.
Barbara Peaslee might have pleased me.
DeletePace Irving Berlin, sometimes the lyric outlives the melody.
Delete*Barbara Peaslee might have pleased me, Jennifer Rigby haunts me still.*
Freezers need holidays too. Perhaps it was Rambler freezer just having a rest? I would recycle the freezer and use it for a raised bed or something in my polytunnel.
ReplyDeleteCan you see that there was even frozen food tumbling out of that freezer! It would have fed The Northsiders for a few days.
DeletePerhaps it's a fox or a badger that's won the lottery?
DeleteDon't be daft! Foxes and badgers don't have fingers so how could they fill in a lottery ticket?
DeleteFoxes make nice chocolate biscuits.
DeleteAnd glacier mints too!
DeleteHere, there are people who would snatch this up in a minute. An old freezer has a million uses. You can bury it in the ground with the door exposed to make a cold celler. You can also put it in a barn door side up and use it as storage for your animal feeds to keep the rodents out.
DeleteI will go back and retrieve it for you Debby - then send it over by airmail. Shouldn't cost too much. Take out the shelves and you can use it as a two person canoe.
DeleteOh Mr. Pudding, you're such a kind soul. Generous to a fault. Spare yourself the trouble. Maybe make a little sign to post on the freezer to give people useful ideas. Make sure that you note that it needs to have a latch installed to keep the kiddies out.
DeleteCame across another dumped freezer. Someone had written on it in felt pen with tick boxes: Why have you left me here? (1) I am a moron (2) I don't give a toss about the environment (3) I am a selfish bastard (4) I can't be arsed to dispose of it properly. All four boxes were ticked.
ReplyDeleteThe yellow sticker on the fridge in my picture was put there by Bolsover District Council to show that they are aware of the dumping.
DeleteA lovely photo of the bandsmen, very pleasley. Are you going to show us what you have been painting?
ReplyDeleteI am very security conscious and I am anxious that you and Paul might drive over from Lincolnshire to burgle us - so no!
DeleteHad that food in the freezer already defrosted? Couldn't you take it home for your tea?
ReplyDeleteIt crossed my mind JayCee because the freezer compartment still had ice in it!
DeleteWhen you wrote the words "near Mansfield" I do hope that you thought of me.
ReplyDeleteMusic majors hereabouts have a riddle: What do you call people that like to hang around with musicians? Answer: Drummers. My point is that that handsome group of crimson-clad marchers is not what we would call a band. That is what we would call a drumline or a percussion session. It is not even a drum and bugle corps or a fife and drum dorps. I do like their uniforms, though.
We in the U.S. have heard of cow-tipping but not fly-tipping. Since the freezer looks practically pristine (more P's a la Red) and contained food and even ice, you say, my thought was that perhaps it wasn't "dumped" at all but fell off a passing moving truck. But your pointing out the yellow sticker put there by the Council smashed that idea.
Nice to be reassured that we are still friends Bob. Two of those fellows did have bugles as well as their drums and the fellow at the rear on the right had a xylophone-type instrument. However, compared with well-organised and well-funded American marching bands, I freely admit that this little team were slightly pathetic. In their defence, they had driven out into the countryside at the behest of the vicar so full marks for enthusiasm.
DeleteI can’t really see it very well but I think the xylophone thingy is either a bell lyre or a glockenspiel.
DeleteAnd when I said percussion session I meant percussion section.
Yours for accuracy in media,
RWP
I can almost guarantee you that I will never, ever in my walks come across a marching band of any kind. However- a dumped refrigerator? Most definitely.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
I thought that Lloyd was Tallahassee's Beverly Hills!
DeleteIt must have been good to see the bandsmen playing. I wonder whether fly tipping happens because it is too difficult or very expensive to dispose of rubbish properly?
ReplyDelete