I took a second picture of that window, looking down the valley known as Oyster Clough. In my opinion, the second picture does not work quite as well. What do you think?
England waits for Sunday evening with eager anticipation mingled with nervous trepidation. Our national football team has reached the final of the European Championship. This tournament normally takes place every four years but COVID-19 scuppered last year's schedule.
We scraped past Denmark in the semi-finals and now we 're to play Italy in the final at Wembley Stadium in London. Beating them to the trophy will be a big ask. Italy have shown themselves to be a splendid team with talent all over the pitch. However, I could say just the same of England.
Bizarrely, at Wembley tomorrow night, the England fans will join together for a loud and uplifting rendition of "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. It has become our third national anthem after "God Save The Queen" and "Three Lions (It's Coming Home)". And if we beat Italy, they will sing it again even louder than before... "Good times never seemed so good".
Be still my beating heart! I need to calm down. The biggest match in more than fifty years is still thirty six hours away! Let me finish this lazy blogpost with three more calming pictures from Thursday's moorland ramble:-
I prefer the second photo...a longer vista outside.
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly why I took it Frances - down the valley instead of across it.
DeleteThis is a lazy comment.
ReplyDeleteThis is a lazy reply to a lazy comment. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
DeleteI somehow seem to have missed your previous post, but these photos make up for it. They seem very melancholic.
ReplyDeleteWell I agree JayCee. There is a kind of sadness there.
DeleteNo, you're right YP, this photo lacks the lightness of Thursday's posting. Something to do with the view beyond the window, I suspect. The first photo invites us to look out at the view.
ReplyDeleteI think it was in 2012, when we were on holiday in Italy, that hubby and I were in Bergamo on the night that Spain trounced Italy in that years' European final. We were in a local restaurant, brimming with excitable Italian supporters, and the match relayed on a huge screen in the piazza outside. We were the only two non-Italians in the place, and my husband was, of course cheering for Spain. After a while I suggested that he stopped, and didn't tell the assembled crowd that we lived in Spain! We would have been lynched, I'm certain!
Lynched? Do you look like Bet Lynch Carol? I bet your husband was the spitting image of Len Fairclough which is of course a silly thing to say!
DeleteWho's Bet Lynch - never heard of her, but presume she's an actress?
DeleteNo. She was The Chancellor of the Exchequer. .
DeleteSomething about the light and the proportions of the first window photo does make that one even more appealing, I think. (Just flipped back to the previous post to compare.) The outdoor views are all great as well. And that Guardian looks very severe :)
ReplyDeleteIt is a good job that sheep are timid creatures. If I chased her she would run away instead of butting me with those horns.
DeleteI liked both photos but the first one wins. I also sleep next to a snoring person and it is a problem. I sometimes "assist" him into a sidelying position which helps for a while. I so enjoy your walk descriptions and pictures,Mr P.
ReplyDeleteGlad you have come with me on a few of my walks Terry. How about putting a sock in the mouth of the snoring person?
DeleteI actually like the second picture better, because it better contrasts the handiwork of man against nature's work outside.
ReplyDelete"Sweet Caroline' rings differently in the times of Covid, to my ears. I was at a meeting and someone described meeting someone she hadn't seen before covid, and he greeted her with a bear hug and a kiss. She was horrified. We have lost a great deal this past year, haven't we?
And not just the lives of many of our fellow citizens.
DeleteI hope England wins against those, as my mother calls them The Eyeties. Meanwhile Australia is more excited about Ashbarty playing in the women's final at Wimbledon. You would never know her first name is Ash and her surname name is Barty by listening to Australian media.
ReplyDeleteMore nice photos of the countryside.
As I write Ashley Barty has won the first set and is well on her way to winning the second set. "Ashbarti" sounds like a name from Azerbaijan or Georgia. Come on Miss Barty!
DeleteI think Jerusalem would be a far better hymn to sing instead of God Save The Queen. That was never a penalty the other night. But with luck like that they might win on Sunday.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer "The Birdy Song". By the way are you Scottish? I know it was a bit of a soft one but that was a penalty. I admit that Raheem Stirling was looking for it. We had 20 shots on goal. Denmark had 6!
DeleteYep - definitely know I've been to Oyster Clough cabin now you've posted the photo
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, someone had carved "MARK WOZ ERE" on the table.
DeleteI wonder how "Sweet Caroline" came to be such a phenomenon of a song? It's fun, but no more so than a lot of other pop songs.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how it took a hold. I think it has a lot to do with the line, "Good times never seemed so good!"
DeleteI'm going to have to look up the meaning of clough again. Whatever it is , there's beautiful scenery.
ReplyDeleteA steep moorland valley or ravine. The word is really only used in the north of England.
Delete"Sweet Caroline' simply reminds me of Neil Diamond singing it during his concert I attended in 1968 at the USNA. Seems strange to think of it as a football song in the UK today.
ReplyDeleteIt is strange. I saw him singing it in concert in Cleveland in 1976.
DeleteI like both photos of the window and the view. Is clough pronouced "clew"? Just curous. We have lots of sloughs and they're pronouced "slews", no idea why. English is a convoluted language.
ReplyDeleteThe photos are lovely and on another tangent, I'm glad Ursula has moved on. She makes me tense.
"Clough" is pronounced like "rough" or "tough". I agree with your last point but please remember that I had to turn on comment moderation.
DeleteI prefer yesterday's window photo to today's, in which the flowers and the middle of the window frame itself obscure the point where my eyes want to settle. Just my two cents. The photo of the cabin itself is a nice one; it really shows the steepness of the ravine which I did not understand yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI saw a headline for an article explaining why Sweet Caroline is The Song for those matches. Now I wish I had read it so I would know. Enjoy the final game! The only sports patter I have at the moment is that our country's Montreal Canadiens just lost the Stanley Cup (hockey) to Steve Reed's old stomping ground's Tampa Bay Lightnings! I wasn't nearly as excited as you beforehand nor disappointed afterward. Sports are not something I've ever been much interested in. I wonder how much of that is innate and how much depends on how a person grows up? Sometimes I feel like I've missed something important in my life.
Football is like a religion to many English supporters of the game. You feel it in your bones. Only ten hours to kick off.
DeleteAt first I thought I might agree with you about the first photo being better... but after much internal debate, I don't think one is better than the other. Both have excellent qualities.
ReplyDeleteBog cotton? As one who lives in "the land of cotton", I need to know more. I hope Google will be able to satisfy my curiosity.
Eriophorum angustifolium
DeleteIt's not really cotton, Kelly, despite its name. Here in the UK it grows in swathes across the moors and boggy areas, and looks really ethereal blowing in the wind. It used to be gathered to pack the wounds of injured soldiers in World War 1, and at various periods in history it has been used to stuff pillows, in paper making, as tinder, or to form candle wicks. It doesn't 'twist' like cotton does and the hairs are quite brittle, so doesn't really spin or weave very well. The leaves are apparently a very good cure for diarrhoea...
DeleteI like both photos, the view from this window is appealing though. My Dad asked me if I remembered the football final in 1966. Apparently we listened to it on a radio whilst sitting in a field in Cornwall (we were camping). I don't remember the football but I do recall that it was the last family holiday we ever had.
ReplyDeleteIn your memory, that joyful day is touched with sadness. Let us hope that tonight's game is touched with celebration.
DeleteI love both photos, what are the flowers though? I feel sorry for sheep their point in life is to live off the uplands carting a great heavy coat around until one is relieved of it in summertime.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what the flowers were but the tall yellow ones were still hanging on to life. There was water in the champagne bottle. They were not wild, moorland flowers.
DeleteLovely views, as always. Interesting to see the bog cotton...in the fall we have fields and fields of cotton around here which will be harvested all at once by large machines. Is bog cotton harvested?
ReplyDeleteI love both pictures YP, but what it intrigues me is why someone would go to the trouble of carrying garden flowers to such a remote spot and arrange them there in a champagne bottle. My romantic mind suggests a carefully arranged trysting place, perhaps a betrothal? Was there nothing in the log? I love this propensity that you have to find so many untold stories and intriguing mysteries on your journeys.
ReplyDelete