Hope

Tuesday was a diamond day. Though our night starts to fall at around three thirty in the afternoon at this time of year, the short day we enjoyed was bathed in sharp winter sunlight as anticyclonic conditions settled over northern England. This is the kind of wintry weather we like - not the grey-damp wintry weather that eats into your bones on days when the golden orb fails to seep through thick layers of dismal cloud.

I didn't want to drive very far - just out to Hathersage, and under the railway bridge on the Grindleford road. I parked near Leadmill Bridge, laced up my trusty walking boots and set off along a public right of way that follows the course of The River Derwent all the way to Castleton.

I was in The Hope Valley. I always think that is a perfect name for a lovely green English valley. A valley filled with hope, perhaps the hope of better things to come. Maybe somewhere there are other valleys - The Hopeless Valley, The Valley of Lost Souls, Despair Valley - I can't say but The Hope Valley suits me fine. I have walked along every one of its ancient paths, filled with Hope.

Here are some of the photographs I snapped along my seven mile walk as November drew closer  to its photogenic ending...

Unclothed tree near Upper Hurst

Two pictures of Kentney Barn ⇅

Another barn - on the frosty slopes of The Hope Valley

Riverside path that follows the course of The River Derwent

Strictly

Like 99% of the adult female population of Great Britain, Mrs Pudding is a big fan of the BBC weekend entertainment  phenomenon, "Strictly Come Dancing". It has been running since 2004 and has been a glamorous if fleeting "feel-good" escape from the troubles of the world - both macro and micro. In "Strictly", there are sequins and smiles as each week celebrity contestants battle it out on the dance floor before an enchanted studio audience and a panel of eagle-eyed judges.

This year's contest is coming to a head and the final will happen on December 17th with a new champion dancer crowned.

TV viewers are given the opportunity to apply for tickets so that they can join the studio audience. Every week for the last three years, Mrs Pudding, along with two million others, has applied for a pair of these golden tickets but to no avail. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Until yesterday that is.

She received her dream message from the BBC. She had been allocated two precious tickets for the final show! But how quickly joy can turn to exasperation. Horror upon horror - we discovered that for each show the BBC gives out eight hundred tickets when only four hundred seats are available! What the...?

On the morning of the show, she will need to join the ticket validation queue at Elstree studios very early in the morning if she is to be one of the lucky four hundred. What an absolute pain and to wit a bloody disgrace! The result of this absurd arrangement is that we will have to stay in a hotel down in Borehamwood on Friday night. All rooms in the nearby "Ibis" had already gone last night so I booked the very last room at the 5.8 rated Elstree Inn so that Mrs Pudding can scoot out at 6am to wait in the queue before the validation office opens at 9am. Even Charlie Bucket didn't have this nonsense.

In the end, it is possible that Mrs Pudding won't even get her pair of tickets but assuming she does, please don't think that I will be sitting beside her in the studio. No. That honour will fall upon our lovely daughter Frances who will take the short train journey north from London later that day.

What a cack-handed way to handle the tickets! I mean, why couldn't they just sort out the validation online instead of treating licence payers and fans like this? Making them get up before dawn, possibly in freezing conditions with rain pelting down on what should be a truly joyous day. One thing's for sure - celebrity members of the "Strictly" audience won't have to do this and they will have the prime seats. If not fuming, I am at least simmering.

😠

Humber

At the chalk quarry in South Ferriby

On the Yorkshire bank of the mighty River Humber there is a village called North Ferriby. I know it quite well. Far across the muddy waters, on the Lincolnshire side, there's a village called South Ferriby. Until yesterday I had never been there though I had seen it from the north bank.

I was on my way to watch Hull City draw with West Bromwich Albion in the English Premier League but I had factored in a midday diversion to have a stroll around South Ferriby. When I got there it was very misty. I couldn't even see The Humber.

I strolled around, up to St Nicholas's church and then along a chalk track that overlooks a massive chalk quarry which was almost invisible to me in the mist. Back in the village, I was hoping to have a drink and a sandwich in "The Nelthorpe Arms" before crossing The Humber Bridge for the match but the pub wouldn't open until 4pm. Instead, I bought a haslet and salad sandwich from the village post office along with a pint of milk. Hull City supporters require plenty of sustenance.

Near the village pond there's an information board which on clear days would look out on the wide expanse of The Humber but yesterday it looked out on a milky-white mistiness. There was a poem included on the information board. I hadn't seen it before so I took a photo of it and have now transcribed it below:-

HUMBER SONNET
(From South Ferriby Hill)

O Humber! I have seen thy might deep
In opalescent beauty tinged with gold,
Thy waters glimmered in a dreamless sleep
By pebbled shore and gently dipping wold
Where little ships to happy haven glide
In some sequestered, half-forgotten creek
While cargoed fleets sail out in buoyant pride
The commerce of a vaster world to seek.
Yet I have seen thy wild tumultuous rage
A million mariners have bravely fought,
Battled the waves and storms of every age
To bring their homebound treasure to port.
Withal proud mother of a myriad of streams,
I hail thee Humber! River of my dreams

By Edith Spilman Dudley
(from "Lyrics of Lovely Lincolnshire")

Two views of  the war memorial at South Ferriby

Trumpton

Even before his inauguration, Trump said he was a brutal dictator.

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Meanwhile, on the official Donald Trump website, they are promoting sales of a souvenir Christmas tree ornament - a bargain at only $149. How can any Christmas be complete without one of them dangling from one's tree? You might think I am kidding you but this is not a joke!

This is the advertising copy straight from Trump's website:-

Get in the Christmas spirit with your very own Make America Great Again Red Cap Collectible Ornament. Made of brass and finished in 24 karat gold, this ornament is sure to make any tree stand out.

You really could not make this stuff up. Imagine a political leader who happily uses "Twitter" to communicate with the world. Even if it had been available in his heyday, it is unthinkable that Fidel Castro would  have ever used it. Some philosophies need more than one hundred and forty characters. 

Here's Trump's compassionate and diplomatically sensitive tweet for today:-

Quarrying

Sheep on the grassy western slopes of Highlow

The Peak District is England's oldest national park. Within its boundaries there are sheep farms but no wind farms. Planning legislation is pretty tough. If you own a house or cottage within the national park, you must seek special approval for any significant changes you hope to make to your home. 

The southern half of The Peak District is limestone country. In fact, it is often referred to as The White Peak. The village I visited yesterday, Earl Sterndale, is right on the edge of  The White Peak and if you look eastwards from the door of "The Quiet Wonan" you see a  typical grassy limestone hill rising above the village.

However, things are not quite as they seem because at the top of this great hill, called Highlow, there is a track that marks the boundary of the national park. To the eastern side of this track there's a mile long security fence and beyond  that there are three huge limestone quarries. Effectively, you find yourself looking over a high cliff into massive holes in the ground from which millions of tons of limestone have been extracted.

The limestone is mainly used for road building and the manufacture of cement. It is a vital resource but thank heavens The Peak Planning Authority have severely limited quarrying activity with the park's boundaries. There's a big quarry at Hope but that existed before The Peak District came into being

When I took the steep path up Highlow from Earl Sterndale I was rewarded with wonderful illumination from the west. It shone down on the quarries and I was able to snap several pictures of the surreal and slightly disturbing scenes I saw before me. Here's a sample:-

Sign

While out and about in north Derbyshire today, I stopped in the village of Earl Sterndale. It still has a village pub. Can you guess what it is called? Perhaps "The Red Lion" or "The King's Head"? No. In fact this is the pub sign:-

I am sure that all female bloggers will applaud this unusual pub name, complete with a headless and therefore silent serving woman and the wise strapline - "Soft words turneth away wrath".And here's the pub in the heart of Earl Sterndale just across from the old red telephone kiosk that quite surprisingly still works. I guess that mobile phone reception in this area can be quite problematic - like serving girls with heads....

Florence

We have all heard of Florence - that Renaissance jewel of a city by The River Arno in  Italy's Tuscany region. Its streets and alleyways were well-known to Leonardo from the village of Vinci which is just a few miles away. There are many sights to enjoy in Florence, including the Uffizi Galleria, the Duomo and The Ponte Vecchio, a medieval bridge which straddles the Arno at its narrowest point. The city has a population of 340,000 and is home to Fiorentina - one of the country's top football teams. Here's my Google Streetview snip of Florence where tourists are milling close to The Ponte Vecchio which in English means simply, the old bridge:-

But did you know that there is another Florence in South Carolina, USA? 

This second Florence has a population of around 35,000 and is home to blogging companion Mistress Jennifer ("Sparrow Tree Journal") and her devoted husband Gregg who by the way has no connection with the Greggs sandwich shop chain here in Great Britain. Florence, South Carolina is not named after Florence in Italy. No, it is named after Florence Harllee who was the daughter of General W.W.Harllee, president of the Wilmington and Manchester railroad company in the late nineteenth century.

Like God, I used Google Streetview to search for human life in Florence, South Carolina. The main roads were wide and everything seemed modern. There were very few people about. But I eventually found this lady outside a house on Gregg Avenue which must be named after Jennifer's husband:-

Near the big shopping mall where I believe Jennifer works, I spotted this human being with her long shadow, close to The Cold Store Creamery.

In the nearby community of Poston, I came across a track called Sparrow Tree Road and as I was fiddling about with Streetview along came two bikers on their Harley Davidsons. That could easily be Gregg on the first bike with Jennifer behind. After all, they were "born to be wild" as Steppenwolf once sang.

And finally here's another Florence who will be familiar to my fellow Britons. She was the star of the BBC's  "The Magic Roundabout" (1964-1971) She is with her friends Zebedee and Dougal the dog-