Rivelin

This morning was quite lovely. I had risen, showered, dressed and breakfasted early. Then I jumped into Clint's cockpit and headed off to the valley of The River Rivelin. It's only ten minutes from our house. The little river descends from the moors and makes its way to the Hillsborough area of Sheffield.

Like the city's other rivers - The Porter, The Sheaf, The Loxley and The Don, The River Rivelin once powered an array of metal-related workplaces. If you know how to look you can see evidence of that early boom period which foreshadowed Sheffield's emergence as the bustling centre of this kingdom's steel industry.

 At the top. a mandarin duck swims in one of the mill ponds that were left behind and above an ancient packhorse bridge traverses The Rivelin. Below, I like the delicate look of those trees growing in the mill pond which served  workshops connected with "The Wolf Wheel". For two hundred years, men and women were involved in grinding cutlery and razors in this vicinity.

Below, The Rivelin babbles over stones on the left as a man-made mill stream runs parallel to it. The stream would have turned a water wheel in a controlled manner.

Just beyond this point, I saw three people approaching: a man, a woman and a boy. To my surprise the man yelled out, "Neil!". He had recognised me from afar, even though we hadn't seen each other in ten years.

His name is also Neil. I first met him in the early eighties when he lived in a rental property with four mates, not far from our old house at Crookes. Back then we used to call those young men "The Young Ones" after the British comedy series of that name. There was a Neil in that too - played by Nigel Planer.

Today we chatted for a while - it was good to see him - but I was walking one way and he was walking the other. Before we parted, Neil insisted on hugging me even though I told him that I only really feel comfortable about  hugging women. Neil is 58 now. It's hard to believe. Physically he has hardly changed.

Later, on the steep valley side, I  passed this empty farmhouse - in the process of renovation. It's called Windle House Farm but there is no farm there any more.

Later still, Clint took me to The Valley Side Garden Centre where I enjoyed tea for one and a delicious bacon and brie panini sandwich with cranberry sauce. I also bought a healthy looking mint plant - ready to  place in a corner of our garden. 

It had been a very nice morning.

Revisiting

 For this offering, I wanted to resurrect a blogpost that I had created on April 10th in a previous year. As it happens and by pure chance, it appears that I have rarely blogged on this date before but I found the following post from April 10th, 2012.  At that time and with my tongue firmly in my cheek, I was in the middle of an extended  blogging fantasy which involved the creation of a faraway tropical sanctuary  for escaped bloggers. We were creating a brand new country known as Blogland and a lot of my posts were intended to support the myth.  Several other bloggers came on board and enjoyed the ride. I suppose the idea  began with this post from  November 13th 2011 and ended with this post from  July 3rd 2012 . If interested, you can easily look back upon the Blogland journey by checking out posts from between those dates but I should warn you that the Blogland story is interspersed with more typical blogging fayre.

Blogland

Perhaps it's only when you are about to leave something, somewhere or someone that you start to appreciate what is about to be part of your past. Yorkshire - my Yorkshire. Shall I never see your rolling wolds again, your quiet rivers moving perpetually to the vast silted mouth of The Humber - a word that in ancient English simply meant "river". Shall I never see your ancient villages with their medieval stone churches beneath towering sycamore and beech where rooks caw to greet the day? Oh Yorkshire, when I am gone please think of me some times, my sweet, sweet motherland. Home to Captain Cook and Emily Bronte, J.B.Priestley and Ted Hughes, David Hockney and Arthur Scargill, Saint John of Beverley, William Wilberforce, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Brearley and Paul Daniels. Though I am gone you shall liveth for evermore in my mortal heart.

And I shall miss our weather, our unpredictable weather with blue and grey skies, sunshine and snow, that Forrest Gump chocolate box quality. And I shall miss steak pies from Sean's, "Eastenders", fish and chip specials from "Three Steps" and long walks in The Peak District with camera in hand and the banter in our local and visits to Hull to watch my beloved Tigers. Vegetables growing in our garden. There is plenty that I shall miss.

However, there's plenty I shall be glad to leave behind. The careerism of professional politicians with their weasel words. Reality TV shows and "talent shows" and Simon Cowell and Jordan (aka Katie Price) and "The Sun" newspaper and people rushing their lives away and tattoos. And I won't miss our monstrous supermarkets and our crowded motorways or graffiti or litter or clusters of people standing outside public buildings like lepers under clouds of blue grey tobacco smoke. Nor shall I miss taxi drivers or potholes in the road, drivers on mobile phones, dog dirt on verges or unsolicited calls from money hungry call centres. No I won't miss any of that.

Please don't think I'm having second thoughts. Just pensive that's all. We are the new pilgrims aboard a metaphorical "Mayflower" - bound for a new life in a new world - Blogland - where all of our dreams will surely come true and we can live in peace like our new national anthem says - "far far away from the mad rushing crowd."

I might not get to blog again until I reach Blogland though there may be some spare time when several of us are in transit at Dubai Airport - one of the world's great new crossroads. All human life passes through there. I trust that all emigrants are ready to go and that private arrangements have been made to get you to your previously nominated international airport. As I said before - tickets will be available at the main information desk. All you need is your passport and luggage. I'm so looking forward to meeting everybody on Thursday when we'll assemble round the social club pool for nibbles, informal drinks and the very start of our new life together in Blogland. Afterwards, there's the arm wrestling tournament which should be a load of fun.

AI

AI means Artificial Intelligence. We have all heard about it but now through Microsoft Image Creator we are seeing evidence of AI in action. It is getting closer to our everyday lives. I was telling my daughter about it and she sent back some amusing images that were also created with the aid of AI but obviously not Microsoft Image Creator. They made me chuckle.

Here's Mr B.Johnson cleaning a hospital toilet. At last he has found a suitable niche in this complicated world - not "King of the World" after all but maintenance operative number 27...

Here's another former prime minister, Ms L. Truss, working behind a bar and so at long last learning a little bit about how economics work...

And here's Britain's obnoxious right wing Home Secretary Suella Braverman shown on a migrant boat and getting a sense of what desperation means...

Meanwhile back in  the real world, this afternoon we enjoyed a lovely Sunday dinner at Frances and Stew's new house. Frances had made the dessert without the aid of Artificial Intelligence. It's an Easter-themed fruit pavlova...

Yummy!

Imagery

Frances's babe left and Sarah's right

I have now seen scans of both of our unborn grandchildren. Both pregnancies have passed the twelve week mark when the chances of successful births are very high - around 98.5%. Still, we must keep our fingers crossed because in any pregnancy things can go wrong.

As with Little Phoebe, Frances and Stew will most probably wait till the babe arrives to find out its gender. In contrast Sarah and Ian will  will know if their little one is a boy or girl after twenty weeks. Naturally, I am hoping for two boys who will both be called Neil and will be the spitting image of me. Their shared nickname will be Yorkshire Pudding and they will become lifelong Hull City supporters. However, neither of them will be encouraged to become schoolteachers.

Revision of "due dates" puts Sarah's baby at October 25th and Frances's at October 22nd. It could be a new reality TV series - "Race From The Womb". Of course Frances's second child will be born in Sheffield though it seems that Ian and Sarah's baby will be born in London in spite of my strong protestations. I want him to be born in Yorkshire so that he can later play cricket for my illustrious county. Well, that used to be the rule.

The scans seem to show baby moles languishing in the earth but I swear they are baby humans. If scans had existed in the spring of 1953, I am sure that I would have looked like that too.

Meantime, idle lady bloggers, Mary Moon, Thelma and Meike showed interest in the products of Micosoft Image Creator that I shared yesterday but indicated that they would leave others to play around with this amazing facility. Partly in mischievous revenge here they are:-

Mary Moon and Thelma in the style of Titian

Mary Moon and Thelma dancing in poster style

Short-haired Meike from Ludwigsburg wearing glasses in watercolour

And finally these two exhibits...

Dave and JayCee on the Sheep's Head Peninsula - sepia photo style

Librarian Steve, Dave and Olga in the style of Grant Wood

Artful

Grayson Perry in the style of Grayson Perry

I lost two hours of my life this morning thanks to the mastermind behind "Shadows and Light". Steve had flagged up Microsoft Image Creator and of course I took the bait like a pike fish lolling beneath lilypads. The images you can produce with this awesome facility are endless but I discovered three significant things. Firstly, you cannot make posters with English slogans. Secondly, famous people that get through the security net are nearly always substituted with unconvincing lookalikes. Thirdly, political figures are simply blocked.

I wanted to make some pictures of Donald Trump such as "Donald Trump sumo wrestling with Vladimir Putin", "Donald Trump dressed like a pineapple in a zoo in the style of Salvador Dali" and "Donald Trump flattened by a steamroller in the style of Grant Wood". No! Microsoft Image Creator was having no truck with such requests. I couldn't even get "Margaret Thatcher's head in the style of Picasso".

However, I did produce these masterpieces without spilling a single drop of paint or cutting a single mosaic tile

No More Guns poster in mosaic form

Spurn Point in watercolour

Billie Eilish in the style of Leonardo da Vinci

Easter Island in the style of Van Gogh

Attack on the US Capitol in pop art style

The Yorkshire Wolds in poster style

Almighty God in the style of Salvador Dali

Jacinda

Jacinda Ardern, the last prime minister of New Zealand, left office this week. Dressed in a ceremonial Maori cape of feathers, she spoke at her country's parliament in Wellington:- 

“You can be anxious, sensitive, kind, and wear your heart on your sleeve, you

 can be a mother or not, you can be an ex-Mormon or not, you can be 

a nerd, a crier, a hugger – you can be all of these things,” she said, 

tearfully. “And not only can you be here; you can lead. Just like me"

Still only forty two years old, Jacinda Ardern has led her country with steadfastness, compassion, intelligence and good grace. She has proved that leadership doesn't have to be about looking tough, denying the truth, getting angry, warring with your opponents. Leaders can lead with sensitivity and kindness as well as determination.

Maybe there are conservative New Zealanders who view her differently with their insider knowledge but from the outside, it seems to me that that faraway country has just lost a really special leader. She was a true champion of her people, looking them squarely in the eye and sharing in the ups and downs of their lives.

In March 2019, in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings, Jacinda Ardern reacted by rapidly introducing much stricter gun laws. There was little resistance in her nation and this is surely something that America could learn from. Guns kill people and it is possible to change the laws that surround gun ownership.

She was also instrumental in protecting New Zealand from the worst of the COVID pandemic.

I wish that Great Britain had had a thoroughly decent prime minister like Jacinda Ardern these past six years. Instead we have had to suffer the likes of hapless David Cameron who blindly  paved the way to Brexit, Teresa May who only pretended to be "strong and stable",  the pompous clown known as Johnson to whom lies come as easily as breathing, crazy-eyed Liz Truss who must have learnt about economics on a desert island while under the influence or hallucinogenic drugs and Rishi Sunak who presides over a national cost of living crisis even as his questionable personal wealth mushrooms.

Yes. Jacinda Ardern proved that there could be a better way.

Eaton

At Cranfleet Lock

Okay... this is a continuation of yesterday's blogpost. I couldn't title that one "Long Eaton" because of my one word rule so yesterday's post was "Long" and this one is titled "Eaton". Nothing to do with the posh school for posh boys near Windsor (Eton) and nothing to do with "eating" either.

After four or five miles I decided to halt for refreshment. I had reached Cranfleet Lock on the short Cranfleet Canal and there ahead of me, above the lock was an unoccupied picnic bench calling my name.

What a pleasant place for a rest. I took off my rucksack and pulled out my water flask along with the sandwich I had prepared before leaving home - containing slices of spicy German sausage and cucumber. It was a peaceful spot and a silver-haired couple were in the process of maneuvering their wine-coloured narrowboat back into The River Trent. The short  Cranfleet Canal was built in the mid-nineteenth century to bypass a weir on the river.

Yes. There I was enjoying a leisurely if frugal lunch when I heard a motorbike behind me. The rider brought his shiny  Japanese machine on to the concrete platform where my bench was situated. He took off his helmet, untied a  black plastic bag containing his lunch and came over to my bench.

Sign for river traffic and a shrine to a departed husband, father and grandfather

He didn't even ask if he could join me. He just sat down and began talking in a broad Nottinghamshire accent. I had the feeling that the fellow must have struck up many such conversations with complete strangers in past times. His name was Dave and he was seventy five.

On The Trent Valley Way

Bristly grey hairs emerged from Dave's nostrils and lug holes. His slightly milky eyes were blue and he had unusually high cheek bones. It wasn't all one way traffic but God could that fellow ramble from one subject  to the next. His recent visit to Melbourne House in the Derbyshire village of Melbourne. Catching a train to Sheffield with his friend when they were both barely eleven years old. His nephew's ongoing holiday in America. They are currently in San Francisco. "I wouldn't want to see Alcatraz!" said Dave. His motorbikes. Quarrying stone and gravel. His sister. I will say this for Dave, he was energised by life and experience. I couldn't ever imagine him being bored.

I have always been a good listener and many is the time that people like Dave have latched on to me simply because I listen and do not have the heart to tell them to bugger off.

Three times I told Dave.that I needed to continue with my walk or I would never get back to Long Eaton in time for my train home. In the end I had to stand up, put my rucksack back on and simply go with Dave still rabbiting on as I continued along the riverside path.

Panoramic view of Sawley Lock and The River Trent