Wolds Again

Rowan was with Danielle sorting out her work-experience placement for next year. So I took off to the Wolds with the dog. I went to a remote valley, Helperthorpe Slack, that has been just about ploughed out of existence. But, as you can see from this picture, the grass bank on the valley edge is still hanging on.

Half Term

Half term this week. Today Rowan and I walked into town to meet Danielle for lunch at Nandos which we all enjoyed [honest] really good for vegetarians as it happens.

These three diesels were sleeping in the sidings near home the other day.

Hill Climb

Dave and I decided to combine a ride in the North Pennines with watching a bit of the British Hill Climb championship on The Stang [a hill I have ridden a couple of times before]. When we fought our way through a tough headwind with rain as well we were surprised to see absolutely no one there. The organisers had switched it to the other side of the climb so the contestants had a tail wind. We, however still had the headwind to battle with. So technically we decided we had won - even though we had not entered. Anyway we rode down through the rain and were then blasted back to Richmond by the best tailwind I have ever had in my life [50x11 on the flat with little effort]

The photos is of the Pet Cemetery at the park in Wakefield

Park Life

Saturday I took Rowan to Wakefield for her high jump training. As it was a bit wet for my usual mountain bike route I walked around Thornes Park. It was a very interesting afternoon. The park was established in Victorian times, an example of the crossover of civic pride and philanthropy that has ceased to exist I think. It was all looking a little run down and sad, an example of where things have gone wrong in modern towns and cities [blame can be laid at the Thatcherite door for forcing Councils to put park maintenance out to tender and taking the cheapest service with inevitable results.] until I turned a corner. The kitchen gardens, an aviary and a secret garden had all been renovated by a Friends group. My spirits lifted.

Office

And here is the office through a funny lens.

Rosa & The Clock

Sarah is a bit of a photographer, so it means there are some photos of me and Rosalind. Here, I am showing her the family heirloom grandfather clock which she was interested in. Her role was to shut the door after I had wound it up; she performed this function very well.

Interior

My phone has this panorama camera on, which Rowan has been experimenting with. Here is the dining room, kitchen and lounge.

Field Marshall

Here is Marshall Danielle at the marathon. Fortunately they did not get to keep the tabards.

Power Failure

Just been down to London for a couple of days work, very pleasant. I managed to avoid chaos on the railway line caused by overhead power cable problems. Danielle was not so lucky and ended up returning to York via Manchester [not direct; to put it mildly]
Meantime this is photo from the Wolds last week.

York Marathon

Whilst we were walking in the Wolds, [sounds like a good first line for a poem] Rowan was doing her Silver Duke of Edinburgh award practice weekend at Pateley Bridge; two nights camping, lots of tales to tell upon her return. Then on Sunday Danielle was marshaling the inaugural York Marathon http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-24595860 which went very well.

House Guests

Niece Sarah came for the weekend with Markus and one year old daughter Rosalind. We had a really good time together, including this walk in the Wolds. Rosalind seems a very happy baby.

Dry Valley

I took this shot yesterday in the hanging dry valley. I am pretty pleased with it, I kept the fence in to give a sense of scale and perspective, but hope that is still retains a bit of ambiguity and confusion.

Dip & Scarp

Most of the dry valleys in the Wolds are in the dip slope of the chalk, twisting for a good few miles as they convene into broader shallower valleys. In the scarp slope the valleys are shorter and have less of a secretive nature as they are open to the Vale of York below. They also tend to have springs in them giving them a much wetter nature than the dip valleys. I walked in one, called magnificently Hanging Grimstone, today. Because they face west and the dip valleys tend to east, autumn is later coming here, so the trees look pretty much in full leaf. This is a view across the valley down to the Vale - pretty Arcadian I think.

Work

When I worked in Islington 20 years ago or so there was a time when the local health authority who we had a lot of dealings with had a batch of 20 something management recruits. There were four of them, three really good, one not. I really liked working with them, despite much grumpy "they have never done real work" harrumphing from many of my social work colleagues. I have kept in touch with David, who runs a major London Hospital, and the other two are all over the radio a lot of the time. Andrea is the new Care Quality Commision head and was across all the media yesterday http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cqc-chief-ill-openup-care-home-inspections-to-the-public-8877680.html .

It is good to see them doing well.

That Roof

The new station roof at Kings Cross is something to behold; I was pleased to get these people in shot as well.

London

St Pancras

Danielle and I went down to London for Kath's 50th party at Gilgamesh [a hyper-cool place in Camden Lock]. We had a great time, lots of dancing, people to catch up with. Then we walked back to the Great Northern Hotel at Kings Cross, this is the view from the window. The hotel was really great - better than the St Pancras hotel next door.
Rowan stayed at home, our kind neighbour Gwen had her to stay, then played Netball on the Sunday [victory].

15 Years Of York - Part 2

Illuminating York, an annual light up the city art programme has been going on for the past 8 years.
The Mystery Plays have been performed twice .
Te number of Starbucks type coffee places has gone from 0 to 25 and back to 20
There have been two big floods, and the development of flood defences
The Millennium Bridge over the Ouse and the cycle / foot bridge over the Foss have been opened.
The Minster introduced an entry charge for tourists
Asda trialled a 3D printing service in their York store
Many new housing developments [usually standard Barratt-Houses, sometimes eco-housing [Derwenthorpe]
Lots of flat developments in the city centre
Sessions Printing works shut [a Quaker business]
Ben Jonsons printers shut and the beautiful art-deco factory demolished.
The new City Screen cinema impressively built inside the old newspaper building
Ascot races came and went for one year.
The first York Marathon will take place next week
The statue of Emperor Constantine [who was invested at York] was unveiled
The York Wheel [or Yorkshire Aye] has come, gone, and come again
Park & Ride has expanded to four sites around the city ring road
The railway station has got two brand new cycle exits and one new pedestrian exit [this is a great help]
A great old hardware store has become a fish restaurant
Holgate Windmill has been renovated and re-sailed.
The old Bile Beans sign on the end of a terrace has been renovated
The Olympic torch has been and gone
The ring-road keeps getting bigger roundabouts but no dualling
Two secondary schools have been re-sited
Bendy buses have come and gone [good]
York College has moved to a massive new sight

Constantine outside the Minster

At least 4 new gyms have opened
Our local swimming pool was demolished then replaced by a supermarket
Borders the book shop came [great joy] and went [much despair]

15 Years Of York - Part 1

It is over 15 years since we moved to York.

So I have experienced a changing city at the start of this century. There has been much change. York is not typical, indeed some geographers have included it in a "virtual south-east" where the influence of London [to where many commute on a daily basis, including both Danielle and I at times] out weighs more traditional influences [like where the place is actually, not virtually, located]. There is a constant change of population linked to further education and tourism, and a vibrant economy.

Anyway, here are some of the changes.

The Sugar Beet Factory that produced a fugg of beet-smell, and a trail of trucks and tractors each "campaign" has closed. The site is to become new housing.

The Railway Carriage Works that was producing wagons when we first moved in, has shut too.

The Rowntree Factory, now Nestle, has reduced in size with some of the site being redeveloped.

Terry's chocolate works, the other Quaker business in York, shut the factory ceasing to make Chocolate Oranges there, and ceasing to perfume the air with lovely cocoa.

Two new business parks have opened, one on old railway land.

New cycle routes have been opened throughout the city, including one across Hob Moor outside our house, and one over the Ouse alongside the ring-road.

The large designer outlet centre at Nab urn has opened [people come from far far away to visit]

The large retail park at Monks Cross [he's probably furious] has opened and will soon get a John Lewis store.

The University of York have opened a huge second campus, including a sports village with a cycle track, and lots of other new sporting facilities.

The University of York St John [a separate institution] has gone from strength to strength and become a major player in the city.

Cliffords Tower

Milo's Heritage

There really is no way to justify this, so I'll have to blame it on Danielle being American. Milo the dog is officially "Crossbreed Medium". People are always saying he "has a bit of greyhound in him" or "he's definitely a hound" etc etc. So we got a DNA test done on him, and here are the results. One parent was a Labrador/Alsatian mix [no surprise] the other was an Australian Cattle Dog [see yesterday's picture] crossed with GKW [God knows what]. So now you know.

York Open Studios 2014

I am exhibiting as part of York Open Studios again next year. I shall be showing in the extension here at home for a change after a few years at the Mount. As ever I am looking forward to it and can now start planning what to show.

The dates for your diaries, [go on, plan that UK visit] are
April 4th, 5th, 6th and April 12th, 13th 2014

See you then

Stand Off at Wolds Gulch

One dog, six cows. Milo decided discretion was the better part of valour and quietly sneaked past them.

Quaker Business

Saturday Rowan went down to London for a session on re-writing Quaker Faith & Practice at Friends House; there were  young people from all over the country there, and she enjoyed it a lot.
Meantime Danielle and I went an early morning walk in the Wolds; it was a beautiful day. You can see sheep making way down the sheeptrack ahead of us.

Music & Architecture

I went to see an early music concert by two friends of friends in a Church near the University. As I listened to the beautiful lute and signing, my gaze looked up at the ceiling. It looked familiar. It looked just like the ceiling in our gazebo at home. I knew our architect had designed a lot of churches too, so I checked it out on Wikipedia and sure enough he had designed the roof I was looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Sims

I took this photo of the performers - it is good to get a bit of laughter in the shot. Not a lot of laughs in early music.

Book Group

In Book Group this week we discussed Shade by Neil Jordan [the film director]. On the back it says "Makes you wonder why he bothers making films.." No it doesn't.

Here is the list of all the books we have read since the group started.

Book	Author
The Dream of Scipio	Ian Pears
The Name of the Rose	Umberto Ecco
A Study in Scarlet	Conan Doyle
Small Island	Andrea Levy
The Line of Beauty	Alan Hollinghirst
Chronicle of a Death Foretold	Gabriel Marques
Saturday	Ian McEwan
Christmas Party?
The Long Goodbye	Raymond Chandler
Heart of Darkness	Joseph Conrad
Defying Hitler	Sebastien Haffner
Pattern Recognition	William Gibson
Mrs Dalloway	Virginia Woolf
The Good Earth	Pearl S Buck
A poem chosen beforehand
Christmas Party
Nothing Natural	Jenny Diski
American Pastoral	Philip Roth
Restless	William Boyd
The Damned United	David Peace
Slaughterhouse Five	Kurt Vonnegut
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog	Dylan Thomas
The Clothes in the Wardrobe	Alice Thomas Ellis
Knut Hamsun	Mysteries
Christmas Party
Surely You’re Joking Mr F.	Feynman
In Another Light	Andrew Greig
The Long Firm	Jake Arnott
The Man who was Thursday	G.K.Chesterton
Steal You Away	Niccolo Ammaniti
Sputnik Sweetheart	Murakami
Room at the Top	John Braine
Christmas Party
A Grain of Wheat	Ngugi Wa Thiengo
Personality	Andrew O’ Hagan
Under The Eye of the Clock	Christopher Nolan
The Talented Mr Ripley	Patricia Highsmith
The Reluctant Fundamentalist	Moshin Hamid
Love’s Executioner	Irvin Yalom
The Heat of the Day	Elizabeth Bowen
Oxtales: Water	Various
Christmas Party
The Boy with the Topknot	Sathnam Sangera
Tell it to the Bees	Fiona Shaw
Coming Up For Air	George Orwell
My Driver	Maggie Gee
The Old Man and the Sea	Ernest Hemingway
Corvus	Esther Woolfson
The Strain	del Torro
Skellig	David Almond
Pastoral	Nevil Shute
The Wide Sargasso Sea	Jean Rhys
The Inspector Calls & Other Plays	J.B.Priestley
Medical Detective	Sandra Hempel
A Visit from the Goon Squad	Jennifer Egan
Brighton Rock	Graham Greene
The City and the City	China Meyville
A View from Castle Rock	Alice Munro
Christmas Party
A Question of Blood	Ian Rankin
That Old Cape Magic	Richard Russo
The Element of Water	Stevie Davis
The Sense of an Ending	Julian Barnes
Family Matters	Rohinton Mistry
Popular Music	Mikael Niemi
The Death Instinct	Jed Rubenfield
The Green Man	Simon Armitage
Christmas Party
A Month in the Country	J.L.Carr
On Canaan’s Side	Sebastian Barry
Why be happy when you could be normal	Jeanette Winterson
Toby’s Room	Pat Barker
Tangled Lives	Hilary Boyd
Mrs Bridge	Evan.S.Connell
Screening of Mr & Mrs Bridge
Shade	Neil Jordan

Victoria RIP

Victoria was a young woman with severe learning disabilities for whom I helped set up her independent living scheme in her own flat. I had most to do with her indefatigable parents, for whom I had much respect. 20 years after we set up the scheme, Victoria has died, way longer than she was "supposed" to live. It has been a truly ground breaking and successful scheme, written up in the book Home At Last http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Last-Profound-Intellectual-Disabilities/dp/1853022543 .

Modern Life 16

In a hurry, feeling pleased with myself for doing the Su Doku, lean to flush the loo, phone slides effortlessly into loo. Immediate decision to retrieve it, in the water for 10 seconds or so. Knackered. Totally defunct.
Two conclusions;
1 It was very stupid of me to let it happen.
2 Should a phone not be able to withstand a bit of water?

So now the phone is forlorn in a jar of rice, time will tell if this urban myth of a cure works again. I doubt it.

The photo meantime is from Albania. When I visited in 1989 it was still very solidly Communist, I quite liked it to be honest. No cars, soldiers who held hands, friendly people ...

Cracked

Another Monday, another ride in the Dales, another couple of cols. Not a long ride but challenging and a lot of fun. I saw not a single car on the climb over Crackpot Pass [supply own joke].
The route went past Bolton Castle in Wensleydale which is a real castle-looking castle.

Party

We had a party to watch the World Road Race Championship on Sunday - cycling that is. The race was disappointing - the entire British team abandonded with 100k left - but the party was great. Here are some of the guests - strangely not watching the cycling.