University of York

The Boxing Day Walk took us through the new Heslington East campus of the University of York. There are plenty of interesting buildings there, including this one. I am not sure if the mottled effect is meant to be faux sunlight or is the result of some bad pressure-hose cleaning or is something else. Either way I don't care, I like it.

Quaker News

Last year Rowan took part in a Quaker young people event in London. A year on, this photo made it into the Quaker News magazine.

Book

I have just finished reading Walk The Lines by Mark Mason. A book about walking above ground along all the tube lines in London; about maps and about urban walking that touched a lot of nerves with me. Not perfect but well worth the read and a bit of an inspiration.

Boxing Day Walk

We went on the semi-traditional Boxing Day Quaker walk. Mild and dry, it was the usual mix of chat and amble; this year around the University at Heslington.

Christmas Time

Christmas Eve we three went out for a lunch at the local cafe; good to support it. Then in the evening we were at the Quaker candlelit carol meeting which is always good; lots of awe-struck little ones carrying candles to the grown ups to hold. Christmas day was nice and quiet and pleasant; incredibly mild outside as well.

Happy Christmas.

Christmas Day about to start here in York.

Pond Life

Rowan was off catching up with York friends, so Danielle and I got a walk round the Moor in. The Railway Pond was looking very serene.

Crash

Milo and I were walking on the bike track near what we call Rowan Corner when I noticed that the ferocious ring-road was strangely quiet. The Air Ambulance taking off, and the flashing blue lights in the morning gloom gave the clue. Our path took us right past the pile of clothes on the road where a pedestrian had been hit; it did not look good. The studied activity of the rescue workers contrasted with the silent lethargy of the drivers in their muted cars. Walking back home the traffic all over York was gridlocked in weary resignation.
Today I discovered that the person hit by a vehicle was Clarke Carlisle, the smart, politically active footballer who used to play for York and Preston amongst others. All very sad.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/clarke-carlisle-wife-gemma-overwhelmed-with-support-as-joey-barton-among-those-to-send-goodwill-messages-to-injured-exfootballer-9941780.html

2014 Picks

Here is my pick of 12 tracks new to me this year; the usual mix of all sorts, all good. Martha are the best new band for years, the Atlantic Starr soul track I heard for the first time since the 80s and it sounds even better no, and the Hill Of Little Shoes [based on a death-camp inspired poem by Clive James] makes me cry.

Return to Danebury

When I was cycling through the Wolds last week I passed the place I took the photo of Danebury that has proved popular over the year. Things look very different in the winter.

The Return

After four months away Rowan arrived home this morning. I took the train to Manchester Airport to meet her, then Danielle and Milo met us at the station off the train. She is really well and it is good to have her back; seems like she's never been gone to be honest. The house has had an injection of mess, noise and life and is the better for it.

Gig of Sorts

One of Danielle's old work colleagues was retiring and, being a musician, he invited people to play at his farewell do. So Greg and I duly turned up, all seemed well set until the loop box seemed to fall out with Greg and refused to do what his shaking foot demanded. Result - our first song turned into a catastrophe. Eventually all was sorted and we did a blasting blues with a 20 year old bass player who stood in with us, "12 bar blues, G, OK?" "Of course". It was great in the end.

The photo is of York Station. There is something about the roof and the sunlight that produces a magical light. Can you spot Danielle in the shot?

Book Group Party

This Kestrel was hunting in Birmingham at the weekend. Looks like its heading straight for my hat but all was well.
Book Group Party last night was good as ever. We managed one round of ExLibris, lots of eating and drinking and chat.
A lot of the chat at my end of the table was about Serial podcast which is strangely gripping and now all over.

Ride

I have been working a lot on my current assignment in Wakefield, so was glad to get a day out today. I cycled through a windy damp Wolds to Scarborough and got the train back. It was a good day for a ride. I stopped at a farm shop for some lunch and chatted with a cyclist from Brid who used to live in Featherstone, which is one of the places I have been working in.

This lonely pine tree is very atypical of the Wolds but I love it.

Dance

Rowan had her Winter Dance thing at school. All went well apparently. Lots of photos have been facebooked, here is a pre-match shot of Rowan and one of her friends.

Meditation

As reward for being a trustee at Woodbrooke Danielle gets a free course a year. This year we decided to do a Meditation Weekend. It was really good - lots of good people there, and two days on we are still meditating. I hope we can carry on [there is, of course, a handy App to time your sessions and end with an appropriate gong or bell noise]. Time will tell.

We went a good walk on the Saturday afternoon in the low winter sun.

The Slippers and the Harley

It is that time of year when newsletters come with Christmas Cards [I can just tell me people to look at the blog]. Judy's mentioned that her husband Gnolib had sat upon some freinds' Harley when they visited en tour in the summer. Cool picture - only trouble is he's wearing slippers. Spoils the effect a bit.

Varsity Cross Country

Here is Rowan with her fellow Varsity Cross Country Team from George School - (this was before the breaking of the foot)

Photography Workshop

I am doing a Photography Workshop as part of York Open Studios next year; details below. I have always enjoyed doing them - a positive experience all round

Mysteries of Acomb

It is quite hard to get a feeling of mystery and history in Acomb, but this clump of trees atop a hillock gets there I think.

Happy Christmas

So here is this year's Christmas Card.Taken a couple of years ago on the Wolds, and cropped a bit for the purposes of the card. That is Milo.
I was listening to NPR's 50 albums of the year; one was by a band from 60 miles up the road from us, in County Durham. It does seem odd that I need to get the news from US public radio in DC, about some kids up the road, but there you go. The main thing is that they are a brilliant band, such an uplifting sound - called Martha http://marthadiy.bandcamp.com/album/courting-strong

Emley

Wakefield city centre is on top of a hill - think Tuscan hill town, or think Barnsley. This gives views across the Pennines, like this one. In the foreground the new Council building "Wakefield One" in the background Emley Moor transmitter - the highest building in the UK, the 23rd tallest tower in the World.

57

Danielle is the master of birthday planning. This year included a walk together, meeting people in town [surprise of course] at a Spanish cafe / cycle shop, a bike ride for me and Dave and lots of great food. John and Katy gave me a great present - 6 eggs from their own hens living in wild East Yorkshire.
A great weekend that is gently coming to an end.

1%

The answer is 1%, just 2 images out of the 200 I looked at. Pretty amazing really.

Here is another photo from Rowan's stay in DC, with Liam, KC and Ben.

Christmas Images

I had my last photography group at The Mount school before Christmas. It has gone well and the participants have produced some good work. I got them to make a Christmas card using one of their images. I googled "Christmas image" to get some ideas for them. Of the 200 images I looked at, what percentage do you think had any Christian aspect at all? Answer tomorrow.

Meantime here is a photo with no religious content; friend Paul's wine cellar. That is a lot of Cote du Rhone.

Bianchi Butcher

I saw this brilliant bike at York station on Sunday. It is a chrome Bianchi fixed wheel bike (so far so exotic) with an integral lightweight butcher's bike type front basket. Bizarre but cool I think.

Ponte

I was in Pontefract yesterday. In many ways it has a lot in common with other Wakefield pit towns, like Castleford and Featherstone. But it also has a hill, a racecourse, history, a castle and a lovely town centre. And liquorice. And rhubarb. Quite a place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontefract

Signposts

I have always like signposts, particularly when in unexpected or unlikely places; like on a mountain pass or, like this one in Birmingham, at a canal junction. The distances here on this old post are in miles with the number of locks listed as well. So to Stratford you have 55 locks in 25 1/2 miles of canal, whereas to Birmingham it is five miles with no locks at all.

School Update

Rowan had a good time in DC with her friend from school; her photo is self explanatory.
We got her first report from the school last night; pretty good.

Tyre Trouble

Back from Brum I got a ride in today. A lovely sunny day, so warm that I took my gloves off before the end of my ride. This time last year I was falling off on the ice and damaging my shoulder rotator cuff for a year.
Having battled the headwind all morning I was looking forward for a nice tailwind run home when my tyre exploded. That was bad enough, but I had just overtaken a cyclist on a hill. I would have forgiven him some schadenfreude but he instead checked I had what I needed which was kind of him. Of course I waved him on "It's OK I'm fine". It was only later that I realised I had not just had a puncture but that my rear tyre was worn right through. So now I had to work out how to get home. If I just put in a new inner tube chances are it would blow again and then I would be stuck. So I cut out some bits of the old tube and used them to protect the new one in the tyre. Somewhat surprisingly it worked so I cycled slowly to the nearest station to catch a train back to York. I had 12k to go so I took it very slowly and carefully. I stopped to check the train times on my phone and realised that I would miss the next one but only have an hour is the sun to wait; that seemed fine.
As I neared the station 10 minutes after the train was due I noticed that the level crossing gates were shut; could the train be late enough for me to catch? I wondered. Yes, there it was. I gave it a bit of jip and arrived on the platform [like an extra in a Thomas the Tank Engine story] just as the train did likewise. The bicycle storage sign on the coach aligned itself exactly where I was stood and I got the train home. All's well that ends well.
Before all this I had been to Myton on Swale the site of a grim battle 700 years ago where this sign stands

Brum

Danielle had a trustees meeting at Woodbrooke, the Quaker study centre in Birmingham. So, in this new child-free world, I came with her. Met a lot of interesting people yesterday evening, then today whilst she trusteed I walked along the Sustran tracks and canals of Brum. A really good walk. I saw a discarded balloon nestled amongst the leaves on the canal - it led to this photo [would be a good album cover for that easy third album I think]

Autumn

It was a dank and damp typical autumnal morning. I nearly decided to skip my planned couple of hours on the bike, but in the end made the effort. I am glad I did. After a busy week it felt great to gently push the gear around and venture forth. I stopped deep in the farmland to the west of York and looked across the fields to misty woods, realising that I could see nothing that was modern, just hedges and fields and trees. If felt timeless. Later on I could see a steam train in the far distance at speed on the main line heading south and leaving a trail of steam in its wake; a really impressive sight adding to the strange feeling of the morning. I think this was the type of engine I saw. The photo was taken in the summer, and as you can probably work out from Rowan, a good few years ago.

Goodis

Tonight in Book Group we shall be discussing my choice Nightfall by David Goodis. I imagine that no one else will like it quite like I do. Writing in the pulp fiction form of the 40s the ambience of the book reminds me of Camus L'Etranger in its existential ennui.
The cover that I have, [from a series of roman noir that I bought in London in the 80s] is one of may all time favourites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noir_fiction

Work

I am really enjoying my work at the moment. Reviewing learning disability services across a local authority and health area. Best project I have had for a while.

I am trawling through my photo library and just occasionally I revisit a shot. This is not a classic by any means but it is OK; ironic juxtaposition etc

Social Times

Friday night Rob & Kath came to stay en route to seeing Lily who is a student at York University. The four of us had a great evening and a morning waffle-fest; just so good to catch up and chat. A lot.

Saturday Danielle and I drove up to Crook in County Durham for dinner with Paul and Hilary and two of their friends from Roker. Paul produced a great meal and great wine [Cotes Du Rhone wines from 2000]. So after brunch we headed home.

In these dank November days I do tend to scan photos from warmer times in warmer climes. This is the view from the hotel we stayed in in Istanbul in 2008.

Badminton News

I played Edward's son Toby at badminton. The days of letting him win [if they ever actually existed] are long gone. He is now a 24 year old young man who beats us both with ease. I still had a really good game with him though. Toby is off to Japan tomorrow to teach skiing, before going on to Italy to teach English; not a bad way to earn your living.

It is a bit cold and dank outside so here is a photo of me cycling across the plateau to Ladak in 1992.

Holidays

Rowan is off to Ben and Kari's for her Thanksgiving break today. She catches the train from Trenton direct to DC, so hopefully she'll be alright.
Her school put up this video as their Holiday Message, it gives a fair idea of the ethos of the place I think.

The Game's Afoot

Rowan fractured her foot a few weeks ago in a cross country race. After several weeks of crutches an MRI scan meant she has to have this thing on. For another whole month!
It is hard to be so far away when this happens, but she seems to be coping OK.

Change

I was sat in town with Danielle having lunch in Prets. A mother and her toddler son came in and sat nearby. The happiness they were sharing reminded me of countless similar days with Rowan when she was young; discovering stuff together. Then I thought that actually I still share those times with her, in New York last month it was like that. Things are different now that she is 16 but we still enjoy those times of discovery. Not loss just change. Felt good.

Albania

I visited communist Albania in 1989 when the ghost of Enver Hoxha still ran the country. I managed to get away from the sanctioned tourist trails a number of times. This shot of the beach shows the international language of football still being spoken.

Leeds Film Festival

We were determined to see a film from the Leeds Film Festival this year. So today we went to see Songs From The Second Floor http://www.leedsfilm.com/films/songs-floor/ which was exactly what film festivals are for. A brilliant Scandinavian film, which would never in several months of Sundays get a theatre release, watched by a cinema full of people who like film. We both really enjoyed it, very funny and surreal to say the least.
The photo shows Danielle sat in the corner of the Everyman Cinema in Leeds, awaiting the movie.

Alexandra Dariescu

Last night we saw the pianist Alexandra Dariescu  http://www.alexandradariescu.com/ at the BMS concert at the university. She is an amazing player. We were sat behind her so could view the technique which was, in a word, jaw-dropping.

The photo is of the sculptures on the outside of the chapel on the plot at Scotch Corner above Oldstead.

NYM

I walked up amidst the North York Moors at Oldstead last week. The damp misty conditions gave an air of mystery to the place. Milo chased plenty of deer in celebration.

Suffolk

Taken on Monday morning as I walked Milo before the drive back from Suffolk. I love this view across the subtle undulations of the farmland.

Bear Aware

This was a serious email Rowan received at school. Bear alerts were less frequent in York I think. Not sure if there was a real concern over Bear Selfies. Probably.

Verbing

One of my favourite quotes is;

"They're ain't a noun yet that can't be verbed"

So I was particularly glad this morning when the bloke in Costa Coffee said in response to my

"Medium black Americano to take away please"

"Do you want that doublecupping?"

The answer was of course "Yes please", it can get hot as you carry it to the office.

The photo is of an old gate-post up on the Haworth moors.

Suffolk

Danielle and I have just spent the long weekend in Suffolk with Mother while Ro and Pete went to Kent. All went well.
In a land where there are no hills, let alone mountains, you have to make the most of what there is; so a stack of straw bales like these in the post storm light, can just about remind of a crag on the moors if you squint enough.

Halloween

Rowan dressed up as a leopard for Halloween [no, we know not why either], here she is with her friend Marvi [dressed as something to do with a prison tv series]. The main thing is it looks fun!

More Art

Not sure where Danielle got this print, but it lives in our bathroom, and has become a definite part of the furniture.

James Aitken

This painting is a family one which I like and put up in the gazebo at home. Rowan and Danielle do not share my enthusiasm. It is by James Aitken
"Born in Newburgh, Fifeshire, Scotland. Travelled throughout U.K. and Europe. Best known as an Isle of Man artist. Exhibited at R.A., and provincial galleries including many at The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. "

City Screen

When we were at the City Screen cinema for the Live From the Met relay of Macbeth we had some food in the bar. This shot, with the low sun throwing the bold shadows caught my eye, and I quite like it.