Rowan on the Station

Same station, same low sun, same girl. 2002 and 2017

On The Moor

Hob Moor was looking lovely at Christmas

Edinburgh

Danielle had a meeting in Edinburgh, so Rowan and I accompanied her and had a walk around. This is looking up to the Castle from far below.

Best Sounds of 2017 Part2

Two more tunes.
1 Woman from Walthamstow who I saw perform at York this year.
2 Great obscure [to say the least] band who we saw in a church at Folk East

Best Sounds of 2017

So here are ten of the best sounds new to me this year. Two tomorrow that are only on Soundcloud [sign of the digital times]

1 Perfect pop
2 Never heard this before, love the guitar sounding as a train
3 Sleepdebt stayed in our AirB&B this year. Turns out he makes great music
4 Classical and vibrant
5 Fragile and brilliant
6 New to me and really emotive
7 Great groove
8 Dense
9 Always need a bit of country
10 Joyous

Boxing Day

I organised an informal boxing day walk [meet on the Millennium Bridge], and so 13 of us set off for a walk around the boggy strays and mires of York. A good chance for relaxed chat.
The photo is of Sarah and Felix in Nottingham.

Happy Christmas

I hope you have a good one.
This is us on the Moor after stage one of our dis-aggregated Christmas Dinner [smoked salmon and bucks fizz for breakfast]. That is why we all look a bit odd [except the dog].

Family Visit

Saturday we were in Nottingham for the now traditional visit to Sarah & Markus and family [up 1 to three kids now]. Great to see them and Ro & Pete. A really pleasant day.

Light Show

The flood lights from the sports ground behind us combine with the evening winter mist on the Moor to create a pretty eerie view of our house.

Two decade gap

For a couple of months I am in my 60s, while Edward my Badminton partner is in his 40s. I was determined to beat him during that window; today I did. I am very pleased [sad but true].

The photo is another one from the Elmet walk last week.

Elmet 3

That is an old slag heap in the distance, a marsh in the foreground. Not a scene that Constable would necessarily have painted but I love it.

Family Rituals At Christmas

Christmas Rituals for our family include:

Champagne and smoked salmon on Christmas morning.

Going to Quaker Christmas Eve candlelit meeting in the evening.

Reading the Night Before Christmas, putting a carrot and a sherry out for santa [Milo helps dispose of the carrot]

The cloth advent calendar that Mother bought for Rowan long ago.

The crib, that has to have Rheneas [a Rev Awdrey steam engine] in with the baby Jesus

A Boxing Day walk

Cheese footballs

Ginger Wine

Bendicks Bitter Mints

etc etc

And a jigsaw. This years is of a map of York. Daunting.

Happy Christmas

I thought this year I would send a Christmas Card image from high summer rather than the usual deep winter. There is plenty of cold around at the moment without replicating it, so enjoy this pastoral scene from Norfolk. It was taken from an old railway line that Danielle and I were cycling on as part of our summer cycle tour from York to Suffolk.

Rowan Returns

Rowan is back for Christmas, from a rowing camp on the Thames at Kingston; cold. Milo and I went to meet her off the train, here is the traditional selfie.

Elmet 2

The walk took me through a disused mine at Gasgoyne Wood, with the usual air of massive discarded infrastructure. I love it.

Elmet 1

Went a walk in the cold cold winter sun yesterday. South of York, deep in Elmet; strange, post-industrial and empty. This is a shot across to Bishops Wood with Drax power-station burning up the bio-mass in the distance.

York Station

York Station continues to be a place of wonder for me. The sunlight comes in from the south end of the station, lighting up the platforms.

Book Group

It was our annual book group party last night. Always good fun with shared food and champagne from John and Heather.

Another Track

I had the final presentation of the work in the North West on Tuesday. The four of us [me, Steve and a couple of Dans] met up at the hotel the evening before and ran through it all. It went well - really well. Made it back across the snow covered Peninnes where Steve [a Chelsea fan ...] was staying to see Huddersfield fall to an unlucky 3-1 defeat.

Meantime here is another track from the gig. Rough, ready [or not] definitely live.

Hull

We went to see Cattle & Cane at a house concert near York last week. Brilliant performance in cramped circumstances which meant it was a very stripped back performance.
The support act was Beth McCarthy who had been at school with Rowan and has since been on The Voice etc, good to catch up with her.

Hull Maritime Museum

The Whole Band

I thought that I'd posted this shot of the whole band in all their glory; apparently not so here it is.
I'm going to need a reading week to get through all the great books that people gave me - really touching to be given such personal choices.

Larkin about

Hull Paragon station, Larkin statue [a la Betjeman at St Pancras, 

passer by on piano, bloke oblivious to it all.

Whilst we were in Hull it was announced that the next city of culture will be Coventry [near where Rowan is at University in Warwick]. One of its claims to fame was that it was where Philip Larkin the poet was born. He moved to Hull, which had already claimed him as one of its own for their own bid. So Cov will have to focus on 2Tone I reckon; that is real culture though.

Today is the Day

60 today.
Cup of tea, walk the dog, bucks-fizz, train to Hull City of Culture. Great day seeing various art shows including the Turner prize candidates and winner, and a Turner exhibition, and some great Martin Parr photographs of people in  Hull. Nice lunch by the Marina, then back home for dinner at Skosh here in York. A lovely day all organised by Danielle.

First Song

This is a very rough and ready recording from the gig: vocals too high in the mix etc, but there you go.

Gig of the Year

Part of my 60th birthday celebrations [which began with the trip to Wuppertal and will include something in London early next year] was a party here in York for local friends. The band were playing our first gig there as well [insert own jokes about captive audience etc]. So to about 50 people we played two sets and it went really well. No photos of the whole band have emerged yet - but I hope they will. So here is Greg and I getting our harmonies spot on for Taking A Mop To The Sea.
All four of us enjoyed it a lot, and feedback was very good too [audience response not guitar screeching].
And the party was really nice, lots of very touching and fitting presents. An uplifting time. Hopefully some tracks and photos to follow.
As I type this I am listening [for the first time in my life] to Captain Beefheart on account of someone saying that my guitar playing sounded like the bloke in his band; not sure that is a compliment. But I'll take it.

Charity Awards

Danielle found this photo of us three at the Charity Awards in the summer, on the front page of their  website. Probably the first time that I have been the focus of a shot of me, Danielle and Rowan. Ever.

Friends Provident Foundation

Danielle's organisation held a big conference yesterday in London. Someone took this shot which was put on twitter. I think it catches all her qualities!

Rowntree Park

Rowntree Park in York was given to the city by Joseph Rowntree [a less favourable telling of the tale has JR donating the land by the river to the city so that Terrys - a rival chocolate maker - would not be able to use the land as a wharf for their factory just up the hill]. Either way it is a lovely park with a great library/cafe in it. We went on Sunday.

Lem Selfie

Here is the traditional selfie from our trip to Lem.

Day Trip to Leamington Spa

Friday evening we were at York University Court [Danielle is a member, I am the plus-one] with Robert and Helen. As usual we were sat with some really interesting people, so we had a good evening.
Then Saturday we got the train down to Lem to see Rowan for a walk, and lunch. We took the dog on the train, which surprisingly to me worked out OK. Lovely to see Rowan so happy.

This is on the canal towpath that Rowan has discovered is a good running route.

Humberhead 3

The Humberhead peat bogs and the birch scrub are managed to a degree; although it is rare to see anyone else there. This area, recently worked, looks like a cold weather mangrove swamp; a very wet place.

Gimme More

Another shot from the lonely Humberhead moors.

Last night was book group. We discussed Gimme More by Lisa Cody which was a rock and roll novel; that is a hard genre to be successful in, and it was not a total success but we both enjoyed it anyway.

Band practice today; ten days to the gig. Egos and volume controls in check [just].

Humberhead Again

I was back to the Humberhead peatlands National Nature Reserve. I have not been in the autumn before, so the colours were very different. As usual it was deserted [apart from the deer that Milo delighted in chasing] and totally magical.

Liz and Nicky

Friend Liz from London and her friend Nicky came up to stay as another friend was having the private view for her show at York Art Gallery https://www.yorkartgallery.org.uk/exhibition/sara-radstone-more-than-words/ . We then all went to Cafe Concerto for a meal. The company was great, the show? not so good. Turns out Liz had been to Wuppertal for a school exchange in 1966, so she [uniquely] knew about the city and the monorail. So that is all the excuse I need for another photo.

Once Upon A Time in America

1998. Rowan her father and her grandmother in Virginia.

Rocky Times

Same road trip in 1998. Rowan and Danielle on the continental divide in the Rockies

The Start

The scanning goes on. This is of me on my very first trike.

Pendle 2

Delicate beauty is not what you normally hear associated with the Lancashire Moors but that is what you get sometimes. It was a still day.

Pendle Hill

I know not why I have never been up Pendle Hill. A magnificent shapely moor high above the Ribble Valley. We never went when I was a child and it has taken me 20 years in York to get over there; this despite the witchcraft and Quaker connections. Anyway, this week I made it and was not disappointed.

Man and Dog at Top

Festival 2

Other highlights of the Festival were from India, Russia, Norway and so on. York was at its best all weekend with lovely clear autumn light. This is Kings Manor and the old city wall.

Short Film Festival

This week was the York BAFTA Short Film Festival - it is our favourite York event of the year. Rather than just say - it was brilliant, I have listed the films we saw. The films came from all over the world and really lived up to expectations. They are grouped together as 5 or 6 films of various categories [drama, comedy, experimental etc] and if you don't like one, then another is around the corner in 12 minutes or so. The whole city is awash with people going from one venue to the next, a very dynamic event.

The photo is a shot I took as we rushed from one venue [The Yorkshire Museum] to another [The City Screen cinema]. I have no idea what the people were doing but I liked the light.

Drama

• Adult - Australia. Just your everyday tale of guilt, gay porn, Greece, Australia, LA, family rejection, drugs and death. All in 12 minutes.
• Hymen - Morocco. A young couple on their wedding night working out how to shut up the baying expectation of the wedding guests.
• Elegy - Spain. Peer pressure and bullying and guilt in a high school.
• Backstory - Germany. A life story told at high speed in 8 minutes.
• All The Rest is the work of Man - France. An Algerian refugee looks for his sister - or is it his sister?

Experimental

• Noche - Spain. Just great arty filming
• Reverie - UK. Young Londoners sounding off
• Plasma Vista - UK. Weird CGI stuff about prosthetics
• Alexithymia - UK. About feeling no emotion.
• Leisure - Australia. Contrasting lives of a lonely old vacationer and a maid at her hotel.
• Rope - Germany. Photo-montage version of an Ambrose Bierce short story.

That lot was Wednesday evening: more to follow.

Skipworth 2

One of the ponds in the Skipworth Common bog. Still, beautiful and other worldly. As I wander around this pathless wilderness it is hard not to start feeling a little post-apocalyptic about the landscape: where are the people?

Skipwith

A walk on the wild and lonely Skipwith Common this week. A WW2 airfield reclaimed by moor, bog and birch. This pile of logs looked suitably sinister.

Laurence

New member of the family: Sarah and Markus have had a third child, welcome to Laurence Eberhardt.

Chapmans Pond

This is another of our local ponds - Chapmans Pond near the cafe. All of the ponds were created by the extraction of clay to make bricks to build York; there is no building stone within 12 miles or so. It is a great legacy. We saw a Great Crested Grebe looking a little lost.

Local Walk

Sunday we walked around the neighbourhood. Our local cafe, usually shut at the weekend, was open for a surprise coffee and parkin. When we were walking back across the Moor the sun caught the Minster in the distance.

Agatha Christie

Rowan was up for part of the weekend, so we all went to see the new Murder On The Orient Express; it was an enjoyable entertainment, no more no less.

Saturday night we were at Sue & Eddy's housewarming, lots of people to catch up with, nice house.

The endless fireworks for bonfire night cause the dog a lot of grief, we shall all be glad when the month of explosions is over.

Another shot from Nottingham and the rowing last week; I am pleased with this one.

Erics

The last membership card I had for Erics; my first was 1976. It was a constant joy through my time at Liverpool to do down there. Pretty much everyone played Erics; it always felt good there, a great place.

Club Alpin Francais

Five years later in 1983 I was a member of Club Alpin Francais and about to start the first leg of the Walk.

Passport Photos

As I near pension decision time I am having to search through many old documents. I found this passport, with photos of me at 15 and 20. A time of great change.

Pilot Palmour

45 years ago I was a reluctant pupil at Rossall boarding school. I was also a reluctant member of the RAF cadets [no choice]. I did however enjoy flying a chipmunk plane above Southport.
Two things I remember
Pilot "When we do a loop it can be pretty unsettling"
Me "Yes I can imagine {unsaid - please don't do one}"
Pilot "Here we go then..."
Coming out of the loop I was amazed to see the ground where I thought the sky would be.

then

Pilot "I'll just switch the engine off. Now find a field to emergency land in"
Me "OK"
Eventually he put the engine back on - a bit of an adventure though.

Shooting into the Sun

It was a beautiful sunny autumn day at Nottingham for the rowing.