Ditch the Metaphor

Yesterday's early light was beautiful.  I set off up the hill using the Sheffield A-Z I had picked up from the house.  I could see Nigel's post-it notes from when he used it to make GP home visits.  Marjory Brown, bad chest and sore feet - (not her real name.)

The route went up through Studfield Quarry.  There are a number of old millstone grit houses scattered through the estate.  I guessed that this is where the stone originated from.   At the top of the Quarry there is a path heading off up to the common.  As I walked through the woods, the track trailed off into the distance.  I searched around for a metaphor.  "Not through the woods yet", "keep on the path and trust that the view at the top will be magnificent."  I got to the top.  There was a small car park, and lots of birch trees.  "Ditch that metaphor" I thought quickly after deciding that the summit was pleasant, but non-descript. 

Today I decided to do the walk in reverse.  There was some light drizzle, but the air was fresh and cool.  This time I found an interesting pile of broken bolders.  They reminded me of the much grander 'Steinura' in Northern Norway.  I decided it was a mini-steinura, and felt quite satisfied with it.  Next I left the beaten track and walked along a rocky ridge.  Here the views were more interesting, with a panorama across the Peak District.  On the horizon I could see high rocky outcrops.  It was good to return and reappraise the place.  I am sure there is a lot more to discover too.  (Still ditch the metaphor.)

Mini Steinura

Warm Rain

Mercy is like the rain.

This morning I got up at my usual time, dressed and out of the door in seconds, like a modern electric train I mused.  Margaret and Joanna, both have elegant, steam-powered engines, needing time for their boilers to be stoked.  I am now listening out for the rumble of boiling water.

I found the route down past the Loxley Works, a smart gated residence, and through the woods to the Loxley river.  By the river there were large masonry blocks, so vast that they reminded me of something that might have being uncovered in the valley of the Kings.  It might once have been the foundations of a power station, harnessing the force of the River Loxley to turn the wheels in the now upmarket residence.

As I wondered, I recalled my mother saying to Peter and me that we could play in the rain.  We were in Hong Kong, and the rain fell in large drops.  I remembered wondering what was so dangerous about rain, but this was warm rain and it wasn't going to harm anyone.  Apparently rain in England has to be respected.

We had a tense moment on Monday talking about trying not to cry in front of Elizabeth, because this made her cry, and then she started choking.  But you can't stop the rain.  Sometimes it doesn't kill you, even though it hurts.

I visited the local shop at Malinbridge.  I told the shopkeeper that I was his latest costumer, for a while.  We talked about the reason we had moved into Loxley.  He had had a friend on the same ward.  As an Iraqi Kurd, I guessed we both knew about tragedy, his on a greater scale.

I am "Dillar" he said.  "Hamdullah?"  I said.  "No, just Dillar."

"Praise be to God" for this morning, and all that will happen it in.

A Journey North

A cycle ride north, beyond my usual territory up towards Melton Mowbray. I came to Stapleford Park where Dave and Fran have enjoyed luxury weekends in the past.  And I remembered that St Mary Magdalene's church is features in Simon Jenkins' 1000 Best Churches.  It's a Georgian Church, fitted out for a wedding.  

View from the gallery

View of the gallery

Some amazing flowers

The church in the park

Stapleford Park

Leicester to Stapleford

Stories over the weekend

Beningthorpe House (NT) (Viewed from the ferry point)

1) The Good News - I am coming to the Bank Holiday Weekend get together in York with the Buttons.  Good News, I can spend Friday night with my friend in Nun Monkton.  Where do we meet on Saturday? That's luck, 1/2 a mile away at Beningbrough Hall.  The bad news is that it's the other side of the River Ouse, so that's 14 miles away by road.  And the good news is that this summer, a Saturday ferry service now operates from Nun Monkton.  11:03- Meet Peter off the first ferry.

We stayed with Ellie and Tom and their
beautiful Children

Ratatouille Button

2) Tom and Ellie have restored the two rooms at the top of their house to a beautiful standard, and we have the rooms to ourselves.  Luxury.  Shame about the lack of a Maserati out the front would you not say Sam?  There seems to be a spare one in a courtyard near to Roger and Helen's.

Helen and Andrew Bailey look down onto Coney Street, York.

Peter on the roof of St Martins Le Gand

View of the Admiral pointing to the sun with a Jacob's Ladder
with our guide 'Andrew' explaining it's story.

The silver lining following the WWII incendiary bomb was a
radical re-siting of the  West Window, so we can get up close.

3) Story of one church in York.  From some evidence of a mysterious church building in the 11th century, St Martin Le Grand grew with the patronage of the Minster.  One very fine medieval window was taken down as war broke out in 1939.  The incendiary bomb hit the church in 1942, and burned so fiercely that only one transept could be saved.  I very much enjoyed the use of the modern wall with the old church.  Also the relocation of the window to help fill in the north wall.  Peter explained Jacob bin Ishaq al-Kindi's role as inventor of the Jacobs Ladder.

The west window, featuring St Martin and his life

Rev Robert Seber, the vicar saying 

St Martin persuading the devil to
read the Mass (Thanks Peter)

When 2/3's of the church disappeared the the
flames melted the limestone columns.

The altered altar

The famous clock.

4) And it was great to hear that St Martin's clock has a tune composed by Andrew Carter, the Australian Starr's good friend.  It apparently mimics the drunken wandering of clubbers that occur around the Church at night.  And here he is with the Starrs in 2013 when they visited to listen to the chimes up our very own tower.

Andrew Carter - Famous York composer

Sunday Lunch in the Red Tower

That time of year

and the best joke at the Edinburgh fringe is.....

Adam Rowes joke.... "Working at the Jobcentre has to be a tense job - knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day."

Others I like are....

Olaf Falafel "I took out a loan to pay for an exorcism.  If I don't pay it back I'm going to get repossessed."

Alexei Sayle "I've given up asking rhetorical questions. What's the point?"

 Jimeoin "I'm rubbish with names. It's not my fault. It's a condition. There's a name for it....."

Adam Hess "I wonder how many chameleons snuck into the ark?"

Zoe Lyons. "I'll tell you what is unnatural in the eyes of God. Contact lenses."

And some more

Demitri Martin "The worst time to have heart attack is in a game of charades."

Chris Turner  "never apologies, never explain. That's my motto."

Christian Talbot "words can not express how much I hate world emoji day."

Glen Moore "I've only got two weaknesses. Being vague, and some other weakness."

Jake Lambert "I live in a bungalow, which is great though with only one major flaw."

Lost voice man "when I realised that I'd never be able to talk again, I was speechless."

Matt Winning "I wonder whether the inventor of the shoehorn ever tried to bring it up in conversation?"

Finlaystone and the Euro Champs

What I picked up in Glasgow

1) The Romans got there first.  The built a fort at Bothwellhaugh, later to become Motherwell.  Now by the banks of Strathclyde Loch, where Ruth and Sarah swam in their triathlon.
2) The fine Georgian house of Finlaystone, current resident being Sarah Kerr's Durham team mate, was extended by Victorian ancestors to become lopsided Scottish Baronial, like Balmoral, loosing its Palladian charm somewhat.

Finlaystone House

3) No cars in Scotland have GB stickers.  I wondered whether our GB sicker was the reason why I was being flashed by passing cars.  Of course it is too far to France from Glasgow, but also it's political.
4) The Horse Chestnut trees are fine in Scotland.  It was good to see them looking healthy.
5) It was fascinating to see the Loch Lomond discontinuity.  This is along the lowlands/highlands fault line and crosses the loch and up into Conix Hill.

My first find, at Dave Macha's church in Burnsell

6) Having seen the Goven viking Hogbacks, I now have to see the Brompton Hogbacks in Yorkshire.

Govan Hogbacks

Brompton Hogbacks

7) You can get the train from Glasgow to Langs.  Cross to Great Cambrae Island, and be in the smallest Cathedral in the British Isles.  It's important in the story of the Oxford Movement, which revitalized the Anglo-Catholic Church in England.  Designed by Butterworth of Keble College fame, it feature walls of tiles, giving the rather rude description of lavatory Gothic.

80 seats for the conregation

Fine wall tiling

Episcopal Cathedral of Argyle and the Islands

The Barn at Finlaystone

Anna Bennett and Family with us

Finlaystone gardens

Sarah finishes her triathlon

Ruth finishes is style

Alistair Brownlee eventually comes fourth to Pierre LeCorre

The vibe in George Square, Glasgow

Ferry over to Great Cambrae Island

Margaret's turn

Margaret and Andrew building a craggan

The Lighthouse, Glasgow

The Market Place - Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe

In English the name is only
ever correct half of the time.
I prefer Le Mêle

“I have crossed the seas, I have left cities behind me,

and I have followed the source of rivers towards their

source or plunged into forests, always making for other

cities.  I could never turn back any more than a record can spin

in reverse. And all that was leading me where ?

To this very moment...”

― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.” 

― Jean-Paul Sartre

The evening draws to night as a lone car approaches across empty parking lots.  Two beams of light focus on the space between 'Le Boeuf Noir' and the town Stationer.  Cracking gravel signals our arrival and we are welcomed by Paul and Frances.  We have arrived in Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe.

In the bright early morning sunshine, I survey La place du Général-de-Gaulle.  The town is waking up to work. Cars head purposefully around two edges of the square.  I spot the boulangerie on the other side and wander over.   'Sept Croissant' I ask hesitantly. The girl gives me a sharp look, 'Sep' she says, having detected an aspirated 't'.  That won't do. 

We arrange our tables in the 'sun dialing' shade that circulates between our houses.  As we settle down with glasses of cider, there enters a tractor, followed by a trailers, and then much more.  Like startled bullocks we face each other,  each thinking that this is our domain.  But in a split second the moment is over and we both get on with our business as if nothing has happened.  From them it is the ritual of the village fete, and every village of respect has one.  What if they cart all the barriers, the bunting and the staging to the wrong village by mistake?  It's of no consequence. It doesn't matter when the fete is, just that there is a fete. That's their fate.

The night sounds of the square erupt after dark.  The suppressed rush of wheels as delivery vans unload contraband through into the back of our neighbour, the stationer.  Lights flash on and off, then darkness, whispered voices, unused to the inconvenience of strangers.  We are the guests of the town, part of the commercial dealings of the square.  Then the young people arrive, wild unrestrained  and free.  It's a midnight party, and they run and scream round the empty parking lots.  I wonder whether someone will call the gendarmerie? But everyone knows the law is busy dealing with bigger battles in Alençon. This is the noise of the night in the square.  Do not have a square if you do not want this noise.  In the morning, if I knew where they lived, I would march up to their homes, where their windows would also be wide open, and sing like a cockerel.  

It's market day tomorrow.  The market in Villefranche-de-Rouergue is so big it takes over the whole town.  What will it be like in Mêle-sur-Sarthe?  Will we find ourselves trapped in our little courtyard with only shade and badminton to console us?  Frances asks the chef at Hotel de La Poste.  He has never been out of his kitchen long enough to see the market.  But he rubs his chin.  "It can be very large, overrun into the bus station.  This is France, how big is a market, who can say?"  In the morning we find a disappointing array of boxes selling second hand shoes.  Owners squat behind them.  Nothing to be afraid of.  

It's time to go.  We gather in the brilliant sun for a group photo.  Sidone takes the picture.  We're all squinting.  At 5am it's our turn to roar round the square as we head for Caen.  I squeal my wheels in a rubber-burning 'doughnut', blaring my horn.  Good Bye Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe, we had a good time.