Tempus Fugit

Things creep up on you sometimes. 
I have had another run of loads of things happening in daily life, hardly any time to get on with hobbies, no time to blog and then a thing that the village has been waiting for has happened, the pub is closing again.
Out here people pass through and admire, traffic crawls through with camera lenses thrust out of half dropped windows, cyclists and walkers rest for a few minutes before moving on to the next place on the route. For them the pub is a sandwich stop, for the village it's a real place for gathering. It's the place you see your friends when the strangers have walked and cycled away, it's the place for meetings, for shows, for competitions and commerce and business and news of local things. It's a place to rest, be happy and to feel part of something even though we are as far away from something as it is possible to be. 
Here in the Arse End of Nowhere the pub is a place where we remember that we have each other, so we walk there to see who might be in.

Everyone is already talking about how we get by, the village hall is licensed so we will probably have things going on in there.
We will probably do more with invitations for and from friends at weekends.
All of these social things will do, but it isn't as good as hearing the door and looking to see who has come in and wondering what stories they have to tell
We are going to miss the pub, but we know that it will once again be a temporary closure, lets hope time flies until the doors open again.

Fruit!

Everyone is talking about bumper harvests this year and while I have been out walking it is pretty obvious that the blackberry bushes are just straining under the weight and that the Rowan trees look more red than green. It's fruit on the bushes and tree's time of year and the birds are eating for England and we are looking at the sloes with thoughts of Gin and Vodka

I am getting just a little annoyed with myself because I haven't yet taken the time to go out with a method of collection to get all these fruits and get some pies made.
It's not like I need motivation, who could fail to be motivated by a fresh pie?
Perhaps I should stop writing about how I should do it and just go and do it, then I can write about a pie and make my blog more like facebook...."Mmmmm I am eating a pie"

Perhaps not.....

Two Weeks Later.....

I have just taken a few weeks holiday. Two weeks in a row, that's an unusual thing for me and I tend to save it for special occasions like visiting friends in LA or in the case of this year having a couple of weeks with special people.
Garrigill itself is a bit like that little village in the country that you would expect to find at the end of a rainbow. 
Of course as adults we know that there really isn't an end of the rainbow, and if there was it wouldn't sit on top of a village in the North Pennines, and unless I get photographic evidence to the contrary that's my belief......
As we are here in the AEON it was decided to just spend a few weeks at home buzzing about to see what's about. 
Most weekends just get eaten up with doing things and for all that this is the AEON there is so much around here that I often think I could just be a full time tourist in my own back yard, unless it's winter of course because then everything is white and I just want to stay in beside the fire.

We started with a trip over to Keswick, we were more interested in Castlerigg stone circle which sits on the hill just outside of Keswick. 
Being one of the tourist towns Keswick does tend to get pretty busy and there were so many people around Castlerigg that I only managed to get one picture that wasn't occupied by ice cream covered children, pondering wistful pensioners or Germans that seemed to want to edge into any photograph that was being taken. In fact I had to swing suddenly to the left with this one just to avoid the marching Von Trapps as they pointed in various directions spreading themselves in front of every lens.
At least they refrained from being in the hills and singing "the song"

A few days later and we were at Epiacum the as yet untouched Roman fort just outside of Alson. 
I believe that there will be a dig arranged at this location soon and the three of us are quite keen to get involved. 
It is thought that this could be one of the most exciting remains in Europe as the fort was a base for industry with the export of lead and silver leaving from here for the empire.
At the moment it is the home of many sheep and very loud cows and the fortress mentality seems to be in the animals as they were quite defensive of some areas. However with much tenacity and some sneaking we did manage to breach the walls and get a look at the main fort before being outnumbered and routed by a nasty bunch of territorial geese and an angry looking swarm of midges.

Following on was the big day out in the big city, our nearest is Newcastle and that was required for music shops and bike shops.
Kieran is coming up to 16 on his next birthday and there is a dream of a 50cc motor bike like the one in the picture, with the financial actual being a small moped, possibly a pink one previously owned by a girl!
Still the boy can dream......

A trip to Guitar Guitar in Newcastle once again assisted by the very helpful Dean who really knows his stuff about guitars and who we have decided must be exiled to the kitchen at any and all parties that he attends.
All the same he is a lovely bloke who was happy to sell Kasha a new Taylor electro acoustic and he managed to sway Kieran who now has his heart set on a half size mahogany Taylor. I think perhaps it's time for the boy to get a job and save up :-)

Next was time with the grandkids. Daughter and granddaughters made there way up for the day and had a visit to one of the waterfalls before running off into the hills to terrify livestock with  screams, whistles and various other happy sounding multi-decibel sounds. 
I came out of the day wondering how my daughter isn't profoundly deaf by now. I asked her how she kept her ears in shape, she said "what?"
Ahhh happy children.....

At the end of the week there was a village picnic.
I have mentioned in earlier blogs that a village green is an important place and that there should be more of them.
It's a nice thing to just sit with people and talk, I love the atmosphere of just being with the people that you live around. Of course there is the sports day effect and the competitive nature of Lou who teams up with Svava to frighten us village men into a ragged team of passing a balloon knee to knee and chin to chin with other male members of the village just so the ladies team can show there superiority in balloon passing......twice!!!
You just wait girls, one day we will organise a jar opening competition...then you'll feel the pain of losing.....maybe........
I think I may be in trouble......

Somebody Loves You John Porter

Yesterday the three of us had a walk to Epiacum the ancient and as yet unexplored Roman fort that has been discovered just outside of Alston.

There are plans to excavate the fort fairly soon and as all three of us have a love of archaeology we thought we would take a quick look at the place before work starts, and then get in touch to join in when it begins.

Epiacum is sat behind a farm and the Pennine way goes right past it, within about 20 meters of it in fact so it's an easy stop off for any walkers that have decided to do the walk. 
As you know from my blog I do like to slightly take the mickey out of the many walkers and cyclists that come through. It isn't that I don't respect them for what they are doing, it;s just that they dress to be a target and I can't help myself.
This sign which reads "I love You John Porter" was put on the Pennine way on purpose. It sits in a place that couldn't be missed. You cross the bridge at Epiacum and it blazes in bright colours right on the trail in front of you.
I don't know who John Porter is, but  when you see this sign placed where it is, painted in the brightest of colours and screaming love and support you can't help but picture John Porter trudging along cold, wet, tired only half way through the journey and then to see this.

I'm a softy, it made me smile so I'm sharing it. 
However, this doesn't mean I am going to stop taking the mickey. :-)

This is my island in de'sun!

The sun has been so bright lately that even in the day you can see its light reflected on the moon so on the day in the photo above it was sun behind me and moon ahead as I drive down the hill and into the village.

I suppose that this midday moon must be confusing for the werewolves of Garrigill and Alston Moor but we won't see them out because DAMN!!!! it's just too bloody hot when you don't have fur never mind when you do.

There is a lot of waffle in the village about the heat and the weather.  

We have not seen a drop of rain for over three weeks now and that leads to some confusion in the older folk.
This is most sad to see with those who have lived in Garrigill all their lives and who have never known more than a bank holiday back in 1953 when it once didn't rain for more than an hour over the whole of the long weekend.

Umbrella sales in the post office are at an all time low even though the wagons keep bringing them in on a bi-weekly basis and there is a real fear that there could be a downturn in the local economy without the need for shelter, a pair of dry socks and a hot cup of something to bring your insides back to life.

It's true to say that we are not equipped for this, there are no fridges here full of ice cold cans of coke ready to cool the sweating cyclist. There is no freezer full of ice creams and lollipops to quiet the screaming children as they fall panting from the boiling car. You can't purchase 23 different varieties of bottled water in Garrigill because usually all you have to do to get a drink here is look up while yawning.

There really is a very distinct lack of water in the South Tyne. I managed to walk out to the middle of the river today, take a picture and walk back without getting more than the soles of my boots slightly moist. It's now so shallow that you can see the fish swimming up river looking for a cool pool under the bank. There was one trout that even seemed positively happy when Raven did a wee in the water.

Raven however didn't really care because while running around he found Peters goats and the herding instinct took over as he tried to bring them to us one by one.

He enjoyed himself but found it quite frustrating because getting them one by one and leaving them with us means that when he runs off to get the next one the first one sort of wanders away into the bushes to start eating again.

Now I know that dogs can't count, but after delivering six of only four goats in the area (three of whom he may have thought looked very similar) and still finding Kasha and I with none  even Raven started to get a confused and had a worried look in his eye.

Before the poor hound started to invent dog maths Kasha threw a stick into the water and so instead of a possible canine scientific breakthrough we got a happy dog with a stick in his mouth and lots of water everywhere. 

We both got dog showered which considering the heat was quite nice, but it did cause some problems on the walk back into Garrigill, as we walked past dripping and obviously wet many a happy person ran to the door, looked upward holding out a hand waiting for the magic droplet that didn't come.

maybe tomorrow....

No Socks...

Bastille day was celebrated in Alston this weekend, the whole place went French with shopkeepers wearing berets and stripy t-shirts and we had a few public executions some CanCan dancers and someone tried to get a Citroen 2CV6 working.
The 2CV was fun, it turned over with the kind of rumble usually associated with a full choir of concrete mixers but eventually it gave up (with a growl) and had to be towed away by a tractor.
So much for the French contribution to the motor industry.

We celebrated by drinking French wine and having lots of garlic in the food, which may well keep people away but doesn’t seem to put off the midge and the horse fly (known locally as Cleggs)

Over the weekend there have been many meetings of the locals sitting on the tables on the village green. We mocked Dougal for wearing socks with his jesus sandles and when he had enough we mocked him some more because that’s what you have to do when someone wears socks with sandals.

We had a quick run into Alston just to see the festivities and it gave Kasha a chance to use her new camera. I enjoy taking photos too, but even though I had my camera I did feel that taking many pictures of the teenage girls from Alston Dance Group doing the CanCan may not have been politically correct. So all dance photo’s are courtesy of Kasha, I just watched and clapped.

Sunday was the first game of the quiots season with Garrigill at home against the first of the enemy. Large metal rings that could do a great amount of damage were thrown with a variety of styles and a mixed bag of accuracy at two metal stakes in the ground with much applause and lots of beer going on around the event.

Dougal made up for the sock debacle by winning his round, this doesn’t mean the socks will be forgotten though.

 Meanwhile the leaks have developed rust…It would appear that when this happens you wash them with watered down fairy liquid. I need my leeks in good order.

My ambition to win a leek prize has been modified to an ambition to have my leeks do slightly better than Marks because if they don’t I may never hear the last of it.

Loser to wear socks and sandles Mark….

Scary Bankers

I'm in a wonderfully bland hotel room in the middle of Milton Keynes. Yes....this is my bed!
I'm having one of those evenings when I really need to be sleeping, but I am in a bland hotel room in Milton Keynes, and it's my first year anniversary with my girlfriend, and I'm in a bland hotel room in Milton Keynes.

I think you may be getting the overall picture of my current mood.

This morning at 3:30am I set off from the AEON drove past owls and deer on the road and then over a few rabbits. It can't be helped, they bounce around looking for a way out, a solution to the problem of escaping. They go left and right and straight and then suddenly they jump under the car like they have lost the will to live, so don't shout at me, I am not responsible for frustrated rabbits.

I had to be in central London at 9:30 to talk to bankers about Bitcoin and Deep Web. 
This was going to be a bit of a challenge because they were all very clever bankers, exceptional in their field, and their field is money laundering prevention. 
I spent the morning listening to powerpoints about regulations and learning that in the field of money laundering prevention the name for everything is so long that acronyms have to be used because if you didn't and had to pronounce everything the long way you wouldn't get past the first powerpoint slide in the 40 minute allocated slot.

I like learning new things, today I learned about the IMLPO, their relationship with the JMLSG and all about MLD, FCA, FSA and many others. I also learned that while the term BO has a certain meaning in the world of Ethical hacking (because of working with beardy hackers who only change t-shirts once a week) that in the world of banking it means Beneficial Ownership.
I heard how regulations are changing in 2014, after they have done the focus groups, and then changed again in 2016 and that until then there was guidance, but that guidance didn't apply in certain countries that you may be dealing with.
In the end what I actually learned is that it takes so long to do anything that by the time it's done it's out of date and until then do your best.
I also learned that this is a very - VERY serious issue and that all the things that are being done will stop the things that shouldn't be done and that everything will be ok some point soon. Possibly after the focus group has submitted their findings.
In triplicate, edited...

The people I met were very clever, and very frustrated, they thought it couldn't get any worse and then I showed them Deep Web and Bitcoin, and every potential possibility for stopping money laundering went out of the window after one 40 minute presentation. Jaws dropped, breathes were taken deeply and held for a long time.

I felt quite sorry for them. Technology has overtaken banking and the value of a Bitcoin is defined worldwide by what you can buy with it and it's untraceable.

On the way home tomorrow I am going to try and not run over any rabbits, they remind me of money laundering officers jumping around just trying to find a way......

THUMP!

Calling the faithful to bad parking

It's the fourth Sunday and so the church bells rang behind the cottage.
The christians head toward the church in force all of them thinking of their fellow man and one in particular making sure that for the time of the service that my girlfriend doesn't have access to her precious land rover.

Fucking christians! (small c on purpose)

I wouldn't mind but there is no god and no judgement after death so this idiot won't die and go to heaven and find that someone has parked in front of the pearly gates.

You have no idea how hard it is right now. I believe that revenge needs to be taken in life because it's all we have. So here I am resisting the temptation not to park my car right beside this car and leave a note asking them to get in through the boot.

I bet if they had cars when the bible was written 2000 years ago by those hairy men in tents that this would have been a stoning issue, however looking at my girlfriends face right now, I'm not actually sure that it won't be!!!!
 :-)

Mr Happy

There is a very large antique shop on Market Street in Hexham, 
it's the kind of antique shop that is 50% junk, 40% scrap, 8% collectables and a couple of real antiques in the window.

The shop itself is three buildings knocked into one, it is old, damp, mouldy, made primarily by a guy called Jack and possibly with said Jack using some of the very broken tools that are now 'antiques'. 
But if you forget the worn carpet, the black fungus the smell of damp and old rusty metal it is absolutely one of the best shops to poke around in when you are in Hexham. 

We found the antique shop late in the day. We had already worked our way through the new age hippie shops and bought a singing bowl, examined the art in the art shops to compare prices on their work and home grown stuff. We had been to the posh wine shop and tried a few tasters and eaten home made turkish delight. So it was nice to end such a warm day in a musty smelly place. 
As you work your way up the levels of the shop it seems to get a little more oppressive, spooky would be a better word if you are into that sort of thing. Eventually at the very top you come across the only locked door in the building, it feels cold to the touch like there is something bad on the other side when in truth it probably just opens into a room where the roof has fallen in, a room now too dangerous to house any more of the vacuous amounts of crap that we have already worked our way past.  
You have to turn around working your way back past the stuffed foxes and badgers, trying not to catch clothes on the pale blue 1960's whicker furniture with a price tag of many £'s and the whole place seems to be full of things that catch your eye and then end up as disappointing.
It was in this oppression that I found this guy, in that environment he seemed to be frightening and dour and very angry at everyone that walked passed him.
It was a very old photograph, certainly one of the very early ones that capture just enough detail to see who it is.
I couldn't help but take his picture then forgot about him, but as I emptied my phone of its contents a few weeks later I remembered and looked again.

Once out of the damp, smelly place he didn't seem so bad anymore, so I looked at him and tried to place what he was at the time the picture was taken.
It's old, early photography so he is a man that is sitting having one of these new photographic portraits. You no longer need to hire a painter and sit in the same pose for three weeks, all done in 30 seconds. 
In those times good dentistry was rare so everyone was told not to smile, smiling on pictures came after dentistry, and for any lasting picture you must wear your Sunday best. So there he is, dressed, bathed, shaved having his picture taken. 
The more I look at the picture the less I see of dour and the more I see of someone having a good time. If you look at it for a while it's like he is holding his mouth in place trying not to smile, his eyes (or one of them) has darted elsewhere in that 30 seconds of the sitting still so he is looking at someone to his left behind the camera. I get the feeling that he is enjoying this new technology and having a nice day out, like the one that I had that day with my girlfriend.

I'm looking at it again, I swear his mouth is moving, trying to curl up into a bad toothed smile!

Old Lady Juice

We have midges, nasty small flying things that hang around, bite and are attracted to CO2 when you breath out.
This means that the only way to keep the little buggers away is to either stop breathing completely or to utterly smother yourself in Avons very finest old lady juice from a squirty plastic bottle and going by the name of skin so soft. Which is the only thing known to man that does the job. 
Midges hate it, they can't land on it without being stuck and die and they can't fly through the smell of it because it is so thick.

It's a strange thing to be standing in a pub full of very strong farm workers in scruffy jeans, dirty haired, rough hands from hard labour and listening to testosterone fueled conversations about football and beer and every one of the rough gravelly low voices smelling like someones grandmother. 

I keep looking around to see if someone is going to pull out a screw on felt hat as they prepare to leave, perhaps fasten it in place with a couple of hat pins. Or maybe the juice will start to affect the brain and one of them will go to the bar and ask for a cup of tea and a fruit scone please.
The smell doesn't fit what my eyes are seeing, my nose is telling me I'm in an old peoples home or on a bus trip to Brighton but my eyes and ears are saying I'm in the George and Dragon.
There is a smell around the village and I'm sorry Nirvana but it doesn't smell like teen spirit.