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.

Tin Man

I managed to nip up to Garrigills traditional blacksmiths forge to see Dave earlier in the week. 

I say 'nip up' it's a three minute walk over the bridge and turn right, not much of an effort really and it made me feel a bit guilty for not having been up a bit more.

Dave was buzzing with the news that he now has letters after his name David Johnson AWCB, which is Associate of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths.
I spent a few minutes listing other more insulting possibilities for AWCB (which you have to do for the comedic value) but as Dave wasn't laughing and because he is a much bigger and stronger bloke than I am with many dangerous looking hammers, in fact one of the largest collections of hammers I have ever seen (which he may have been reaching for) I decided that mockery wasn't the best idea and so  deftly swung conservation conversation in a different direction.

 I thought a hammer was the ultimate DIY tool in such that you can use it to hammer a thing in, or to hammer a thing out, (hammering out usually takes longer and makes more mess, but does always work in the end). Hammers as we know can also be used to make things flat. This is sort of related to hammering things out but is usually a purpose and not a side effect.

I hadn't realised that actually you need different hammers for doing different things, even though you use them all in the same manner which is...well hammering.
I know it may seem strange to those of us with only a few hammers that you need different hammers to make things a different kind of flat but I trust Dave and his knowledge of hammering things flat is more than mine or yours will ever be.......OR PERHAPS NOT!

Dave is sorting out his second and third forges this summer and he hopes to be able to give day workshops to people on the basics of blacksmithing (is that a word?). 

I like the idea of that, I know loads of people who would just love to spend a day in a forge making something and learning about hammering things flat in different ways with different hammers, possibly myself included. And what a brilliant present it would make for the non specific gender person that has everything. A day at Thortergill forge working in a traditional blacksmiths.

I may keep an eye on that one, of course I will be wanting mates rates for my day.

I have noticed my readership rising, so if any of you would like some traditional black-smithing done, if your castle gates are damaged, or your 14th century leafwork is a little dull, if you need any traditional ironwork or if you want to see about a day at the forge get in touch with Dave and tell him you came from the Arse End of Nowhere, and perhaps you may actually come here for a day and see it for yourself.

You can find him here http://www.thortergillforge.com/

I can't believe I'm doing this!

Way back when and in yonder olden days I wrote this:

http://arseendofnowhere.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/leek-people.html

I admit that there was some mocking in it, and that perhaps I associated leek people with the elderly of the working mens club and memories of grandad.

Two weeks ago I was put on my guard when I met Mark in the George and he was speaking of how while being slightly open minded with the effects of Black Sheep Ale on the brain he had somehow joined the leek club.
 
Dougal, (on a hunt for members) had sneaked in and got him to commit to a membership while Mark himself wasn't quite aware of what he was joining.
After hearing this and having some fun mocking Mark I decided that I had to be very careful when I was around Dougal for the next few weeks.

This was all going very well until a few days ago when I saw Dougal in the George and he was telling of how he had bought the show leeks but many people had dropped out of the club leaving him out of pocket. 
Now, you have to understand, this is a small community, and Dougal is a nice guy. He tries to get involved in things in the village and he is never offensive , opinionated or rude.....and there he was.....with his sad face.....I wasn't going to...........Nope...not the leek club........BUGGER......IT.....!!!!!!!

I did it....I said I would join, and as Mark knows once the words are out you cant take them back. 
I do wonder if Mark sobered up as quickly as I did after uttering the words "I'm in"? 
I must ask him because if he did and a leek club membership really does get you suddenly sober then I should start selling them in packets, in pubs. "Before you drive home buy your leek club membership" Instant sobriety!

I now have 6 leeks that I have to grow. I know nothing about leeks but I have a problem. I have a competitive nature and both Kasha and Kieran have been mocking me for many hours. I think I may have lost some kudos with my girlfriend and all of what little street cred I have with my son. But I'm competitive.....I know that there will be information about leek growing on Google.....but I don't want them to find me looking.....

Mildly Moist

This is the river at Garrigill bridge on a normal day

This is the river after a night of rain.

That tunnel runs underneath someones house!

It's just a memory now

It's been a busy time, quite a while since I have blogged and it turns out I am even coming under pressure to write when visiting the George and Dragon.
It's a strange thing how people who live in the village may have to read a blog about the village to find out what wonders are happening in the village.
I may have to start a newspaper.

Most of the snow has gone. You can catch sight of a little of it (if you look hard at the picture) on the higher peaks as you drop down into the village, but apart from the odd summer hail shower the weather here has risen by a whole 2 or 3 degrees and there are a range of people coming through wearing fancy dress of totally opposite extremes. 

Right now my weekends are filled with people wearing the thinnest of skin tight lycra and a florescent impact hat or multiple layers of waterproof oilskin based wet weather gear with walking poles and a wooly hat, all of them asking where the public toilets are.

I was remembering the snow as a kind of adventure. In particular the road out of the village in the picture above. 

There was one particular morning as I raced toward the top of the hill at a fair speed because to stop is to get stuck and to brake is to go sideways, when over the crest came another car going at a fair speed because to stop is to get stuck and when coming down a hill to brake is to end up anywhere.

I remember having a flash of thought that we had a clearance at the point we were going to pass of about 6 inches. Easy to navigate on a light bright dry day with control of the brakes and the ability to slow down. Not so easy coming up and in the case of the other car coming down a thickly covered snowy bank at 60mph unable to turn the wheel or apply any kind of braking. 

There was a flash of all this knowledge and a second flash that the person in the car coming down had been having exactly the same realization, and so feet down on the accelerators in an act of unspoken and mutual trust we hurtled toward each other at a combined speed of about 120mph and in a flash of shared knowledge we passed with inches to spare.

Winter is just in the background now. The tourists are coming through all of them wishing they could live here and all of us understanding that you wont make it unless you have the bollocks to keep your foot on the accelerator and trust the person in the car coming towards you. 

Oh...by the way, tractors stop for no-one!



 

Precious Things

 As Aprils go this one has been a very fine one so far. 
For a lot of this year there have been a few things playing on my mind the main two being my daughter Sophie who has been expecting her first baby and the possibility of complications that have been picked up throughout the pregnancy and my dads ill health which was put down to cancer and watching him fade away over most of the course of this year.
I often get quite irate with myself over the way the situation of life in general just stops you being around as much as you would like to be. I was very lucky in my childhood with my parents being around and together for all of the time that I grew up, and it's strange that it actually took me until I was well into being an adult that I actually did begin to realise just how lucky I was.

My own situation now pulls me into a week of work and a week of being a father which by it's own pattern seems to make me not be as 'available' while I still have a teenage dependent  for the parts of my family who are not so tightly involved in that week here and week there map of my time.

I have felt this very much over the first quarter of this year with everything happening and if nothing else it has made me sit up and remember that there are certain precious things that I need to be more involved with. It isn't the difficulties of it that made me see it, it's the happy endings that all seem to have come along at once.

On April 8th Sophie gave birth to Noah, it's the same date as my dad's birthday. And on April 8th my dad had a treatment that totally removed what the doctors had assured us was cancer and it turned out it wasn't. I don't believe in miracles, but a good surgical team bringing Noah and a misdiagnosis (which happens to the best of doctors) of cancer will do for me.

And new family doesn't just come in small bundles with lots of hair, as if to make the point that family really are special we have had Kasha's brother come over from America to spend a few days with us. 
A new brother for her and he arrived in a Ford Fiesta, it's not as dramatic as Noahs arrival and didn't involve the drama of people running around in green smocks and facemasks but which ever way family choose to turn up is good in my books. And he brought wine, who could ever imagine a better family member than one who brings smiles and wine.
However, that is for another blog....

Ploughed

Thanks to Mark for providing the weather report that got me through this (Click here for video)

It's only the depth that varies!

Our friend John has a saying that he is "always in the shit, it's only the depth that varies".
As this is my first winter here I have now applied that saying to the status of the snow in Garrigill, it just doesn't seem to stop and even when there is not a speck of it on the ground you still see tiny flakes of it drifting through the air.

This morning was an amazing crisp white, it was the crispy snow. Now people who read this outside of the UK may not understand this, but we British know that there are many different types of rain ( I will link this back to snow in a minute).

It's true, in this country we have seen so much rain that we can identify it by different types. Because we can identify each rain drop by type, we also know what kind of snow these drops make and so this morning I can safely say that we have crispy snow.
Crispy snow is made from raindrops just a bit smaller than normal, it would be the type of rain that the British would describe as a wisp of rain. But when it freezes and falls it becomes crispy snow. A type of snow which sits nice and deep and goes 'crunch' when you stand on it. However, it doesn't stick together, so it blows about in the wind moving from place to place like white sand in a freezing desert.

In the last week we have had thick snow, light snow, none snow (that's the stuff that doesn't settle anywhere and just flies around) lump snow, xmas snow, sticky snow, pretty floaty snow, wispy snow, invisible snow (you turn around and there it suddenly is) and the most important of snows which is snowman snow. Now if you count up and there are more different types of snow fell than the number of days that I mention you should probably also know that all of these fell in just three days.
The rest of the time we had the none snow only it was floating around the air in a depth that varied.

One of those mornings as I let the dogs out (you can see it was a wispy snow day) I practically had a conversation with a robin that was sat on the wall opposite me. His red almost shone as he sat under the sun and I said to him, "you sit there while I get me phone for a pic" and he said "mrreeeptet" which I took to be a yes. I came back with the phone and he had his back to me so I said "Oi....I'm back" so he spun round hopped about a bit and said "weeep" all of the time looking straight at me without thinking I was any kind of threat at all.
I was quite touched by this little conversation with nature, it sort of made my day just a bit.

I'm looking out the window, I have sticky snow stuck to the windy and a covering of crispy. The falling snow seems to be thick, that's three at once. I wonder what the rest of the day will bring?