Fileygardener

Engaging with inactivity , but not switched off

2026-06-09T17:09:49.224+01:00

Reading the fascinating account of a hedge layer,who lived in a caravan and travelled around farms in Dorset and Somerset “Thorn and Briar” by Paul Lamb which I noted in my journal of READS as a ‘SHEER BEAUTY OF A BOOK, I started off this year by tackling my boundary to the allotment and attempting a DEAD HEDGE.

Since then it seems that every article in botanical missives seem to think these a a wonderful and innovative idea for providing a habitat that is beneficial to the biodiversity of a piece of land . I thought this up all my own I tell you, but Paul Lamb got me thinking about what a useful thing any hedge is for a boundary.

I am as all my friends and reader know an utter maverick on our allotment site.

I have a ‘wild ‘ meadow strip planted 12 years ago, and just strimmed every August or September after the seeds have set.Im still hopeful for wild orchids, but have dozens of species of flowering plants and grasses, frogs, grasshoppers , and last year my first lizard was spotted . The insects and spiders are too varied to count. I read of naturalists on the FBOG page who can tell the difference between 38 species of bees in Filey Churchyard. I know they fly here too , especially when my Lavendar hedges are flowering.
I aim to have some plants flowering during every month of the year, welcome Dandelions (if you are one of my fellow gardeners on the plots be aware I do not let them set seed If I have time to dead head them ), and tolerate creeping Buttercups, Hogweed flowering now , and Scarlet Pimpernel is in profusion, along with all the usual pollinators beloved of us botanists. My big success is to encourage my favourite wild flowers Crosswort and Tufted Vetch which now thrive in swathes in my more wild areas of the plot . My Woad plant flowers from April to June, from my time (now finished as have given away my spinning wheel )of growing DYE Plants. It is a brute to get rid off, and have just got my daughter to cut it right back before the seeds take over Filey. Ten years ago I was cautioned nicely by the chairman of the allotments for growing Echium wildpretii as my resident pollinator. Growing over 10feet tall, they must have alarmed the sedate ‘grow in rows ‘gentlemen on neighbouring plots. Now they are popular and am asked for seedlings. It seems most people now had seen them on One million years BC 1966 film with Ursula Andress , which must have been filmed in Lanzerote where the plant is a native.That dates the demographic of the plots then , but not now, as lots of young families and younger people now are on our site.Old Films are popular again.
I have a Szechuan pepper tree in a pot , which had red peppercorns
I Follow Bob Flowerdew who leaves his weedings as mulch .At present Im not able to go on site much as am not able to do much after 10am when all household chores are done and beloveds lunch ready. I hope the wonderful Dr Sharma will sort me out soon. So meanwhile my wild plants are grown so prolific I’m actually seeing if some are really edible , like Fat Hen, and Hedge Mustard.I do promise that as soon as I am fit again I will thin out all my plants growing in the wrong places.
The frogs are everywhere , my own slug control, and this years tadpoles in my nature pond have already got their back legs. Last year was so hot that the pond got algal bloom and I had to start again.I thank friend Paul for giving me lots of his UK weed and a dose of a pond treatment .
My greenhouse roof has partly collapsed now , this structure was rotten when I got it , and will have to be dismantled now.The family wont allow me inside. I shall find someone to deal with it and am saving to pay someone .Do not worry fellow allotmenteers , Im not repairing it ,but will do something when Im well again. Here I admire those fellow plot holders who are such great DIYers. They never cease to amaze me.

New perspectives

2025-10-16T17:16:00.006+01:00

Ive known Swine Church since 1953. Across the fields and the Golf Course it was a special landmark . As five year old I had to stand tall to spot it from my bedroom window as my head barely reached the glass of the window , not double glazed , but in the very latest Crital frames my father was so pleased with . ‘I shall never have to paint the window frames’ he said to my mother as they planned their build with Mr Sewell , the builder from the village , Sutton Village that is, or as we proudly say with Thomas Blashill “Sutton in Holderness”.

So in 2025 I finally get to see the church that was my familiar landmark . It was locked, we could have got the key from the name on the outside board , but I also wanted to revisit my own church , St James in the village , and look at Church Mount again through the shrubbery.

There was wonderful Holderness waiting to be rediscovered as we drove to Sunk Island , Patrington for the Queen of Holderness,and Hedon for the King and enjoyed the refurbished Trout Inn at Wansford. Was ever a place called Emmotland , never heard of that one until we got back home and a friend told us of all the great fishing trips he used to have there. Not so for me, my father fished the grayling from Hempholme certainly but mostly the Yorkshire Derwent near Kirby Moorside. I had three days of nostalgia in August then , and only an hour from home, staying in a huge house at Beeford with all 3 generations of our Filey Family . Reuben drove us to another church I had never visited, the welcoming St Augustines Skirlaugh. I’d been to that village many times with mother when we renewed her Blue Badge at the East Riding Offices. I had cycled to Hornsea with schoolfriends , the back way through Sutton to Benningholme , that land of ditches and low hedges and fields and fields of potatoes and wheat and field beans , no traffic and innocent adventure .

The East Riding villages are still delightful , we spot the gable ends built with the feather pattern of the bricks , the local way, remember to train to Hornsea , also spotted from my bedroom window , the steam trains and the exciting day when we saw our first Diesel.

My perspectives have changed . I rarely go more than 10 miles from our cottage these days, except the monthly visit to the Eye Hospital with Hull sister when she has her injection.I look from the train window from Filey and still spot lovely cottages, trackways and becks, and on a good day Herons and Little Egrets near Arram , and new crops like Miscanthus , the Christmas tree plantation has gone now near Nafferton , but the rabbit warren certainly hasn’t. I always sit on the left hand side of the coach form Filey To Paragon and the right hand side going home .

I was unable to use my childhood purchase of a secondhand copy of Palgraves Golden Treasury , a beautiful bright turquoise binding . The book is dropping to bits, much written in from grammar school with many of the poems with little marks in pencil above each word showing stresses.I haven’t binned it .It has string round it . Last night I couldn’t sleep and had just finished the brilliant book by RamornaAsh . She talks much about Gerald Manley Hopkins so was trying to find a poetry book at 4.30 this morning, and eventually found one poem by him in my Mothers “A Modern Anthology “from 1924. I have given away most of my books now for friend to sell for for charity on a stall outside his house on the Cleveland Way , but just kept a newer Palgrave (no GMH of course , not published then ). What a lovely surprise , had never opened it before but inside was my father’s name , and it had all his pencil notes. What treasure for me.

Reuben and I like the Jesuits, and GMH

and we like Iona , both lauded in the book “Don’t forget we're here for ever “

this book has changed my perspectives .

Sharing the joy

2025-06-18T19:48:00.001+01:00

Durer has a lot to answer for , and maybe Archinboldo, as have always been drawn to the visual representation of things I love, and the way the natural world can be represented in ways which make you happy , thoughtful or downright sad .

I was telling grandson soon to go hopefully to live in London, that he must go to the SAATCHI. Beloved and I have been many times in our travelling around days. We have seen some exhibitions which just blew our minds , with the assault they presented, making us react , with the colours some presented , with the draughtmanship some presented ,with the sheer audacity some presented (like a tank of oil). We are a nation of folk who may have opinions, and able to share them unless they are liable to scrutiny by the thought police or the real police.

This symphony in green is my Durer.

We don’t travel any more , the trip to Reighton nursery is the furtherest these days.

Imagine then the joy of seeing exhibitions which are right on our doorstep literally.

I have been nurturing a plant I dug up on the plot.Its doing very well and is now over half a metre high. I have been trying to remember what I planted in the Spot.Its not an Echinacea or a Chicory, or what I have been trying to grow for 15 years , the perennial vegetable called Good King Henry. I have bought a packet of seeds every year and faithfully planted them.I particularly like its Latin name ‘Chenopodium bonus-henricus, an edible Goosefoot like spinach , cut and come again for ever. Just what I need for greens . It has dawned on me that my years of hopeful waiting have not come to fruition yet again. I have been nurturing a Rosebay Willow Herb, a beautiful ‘weed’, which colours the August roadsides and waste ground with its purple flower spikes.When the flowers go to seed the air is full of the down like seeds wind blown and able to travel for miles on the breeze. I will be keeping it, its is lovely to see close up, and will just have to compete with all the other hopeful erratics in this corner of the old town, including a beautiful Sow Thistle round the corner.

15 years ago my Echium collection was just beginning. Folk knocked on our door to ask the name of the towering spiked inflorescences appearing above 8foot wall. Seedlings always followed by the hundreds and easily removed as recognized immediately by the spotted first true leaves. Now even former critics like them as they are indeed Ace Pollinators and flower for months and months until the Spike is finished. (They are biennials or triennials and tender)

In this little corner of town there is now lots of joy to share. In our street alone people are growing pots of flowers outside their houses.We have no front gardens or even gardens at all in our case, just a small back yard. I love the accidental garden outside the flats around the corner from here where the cracks in the flags are supporting self sown flowers from last years pots, and a lovely ‘meadow ‘ of cornflowers has grown rapidly as the warm weather has brought them on.

Still here

2025-02-19T21:44:00.002+00:00

Mother used to say that time rushed when one is old. I’m not old in my mind , but

as time is rushing I must have made a sea change since my last blog post.

It always seems to be Monday and I’m putting out the wheelie bin again. It always seems to be time to get spouses lunch prepared when Ive only just cleared the pots, hung the washing on the line and done Wordle and Worldle .

Boring is not a word I could use these days. I use tired , I use what have I gone upstairs for, I use its time to do the online grocery order again, but never bored.

Well maybe routine becomes ritual , but in this house we are always delighted when someone is at the door or online to us. Today we had Kevin from Evri, 2 neighbours, 1 grandson, as well as three friends on Zoom Morning Prayer. No routine here, as we never know what a day will bring.

I have Sue coming to Help with cleaning tomorrow. I have the excitement of climbing down to the back door of our Newsagent to pay the Paper bill. ( A car drove into their shopfront in the summer and the work to replace is soon to be finished, after they have waded through red tape and planning permissions). I shall walk to the allotment with a bundle of 6foot bamboo canes, a sack of vegetable waste for the compost bin, and a 5l container of drinking water, as we wait for the frosts to finish and the water turned on again.

No not boring at all. The pavements in Filey are all looking awful as workmen install cables to every house , BUT joy of Joy the road surfaces in Station Road and Station Avenue have been efficiently re done, so no one can complain of potholes in the town centre.

It’s so long since I wrote anything on this platform that I have actually forgotten how to justify the text alignment. So sorry here. 25 years since i was in the Evron Centre doing all my Computer classes, and nearly 20 since I did my first Blog Post. I didn’t even know how to insert a picture in the first months.

Today I’m still reading Seed catalogues, Arthur Upfields, Jane Austen (all every 2 years) lots poetry ,Malcolm Guite, Lemm Sissay, the Times obituaries , The Filey Parish Link, . I’m still reading my Bible every day, mostly at 4am . I’ve just done Malachi and Zechariah, and today I began Haggai. I read a Psalm a day. Ive got to 35 again.

Spouse is having to eat some odd meals as I count carbs for him and forbid all sorts of his favourites. WE have stew and Yorkshire Pudding but no potatoes. We have Celariac Mash and sausages, we have Veggie Lasagne made with layers of Aubergine. He never complains. He has always been a delight to cook for . (Note to myself , I am running out of ideas. Mary Berry’s Cauliflower steaks are tasty and easy but can only eat once in a while.

My brain spins when I contemplate Air Fryers, I have a dry Fry pan which have used for 30 years which does the same job. Dixons our local Emporium now does a huge range of silicon inserts for Air Fryers, and the display looks like Medical Supplies. But no ordinary Stainless steel pans with lids. Now I am sounding like my mother!

So now dear readers you have my update. I have not been to Scarborough Much , 3x to Skipton Building Society in last year, I took myself to Peterborough for the day in September to see the Must Farm exhibition in the museum. (No leaflets to buy or even read). Ive been once a month to the Eye Hospital in Hull with Sutton Village Sister, and this is a real trip out , as the train ride lovely, and we often get a lunch together in the Omelette . Filey daughter is running me up to see the Gypsey Race running again. Last year it was amazing. I leave you with the 2024 pictures.

Thin Place

2023-08-22T16:43:00.003+01:00

I've been having a rough year.

WELL , not compared with people of Somalia , Nigeria , Yemen and South Sudan , who come top in some charts for Famine . WELL , not compared with people in constant pain, WELL not compared with people relying on Foodbanks in the UK, victims of crime, lonely people, you may think of dozens more situations, you may be really having your own rough times. It is relative.

I am just venting .

I am in need of a change of scenery. Dont get me wrong! I had 3 great days away at Wydale in January when No 1 Daughter came and stayed here with her DAD so I could recharge . I also loved my day out to Wharren Percy in May.

7 months later I'm in need of another change of scenery.

I love my days out to Kingston upon Hull on the train to accompany my sister to the Eye Hospital for her injections, I loved going with beloved to Holy Nativity Eastfield to a day with the wonderful Bishop of Wellington and his wife talking about New Monasticism . I love my Sanctuary Space OKA my allotment. I love Monday evenings and cant wait for Only Connect to come round again. I love my afternoons upstairs with my latest Library book as Beloved watches something in black and white on Talking PicturesTV.

I am yearning to go back to Iona . I want to stay in the B and B on the Machair overlooking the Bay at the Back of the Ocean. I want to watch the Spouting Cave , and look for pebbles of Green Marble, and get to the Quarry . The grass is always greener on the other side. Last time on Iona we had a plague of flies in the bedrooms from the seaweed being tractored from the beach to the gardens in the houses facing the sound of Mull. IT RAINED mostly for 4 1/2 of the 5 days we were there, and the sea was so rough the ferries were cancelled. I'm only remembering the Langoustines, the rainbows and the quiet, aside for the fantastic SKY TVs in our rooms and real sighting of Corncrakes. (I like a thin place for most of the day only.)

Ive learned a lesson today. I went to the quiet 10am Celtic Morning Prayer in St Oswalds, using the Northumberland Community liturgy. Angela and Paul read the devotion from the book and guess what , It was about Iona !

I was in Iona , I remembered scenes from all my the visits , with beloved, with sisters, with aged parent in wheelchair.

It's all there in my wonderfully created God given brain. And Ive got all the pictures.

And the lesson is this , in Psalm 139

Lord, you know everything there is to know about me. You perceive every movement of my heart and soul, and you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind. You are so intimately aware of me, Lord. You read my heart like an open book and you know all the words I’m about to speak before I even start a sentence!

Wydale and Why Not

2023-01-18T15:52:00.014+00:00

Filey daughter is holding the fort at home. She is letting spouse have fish and chips from the Brown Room today, she will encourage him to take a walk out to the chemist and back , and will accompany him. His walker frame is a Godsend literally, and we often think of all our relations in past years who would have loved one, but had to use old pushchairs and Sholleys to give them support and security or never went out at all. Leaving home for a short walk to the shops or to look at the sea from the end of the road is acknowledged to be good for not only mental health but a positive step to delay Dementia , along with Wordle and Sudoku.

For carers, the facility to have 2 nights away from home , with all meals provided , no chores, and lovely weather despite the BBC's forecasts is essential to maintain their well being and the mindset to carry on , to be thankful for small things , and to recharge the brain from the stupor of tedium and repetition. I only need a couple of nights occasionally in a stimulating but yet restful place.

What I love about Wydale is that it is only a 13 mile journey from home ,is in an idyllic rural setting reflecting gracious living of Edwardian gentry, so ticks all the boxes , rare trees, beautiful vistas , short walks , spacious public rooms, and really great food.

I walked as far as the Sweet Chestnut tree today. I knew it was the right tree as the leaves had remained where they had dropped. It was a good walking day , a thick frost , bright sunshine , slight breeze.

The view in winter shows the hall in the distance,no new

Lambs this year in the field. The frost has gone now, but only just. It’s nearly sunset. A small party of people from Nottingham have just arrived, and so the kitchen won’t have to provide supper for just me. I think I’m known as a private guest, always welcomed .

Road Kill

2023-01-03T13:13:00.004+00:00

Daughters friend celebrates the Seasonal festive meal every year with what I presume is a roast pheasant.

I’m told she has roadkill ,but can’t imagine there are any chickens on the rural ride following the Gypsey Race to Duggleby barrow from Boythorpe. Very occasionally one sees a badger or a fox, more often it is a pheasant, which straight after the kill is easily recognised by the tail feathers 90 degrees to the tarmac.

I’m thankful for our turkey with legs from Adrian Colling, I do not have to draw and pluck it , as I used to watch my mother do with one of Mr Bastons chickens, or the pigeons and squabs (from Mr Christopher, ) often still replete with shot. A couple of years ago I was offered a couple of hares, but couldn’t face skinning and drawing them, even though I know I could do it.These days I only dress Crabs, and even that pleasure is denied me now that our Filey fishmonger has closed his doors.

Mr Christopher 1961 Sutton in Holderness

I remembered to look through the jpegs of the 35mm slides I digitalised years ago, throwing away hundreds and just keeping some family milestones. My father took hundreds of slides, and yet 60years on , the interesting ones are of people and buildings. Our education often consisted of talks on why Agfa was better than Kodak or Ektachrome, and years later as the Agfa slides are all blue, and the Kodak are all red, I know the use of photo editing software would have improved many an evening round the fire with the screen and projector. We were allowed to comment and criticise but father could not improve on his work, and used to bore us talking about fstops and timings. My sisters will remember all the times we stood on a ladder with our head in the Cherry Trees for him whilst he took ages to adjust his light meter.

He never took a photograph of Mr Baston whose smallholding backed our land. Infact I think Mr Baston sold us the acre near the road , of which we had one third, Mr Bruin one third and Mr Kirby the other third. Mr Baston came up from the village every day to his pigs and chickens, and often the field was pasture as well for the bullocks of the nearby farm .We loved being allowed to see the piglets when a sow had farrowed, after strict warnings about her demeanour. Here I record that Mr Christopher was a retired policeman , and came every week to cut the grass and tend the large garden. He used to shoot , and bring us his surplus game. I rarely buy rabbit now after the memory of it .

I cooked our turkey Breast down as always, then turned over for the last hour. Family commented on how moist it was. I am writing my notes for next year in my Christmas book, almost 50 years of shopping lists and to do lists.

The most useful page is the what to do next year list.

It says

do not make much bread sauce as only Colin loves it
do not buy any chocolate biscuits
do not buy many "nibbles"
Buy plenty of roasted pistachios in their shells however
only 3 of us like Sprouts
cooked red cabbage with Cyder Vinegar next year not balsamic, was much better

I leave you with a prospect of May , my first photo being December , views of my beloved Yorkshire Wolds.

No dig allotment , the easy way!

2022-11-15T17:30:00.002+00:00

I've seen all the utube vids from experts like Charles Dowding, I watched Huws garden for years, enjoying his earnest and easy style, I've read books on Hotbeds, Companion Planting and have known Mr Hessayons input for over 50 years, and I still champion the wonderful Ruth Stout, who knew a thing or two before they were all born BUT declare that I have found my own way to grow my veg without getting embroiled in 'right ways'.

My allotment is full size, apart from the tiny part my daughter uses. My neighbours all come from school of straight lines , no weeds, and double dig. I don't have rules , am not pretending to be wholly organic, don't have any weeds only pollinators, and plants needing a more suitable home.

I get immense pleasure from removing couch grass to its rightful home, the grass borders, and allow the bindweed to bind away next to the railway line so that I can play "Grandma! Grandma !Pop out of bed !' in August. I don't worry if my 3 colour rotation is tweaked , as long as onions never grow in the same ground 2 years running.

Picture one

I don't dig, I gently fork out Some deep perennials like Dandelions and Nettles and bountiful and profligate free seeders like Sow Thistles and Borage before winter, I know the hoped for frosts will kill the little annuals like Chickweed and Groundsel , Spurges and Creeping Speedwell, and my favourite Scarlet Pimpernel but welcome them the following year, easily hoed out . I leave them on the soil as mulch.

I do not have access to a ton of Stable manure as my neighbours do. My plot is not next to the road so the tractor can tip it into the yearning bins. I have to barrow it all from the pile dropped by the road to my bins. I cant manage that. Friend Colin brings me beautiful 2 yr rotted down stuff from his small holding when he has time, and barrows it to the bin for me, but it is past being manure, it is lovely compost, friable and rich and I am sparing with it.

All no -diggers add mulch on top of beds every year, mulch on mulch, on mulch and on mulch. My soil is never bare, Crops over winter, and bare soil on beds which dont change like Asparagus and Rhubarb are cushioned in mulch all winter.

My 3 year rotation suits me . I don't need to grow many cabbages, so one brassica bed is enough most years, as I like Sprouting Broccoli which crops for up to 2 years if the growing points are nipped off. I have about 10 raised beds in old builders bags filled with greenstuff which rots down, like the masses of creeping bulky Nasturtians which easily fill the empty bag beds in October. I usually plant the bag beds up with garlic the first year .

This is how my easy no dig works

Raised bed and dormant straw bale
awaiting its fate

Divide your plot into strips so that you can work without treading and compacting the soil.
Work out each autumn what you want to grow the next year, and plan where you want to put them within your rotation system , 3 year or 4 year
Don't think you have to cultivate each strip the first year
Work on one strip at a time, depending on what time you start
Starting in Autumn cover strips with cardboard and mulch ( could be manure or heavy stones or bricks to weigh down from wind)
Cardboard is the best friend of no dig. Encourage your friends to give you all theirs from buying large items. Ikea is your best friend here! Cardboard should be brown and with no sellotape or writing all over it, or a shiny layer. Plain porous brown is best, just remove tape and staples. Cover your strips with it , having taken out perennial weeds and large stones first and raked as flat as is practical. (Ruth Stout planted on top of grass field , but you will have to google that as she planted on bales of hay.)Stop the cardboard blowing away by watering it and weighing down with bricks or large stones. My foolproof method is to buy 10 bale of barley straw every Spring which I leave to get thoroughly damp and wet so that by the autumn it can be separated into slabs and easily placed on the cardboard. See Picture one
Just gradually do this to all your strips
If you are using a strip as Add Manure in Autumn, my yellow strips that year, add chicken pellets on top of straw , or stable manure if you have some. Add more in the spring too .
You are now up and running . By the spring you can plant straight into the bed, even if you have to make a hole . I rarely plant seeds straight in to strips as most seeds can be sown in modules and dug into bed when large enough . I put potatoes under more straw and never earth up , just making sure straw is thick enough to block the light, as green potatoes are poisonous. Brassicas go straight in from modules when about 6inches big with 6 leaves, Leeks the same , Chard the same , sweetcorn too and beetroot. You use the modules discarded by garden centres, and fellow gardeners. I wash them and use very year until they split. 6 or 9 are the best, as the tiny ones have not enough root run and have to be replanted in to larger ones . Our Nursery Reighton sells ready grown seedlings in a 5in flower pot ready to be pricked on into modules, these are cheaper than buying a packet of seeds.
I often let vegetables go to seed , and when plants come up around them I use these, Chards and broccoli do this easily.
If you are starting in the Spring you have to make sure not too much bare soil is open to the 'weeds' so plant Green Manure until you ready to use. Cover with crops as soon as possible, even radishes, and lettuces to cover. I would plant lots potatoes under straw the first year just to use the land , and gradually do the 3 Colour rotation.
I plant Garlic, Onions ( from Sets) and broad beans in the autumn. More sets can be planted in the Spring. Advice from Mr Hessayon still applies to cultivation here.

Ace pollinators

2022-08-20T19:00:00.000+01:00

The heat this summer has given my Lavender bushes a boost. I have never appreciated before just how , being Mediterranean natives , they prefer dry and hot conditions. Similarly the Rosemary bushes are thriving, and we have olives on the potted Olive tree, my friend Ann is harvesting figs, and our Oleander in the yard continues flowering. I am hopeful for bananas on the small Banana plant , but it only has 4 leaves yet as it is only young.

This year I have sat longer on my plot, enjoying the bee loud glade. I’ve pulled out unwanted plants and laid on bed to act as mulch, anything to keep the soil moist.

Barbara on next plot is harvesting her Lavender today. She cuts carefully into even sized bunches and hangs in her light and beautifully made greenhouse/shed that husband Terry built for her. She was widowed recently after a being a full time carer, and she gradually brings the plot back to its usual perfection as she restores the years the locusts have eaten . She is leaving some of her lavender , as I am , for the bees. My daughter has just messaged me to ask if we should get a beehive. She can forget that idea. I do however love to drive round these Wolds and spot hives hiding in the fields of Borage , Oilseed rape and Linseed, purple, citric yellow and blue. My honey is produced by a local beekeeper, a Mr Danby of Seamer. I buy it at Reighton Nurseries. The borage honey is the palest yellow.

I let Borage and Nasturtiums seed freely all over my plot. No dig gardeners like the soil all covered with beneficial plants, bringing in insects and keeping down the unwanted but not unloved Sow Thistles , and Spurges, the delightful Scarlet Pimpernel . I like the Dandelions and love the chickweed (beloved of Budgie keepers). I have a favourite wild plant which adores my plot, but it is wind pollinated I think, as it is green. I know its not Good king Henry, Chenopodium bonus henricus, I wish it was, I wasted seeds every year and still not managed to get even one to germinate .This is an annual relative , Fat Hen, but my Wild Food Book says it can also be eaten. The leaves are a lovely gray green and this amongst my 3 sisters planting of Sweetcorn , Sunflowers and Mangetout managed to sneak up to 3feet high in as many weeks.

Echium is 12ft tall , still covered in bees, and cucurbit flowers are beloved by tiny pollinators. I have succeeded , she says proudly of having something to attract pollinators during every day of the year, letting my brassicas go to seed, allowing dead nettles to grow through winter, and never hanging on for the bulbs, as there is always a wild flower arriving to fill in any gaps.

Have bought you a crab, Mum!

2022-08-11T12:37:00.003+01:00

That picture was taken in June , the last time I managed to get a crab. Today on August 11th Ann and Graham have brought me one from Scarborough from the shop where Gary fillets fish sometimes. That shop is only open first thing in the morning.

Our lovely Filey wet fish shop closed down at Easter just as we were all planning our Good Friday meals. No, I'm not complaining.There is always another way . We do not have to eat Crab. We , if go by the media are going to have a job to afford food at all . Yes, I am working out a strategy to save Gas and Electricity, and I'm taking positive steps to change our lifestyle.

Colin's Carer Chris suggested that I should unplug all the chargers around the house until I need them. Ive just counted, there are 6. For the first week I did indeed switch them all off, but my intentions have been thwarted by my butterfly mind.

Martin Lewis , who I admire from his easy manner on MoneyBox Live is profuse in great ideas for coping with the current Media Circus and scaremongering re Price Caps on fuel and direct debits of hundreds a month. I am reminded that he wants to be an MP too, (I think)and wonder for how long he can remain the impartial voice of reason. I hope he will join the Green Party. (I have just followed grandson no.1 and joined).

I am going to start cooking on the top of my Log burner again, and put a kettle on it, before its illegal to burn the Kiln dried Ash logs we use in winter, and the stove warms all our small cottage. I have the national Collection of candles still from the Millenium Scare.

I'm doing all I can to cut down on my plastic waste. This is not easy as spouse has so many medical items that are made of plastic, I have to use them .

Yesterday , however I disposed of 4 food containers that declared they are not recycled yet, Soft prunes, ground coffee, Truvia and yellow split peas. None of these items could be sold in paper packets. Son in Brighton and daughter in Sussex , where the green awareness is very high, are able to go to scoop shops taking their own containers. I am pleading for another one to open in Filey. Twenty years ago we had one , which I used as often as I could, but it was ahead of its time and lasted only less that a year.

Filey is a poor place to shop anyway as it is demographically client led, catering for the Caravan trade, the Geriatric ready meals trade , and Yorkshire's idea of a good diet. ( Thank God for our Greengrocer and butcher). We have 3 friends who eat no vegetables except peas. These are nutritionally ok, being second class proteins, but for us there are only so many Pea, mushroom and Paneer curries we can eat in a month.

Our chiropodist Ann has recommended a champion of eating cheaply , Jack Monroe oka The bootstrap cook. Her Cook Books are great, and her out of the box ideas for recipes helpful for everyone.

I stopped , or tried to stop, buying foods flown in to the uk, except for Avocados , grapes and oranges. I have tried to grow pulses on my allotment and have succeeded with chick peas, mange tout, and sugar snap peas. If we are going to get through winters more economically, I am reminded that dried peas kept people going before potatoes came to the uk.

My allotment neighbour Brian grows enough peas to see him through the year . I imagine him sitting and shelling them for days, for the freezer. Broad beans too are easy to grow, and so are that other neglected staple Butter beans. WE just need to find better ways of storing and using them . I remember my mother soaking butter beans to use them . We could do that easily. I make a great soup with yellow split peas, coconut milk , onion and Red Thai paste, easy to freeze when very thick , and just water down to serve.

Dhal can be made so many ways too, with so many different spices

and additions. Its such a cheap staple too, as a 500 gm pack red lentils cost 99p In Aldi, add onions and tumeric and optional hard boiled eggs and feed 6.

Martin Lewis says It's more economical to boil a kettle on stove than use an electric kettle. I have a 3.5 ltr one , its taking us a while to dovetail the timing and the amount of water to put in the kettle, but we've only had it a week.

The Microwave might have to go next, although spouse remembers all those childhood dinners kept warm on 2 plates over a saucepan of water.

I'm not good at Jam but I've managed this year with a thermometer and before the birds broke through the netting to the blackcurrant bushes. The redcurrant jelly took 2 boilings using the cold plate set test, but the thermometer did the trick . I use the ancient Marguerite Pattern book of recipes which is dropping to bits and yellowing .

Grandson no 2 is always trying to get me to listen to Podcasts. Every one is listening to them these days he says as he reels off the names of good ones. I must listen to the younger generation now I'm classed as one of the Olds. But I still like to put actual words down on virtual paper like this blog , and read the constant stream of Library books that daughter no1 brings from her workplace, a great library in the East Riding 10 miles away. I get plenty of updates about the World on Radio 4, (long may it continue), and the Music world form Jess Gillam on Radio 3.

I'll go now and get the lunch. Spouse has to have main meal at lunchtime now, following strong medical advise. Ive just read in todays Times that they recommend that too now for a Healthy lifestyle. The trouble is that this Old is exhausted by 2pm after preparing food from scratch, washing by hand(until machine is fixed on Tuesday) , watering the plants first thing because of the heat, fielding phone calls, and callers, so that when I sit down to read , I drop off. By 5pm I'm ready to prepare a meal from scratch, so perhaps I'll have to prepare tomorrows meal today, and recycle my time as well as my wrappers.

Theatre of the not absurd

2022-05-03T16:40:00.003+01:00

I would like a posh one , but at present am not able to wield a saw , a plane or even a hammer really. My theatre will do for me , cobbled in a corner of my backyard using bricks, bits of bricks and sitting resplendent atop an ageing coal bunker.

My start of the day has an updated routine now

feel if I'm alive
take life prolonging meds
do Lectio 365
see if spouse is alive
make us both a cup of tea
do ablutions
collect daily washing ,start washing machine
GO INTO BACKYARD & LOOK AT AURICULA THEATRE
peg washing on line
make porridge for spouse
prepare breakfast for self
go to Wydale or Filey Parish on Zoom (weekdays except Tuesdays)

Daughter no1, son in law, friend Liz and I have been discussing the collecting and displaying of Primula auriculas. Though recorded in Elizabethan times, and popular in the 19th C when specialist Flower Societies were formed , son in law tells me Geoff Hamilton popularised them , but for me Chelsea Physic Garden first brought a Theatre to my attention.

An aside

Spouse and I love the Chelsea Physic Garden, we went every time we were in town , and in the days when members got in at the front door and had to sign a book, and the gardens were more or less free from the hoy palloy. Now its open most days, and spouse knows he might not be able to visit again. We will have to put the membership in my name. I think being there without spouse might be one of the hardest visits I will ever have to do.

I can appreciate why P. auriculas were popular with the working classes in Victorian times. They are easy to cultivate, tolerant of afternoon shade and take up very little space , are mostly kept in pots and are just displayed once a year when they flower, April and May .

In our last holiday together in 2019, and with family who are seasoned navigators and bargees, on the Staffordshire and Worcester canal we passed a famous garden centre, Ashwood Nurseries, which I unashamedly recommend for Primula Auriculas. I am going to buy only 4 new varieties a year, on the phone of course, so that my delight doesn't become an obsession or I a frightful bore.

This year my favourite is called SVR. I had to ask the salesperson what that meant . Guess it ! *see bottom of post

When daughter No 2 next visits from East Sussex she is bringing me some more P. a's from the nursery she works in. They are all different again, not doubles but more 'edges'.

My readers will know that I love Echiums, as I have written about them several times.You may not know I also too love to grow Coleus from seed, just so that you know I have an eclectic taste. Daughter no 1 loves to grow onions. She has 82 on her allotment , and counts them every day. I grew Loofahs last year, but have decided I don't love them. I am growing lots of sweetcorn this year, of the coloured heritage variety. I'll let you know what I think in October.

Meanwhile enjoy my Coleus....

*SVR Severn Valley Railway

Little Gidding, Pete Greig , and Mental Health

2022-01-06T14:29:00.004+00:00

My friends all know that I love Poetry.

We had a huge cull of books when we moved back into the cottage 10 years ago , and left a room which was furnished from floor to ceiling with bespoke bookshelves made by the craftsman Malcolm Johnson .Colin loaded up Mother's sholley with books several times a day and walked to the Charity Shops with the load until we were advised they could not receive any more. I kept all my Poetry books, most shelf space now after my Botany books.

Little Gidding is my Adlesdrop place, as I did pass through it unwontedly on the way to Yorkshire from London avoiding motorways. I always knew it had been a religious community of the strict High Anglican sort , but not having ever read the Four Quartets that pleasure was to come. Pete Greig always surprises me with his rhetoric , his writings and his vision,and I value his contribution to the stability of my mental health. He writes on 4th Jan

that

Reading today's headlines, I'm reminded of a line from T.S. Eliot, who died on this day in 1965: ‘Christ is the still point of the turning world' .....

it has become my necessary daily practice simply to sit in silence and stillness each morning for a few minutes,......

But I believe that God’s quiet invitation to each one of us at the start of this year is this: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ (Psalm 46:10). We know ‘of’ God through the bible but we actually know him through the practice of silence, stillness and solitude. Good doctrine is dead without doxology. This was something I experienced deeply and cumulatively during my three week solitary pilgrimage from Iona to Lindisfarne in October. ..............

in 'Little Gidding' - a poem named after a small monastic community - T.S. Eliot captures and conveys the spirit of precisely this kind of silent praying;

     'You are here to kneel 

Where prayer has been valid.

And prayer is more 

Than an order of words,

   the conscious occupation

Of the praying mind,

   or the sound of the voice praying'

For two years now I have been doing LECTIO 365 , a free app on my mobile . I don't read it, I sit quietly after my initial quiet  sit , and I listen. Since Colin has been more himself and able to listen , we have done the evening Lectio too , and listen together , like doing the Compline of the Daily Office.My friend Tara first told me of it, and my friend Pam further up my road, and I have told many friends of it. 

Throughout lockdown and to this dayI have also been in a parallel world as  reluctant carer to infirm beloved. THIS life is dominated by the truly boring tasks in life , and may be  accompanied sometimes by the temptation to run away,  to cry, to moan, to cook and eat ready meals, to wear the same clothes for a week, and to feel sorry for myself. I want to .. I want to.... and even if all the Art Galleries and days of sunshine, and Beautiful music and meals  out were possible , I would still be completely out of my comfort zone , my head space would still be in need of still ness, balm and thankfulness. I now appreciate  that Brother Lawrence worshipped during the washing of pots, and just how saintly are those who can truly live and not count the cost. For me  I am with Pete Greig, and find stillness does wonders.The busiest of days need the stillness first for me.

I Wrote in a previous post, the one that has had the most hits [ from the data] that Gardening had kept me sane. Five years on I still cling on to my sanctuary that is my allotment, but things have changed there too, as the fast daily walks to the mile away plot are no longer practical as my HIP is paining and I cant walk fast at all , so my cardio work out is missing from my routine. I cant be bothered to do sit ups or any other exercise, its as much as I can do to walk to the chemist for  beloveds prescriptions. BUT I can take the car and I can still do my no dig gardening with joy and satisfaction and am planning my rotations and my potato order. 

Last year I grew LOOFAHS and got seeds for the whole of Filey for this year seemingly. Our Christmas lunch at Kiaora included Red Cabbage from the plot cooked with apples and onions also from the plot. I am still picking Broccoli and  Chard and my rare Echiums are still alive , just.

It warms my heart that I am not the only person to have heard of and employ 'no dig' and my joy will be complete when Mike and the rest of the Allotment association buy NO Peat compost for the site SHOP.
NEW YEAR PROMISE OF SUNNY DAYS AND FASCINATING SKIES

Some Sunshine please now O Creator of it!

May you all enjoy GOOD MENTAL HEALTH this year. 

Dean Wilson will be in Filey on Sunday 11th May .Hooray !

2021-10-13T17:37:00.011+01:00

Daughter no 1 and I have just had a Grand Day Out. This was a whole family effort, although there were just the two of us on the expedition . Plans had to be made in the tradition of Youth hostelling, Voyages to the Antarctic, Ordering schedules, Acquiring provisions, Leaving a secure base to return to , with beloved safe, fed and near the TV controls , a meal to await return .

Son in law @mrcravenracont, daughter @ImogenWormald , and assorted grandsons and nephews have not deserted twitter for Instagram completely. Son in law is always finding me interesting people to follow, and all of us claim to have first found @PoetDeanWilson, who finds a Pebble of the Day.

Daughter first found Wrecking Ball Press @wbphull and associated bookshop in the Hepworth Arcade on a sojourn around Hulls Old Town, but I claim to have been the first person in the immediate family to have used Twitter, when @simonrudiger set me up to run our @FileyParish account in 2009.

I happily ran @Filey_UK from 2009 too, but was able to share the running of it with Tracey Roberts @fileyford, about 10 years ago when Carer Duties became more time consuming.

It doesn't not surprise me that @PoetDeanWilson has 12.8 K Followers. Filonians have many more pebbles to discover than the beachcombers of Withernsea, but most post pictures of the beach , and these for me are not as entertaining , creative and otherworldly as the pebbles. Photos of Filey Old and New , the highly successful Facebook group started by our wonderful plumber and friends shows Filey only , and I want to go further .

The Pebbles may transport to rock beds across seas, stretch the creative minds , inspire vocabulary , and search for learning .

Son in law first saw the Exhibition At Withernsea Lighthouse Museum dropped casually into the twittersphere. Deans Pebbles inspired @k_j_turner to craft a quilt , and its just beautiful, on show with Pebbles and Photos .

So the Grand Day out was planned before the Lighthouse closes for the season .Last chance is 24th October 2021.

Ive known Withernsea all my life, Aunty Mabel and Uncle Gordon lived in Bannister street , until the railway was closed and they had to move to Brough so they could commute to Hull .

Its has a much more attractive seafront since EU money paid for extensive updates in 1995/6. Like Filey it is however a deprived seaside town, which no sanitised rhetoric can hide as the Census and other data says it all . Ive never been to the lighthouse before, a fantastic pot of tea in the garden, and then on to Patrington to show daughter one of the loveliest parish churches in England and to the atmospheric Sunk Island, Stone Creek and home by Cherry Cob sands.

Deans Poems , and I have Take me up the Lighthouse , include the Poem

SMART METER,

IS THE POEM ABOUT VIENNESE WHIRLS , JUST FOR MY SON WHO LOVES THEM !

This poetry book comes with a warning , as my daughter said , Its a bit rude Mum !

The stones would shout aloud

2021-09-30T18:11:00.001+01:00

Walking slowly behind or ahead of beloved is an acquired skill, the factors change

Are we in a hurry?
Is the sun shining?
Is there a hazard ahead?
Is the path narrow or wide enough to pass ?
Are we on a well known path, road , car park, field or garden?
Is anyone coming towards us?
Is anyone wanting to overtake us?
Do we need to converse?
Have I got my Hearing aids in ?

We have had some spats when I’ve been talking and beloved has not heard as I walk ahead of the ‘who do you think you are talking to variety’ from him, to ‘I cant hear you ‘ from me ,when unable to lip read as have my Covid mask on and therefore no hearing devices.

So it has been stress free here in Wydale on the holiday break I never thought we would ever manage again. The trial run of 2 nights in July has made way for 4 nights in September. We don’t have to talk as we walk in convoy of two ,carrying all the necessary equipment for the shortest even sojourn abroad ,in a Herons bag cleverly masquerading as shopping or a picnic.

We are staying in the new ground floor Self - catering accommodation in the Emmaus Centre but having Full board. Geriatrica it certainly is not. We are the only guests needing to sit near the breakfast buffet . Other guests are walkers, dancers, artists and writers, groups of young looking men and women in clerical dress and/or jeans and piercings on Day courses, and occasionally men and women in purple , but not spitting in the street.

Beloved and I are free to roam the paths until we find a quiet bench , then we may talk, or not .We mostly enjoy , a luxury for Beloved , a stop for a chat in front of the various shrubs , trees and annuals of interest.

Is that a Cornus or a Viburnum?
Take a pic of the Monkey Puzzle tree for Alice
That’s a yellow Crab Apple
Ken’s done a good job on the Lavendar
The new Meadow Strip is a good idea, they’ll have to dig out the perennial weeds that have grown so quickly. Best put black membrane down until it’s seeded
Shall I give them a packet of Yellow Rattle
Don’t interfere
Take a pic of those
Here’s Jasper
It’s all looking so good

And it is.For the last 20 months some people have discovered for the first time new pastimes. Never was the name pastime more apt. Never has an interest in gardening been such a lifeline in difficult times it seems. On this day when the government Furlough Scheme ends some people

will have had their lives radically changed as they can no longer afford their rents,
might have to plough through paperwork and bureaucracy to get Universal Credit
or a new job
or come to terms with redundancy,
or an inability to pay a mortgage.

Everything has changed or is about to .

The Global Pandemic and its sister disaster Global Warming have marshalled I hope those of us in the west to start rethinking all our entrenched assumptions of the Good Life, family life, life without Europe, the NHS and even our security , into hoping that we can have a Global reboot of everything that will turn us back to the place where we can halt both toxic sisters.

Here in the place where I have had time to think about Covid and Global Warning, and plenty of leisure to walk slowly behind my beloved , and sit awhile on garden benches, and walk past stone walls with seedling trees and ferns bravely living in the crevices, I’m more drawn to the Lichen growing on branches, a sign of clean and pure air. The lichens give me joy, a God Given and amazing life form, not Fungus, not Algae but although the taxonomic classification is Fungus it is a symbiotic relationship of the two.

The joy of them does not end here. They can convert Carbon dioxide into Oxygen, fix Nitrogen and are the cheapest way to detect Pollution, and shout aloud from stones on which they live.

The lines in the Morning Prayer liturgy used at Wydale include this couplet

If Christ’s disciples keep silent

These stones would shout aloud

I get it .

*note to self , send email to audiology as have just lost yet another Hearing aid on the streets of Filey in the putting mask on quickly move .

Lightening and Thunderbolt

2021-08-12T13:59:00.005+01:00

Since my last post in May I have not been enjoying a deckchair in the garden , reading countless books of Detective fiction, baking Frangipane tarts , walking along the shoreline in bare feet or decorating the downstairs bathroom. I've had dozens of ideas of blogs to enthral . My spare time has of course led me to my Allotment plot a mile from my home here, where I can see the sea when I stand on the front step.

For 5 years now I have had Dave's pristine (once) old plot as well as mine. I used to share my plot with Bernard, and I have his as well since he married Queenie in 2017. I am what John Siddle used to say was one who gardened in organized chaos.

I cherish those words. John taught me English at my Grammar school ,Greatfield High school. Hull , in the 1960s. He came back into my life when he retired to Filey . On this day when grandchildren get English results, I don't sit here hoping I would manage my O level English Language again now; I don't need to imagine my old mentor is checking my participles , or my Latin master appreciating my understanding of the archaic language as informing my Botanical nomenclature, as I couldn't care less. Wen i text i say u and c and as long as it is understood it no longer worries me. I can't text quickly like my offspring and their offspring. I can't Word Process quickly either, I use 2 fingers. If I were back at my school I would not have taken Chemistry and PE, I would have sat in the Commercial class as it was called ,and learn to touch type to music as I used to hear them all doing, that is a skill indeed.

My organized CHAOS may be discerned by the no dig gardeners, the new Ruth Stouts, and and present Bob Flowerdews as an Allotment of the future times, even here in the land that time forgot, where Peat Free Compost is not sold in our allotment shop (yet ). Even here we No Dig gardeners need discernment, as the Peat Free Compost in our wonderful Reighton Nurseries is not all it seems either, as the ingredient replacing the peat is from China!

I want to record in 2021 that even if I have to give up my plot I am trying to use Practice which though not completely in the school of Charles Dowding is as good for the planet as I can manage . Here I put my hand up to Rat Bait in sheds, occasional weed killer on the border with the Railway embankment, and use of Cardboard that is not always brown .

Paul Wilson , (Advanced trees and grounds) supplies me with woodchip for my paths, the grandsons are employed to barrow it up to the plot.

Firstly Im thankful for the supply of good , large pieces of cardboard brought to my plot by friends. Many days I arrive at the plot to find treasure outside the shed door as I arrive to the packaging from garden chairs, beds, flat packs and even coffee pods. Thank you all the Helens, Stuarts, Lisas , Michaels for thinking of me,

Networking always pays off when in need of supplies for No Dig. John and his wife in Irton used to sell me all their horse manure. They were the first of the interesting folk one meets only through cultivating the earth .

John would ring me and say he'd got a load , did I want it ? He had one old horse. The manure was straight from the field into sacks, and pure gold . It took a year to rot down and though I used to find it hard work barrowing even the sacks from the road to my plot , the two of us working together , it took half an hour , and worth it. I was upset when his old horse died and that supply ceased. Now my friend Ingrid whose daughter has a horse will bring me supplies , and if the bush telegraph works well on the site I get to hear when a free load has been dumped at the end of the road by my plot.

That is how I met Therese and Stuart one February as we spent a bitterly cold morning helping ourselves to the contents of a winter cow byre . They are not only great suppliers of spare veg and cardboard but helpful and friendly, perfect allotmenteers. It was on that day that I met the young Syrian eye -surgeon refugee, who was waiting for his status to practice in this Country, From him I learned about the pale courgettes beloved of Syrians in their cuisine, which I now grow and pray for Syria as I tend them .

I tried to encourage my beloved to sit in my shed /greenhouse in the winter, cosy and warm next to my hotbeds , which I can get to 80F in January , February and March using straw , manure and urine and reading my book on Hotbeds , he won't, even though I have a sun lounger for him.

The straw for my hot beds now comes from friend Colin up above Hunmanby . He delivers straight to plot for me. I leave all the spare bales outdoor until October to get soaking wet and then it goes beautifully on top of the cardboard, with handfuls of chicken pellet fertiliser, and any donated horse manure. Colin also brings me horse manure from his field, let out to horses. This is fantastic stuff as it is already 3years rotted and growing magic.

John Siddle might see some chaos on the plot , but it is very organised too. I let Borage and plantains seed all over as pollinators . The Borage can grow to 3feet tall in few weeks . I don't remove it, it will seed freely for next year, and is so easy to spot may always be pulled up if necessary. Chives are the first mass bed to attract the bees, after the Woad of April, the Cowslips, Primroses and Violas of March and the Hyacinths and Daffodils of January and February. All summer long a favourite native plant Scarlet Pimpernel creeps and flowers, I rarely weed it out as I do all the Chickweed which goes to Pete for his budgies. I like the Groundsel and Sow thistles, and remove the Flowerdew way by just pulling and leaving to rot down on the soil's surface as mulch, as with the spurges and speedwells. I can always recognize them if I have to remove . The Couch Grass and Horsetails are another thing altogether, removed and incinerated as soon as spotted. This is easy with the Horsetails , as Bernard eradicated most of them , but the Couch Grass is so hard to get out , as every little bit of underground stem if left in the ground will thrive to produce new plants, and as for Bindweed , that gorgeous 'Grandma Grandma Pop out of bed ' plant that has to be removed if possible and its underground stems look like a tube map..

This year has been very hard for me to keep up with removing the pernicious 'weeds ', as I do not have time . They need an army of people who do not carry I am a carer card.

Tagetes minutii did not germinate well this year. It is the companion plant that exudes a toxin which slows the growth of Couch grass, so next years first challenge . It is a wonderful plant , growing up to 5'tall and I like to make windbreaks of it. I'm growing Tansy too amongst the raspberries , same use of companion planting.

I have been nurturing a pot of Ginger or Tumeric all year, but now realise it is Couch grass. Its beautiful though and could do well if was marketed as a conservatory plant and watered well. It would be cheap and easily divided to give away to friends as long as not planted out, then you would be as popular as if you had given them Japanese Knotweed. Would my friend who thought I went to Roedean please ignore this advice. I never should have said to her a we drove past the school on way to Newhaven , 'there my old school' because she believed me for years I later found out . If you are from Hull you will know that Greatfield High school in 1959 to 65 was rough, and girls like me had to get tough to cope with it.

So Ive surrendered my Thunderbolt adapter now that Ive given away my Mac air, but bought a Lightening adapter for my ipad . I shall be showing my beloved his grandson Reubens Blog, this blog and all my photos as soon as I have him as a captive audience in front of the TV set, just as I've trained him on the input from the remote.

Aurora and No DIG

2021-05-21T10:40:00.006+01:00

I've waited all my life it seems to see the Aurora. I've toyed for 30 years with taking the Hurtigruten transport to the north of Norway. It doesn't guarantee the Northern Lights will perform and I am the mistress of procrastination .

Many years ago , when Bill Bryson was newly on the literary stage , I was enthralled with his book Neither here nor there, published in 1991. His words have informed my search for the Aurora.

On my sixteenth day in Hammerfest , it happened. I was returning from the headland after my morning walk and in an empty piece of sky above the the town there appeared translucent cloud of many colours, pinks and greens and blues and pale purples. It glimmered and seemed to swirl. Slowly it stretched across the sky. It had an oddly oily quality about it, like the rainbows you see in a pool of petrol. I stood transfixed.

For many years I've been able to take a picture as soon as something interesting needs recording, most of us are swelling the clouds second by second with the unnecessary jpegs of our lives. I thought once that it wont be long before we will be able to record everything , yes every thing we have seen, if a minute automatic camera gadget was fixed to our face. We would get up , clean our teeth and at the same time recharge our gadget. Some folk already send so many photos to Instagram and vids to TikTok that I despair. Altruism is usually not the objective , but Egoism and the desire for status and monetary gain. I tick the Egoism box myself as a write this blog. I want to leave my mark , I want my children to read what I'm really like . I want to leave a footprint for posterity but not notoriety. Bill Bryson left me a huge mark . For 30 years I've known that I could not stand at the end of Queen street for 16 days in the hope a seeing the Northern Lights. My app has been active with possibility for the last few days, I know that they have been seen form Carr Naze and Scarborough. BUT now I am unable to respond to those wonderful yellow bars of possibility.

I'm more or less cottage bound at present. I get out when I know beloved is safe or someone , mostly my lovely daughter is sitting with him. My other priority is my allotment. I will have to give it up if I cant keep it ticking over, so I'm giving myself until the backend to see if my NO DIG method and copious use of straw and mulch has silenced the march of the unwanted

Horsetails and Twitching grass. They both shout at me the minute I arrive at my plot paradise.

My meadow strip is coming on beautifully, now in it 5th year and each year new species have seeded and the insect population increased.

Hay meadow

You see I have no time to align my photos and explain anything further. Just be assured readers I'm still around and enjoying my change of circumstances , especially now that beloved has discovered Talking Pictures TV channel and I have the benefit of my own little space upstairs, and know how much I can cram in to 1 hour on my plot. when the opportunity arises. AS for the Northern Lights, Im praying for the miracle that one day I'll just be looking out across the sea to the North from the loft window and see them .

Sweetpeas

Sugar snap peas

Squashes waiting

Deus ex machina

2021-02-06T08:14:00.007+00:00

I've been looking everywhere for my copy of 'The Monkey Wrench Gang' by Edward Abbey. It will come into one of seven categories.

Placed on my Specials book shelf
Placed on a shelf for novels
In the loft maybe in a box, or on the floor in a tottering pile, waiting to go on a shelf or go to a Charity shop
Already given to Grandchildren when they were smaller in the hope that when they are older they will read them
Already given to Charity shop
Misplaced ,to be found amongst the Botany section when I'm dead

I've also been looking for my Picture book of Archimboldo's strange and mesmerizing portraits. I particularly want to look at these pictures again although Google Images will suffice for now. Even poorly reproduced art works are better on paper for me. They become well known friends, an ownership of imagination and a certainty of recognition and remembrance when the pages are turned again.

No Catering vans have been seen much in Filey recently, and I do miss them, the ones with foodscapes that is ! Here Google is an acceptible substitute for paper, as I don't yet have a book of pictures of Catering Supply vans with foodscapes. I don't need one but I would like one. Here Mr Google has broadened my imagination and wetted my appetite for innovation , for the bizarre , for the clever takes and for the imagination of Graphic designers. Years of trying to help young people to take their imaginations away form the small screen to designing their own huge screen in the mind have made me do the same. The small screen in front of me now will have to substitute for a paper copy, as I trawl Google images and find treasure that will do for now, but is not stored for future enjoyment except in my overloaded brain. I bookmark webpages , but rarely go back to them , whereas a book holds no overload. It may be replaced on a shelf or misplaced amongst the Botany section .

Oh! look at this one Ive just found! A Hokusai wave, not a new idea , as I remember getting my Bridlington students to do them with Flamborough Light replacing Mount Fuji. I love it anyway.

Why am I looking for my copy of The Monkey Wrench Gang ?

Last night I was looking for my Achimboldo and found Aunty Gwens copy of " The Typist Treasury by Kate Stevens 1939, Over 600 helpful Points for those who type or Write, the frontispiece declares. I found the words Deus ex machina and remembered that when I read the Edward Abbey book in about 2011 I came across the Chapter with that title, and I could never work out what it meant. I even went up to a man in Leyburn in 2016 ,bearing the words on a T shirt and asked him what the words meant and he didn't know.

Kate Stevens 1939 knew

'something providential that happens just in time to solve a difficulty. (Literally a god from the machinery , referring to gods shown in ancient theatre.)

Vicarious

2020-11-21T15:47:00.001+00:00

I've just been to Iona . Its not the Isle of North Harris but will do for now.

My screensaver reminds and enthrals. The one on my main PC does a slideshow of all my picture files , and I particularly like the way it gets many windows out of one picture by zooming in to bits of one . So one seemingly ordinary picture of a field, when seen another way, is a fascinating collection of random items; bent grass stems, patch of Butterbur, spoor and droppings of Canada geese, rainbow, stream , stile and clump of earth . I then remember that the picture was taken just after dawn when I was trying to see a Corncrake , could hear one , but not see one .This time .

So I've revisited Iona where I've been 5 times for week visits. One has to go for more than 2 days to ensure at least sunshine on one of them . I've been back to my favourite "Bay at the back of the ocean ", Ive imagined the sound of the spouting cave , and the smell of rotting seaweed , and the inconvenience of the accompanying flies.

These last two months I've been in the Hebrides nearly every day as neighbour has lent me the Lewis trilogy by Peter May . I'm on the third one now ,The Chessmen . Unlike many trilogies , and I should know, as spouse has just read the Hilary Mantel one , which got heavier and heavier , literally and metaphorically , the Lewis ones tick all my boxes. They are Murder mysteries, can stand alone, but better read in order, are well written , are about the sort of landscapes I love , are in the DNA, speaking as one whose forbears came from Skye, whose detective is flawed but interesting, and best of all for me, a cartophile, can be enjoyed best with a map.

So I'm in the Isle of Lewis in my head. I know more than is recounted in the books , as I have explored all the other interesting places on the island , the brochs . the archealogical sites, the cafes and distilleries , the peat bogs and the flora. I've had a holiday all of my own choosing from my home .

I've had many vicarious holidays this year. I've been round Australia with Arthur Upfield, a holiday I do every 2 years , binge reading each novel with my new map .The last 2 Australia maps dropped to bits from over indulgence. I've been again to Monterey with Steinbeck and Sweet Thursday and all over the rest of California with same map with Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhome (read 6 books so far). I gave Peter Robinson another go as the March cosy reading season began, got through about 5 of those, yes I quite liked them , but totally unsatisfying as none of the places are true to a map. They are hybrid . I shall only read when there is a famine of who dun its.

I've also been on holiday with Susan Calman on Channel 5. I could watch her all day . She is so clever and funny . Yesterday she too went to Lewis and Harris , so now I've been to see Harris Tweed made , and saved money by not buying any as I would have done on realtime holiday, and then put the material in my sewing box for 40 years like the piece I found with the trade mark ,still waiting to be made into a skirt .

Just incase you are wondering about my fantasy holidays , Yes! I've been all round Middle Earth too with Journeys Of Frodo , The Atlas of Lord of the Rings , and I would quite like Rivendell for a quiet few days .

Waiting for Ikea

2020-08-10T12:09:00.000+01:00

I can't remember what day of the week it is , or the month sometimes. When I started this blog in 2006, everyone was at it. I can't bring myself to do podcasts because I don't listen to them myself. I am still a reader .

My home is full of books waiting to be read for the first time, donated by kind friends when the library was covid closed.
My home is full of books I have had since 1947: my childhood storybooks, my Milly Molly Mandy , my Children of the New Forest, My What Katy Did , my Snowflake by Paul Gallico, My first Bible AV with Horace Knowles illustrations with love from Grandma.
My home is full of books I have had since 1960: the teenager years, Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers (now disintegrating)McLintock &Fitter, Sweet Thursday by Steinbeck, Palgraves Golden Treasury,The Observers book of Lichens,The Drunken Forest By Gerald Durrell, a hopeful copy of The Odyssey
My home is full of books I have had in adulthood, all Jane Austen, all Thomas Hardy , all Arthur Upfield (ALL now OP), and shelves of Local Topography, Florae, Poetry , Bibles , Novels I might read again , biographies & works of interesting(to me) Christians (Brother Lawrence, St John of the Cross, Corrie Ten Boom, Floyd McLung , CS Lewis , David Watson , Pete Greig

This is all about to change, EPIPHANY is upon ME.

I have been through all my clothes and only kept those I have worn in the last 2 years. (Except for My Wedding Dress and my Bruce Tartan kilt) . Daughter in Sussex is delighted to receive the beautiful dress my mother wore to my wedding in 72. No one wants 5 other kilts. I have had a massive clear out . I decided my dozens of scarves took up no room , so on a grand and sunny windy day I washed the lot , Im keeping them .

The books are all going except a few of the above.

The family have been offered my Edwardian Chair, my barley twist Legged Dining table all in the Office . They will be given to St Catherine's Hospice when they start collecting again . Grandsons are going to dismantle to pine Double Bed too in the loft for removal .I hope they can get the Mattress down the spiral stairs of this 18th C cottage.

We are making the Office into a Single Bedroom . I've watched so many adverts recently on Talking Pictures that it took me 3mins to buy a wonderful single mattress. It came 2 days later in a box , and inflated within minutes.

It took me 15 mins to order and pay for a flat pack single bed from Ikea. It will be here on the 28th August .

I will know that date, I've put reminders on all my devices.

June came quickly

2020-06-20T14:20:00.001+01:00

“The nights will soon be drawing in “. We used to be infuriated when spouse’s father used to declare this every 21st June . I have to keep consulting my Eric Ravilous calendar nearly every day to check the date .I need the date more than I have for years. The calendar is more or less empty of appointments, our next memorable date is in August and that is for the MOT on the car . After that comes the Dentist in November .

We have some dates in our mind that don’t need a calendar,

Sisters 70th birthday in August is the most important
Daughters birthday in July precedes that but just an ordinary birthday
Wimbledon ,last week of June and Ist week in July CANCELLED
Harvest Festival Flower arranging CANCELLED FOR ME ,I’M NOT GOING IN CHURCH THIS YEAR
Spouse’s birthday 13th September coinciding with the day we pay for our Car Parking space in the local Pub Car Park

I need a calendar because I’m now writing cheques again .I need a calendar because I’m now writing letters again using my fountain pen .

My concept of time has taken a knocking . I explain in detail .

Eldest daughter and family have taken the small allotment next to mine. It is a quarter plot and was left in great condition by the last holder . My daughter has never grown anything before. She planted packets of seeds in the cold greenhouse in January and was delighted with the results.

Her melon seeds astounded me,I never thought they would germinate in the cold , but now she is expecting Watermelons . What were the size of golf balls are now the size of grapefruit. Her onions from seed are as good as mine from sets, and she has got a row of parsnips which none of us manage usually.

She works from the ancient booklet Be your own Vegetable Expert , Bible of the 70s.

She told me yesterday that she was going to grow Leeks now. I helpfully thought it would be better to drive up to Reighton Nurseries together and buy a pot of seedlings , “too late to plant says I “ my timing is quite out . Mr Hessayon has told her to plant for overwintering , in July.

She is right and I am wrong . July is soon ,I’m astounded , I’ve not put my Chrysanth plants in ( from cuttings). My Anxiety Level is high at present , I’m getting strung up about completely unnecessary things. I don’t need Chrysanths, I’m not doing Harvest Festival . It doesn’t matter if my plot is covered in Scarlet Pimpernel . It is delightful , easily removed and deserves its nick name of Poor Mans Weatherglass.

I go to Morning Prayer on Zoom Or Facebook Live every day at present . It is so good to leave our small town too.

RARE RANT

I find this town an insular and parochial place to live . It can be small town minded , always congratulating itself . If I hear another person say Yorkshire is Gods Own County I shall scream . Have people never lived anywhere else or smelled the spliffs at the end of their streets . The smell of Fish and Chips is back and there are socially distanced queues , but underlying anxiety is simmering . We need to be REAL. Golden sands and the Country Park are not the key to successful coping, they are just tools in the life drawer.

Back to Zoom Morning Prayer. It has been the biggest tool in my life drawer. Especially going to Wydale for it. By hearing 27 other people in places like York, Beverley,Winteringham, Bridlington , Scarborough and Kirby Misperton, Share and pray each day has raised my game. Wonderful though it is, my allotment can’t completely satisfy. It’s ok not to be ok , and sharing in a trusted and confidential environment and giving everything to our Creator has kept me on track as I stumble through the calendar months.

Right now Rotherham gets my praise as a good place to live , as it has wilded its road verges and brought the bees to town .

Memorable date Longest Day 21st June 2020 R.I P Win

When is a weed not a weed?

2020-05-07T11:25:00.002+01:00

Sowthistle , Filey roadside

I've missed the Lily of the Valley season completely . I did plant some on my allotment last year in a damp and partly shaded place , but its not established yet or seen fit to have just one flower. I'm surprised by this as plants will flower if in distress for lack of water just because they need to produce seed to maintain the species. We in the land that time forgot OKA Filey had no rain during much of March and all of April until its showers started on 30th April .

We are not allowed to use hosepipes on our plots but may fill all our receptacles, baths and posh containers looking like the water towers of flat Holderness.

I digress here for the sake of my family.

Family anecdote

We Bruces grew up in the east Riding of Yorkshire and would often have an afternoon drive out to Hornsea our nearest small resort. From the age of 3 , in 1950, I remember the drive well, first in Grandpa Bruces 1930 Alvis , and then the 1960s in our family Ford Prefect. I can't remembered what the reward actually was, might have been a penny or might have been a piece of mint rock from the sweet tin , but our father would always call out

'First one to see the Water Tower gets a .............'

Then would come the explanation of why the countryside here needed a water tower, and how they worked. Great Grandpa Bruce had been the Chief Waterworks engineer for Kingston upon Hull so perhaps that story was played out as well . Sister Christine and I worked out why the whole family except our Grandfather emigrated to to the USA in the 1890s as the Stoneferry Waterworks were decommissioned and he would have lost his house and much of his job .

So you see I love nothing more than working out how to irrigate my plot , and cover my baths to satisfy SBC who own the land.

I'm really grateful for the running water even though I'm as far as possible from the taps and my hosepipes are fixed to the fence of my neighbour to lead to my plot . The Allotments in the Fulham Palace road don't even have running water. Filling my baths takes an hour as I have 3 and 2 water barrels. I prefer rain in my water butts however as its pure and better for my wildlife ponds (4 washing up bowls sunk into ground).This year I've managed to get tadpoles from 2 friends to mix the gene-pool so to speak . I'm trying to get as many frogs as possible as slug control . The nasty huge continental slugs are beginning to invade Filey . I have to resort to massacre at present .

I'm waiting now for the appearance of my favourite wild plants ;

Poor Mans Weather glass (Scarlet Pimpernel)
Quaking grass
Mullein
Chickweed (for Petes budgies)
Hop Trefoil

and for my worst weeds

Horsetail
Bindweed
Couch Grass
and was going to say Sow Thistle , but read to end of post

The person on the allotment next to me is pleased with her Peppers, sown in February . She has really looked after them , pinched out the tops and potted them on . I watered for her yesterday in her absence and wondered how I was going to tell her that she was growing Common Orache , though may be eaten like spinach, is in my mind a weed.

I did my Dissertation on WEEDS in 1967.

I was amused to hear that a friend in Sussex had been during this lockdown watching a beautiful plant , now in full flower growing in her garden . So she googled it and found it was my enemy Sow Thistle.

What then is a weed, it is a plant growing where you don't want it , simple as that .

ENJOY!

What to do with Spanish onions

2020-03-25T10:49:00.002+00:00

I have a few old Recipe books which have been handed down to me:

Last outing to Waitrose*

My grandmothers "Mrs Beeton",
the handwritten "receipts" of the Misses Hair, circa 1893 which includes the fascinating recipes entitled "What to do with Spanish Onions", and "How to wait at table single handed" which ascertains in its opening sentence that any "intelligent person can be taught the art",
and a couple of the recipe books belonging to my Mother , Margaret Viola Bruce nee Holding .

Interesting to me is the wedding present from her next door neighbours in her home in Birkenhead . It is entitled "Advanced Cookery Recipes". She had just completed a cookery course on her engagement , or had maybe just bought the book, of the renowned Liverpudlian, Fanny Calder , for it was "Recipes from the Calder School of Cookery "or some such title, I can't find the book .

My mother brought to her marriage , in 1946, to Yorkshireman Harold Gower Bruce always known as Bengy, a scant and basic knowledge of the culinary arts. She had of course watched her mother cook , and so knew perfectly how to order meat and cook it to perfection .
I recall all she taught me too on buying meat . We have a great Butchers in Filey , whose meat is locally sourced and the producer named .
Mother loved a good butcher, and could talk Beasts kidney , skirt , feathering ,Aitch Bone and undercut to me well into her last months . Beef of course was the flesh of choice , legs of lamb appeared on our Sunday Table occasionally in the Spring , Pork rarely , bacon every day , Black pudding often , and a a real treat would be a chicken , but these always came from our neighbour Mr Baston who was an egg producer. Our Butcher was Mr Hickey , whose van came up to our house a couple of times a week , or we would go to the village for mince or stewing beef.
Mother had a limited range of "dinners"and all included meat or fish .Cauliflower Cheese and Macaroni cheese did feature occasionally as meals.
We had

a wonderful joint of meat or a fowl on a Sunday
reheated meat and gravy on Monday (Daddy hated this)
Minced meat on Tuesday if any joint left
Braised steak -her favourite for visitors, served with Yorkshire Pudding , as was mince
Corned beef hash occasionally
Hash on Ash Wednesday (about 4 oz beef in a huge stew with potatoes and carrots and swede, not thickened, eaten in bowl with Brown or Worcester sauce to make it palatable)
Fish often , Fish pie, or Smoked Haddock with an egg on top, Fried fish often , lots fish caught by Daddy in season (and when he actually came home with some), which had to be eaten immediately as we had no fridge , Trout or Grayling fried whole .

Sunday lunches were mother's triumph . We three girls will never forget them , or our childhood Sundays. Church in village with Daddy , drink at Church Mount afterwards , Sunday lunch , sometimes with rows about how Daddy carved, and a pudding a crumble or a pie. After the washing-up a walk up the lane to Fewlass' farm ,watching the Skylarks and Yellow hammers as Mummy had a quiet sit at home . Obligatory and awful Sunday School fitted in too , but not sure when in the afternoon that came.

AS a header on this post is a treasure for me on this day when Mummy would have been 100 years old . Typical Mummy literacy , she had Dyslexia we now realise, as could not spell well, lots of underlinings, her characteristically stylish and bold handwriting and the recipes she wrote in the note section of her wedding present book, her Mothers recipe for Fudge or Tablet as its called in Scotland . I can't make any today girls, as I'm not going to Spar for non essential Condensed milk , but we may all think about it !!

*been thinking about Michael Gove on TV the other day , talking to Jo Public about supermarkets with Waitrose as his example. Mr Gove, most people DO NOT GO TO WAITROSE

I will refuse ...

2020-02-05T16:33:00.004+00:00

Filey

Not a Hokusai wave , but a Reuben Ronnie W. wave. I just love this doodle done in a trice by grandson 2 , using my ipad when they were staying here with us at the cottage as Mum and Dad were at a birthday party . I have to watch boys these days in a way so different from the way I minded them when they were small. As capable , bright , well mannered teenagers they now quite enjoy chillin' out with the OLDS. ( I think ).That is because they are tired at the weekend. They leave for school every day before 7.30am , return after 4.30pm, and have parents who get them out in the fresh air for a walk of some miles every day . So a weekend slob with the over 70s is just the thing occasionally , they watch unspeakable stuff on the TV , Catchphrase, Red Dwarf , Room 101and a cartoon so rude I blushed to watch it , though Zak did say the episode I watched was very very rude. When they have gone home there is a trail to remember them by ;

files and downloads on all my devices,
cocoa powder under the microwave
sweet papers on the floor
nothing in the wastebin in their loft bedroom
the chairs moved around in the office
BEST OF ALL the beds so carefully made up and aired have been unused and the spare beds slept in , and the carefully folded clean linen for making up slept over. I'm monitoring this now along with ensuring they have washed , and not slept in their clothes

Watching the news yesterday young people were talking about Smartphones and how all over 10s had them these days. I am remembering when spouse and I looked after the 2year old Reuben for 1 day a week . I was so tired by the afternoon I always responded positively to the plea 'puter Grandma' long before ipads and tablets , but small boy happily found the then free Poisson Rouge * and scrolled around happily. So agreeing with the young people on the News yesterday , they cannot really function these days without the internet , sad but realistic. I simply can't remember the last time I used an Encylopaedia . The boys don't even type a search into a dialogue box , they just speak and ask Google .

Im living in a house where one fossil of the two refuses to have an email, asks the other but much younger fossil to repeat to him all the Whats App interaction on the family groups, All the family, Mum and children, Three sisters, Imogen , Alice, Benjamin .

I'm repeatedly asked if I will just look something up, message someone on Facebook, check the name of the actress we've just seen on Talking Pictures to see if she's dead, and get him something on Amazon Prime .

I am about to refuse to do this. I'm not a PA .

* Just found this

RED JULES @redjules

2019-12-18T10:46:00.000+00:00

I cant think of a better post for any of you ! I have blogrolled Jules Middletons blog for many years , and Gods timing is NOW

Read the whole thread everyone and retweet @lprince9294 @FileyVicar @mike316316 @akstringer791 @FileyParish @FranciscoProct5 https://t.co/hp9nHizKlm
— Margaret Rowling (@margaretkiaora) December 17, 2019

That Delphic Sibyl and other well muscled models

2019-11-14T13:47:00.001+00:00

Cumaean Sybil

Picture here is of the Cumaean Sybil of Michaelangelo rather than the more well known Delphic Sybil of Michaelangelo; she looks as if she has been to the gym and lifting weights. I wonder just how many real arms the Artist had actually studied or whose arms were used for the model here . Michaelangelo he might have been , but my teenagers had a few words for this photo here.

I've been to Holy Trinity Hull oka Hull Minster to see the exhibition of the photographs of all the paintings in the Sistine Chapel . I went twice actually , once alone with Hull sister and friend and then with Beloved and teenage Grandsons;

a deliberate act to ensure that they will remember that the cultural expeditions with Grandma to Kingston upon Hull covered more than the Artwork of the 21st Century
to show them that an interior of an ancient and historic church may lend itself to an update in space management
to introduce them to Trinity Market next to the Minster

I was glad that I knew the layout , ambience and logististics of the free but ticketed Exhibition before visiting a second time , as the first time was a confusing journey amongst scores of people in the way with their Audio Guides , inaccessible places for wheelchairs, and a Funeral Service being prepared so that punters had to get round quickly .

I have seen the real thing , the Sistine Chapel in 1974 visiting Uncle Edgar (who worked at FAO) and Aunty Kay . Rome was then just like a huge GIFT SHOP , religious souvenirs on every corner , and I got weary of the endless Etruscan Vases and glass cases with bits of the original Cross , the SISTINE chapel was lost on me too . So I welcomed chance to see the photos showing close up detail , or maybe I'm more interested in Renaissance paintings now and not just waiting for the next birra.

The second visit was much easier, and the volunteers much more used to their best help techniques, new routes for wheelchairs were now in place and a much better arrangement for the display of the famous bits, the Creation of Adam and Adam and Eve . Much better too now the Sanctuary , showing the photo of the huge Last Judgement . I loved this, especially the portrayal of the flayed skin of St Bartholomew with the face of Michaelangelo himself - I missed that in La Roma.

Here I not only applaud the Minster staff and volunteers, but the easily spotted Turquoise Hull Volunteers trained for the 2017 City of Culture events and now one of the most successful legacies of that year and the follow on years . I hope the POD in Paragon Station will remain .

Here are Audrey and Sue earning a welcome sit down after a mornings work in the Minster refectory, and still happy to chat Hull .

I have known Holy Trinity all my life, my mother used to take me as a teenager so Youth Services in the 60s , and more recently ordinations, & the Morning Service on Sunday mornings when we stay at the nearby Premier In.

Guess the LP

We had a very successful visit to Trinity Market , and Oh! how different from the covered market of my own teenage years, when coffee was Milk and a dash, and I learned how to buy a crab to dress at home . I would get back to Sutton hoping that I'd remembered to get a Male, and that it wasn't too wet in the cart . I have loved Crab ever since, glad that here in Filey they are readily available nearly every day at our wet fish shop Lovetts. Beloved and I had a long sit , he with an italian Arancino, and me with a Lowenbrau , as the boys hunted for Vinyl records and a lunch fit for a teenage boy -

Pepper Chips. The Street food on offer in Trinity Market was varied and authentic, we loved it !

And just when the day couldn't get any better , beloved bought a Cycad in the Station Florist and a huge Opuntia for our grandson who is collecting and tending Cacti .