P.S. from Swaledale

CB and I went out for another ride out in the car on Easter Sunday.  This time we went by different roads to Swaledale, eventually joining the old road from Richmond  over the hill to Fremington.  A left turn then over the bridge and we reached Grinton, where the temporary traffic lights and a large ROAD CLOSED sign indicated that we still couldn’t go back to Richmond by the main road. The diversion was over the “tank road” to Leyburn, which we were to take later, but for now we took a right turn onto the Harkerside road.  Harkerside is the hillside across the valley from Healaugh and Reeth.  It has several prehistoric earthworks on both the hillside and the hilltop, High Harker Hill.

You can get a good view of the villages of Fremington, Reeth and Healaugh across the river from Harkerside. I love all the old stone houses in the Dales.  You’ll see I did a 3 picture photo stitch of Healaugh, where I used to live. My old house is behind a tree almost right in the middle of the photo!  I took the third picture of the three to include the stepping stones across the Swale - the ones I have no memory of whatsoever! Bewildering, that!  The path to the riverside followed the wall to the right of the tree to the right of the village, and the stepping stones cross the river right at the bottom of the wall.  I often used to take the river path back from work at Reeth, or the one through the fields starting from (or ending at) the half circle field on the right.

The road is not used that frequently and is very narrow, so it is a popular road for walkers, horse riders and cyclists, and we saw a few of each. 

We also saw a grouse among the clumps of heather! 

Crossing the bridge over the Swale, and reaching the main road again, I had to take this photo for my blogging friend, Katrina Stephen of Pining for the West!   You’ve seen this sign or one not so far away, before, Katrina, but I always think of you when I see them!  K stands for Kirby in this case.

We approached Healaugh from the west side this time, passing the farm where we used to buy raw milk straight from the cow back in the day.  Bottles were left on the milking parlour window sill and we used to collect it and leave the money!  I remember when they were feeding the cows with silage the milk always tasted strong.   I didn’t like it at all then.

One of the things I wanted to check out was whether or not the phone box still had flowers in a wee jar, and also a piece of carpet on the concrete floor, so we stopped again and I had a look.

The answer was yes to both, but I only photographed the flowers!  The notice on the wall thanks people for their charitable donations and advises that the money will go to various favourite charities of the villagers.

This is the cobbled square where the phone box is to be found.  My old friend Gladys used to live in the house with the porch , only the porch and the section to the left of the left chimney are new (in the last 25 years.  Fancy, Gladys has been dead for 25 years now.  She was a real character).  I had another little explore round the village and going up the lane behind the Old School, I found two houses I have no memory of at all! (Left of the photo behind the wall)  I have no idea who lived there.  Isn’t that strange?  It’s a pretty lane though, and it comes out onto Shore Gill at the other end. I do recall going along it once or twice, and those houses must have been there all along!

Right in the middle of the village is a round-ish area of ground that is quite overgrown with grass and brambles.  It’s not a flat field but is quite lumpy.  I often wonder if under the hillocks you would find the ruins of old cottages.  This was a busy area in the past and most of the men would have been lead miners.  There could well have been more cottages in the village.  Gladys used to say it was Johnny Gaunt’s castle, meaning I suppose, John of Gaunt!  Why?  I have no idea!

From Healaugh we drove on again to Reeth where I lived for a few months  in Wee Cottage when I first moved to Swaledale.   Reeth has had lots of changes over the last quarter century since I left there. For example, the cafe where we had a cup of tea was a private house when I lived there.  What a great view it has over the village green to High Row, more commonly called The Cobbles, where most of the village shops were situated.  It’s still a very busy village on a holiday weekend as you can see from the amount of cars parked on the green. 

This is the grocery shop today in the low building in the centre.  It used to be a garage for the folk at the Post Office, beneath the yellow banner.  Peter and his mother, the postmistress, lived in the house above.  Wee Cottage, not being far away, just round the corner from the white houses on the right, my cat, Tommy, used to come walking to the Post Office with me, sit outside waiting for me, then accompany me home again!

The house here was the house my mother liked best.  Her Gingerbread Cottage, she called it!  I remember watching a scene from All Creatures Great and Small being filmed in this lane, outside the white door of the building with the white gable!  It was one of Christopher Timothy’s scenes.

Then this is a view over to the Congregational Church from Miss Heavyside’s garden, as it was!  When I was a child I spent many Sunday afternoons in that church with my parents and the “aunties”, friends of Mother’s, when we came here for holidays.  There was a Bible text over the arch in the apse, with  which I used to play “eeny meeny miny mo” with the letters, instead of listening to the sermon!  I can’t remember for the life of me now what that text was, but it was in large blue capitals with the  initial letter of each word in red!  Something like that!

It’s always nice to come back to Reeth and Healaugh.  I hope you’ve enjoyed the visit too, and not minded my little memories!  There must be hundreds more memories, but they’ll keep!

Talk again soon.  I really have a lot to catch up with!

A visit to old haunts.

While I’ve been here in Yorkshire, CB and I have taken runs out in the car – mine.  I wouldn’t let him drive till he got his stitches(staples) taken out which happened last week, so on the Thursday afternoon we took a run out in his new vehicle, a cross between a van and a bus, I guess!  Well, instead of going the direct route up Swaledale, we had to take a long route round as part of the dale road was closed for repairs.  I bet it was at a point called Gatehouse Corner which is notorious for the road subsiding – well, in the days I was living up the dale it was!

Anyway we drove up the A1, and at Scotch Corner turned off on the A66 that connects east with west, the northern road across the Pennine hills, the backbone of England.  The road to Reeth, the main village in Upper Swaledale, leaves the A66 to go south over the hill, through the (much depleted) Stang forest, and down into Arkengarthdale, then left again to finish the run down to Reeth.   However, at the CB hotel in Arkengarthdale  - CB for a long ago leadmine owner called Charles Bathhurst -  where I worked for a couple of years, we turned right, and followed the moor road, past Cocker House, where an old friend used to live, across Surrender Bridge and left again passing the old ruined Surrender lead smelting mill across the beck/stream, and on through a ford, locally called the Watersplash  and famous for its appearance in the opening sequence of the James Herriot All Creatures Great and Small TV programme from the late 1970s.  (To think I actually watched some of the filming for that programme in the early 80s!).  The last part of the road took us past Park Hall Farm and Thiernswood Hall,past the spot where I used to pick primroses on my birthday,  across Barney Beck Bridge and into Swaledale at Healaugh.  You can call it HEElaw  or its vernacular name of HEE-le ( le as in the French word for the), and it’s where I lived for several years in the 1980s. 

We parked on the Green, beside what has become a Bed & Breakfast house, and the old barn (left of photo) that is now a house, and took a walk along the village.

I was amazed to see so many properties for sale in the village, including my old house, left, and the cottage next door, Kay’s house across the road and the old post office ( a PO before my time). 

Even the new cottage built recently on the other side of my house was up for sale!   I’d love to see inside!  It looks fabulous!Well, I’d like to see inside my old house too.  Annette bought it from me and must have sold it to a holiday let company and now they are selling it.  I don’t think it has changed much inside, from the estate agent’s info online: a new kitchen and a revamped bathroom, that’s about all I can see.  I took various photos in the village, like the one below of the horse troughs, at the corner, so come for a walk with us.  This road goes up the hill and round to the back of the village.  Instead we walked past Slack House, and the old school,  which was a barn in my day, and is now a house,turned right into the square at Lock Heather.  This was where Mrs N used to live.  She laid a small piece of carpet sample on the floor of the telephone kiosk to make a long telephone call in winter warmer on the feet and used to put a small jar of flowers on the shelf  to pretty the place up!  There were lots of little notes from folk who used the phone thanking “whoever kept the phone box looking so attractive”.  Some even left a few pennies for charity.  I forgot to look to see if the custom has continued!  Fancy me not remembering!  We walked up the unfinished road behind Lock Heather, passing my elderly friend GH’s house on the right (I didn’t take its photo as there was someone working in the garden)  and as we headed uphill, the gate of Hallgarth , B’s old home, up to the top of the villlage pastthe more modern house that was EB’s.  Her uncle AB used to live in one of the cottages at the top (and her brother LB in a house on the main road.)  They were pretty dilapidated 25+ years ago, but have now been renovated and the woodwork painted, so that they look very desirable.  They must have a beautiful view of the other side of the dale.  To finish our walk around the village we crossed in front of the cottages and on to join the uphill road (the only portrait orientated photo above).

Colin is standing outside A&E’s house in the shadow.  The little lean-to behind him was the tiny post office in my time in Healaugh, and I spent a lot of time there sending letters to penpals and enjoying the craic with E.  I think they live in his parents’ farmhouse now.  It’s on the main road next to my old house – well, the new cottage separates our two buildings now. The post office is gone now – you have to go to Reeth to post letters to penfriends these days – and I expect most of the villagers I knew have died or moved away.  There were only a few youngsters here and even the smallest of them will be well grown up, probably have their own families now too! 

They say you should never go back somewhere where you were happy, so although tempted I didn’t make appointments with estate agents to look round the for sale properties.  I’ll keep my memories, look at my old photos and just remember the place as it was!

 

 

 

 

Talk again soon.                  

Book number 9?

I think this is my 9th book for Peggy’s Read Scotland 2014 challenge!  It is the updated version of The Life and Death of St Kilda, by Tom Steel – yes, yet another book about that little group of rocky islands 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides.  After thousands of years of inhabitation, the harsh  life on St Kilda eventually became unsustainable  in the early 20th century, to the extent that the few remaining inhabitants asked the British Government to evacuate them to the mainland.  The last time I read this book many years ago, it was obviously the previous version I read, as there was a chapter describing the day in 1930 when the villagers left their homes and embarked on the ship that was to take them to their new homes on the mainland.  In the updated version of the same title this description has been left out.

Tom Steel, sadly no longer with us, did a lot of research for this book and the Bibliography contains lists as long as your arm of the books, histories, letters, and documents he read.  A lot of the story concerns the history and prehistory of Hirta, the main island, some of which was familiar to me as the details came from some of the same sources that I have read, but much of the book describes more modern times of the late 19th, and early 20th centuries when things started to go wrong for the St Kildans, and the subsequent resettlement of the population and what happened next on St Kilda.  It isn’t a happily-ever-after ending for most of the evacuees, sadly.  Indeed some, disillusioned with life on the mainland,  even wanted to return home, but having spent a vast amount on the evacuation, the government were not prepared to let this happen. 

Talk again soon.

The last few days

I came down here to Yorkshire last week as my friend, CB, had to  go into hospital for a splenectomy.  His op was on Monday and by Thursday he was home.  He actually asked me to take this picture when he was in HDU, attached to all his tubes and drips!

He had keyhole surgery, which left him with three tiny wounds, each about an inch long and neatly “stitched” with three staples!  It’s amazing what they can do now!.  Anyway, so far the op seems to have fixed the problem he had with a low count of platelets in his blood.  The count has gone from between 9 and about 50 to over 300, which is excellent news!  The platelets are what makes the blood clot, when you cut yourself, for example, so obviously having a good supply of them is fairly vital!  It seems that the spleen can actually kill off platelets.  At least it was doing that in CB’s case!

So the last few days we really haven’t done very much, though we had a trip through to Northallerton to get some groceries in, and I trailed him round charity and cook shops (He bought himself a couple of books from one charity shop).  He had an appointment with the haemotology department at the Northallerton hospital today so we were back there again and while CB went to the check up, I went to Argos to buy a new crockpot!  I had decided that my slow cooker would be the most useful of my kitchen implements to bring with me, but, having cooked one meal in it on Friday, on Saturday I transferred the ceramic dish of leftovers to the cooker to heat them up quickly!  Suddenly CRACK! followed by the sound of sizzling liquid on a hot electric plate.  Oops!!  Yes, I knackered the cooking pot!  Darn!!!

The meal was rescued, revealing the large crack along the bottom  of the pot, which of course had to be thrown out.  Actually it might make a good flower pot! I got a few wee alpine plants in Northallerton market on Saturday, (not my photo.  It’s from Wikipedia) and a few more from the garden centre where CB is to be found most days when he’s well!  Two or three of those would make quite a nice wee display in the crockpot!

So back to the new crockpot – I looked up the internet and found that the Argos store had a nice looking unit, same size as the old one; good reviews online and  - what was best of all  -  cheap, and there was a branch of Argos in Northallerton!!  So that was sorted!

Another kitchen implement I would like to buy for my paleo cooking is a spiraliser, with which you can turn veg and fruit into spirals, rings or spaghetti-like noodles.  Spaghetti squashes are not readily available in our part of the UK, so as I can't have pasta made with flour, I have to try something else and veggie pasta sounds good instead.  My mincer doesn't really do the job, so the spiraliser will be my next purchase, at a later date!  Have you tried spaghetti squash ?  The insides come out like strings when cooked and make a good substitute for pasta.  Obviously it doesn't taste the same but that's one of the exciting things I've found about going paleo.  What was once ordinary food tastes different when you are using different ingredients and it’s better for you!  I’ve bought some spaghetti squash seeds for my garden so hopefully I can try them out one day soon!

I took a walk round Paddock Farm's water gardens the other day.  They are several small gardens, each in its own theme, and each having a pond or water feature.  I love looking at the gardens, so here are a few photos I took. 

What do you think of the rickety old wooden hut!  Wish I had one like it, all done up as a holiday cottage, and located in some beautiful spot, on the coast in the western highlands of Scotland, perhaps! 

Then there's the Mediterranean garden which in the summer is sizzling with bright red geraniums!

Come to think about it, the old ruined church garden hasn't got a water feature at all, and neither has the bamboo garden.  There are ornaments here instead, like the Easter Island style head, and the griffin sitting on the top of the ruined wall.

I like the hand giving the "ok" sign.  You'd never know that the little finger got broken off at some point.

 

 

 

This is the Japanese garden with the koi carp rescue pond!  Most of the koi swimming around here maybe grew too large for their own ponds or were being attacked by mink or herons.  Some are here through being left behind when a couple moved house.  They couldn’t take the fish with them and the new owners didn’t want them.  It’s nice to know they have a good home here, with Buddha overlooking them from the red pavilion.

This is a pretty little bit of woodland garden.  Usually there’s a little waterfall cascading over the rocks behind the pond, but it’s not switched on today!

 

Another water feature not switched on yet was the fountain in the large pot!  Such a relaxing sound to listen to in the garden. 

Where there’s a pond you’ll likely find frogs, and there are loads of them scattered around the ponds.  About eight of them hopped across the path through the rose arbour when I was heading for the tearoom.  I managed to pick one up for a closer look, and he obliged me by not jumping off , and by sitting in my hand till I put him on the ground again.  There’s something about frogs…….

 

This is frog-resting-in-water position, back legs stretched to the sides  They have a lot of power in these back legs.  Even the tiniest frog can scoot a good distance through water with one kick!  So, just a few flower photos to finish off, and to take your mind off frogs – if you don’t care for them too much!

Plum and cherry blossom and a flowering currant!I love spring!

Talk again soon.