Last Day of Summer

With September starting tomorrow and my wife and son heading back to school and college next week, I regard today as the last day of summer, an ominous sign being the line of swifts perched on the electricity cables as I looked out of the back door this morning, so after a quick tidy up of the front garden (more hoovering leaves and straw than cutting grass) and some lunch, the best option was to take advantage of the sunshine, stillness and (for once on a Sunday) quiet to just sit out and let time pass; there won’t be many more opportunities before the climate catches up with the calendar.

Referess?

FA Cup days come thick and fast at this time of year and today I attended the preliminary round tie between local rivals West Auckland and Darlington1883 where the match was given the added interest of a female referee, who controlled the game very well and clearly had the respect of the players – when West Auckland’s Shaun Vipond unceremoniously clattered an opponent her voice cut through the crowds hubbub with a commanding “number four, here!” at which the luckless player shuffled forward with his head bowed as if his Mam had caught him with his hand in the biscuit jar.

Cat Watch

Although a week has passed since we retrieved our cats from the cattery, for some reason the webcam link remains live on my Hudl, and remains for my wife a source of fascination on a par with Facebook, enabling her to monitor the comings and goings of a range of cute felines (today’s occupants included the spit of our black one) and chuckle at their antics, which in almost every case have been much more entertaining than when our own pets were ensconced.

A Level Anxiety

The boy starts sixth form college next week and today had to get down to some work set in advance, but with his choice of subjects not overlapping with mine of yesteryear (I don’t think sociology even existed then) I feel I will be of limited use from now on; certainly in compiling a report to consider whether crayfish feel anxiety he was largely on his own and though I read it through I still don’t know how anxious crabs and prawns feel, but I reckon it is less than I do about the next two years of his education.

Dalton Park

A little later in the year than normal I did my annual summer clothes shop on a visit to the designer outlet complex at Dalton Park where I perused the unfamiliar delights of M&S, Next, Cotton Traders and most usefully GAP with the latter providing a complete casual outfit of trousers, polo shirt and jacket which, along with a pair of jeans from Next, set me back less than £80; for my wife it was a case of role reversal, but she managed to trail round after me, trying to look interested, for a good hour before cracking and having a bit of a spree herself in M&S before we left.

Parcel Shelf

It’s all very well removing the parcel shelf from the Juke, but putting it back is a challenge due to the way it attaches to the open tailgate in such a way that it drops into place as it is shut; I thought I had, with difficulty, managed it this morning, only to find as I drove off and checked my rear view mirror that 60% of the back window was obscured, requiring me at my first stop of the day to try again, and this time having inserted the shelf the right way up I was able to proceed with 20/20 rear view vision.

Return of the Prodigal

As the Leeds Music Festival concluded it fell to me to go fetch the boy and two mates and all their camping paraphernalia, giving rise to two potential problems: problem 1, it’s a Nissan Juke and they are big lads with a big tent so it is prudent to remove all the stacked boot trays (and contents), and parcel shelf before I set off; problem 2, I don’t know exactly where I’m heading, and following the “pick up / drop off point” signs takes me in a ludicrous loop, two hours in a 5 mile queue, three-quarters of the way round Bramham Park to the wrong car park, before being redirected to complete the final quarter circuit and eventually locate them, sat in their chairs by the roadside; from then it was plain sailing as everything piled in  - tent, equipment, rucksacks, boys – relatively comfortably and the drive back was trouble free, dropping off the mates before reuniting mother and son, the return celebrated not by killing the fatted calf but by her baking a show-stopper cake for him.

Lasagne

We do not have lasagne for tea as often as we should due to the boy’s mealy-mouthed complaints about onions and mushrooms, which he picks out and pushes around his plate, but as he is still in Leeds there was nothing yesterday to impede my wife preparing a perfect specimen with onion, mushrooms, and even a red pepper in there, and with only two portions eaten last night there was no need to fight over the leftovers, which provided two ample helpings for today’s lunch.

Who’s Dr Who

With the local pub holding a Dr Who themed quiz tonight, and my experience of the TV series beginning and ending with William Hartnell and the Daleks, watched as a ten year-old from behind the sofa, I took a quick squint at the Dr Who website in advance and memorised the thirteen Doctors, twelve of the sidekicks and three of the monsters just so I could make some contribution; as it turned out just reeling off the Doctors quickest was enough to win the team a specially designed ‘Dalek Buddha’ T-shirt each, and though the rest of the research wasn’t called on, my teammates were on the ball for the next round, winning us a round of shots and a supply of crisps.

MOTD

Fifty years of BBC’s Match of the Day were commemorated today and though I may have missed the first year or two (our house lacked BBC2 where it began) I have probably made up for it since with what some may regard as a semi-religious zeal.

Not Run of the Mill

GCSE results day dawned with my wife and I still in the mobile phone dead-spot of Dovedale and the boy at the Leeds Festival eighty miles from school, so I land-lined the school for the grades and we headed for civilisation in the form of the old mill town of Belper, where we enjoyed a guided tour of the remnants of Jedidiah Strutt’s cotton mill; eventually we achieved contact with Leeds and passed on the good news of a fistful of A grades (and a C), definitely not just a run of the mill result, with the only downside being the high personal cost of the financial incentive scheme I signed up to.

Dovedale

From the hotel it was just a five minute walk to the river from where a well-trod path led up Dovedale, past Lovers’ Leap (gave that one a miss) to the tiny hamlet of Milldale where we got some welcome refreshment at Polly’s Cottage (“Polly puts the kettle on – and makes sandwiches too”) dished out through a serving hatch in the cottage wall; the return trip made it a fine 7 mile walk along the crystal clear river surrounded by towering limestone slopes and pinnacles, with a well-earned ice cream at the finish.

Izaak Walton

It seemed a good idea to take a mid-week break at the Izaak Walton Hotel in Dovedale while the boy was at Leeds Festival (working not watching) and the location, when we found it, was idyllic with only one drawback - no mobile phone signal – which rendered our exhortations to him to text us regularly useless and necessitated a quick trip into Ashbourne (a pretty town) to make reassuring contact; on the plus side the hotel WiFi was excellent, enabling us to access the webcam to check out the cats in the cattery – only a pity the same facility was not available in the tent at Leeds.

Incey Wincey

I have no wish to harm spiders, possibly a remnant of my adolescent Buddhist phase, but I prefer not to share a bathroom with one big enough to scare the cat, so late last night I got a yoghurt pot and piece of cardboard from the recycling bin, carefully removed the giant specimen from the downstairs toilet wall, deposited it in the back garden, and thought no more about it until this morning - when it leapt out at me from under the washing up bowl in the kitchen sink (presumably having made its way back, Incey Wincey style, up the drainpipe); a little startled I gave it a whack with the bowl and took advantage of its stunned state to scoop it up in a tissue and stick it in the outside bin – I did mention the Buddhism had lapsed didn’t I?

Seaham

Seaham on the Durham coast is always worth a visit for the delights of the Lickety Split ice cream parlour with its American 1950’s diner décor and exquisite ice cream sundaes (my choice being the lemon meringue pie featuring lemon flavoured mini jelly babies among the more obvious ingredients) and now there is an added attraction with Ray Lonsdale’s impressive Eleven ‘O’ One statue, known locally as Tommy, that graces the sea front gardens; the oversize WW1 soldier sits hunched on his ammo box holding his rifle, head bowed deep in thought, of what – home, fallen comrades, his next meal – we don’t know but we feel for him and his generation.

FA Cup

The long road to the FA Cup final at Wembley next May starts this weekend and although none of the teams playing in today’s extra-preliminary round have a hope of reaching it, there is much fun and excitement to be had trying; the match I went to at Newton Aycliffe was close fought with the visitors, Garforth Town, coming from a goal down to edge it 2-1, providing the ‘crowd’ of 136 (not including the three dogs) with a good afternoon’s entertainment to get the season underway.

Steak and Mushrooms

The boy being absent, camping out at a friend’s, my wife and I indulged in an adult evening meal of fillet steak, mushrooms, peas and new potatoes, washed down with an excellent Cornish rosé wine (a present from my sister who after living there for 40 years almost qualifies as a local); this meal always goes down well for two reasons, first what’s not to like, and second it has nostalgia value as it reprises one that I produced early in our courtship when I arrived on her doorstep one night with a carrier bag of ingredients that I proceeded to cook, more or less successfully, on her unfamiliar gas cooker.

Cotton Picking

It is so annoying when you run out of cotton half way through a sewing project (apparently  - though the chances of me running out of cotton are only marginally lower than those of me owning any) so when it happens to my wife it means an expedition to Boyes’ haberdashery to find some more of that particular shade of coppery-brownie-gold; once in the shop we soon pick out three or four bobbins of different hues and manufacture that in turn seem close enough - but not quite – until we unearth the very one, hidden behind a misplaced reel thoughtlessly pushed into the wrong slot, whereas (of course) the rejects we then replace are done with care and accuracy even though this requires squinting at the labels at such close range that we first bend double, then kneel and finally, quite comically, end up sitting on the shop floor.

Urban River

The rest of the family being otherwise engaged and the weather being fine, I took the opportunity to complete another section of the Teesdale Way Path, from Eaglescliffe to the Tees Barrage, from suburbia through parkland and scrubland, reclaimed wetland and abandoned urban margin, to the spruced up riverside at Stockton; that makes it eight stages covering over fifty miles from Barnard Castle since last September so there is a good chance of reaching the North Sea within the year.

Pub Grub

Tonight for tea we tried the local’s new pub grub menu, my wife and I both choosing pie and chips - lamb & mint for me, steak and Guinness for her; at least that was the order, and that was how it was eventually eaten, apart from a mouthful of each needed to establish the identical looking meals had been served the wrong way round.

Supermoon

The return trip from Manchester Airport was on deserted roads (to be expected around 3 a.m.) and it was drier and clearer than the outward journey as the remnants of Hurricane Bertha dispersed, and I did think the M62 and A1(M) unusually well moonlit; the explanation emerged today with a news item revealing that the moon is currently at perigee (closest proximity to the Earth) and so is noticeably bigger and brighter than the norm; tonight was also clear and I took a more measured look from the garden and saw it bright and stunningly clear, throwing my deep black shadow on to the wall behind.

Fond Farewell

Sent the Mongolia-bound daughter on her way with a Sunday dinner, a few family games, her last cheese and biscuits for four months, and a lift to Manchester airport in the middle of the night; well worth the drive to shorten, by two and a half hours, the gap until I see her again at Christmas.

Roseberry Topping

With the family gathered prior to the departure, tomorrow, of the elder daughter back to Mongolia, we took advantage of the fine, if breezy, weather to make an ascent of Roseberry Toping; always a popular destination, it was all happening up there today with a steady stream of competitive fell runners impressively using it as a particular punishing checkpoint and more impressively one guy using the beauty spot as a memorable place to propose (judging by the champagne opened she said yes) but I hope he realises the potential implications - a yearly trek up the hill on each anniversary, come rain or shine.

Spitting Feathers

I can’t remember whether my dear departed mother used the phrase ‘spitting feathers’ to express her speechless rage or raging thirst, but it was more literally applicable first thing this morning to our white cat, whom my wife discovered the in the study with a dead bird and a carpet that resembled a girls’ dorm after a pillow fight; I was summoned from my morning ablutions by the not unfamiliar cry of ‘there’s a dead animal down here’ and having confirmed it was not a cat I proceeded to deal with the corpse while my wife hoovered up the forensics.

In-store Services

The technology isn’t new but we are new to it, so we approached the supermarket in-store DIY photo printing facility, clutching our USB stick with some trepidation, but needs must - to get a 6x8 quality print of the boy’s prom to frame for his grandma’s birthday present - so we poked and prodded the touchscreen, peering at the cryptic instructions and oscillating between the next and back buttons a few times before finally hitting confirm; at this point it become apparent that the instant photo printing was actually a one-hour service, so it was off to the in-store Costa for a coffee and a browse of a City Break travel brochure, picked up from the in-store Co-op Travel, before returning to pick up our perfect prints.

Bake Off

Inspired by the prospect of tonight’s return to our TV screens of “The Great British Bake Off”, I went all Paul Hollywood and concocted a corned beef plate pie for tea, using the man’s very own recipe as a basis but replacing carrots and celery by sweetcorn, and Worcester sauce by tiny cubes of mature cheddar cheese; it turned out well, particularly the pastry (recipe followed to the letter) which rolled out like tanned leather but baked crisp and short with a bottom well shy of soggy.

A Day in the Garden

“It’s a nice day – we can spend it in the garden” says my wife, but for her a day in the garden is one spent mowing, weeding, pruning and transplanting, whereas for me it involves relaxing in a cane armchair with a good book and a cool drink; inevitably we ‘compromise’ and I potter about as her apprentice, gofer and clearer-upper until the garden is licked into shape, after which we can sit down with a clear conscience and a cup of tea, and I can open that book.

Small, Medium, Large

A trip to the garden centre to buy a small pagoda trellis for a clematis plant, struggling to get its head above the undergrowth in the back border, failed due to the purchasing options being seemingly limited to sets of three – small, medium and large – which was not what we needed; however the trip was not entirely wasted as, in the café, the scones could be bought singly (although ironically I could have happily managed a set of three with my coffee).

Laundry

One of the lesser joys of returning from holiday is the pile of washing to do but with a good drying wind out there we got cracking, however about three loads in the strain on the washing line proved too great and down it came depositing several towels in the grass; I know how it felt and after an hour or two’s ironing the only thing keeping me upright was the inspiring example of our relay teams in last night’s (recorded) events at Hampden Park, that I watched as I worked.

Summer Sounds

We joined a minibus trip with friends and neighbours to Guisborough for an open air concert of “Summer Sounds” where, in the intimate Priory grounds, the sounds were provided by people who weren’t, but sounded something like, The Killers, Jessie J, Madness, Robbie Williams, and Queen, but if the sounds were imitation the summer was authentically British with a lengthy downpour putting an opening dampener on proceedings; however as the rain dried up and the beer went down, the music sounded better, and as the light dimmed so did the volubility of the drunken dancers, until at last the night ended peacefully enough.

Damp Drive Home

The day was dreich in the Borders as we left, our planned stop on the Northumberland Coast at Amble was curtailed to a quick coffee and cake by drizzle, and by the time we got to Newcastle-upon-Tyne we were in a downpour; that made the hour long crawl round the western bypass worse than usual, inducing a resolution on my part to, in future, bypass the bypass.