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Fog, Steps and Wars
Jan. 1st, 2007 04:34 pm[Just warming up the Dragon for the New Year...]
It was so foggy on the 23rd that we skipped a trip into York and headed straight for Whitby, found the cottage, unpacked, settled in and waited the rest of the family to arrive. Visibility did improve and we got the full joy of whatever late 20th-century monstrosity was destroying our view across the valley: we decided that the term "judicious pruning" could be applied to buildings as well as trees and the concept of tools extended to include high explosives.
Salmon.
The walk through town on our first evening was very pleasant with plenty of pretty lights -- more than enough to provide for good visibility of the various interesting items items on sale in the shops. We'd lost the fog completely by then.
Christmas Eve saw us wandering around town again, including the yarn shop in the old chapel. Bought yarn. Stopped looking in the jewellery shops after I'd spotted the three things I'd rather like: pair of jet skull earrings, carved jet raven, tiny eagle-shaped brooch with an amber body. Climbed up to Abbey and wandered around churchyard with the faint sounds of carols coming from inside the church.
Turkey, potatoes, parsnips, Christmas pud. Musical crackers: Looby Loo proved an immensely patient conductor of the crew of drunken whistleblowers. We've saved the whistles for next year.
Christmas Day we walked to the beach. Almost instantly I picked up one of the best ammonites I've ever found. Also some very nice sea-smoothed pieces of glass. Much larger pieces than I've collected from Fleswick Bay. Walked up to the Abbey, again.
Venison -- roe, not red.
Boxing Day took us to Robin Hood's Bay, a walk down more steps along the grimy sands and up more steps, tea and teacakes.
Went over the documents the Aged P had rediscovered relating to my paternal great-grandfather's time as a POW in the Great War. Armed with his regimental number and some other details, and an evening of searching the web, we may be able to track down some additional information.
Partridge breasts.
Home, via York. At Looby Loo's request, we spent our time in York walking round the walls. More steps. Far too many stretches of wall with no half-comforting railing along the inside. Still, it's a pretty good way of getting a good view of a lot of the town.
By New Year's Eve I'd finished Nella Last's War.
I'd been meaning to read this since it first came out in the early 80s. The Aged P very kindly gave me my mother's copy as a Christmas present (first editions are going for something in the region of 40 to 50 quid these days, though there is a new paperback edition tied in with the recently shown on TV version). Far more interesting as a social document than the TV dramatisation (which I enjoyed for Julie Walters' and David Threlfall's performances, and Stephanie Cole's too). I'd been surprised when I watched it how the issues of social class were covered, placing Nella lower down the social scale than the diaries show her to be. For instance, there was no sign of her servant on the TV. And it wasn't made clear that the Lasts owned their new house as well as running their own car. When my mother first read the diaries, her remarks had been about how they'd viewed the Lasts as terribly posh: my mother grew up a few streets down from them in a terrace, rented, with an outdoor loo, tin bath, and of course no car. I enjoyed in the diaries Nella's the left-wing social conscience, her anger that when the dockworkers (this would have included my maternal grandfather) spent time during their shifts in the air raid shelters they weren't paid for the downtime.
So, fog, steps and wars. Two visits to Whitby in one year and not a single piece of jet acquired.
It was so foggy on the 23rd that we skipped a trip into York and headed straight for Whitby, found the cottage, unpacked, settled in and waited the rest of the family to arrive. Visibility did improve and we got the full joy of whatever late 20th-century monstrosity was destroying our view across the valley: we decided that the term "judicious pruning" could be applied to buildings as well as trees and the concept of tools extended to include high explosives.
Salmon.
The walk through town on our first evening was very pleasant with plenty of pretty lights -- more than enough to provide for good visibility of the various interesting items items on sale in the shops. We'd lost the fog completely by then.
Christmas Eve saw us wandering around town again, including the yarn shop in the old chapel. Bought yarn. Stopped looking in the jewellery shops after I'd spotted the three things I'd rather like: pair of jet skull earrings, carved jet raven, tiny eagle-shaped brooch with an amber body. Climbed up to Abbey and wandered around churchyard with the faint sounds of carols coming from inside the church.
Turkey, potatoes, parsnips, Christmas pud. Musical crackers: Looby Loo proved an immensely patient conductor of the crew of drunken whistleblowers. We've saved the whistles for next year.
Christmas Day we walked to the beach. Almost instantly I picked up one of the best ammonites I've ever found. Also some very nice sea-smoothed pieces of glass. Much larger pieces than I've collected from Fleswick Bay. Walked up to the Abbey, again.
Venison -- roe, not red.
Boxing Day took us to Robin Hood's Bay, a walk down more steps along the grimy sands and up more steps, tea and teacakes.
Went over the documents the Aged P had rediscovered relating to my paternal great-grandfather's time as a POW in the Great War. Armed with his regimental number and some other details, and an evening of searching the web, we may be able to track down some additional information.
Partridge breasts.
Home, via York. At Looby Loo's request, we spent our time in York walking round the walls. More steps. Far too many stretches of wall with no half-comforting railing along the inside. Still, it's a pretty good way of getting a good view of a lot of the town.
By New Year's Eve I'd finished Nella Last's War.
I'd been meaning to read this since it first came out in the early 80s. The Aged P very kindly gave me my mother's copy as a Christmas present (first editions are going for something in the region of 40 to 50 quid these days, though there is a new paperback edition tied in with the recently shown on TV version). Far more interesting as a social document than the TV dramatisation (which I enjoyed for Julie Walters' and David Threlfall's performances, and Stephanie Cole's too). I'd been surprised when I watched it how the issues of social class were covered, placing Nella lower down the social scale than the diaries show her to be. For instance, there was no sign of her servant on the TV. And it wasn't made clear that the Lasts owned their new house as well as running their own car. When my mother first read the diaries, her remarks had been about how they'd viewed the Lasts as terribly posh: my mother grew up a few streets down from them in a terrace, rented, with an outdoor loo, tin bath, and of course no car. I enjoyed in the diaries Nella's the left-wing social conscience, her anger that when the dockworkers (this would have included my maternal grandfather) spent time during their shifts in the air raid shelters they weren't paid for the downtime.
So, fog, steps and wars. Two visits to Whitby in one year and not a single piece of jet acquired.
