The Angel Festival at St. Cuthbert’s is scheduled for sometime the end of September, but there are early heads-up notices circulating around the parish already. It probably takes a lot of work to create an angel suitable for presentation! All…
Year: 2019
Deneholme Wood and/or Allen Banks and Staward Gorge
To get to woodland now in Allendale, the easiest and best thing to do is to traipse cheerfully down the birch tree colonnade in the Recreation Ground to the new entrance to Deneholme Wood. Enjoy the wooded view before navigating…
The subterranean beneath us
This could be a metaphorical exercise, but in fact it is very literal: this piece is about actual caves, dark places, and frightening adventures. I was inspired yesterday to write this after an experience I have aspired to for some…
Getting things ready for the job . . . and doing it
It’s beginning to feel like a crescendo of anticipation here, with the stuttering arrival of the various components required for a couple of jobs around the place. But first came the planning, putting the new systems together in my mind,…
Little signs of the times . . .
It’s almost, but not quite, like those iconic BurmaShave advertisements that once graced Highway 66 across America’s great southwest, since there’s really no overt punchline: Except that the real punchline in the Recreation Ground’s lovely little signs is that contemporary…
Coming soon, twice!
“Absolutely barmy,” someone said, but somebody else noted that the Co-op is open in the early evenings after the Post Office is shut, while the MarketPlace shop is open on Sunday mornings when of course the Co-op is closed, thereby…
A ‘new’ car means nobody knows you . . .
In one of those small dawnings of rural realisation, I’ve suddenly become aware that if the new-to-us purchase is successful tomorrow, we’ll likely be travelling incognito for some time, since nobody will recognise the car! Course, as Neville Pringle noted…
Lord of the Dales Dance
One of the most popular hymns in English-speaking congregations, and possibly a featured request at the upcoming Hymns & Pimms at St. Cuthbert’s, is Lord of the Dance, written in 1963 by English songwriter Sydney Carter to fit with an…
Surprising Allenheads
Actually, on my reconnoitre around Allenheads yesterday, to prepare for today’s diary entry (recall that we’re featuring free things to do for the family, on successive Saturdays, having already diarised The River Path, Allendale Smelt Mill, and The Chimneys), I…
Hay Meadows of the North Pennines
If you want to understand something of the importance of the traditional hay meadows of the North Pennines, the place to go is to the online archive of Neil Diment’s investigations, served by the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural…