Best friends Ross Keady and John Nicholson bring their Fire and Dough pizza van to Allendale most Tuesday evenings, and folks just love them. Last Tuesday I chatted with John and Millie, both of whom can handle anything in the…
Year: 2019
Quantum of uselessness
Well, it’s certainly not a quantum of solace, that’s for sure, but there doesn’t seem to be a better way to describe the forlorn ‘bus shelter’, which I know has a history, but which sits as a kind of useless,…
Friends Meeting House
A little row of gravestones stands in front of the Meeting House, dating back to the end of the 17th Century (a Meeting House was built on the site in 1688, replaced in 1735, and rebuilt in the late 1860s)…
Too much wind . . .
Obviously, it’s not Cyclone Idai, for which a great Disasters Emergency Committee fund has been set up to help the millions (millions! — millions and millions!) of people in Mozambique around the metropolitan area of Beira who have been flooded…
Post Office deliveries
Without the Post Office service, I don’t think we’d ever have survived up in the wilds above Sparty Lea. Folks in the village, of course, can easily pop over to the Post Office, and so do we, but our round…
The Drama Group AGM
I promised I’d get back to chat about the Drama Group in time for their AGM, and I’ve kept the lovely Sleeping Beauty programme from this year’s show close to hand for this past month and a half, all ready…
Like a bridge
The road up to Catton at Five Lane Ends has been blocked, on Monday and Tuesday of this week, for crucial repairs to the Allen Mill Bridge abutments which suffered damage from an accident some weeks ago. The job was…
Allen Valley Velo
I was young once, and cycling was my passion. But it was a solitary endeavour, on the back streets of Philadelphia, through the extensive park system, and on into the university. How I would have loved to have been able…
North Pennines Observatory
I went along to the last Members’ Evening of the season at the observatory up at Allenheads, housed in the premises of Allenheads Contemporary Arts (the old school) yesterday evening, courtesy of the organiser Chris Welton representing AVEL (Allen Valleys…
Keenley Methodist Chapel, the oldest of them all
Today at 2:30pm, a faithful congregation of some five souls will gather at Keenley Methodist Chapel, keeping the tradition and the faith alive in the deep countryside. Services are every fortnight — today Rev’d Alex Dunstan leads the service of…