These images from Stephanie Atkinson of this morning’s great clear-up of the square remind us of last year’s similar images. Thanks Stephanie! Today the diary turns the corner into another year. Stephanie, who is always up early to walk her…
Category: Anecdote
Allendale’s Evacuee Stories
And Linda Beck promised one from her daughter Anja as well. Allendale Primary School Year 6 class have been studying the local history of evacuation to the rural countryside during WWII. The diary has also featured another evacuee story which…
Last-minute shopping
Today somehow feels like the last convenient opportunity to get out to the local shops and snap up the critical stocking stuffers that you know will be especially appreciated by your beloved on Christmas morning. At least, that’s what I’ve…
The Pub Leagues
Long long ago, when I was rather younger than I am now, I learned how to hoie quoits at a target of a stubby post that barely stood proud of the soft squishy clé-ay pit in which it was ensconced….
A hymn of praise to local builders
It would be remiss if we missed out on a small window of opportunity to offer up a hymn of praise to local builders currently working throughout these valleys. We might not be able to fit every tradesperson in the…
The Tea Dance
Mary Gibson invited me specially to drop in this afternoon to chat with the regulars at Wednesday afternoon’s Tea Dance Society in Allendale Village Hall. So I’ll certainly have more stories and information about this beloved institution in Allendale, later…
Making the Christmas cake
Apparently we’re a week late on this lovely kitchen task; you’re supposed to make your family’s Christmas cake some six weeks ahead of the day itself, to give it time to mature, and also, of course, to soak up even…
Willow whips in the boggy bit
I guess just about everyone around here knows what to do with that old bath that’s come out of the renovated bathroom: put it in the field and run a field drain into the fellside where the spring is emerging,…
Escape back home from the south
Eee but it’s great to be back home away from the hustle and bustle of the south. When the M6 moves on from Manchester, the traffic thins dramatically, and from there on past Lancaster, Tebay services (the best motorway services…
The hands fall off . . .
I know there’s a metaphor in there somewhere. The minute hand especially keeps falling off our big kitchen clock. I take it all apart, screw the little round nut back on, on top of the minute hand, and set it…