Arnside's much anticipated Vintage on The Prom day is best passed over lightly. And the evening blacked out altogether. The shops joined in and staff were all dressed up in 1930s and 40s costume, and there was bunting galore, vintage cars and a uniformed singer doing her Vera Lynn thing, but the villagers seemed apathetic. I think this is probably because the grave yawns wide for most of them they are desperate not to appear vintage; so all the over 70s turned out in their sports gear and base ball caps. Hey look at me, I'm not old! Who was this Hitler chap anyway? The sad delusions of the aged.
So lets forget all that and look at these pictures of the wild garden an the front of the house. I visited the barn in Roeburndale on the morning Kit and his friends left. I arrived about nine and the morning was sharp and bright;: little had changed in the narrow wooded valley. Even the geese were still in the same spot by the stream after almost twenty years. A notice told me that there was no right of way across a field on the right hand side of the valley, but I had come too far and was very near to the barn so I continued along the path. I met noone except a heron fishing for frogs on the boggy hillside. It waited until I was almost in touching distance before flapping lazily away. Only Claire was up when I arrived but shortly after Kit appeared an the head of the steps on the side of the barn. Now there are bunk beds and solar panels and the toilet has been moved from the marshy ground by the river to safer, higher ground. Otherwise it all seemed much the same, a quietly reassuring chaos inside, the dark smoke blackened kitchen with its ancient rayburn and the wire bridge across the stream. Though this had been made a little safer in the last year or so. I didn't stay long, after I had said hello to Kit I cared their plastic bags of rubbish away tied to a stick across my shoulder. I only stopped briefly on the way back to the car, once to look at some slow worms and then to take a picture of the geese.
Kit came to stay for a day before he went on to meet his friends at the Roeburndale camping barn. I had bought a second canoe, Mygg, cheaply on Ebay and was not sure if it was completely seaworthy; so Kit tested it on Windermere. It was fine. It's a one person canoe and not quite as robust as the Sea Eagle but well designed and fine for lakes and rivers. As you can see the weather was fine and despite the wind the canoes handled perfectly. |
Archives
October 2021
Categories |
- Egypt
- Mexico City
- Back in the Land of Dreams
- From the Dinosaur Hotel to the Temple of Literature
- Flying West to Mimpi
- Lost in the Sea of Sand
- Sri Lanka
- Back to Beirut and the old Bay Route
- Into the Basin
- Tbilisi and Yeravan
- In the Republic of Mimpi
- Bangkok, Burma and Beyond
- Tom on Elephant Island
- Java Blog
- Cokaygne.
- In the Kingdom of Foxes
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- London Blog
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