Burning Boat from  ’A day up in’t Dales‘ photo set

On Saturday, I was lucky enough to be invited on a bike ride, setting out from Grassington with pubs as our waypoints. One of the ‘team’ has been away from all things Dales Pub for the past year or so – working in St Helena. Our route was altered at the last minute – due to some of the pubs on the original route having closed down.

First stop – well not even a stop really because technically, we hadn’t started – was the Foresters in Grassington or ‘Fozzers’ as it’s colloquially known. Cracking Tim Taylor Landlord. Steak sarney and chips. Brilliant chips. I’ve had a few good times in the Fozzers. It never disappoints. Expect the unexpected.

From there we headed out to the Clarendon in Hebden. Nice pint of Black Sheep, smelt of fish a bit and lacked an atmosphere at that time of day.

From there we headed out to Appletreewick and got stuck into a couple of pubs – the New Inn where we had a walled garden to ourselves with a view across the Dale. Nice ale. After that we went down the village to a stunning bit of pubbery – The Craven Arms. This place had built what was once a very common building – a Cruck Barn – as a function room. They had apparently lovingly re constructed it from old photographs alone and is the only one of it’s type in the world after the last surviving original burned down a few years ago. We bumped into some of my friends old friends and ended up spending an hour or two a this lovely spot. Stories such as their hut was once Bing Crosby’s fishing lodge we’re amongst the discussion topics abound. Had a ‘bad pint’ there but the staff bent over backwards to replace it and make me happy. The replacement pint was a belter.

From there we headed down to Burnsall, the Red Lion to be specific. Good pint, superb stuffed foxes. We heard the rumor that they were setting fire to a boat in the river at 7.30. This we had to stick around for. (Video and Photos over here). From there we headed back t’ fozzers. Sleep got the better of me though after all the days fun and games – luckily, I’d parked the van at the top of the village. I missed an angry umpa lumpa I later heard who came steaming in from a fancy dress party up the road (expect the unexpected, in the fozzers, as I’ve already chimed). A superb day out.

One of the great things about the Yorkshire Dales is it’s pubs. Steeped in history and character, cracking pints and some of the best views in the world, these are some of the finest drinking parlours in the world. The original social network that made up the Inn’s, Hotels, ‘Bars’ and more typically – pubs of rural Britain are in decline – a dying breed thanks to the smoking ban, cut price supermarket prices combined with increased taxes etc.  Some of the survivors are the ones that have adapted to change by making themselves either gastro or family friendly, some are just cracking pubs that through the sheer fact of being brilliant are thriving.

We’d booked a campsite right on the beach front - Mossiscastle Strand. First impressions (after coming from the natural beauty and ‘right up our street’ style campsite that was Poppit Sands) of this site were.. a bit of a culture shock!  Nothing exactly ‘wrong’ with the site but we were not over enamoured with it – it seemed to be lacking charisma perhaps – The regimented / allotted space for each of the hundreds of caravans and motor homes had the feel of a fiberglass suburbia. The rules and regulations, the high volume of branded sports goods and English football tops just didn’t sum up the true character of the Emerald Isle for us. Our first plot was right next to a water point – mistake! The drains were backed up and it stank. An infestation of mating flying ant type things wasn’t too pleasant either.

We’d not stocked up the van a huge amount and the shops were a mile or so away.I’d read that the shop was “fully stocked with food”. I wouldn’t quite say ‘fully’ stocked – fully stocked with a few tins, and a chiller with sausages and/or bacon and frozen ready meals and frozen pizza. It would have been nice to have some fresh veg – even I, the perpetual carnivore was craving a bit of salad. I popped into the take away around the back of the shop (pizzas and deep fried fayre) and asked if they could do me a salad box. They looked at me as if I’d just asked for a pianoforte. Flat nose, no salad. There was however,one culinary highlight – fresh croissants available every morning.

We moved to a new spot after the first night though and things started looking up. Our new plot had a much nicer feel to it and was right next to the play park – A simple but safe park – a nice hang out for the hoards of kids including ours.

The showers were 1 Euro for 8 minuites. This irked me. I didn’t clock this fact on any literature or the website.  I understand why they do it I guess – to conserve energy and water (and make a bob or two) but we paid  fee for the site then found we had to pay extra for the showers. If I could have been bothered, I’m sure there’s some kind of Trading Standards argument. Every cloud has a silver lining though.. The Yorkshire man in me decided that Eirene’s whimsical purchase of a solar shower perhaps wasn’t so silly (as my initial assessment had concluded)  after all. I rigged up a shower cubical out of some high windbreaks and brought the shower down from the roof of the van. Perfect! It was so nice! The odd bit was the kids walking past looking at me like I was a freak. (How close to the truth I hear you cry)

The beach was a saving grace – a blue flag beach backed by sand dunes and only less that 100m from our van. Gorgeous sand and fairly quiet on the ‘campsite stretch’.  We really enjoyed playing in the sea, sitting around and reading or just watching the world go by. We’d been looking out over the same sea but from the other side of the pond earlier in the week. Sunrise instead of sunset over the sea.

We had some great success at crab fishing one evening at a tidal swamp creek just north of the campsite.  We bagged 26. Jay 13 (winner), me 11 and Sophie and Eirene one each. We did the crab race thing – where you wet a runway of ground back to the water and tipped our bucket out and watched them break for the border. Much fun. Realised a few days later that we were getting eaten alive by some bugglies biting our feet and anckles – lashings of Avon Skin So Soft. Avon Skin So Soft? the beauty product that has great anti midge qualities - according to the Royal Marines, who still use this curious lotion.

After Wexford, we trucked up through the Wicklow Mountains to Powerscourt Waterfall – fed by the river Dargle. (I just wanted to use that fabulous word. Dargle Dargle Dargle. ) It’s the highest waterfall in the British Isles. Cracking play park for the kids there – one of the best I’ve seen. Nice ice creams which we sampled and Eirene and I knocked back a couple of very passable espresso’s. Good cup of Joe. Pretty little short circular walk through the surrounding woods – mixture of Oak and Fir mainly was sampled and we were also there on a day when they were filming a TV show called Camelot. The best bit of that was watching the climber de rigging the protection for a recent stunt that we just missed. There were some really impressive pop side trailers as well. It felt quite cool as they let Clover park with the big vans.

We trundled over the Wicklow mountains – the scenic route and dropped into Dublin around tea time and got to Eirene’s dad’s house (Hello sir! hope you’re doing good!) . Lovely to see him. Lovely to be in a real house with a real fridge (fully stocked) and  drinks press (fully stocked!) and a cooker. And electric things. And literally all the home comforts. It’s a lovely neighbourhood. Nice bunch of bright kids knocking around. Very safe double cul-de-sac type arrangement with a huge playing field at one end.  I dragged the stumps and a couple of cricket bats out of the van and introduced the Irish lads to a game of cricket. We played a short kwick cricket style game (minus five runs instead of out, if your caught, bowled etc.).

Cooked a lovely bit of Irish Rib Joint on the Sunday to set us up for the early start on Monday. Stroke of top luck on the ferry – we had paid for Club Class (you get to sit in a much more chilled out lounge, and it has ‘free’ cheese, biscuits, fruit, salmon on bread, bits and bobs, teas and coffee and wines) but the ferry was really busy – Manchester Utd’s first game of the season and the she was full to bursting with Irish Man U shirts so they opened up the club lounge to all. My name was called over the tannoy. Uh Oh thought I. When I arrived at the desk, they apologised profusely and gave us 5 meal tickets (full British fry up with all the trimmings, thanks very much) and keys to a private suite. The James Joyce Suite it was called – second biggest (after the Presidential suite) on the whole ship. Lovely it was too! We made full use of the sitting room, kettle, bathroom and then had a refreshing kip on the super comfortable beds.

From there on in there was a bit of a chug from Holyhead to home but we’d had such a lovely restful, fulfilling holiday that we didn’t mind it. Such a nice adventure. Super strong family bonding.

See some photos from it all over here>>

We’ve spent the last week or so doing a bit of chugging around in Clover (a van). We set out for Wales and aimed for this field in Poppit Sands

a wonderful hidden gem of a spot we were introduced to last year – a back to basics camping spot in the with superb views, interesting people,  fires allowed and a very short walk to one of the best beaches I’ve come across. We spent a few days chilling, eating, sitting round the fire at night under the spectacularly unpolluted night sky showing her diamond cloak to full effect. Beach combing, ball and frisbee games, crab fishing, and splatting on the beach – some of the simplest but finest pleasures in life! Our stay in that part of the world took in a walk across the cliff tops to Witches Cauldron with a swim to a land locked sea cove and beach. An incredible stretch of coastline with some of the finest cliff views I’ve seen.

By Saturday we were ready for our next appointment – an evening with William Shakespeare. Our good friend Henry and family have been involved with a company called The Abbey Shakespeare Players that puts on an excellent play each year in St Dogmaels Abbey. This archaeological site of historical might is an apt setting for the dramatic might of the performance we were lucky enough to see – The Winters Tale. I’d secretly harboured a bit of a ‘ I just don’t get what all the fuss is about’ attitude with Shakespeare. I’ve seen several incarnations of The Bard’s work including a very fine Hamlet at the Harrogate Theatre, and the obligatory school readings but I’ve never been truly wowed – don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked it all immensely but part of me though – what am I missing? Some people get a whole lot more out of this than I’m doing.   This performance –  possibly assisted by the idyllic and timeless setting, the mesmerisingly  brilliant acting and company but largly due to the plot line and sinker of such a good yarn changed all that. I am now an official, self confessed fan of Billy Bard, albeit a novice one. A few learned stories about some of the times of the man himself added to the allure – he was the Rock and Roll of his day. He is, or rather was super cool.

After the show we joined the after show party which took place at the mill house and mill pond over the way. Good fun that was! midnight coracle races, Welsh language song recitals and the true mark of a successful party – to have people still ‘at it’ the next day was fulfilled (not be me, for a change I might add!). The next day I fought off the hangover with some graft n sweating n drinking loads of water (a winning hangover cure) as we helped de rig the stages.

Following on from that, we went back to Poppit for a night and a day before catching the ferry to the next leg of our adventure – the other side of the St Georges Channel in Ireland. We’ve done Holyhead to Dublin countless times for this crossing we headed to Pembroke, an hour or so away from where we were, to board the Isle of Inishmore Ferry to Rosslare.

NB – the Ireland leg of this adventure and photos to follow…

FIRE 50 photo set on flickr

What an innings. x 50 FIRE parties. Officially half centurions. I am the only person who has attended every minute of all of them (Allan nearly has, but he had to chip off early from one a few years ago as his better half went into labor – pathetic excuse if you ask me.)

What a party the 50th was. We were the official after party to the Harrogate Fringe festival – which itself was brilliant fun from what we saw. The set up for this FIRE, even though we were in a smaller space was way bigger than it normally was. We decided to go on the slightly smaller top floor and have it as more of a VIP party – wristbands and guestlist. It worked. Such a nice atmosphere in there. Those that were there had made an effort to get in there and as a result, it was spot on.

Only downside was that Dharma was away – playing a festival in France (again, pathetic excuse) – but we got old fave Craig Cameron in to fill the void and fill it he did. Loved his set. Len and Jimmy on the sax and trumpet were on top form as well and I had a right good bash on the congas for quite a while. All the other DJ’s were also superb – including new boy Nick Wakefield who did the tricky 4 – 6am slot.

Bottom Of The Bottle downstairs was so complimentary to our gig – and vice verca – I’m surprised we haven’t done it before! We declared the v’s bit and official draw. A second test is on the cards.

Looking forward to the next one – a new invigoration of enthusiasm has come about us – probably something to do with the milestone, something to do with the new format we tried out, something to do with it being such a top fun good times great songs ninety seven point two.

Had a fantastic weekend at Deershed. A very slick production indeed – Loads going on and they really did cater for the family. Stacks of quality entertainment for us, for the kids for everyone. Sold Out – I think about 1600 or so – a good number. Not too big, certainly not too small. Perhaps too much going on to squeeze into one day really – would have been good if it was an all weekeneder perhaps but no complaints – if I’d been relying on the beer tent there may have been – they ran out of beer mid/late afternoon! Can only take this as a sign of success.

The video here is a timelapse of The Art Wall (click here for the longer, bigger version) organized by www.artists.ltd.uk. A fantastic idea that loads of people seemed to enjoy! Art for everyone / Everyone IS an artist.. officially!

A few more snaps from the weekend here>>

Got back last night after a lovely camping trip to the Lake District. We didn’t see a single Lake though.

Fisherground campsite – lovely spot – part of this set of photos>>

Fisherground Campsite is reputedly (and I can confirm) one of the best campsites in the country for kids to enjoy. It’s got a really good adventure playground  complete with zip wire. It’s got a pond with an island and rafts. It’s got a train station with trains that go to the coast or up to the village to the East. It allows fire – a massive plus point in our book – an essential part of camping that so few campsites allow these days. It’s got a 3 acre mowed field for games and sports. It’s got a green team that really do look after the place and its residence – perhaps a bit to Victorian Dad about it at times, but at the end of the day – they do a really good job.

We’ve stayed at Fisherground campsite before – when we were there last time it was rather cold but this time we had the weather on our side. After grouping up on Friday night and imbibing a modest amount of alcohol we got up bright and breezy on Saturday. We made a check list of things to do – Play cricket, look at the trains (perhaps go on one), collect wood (they sell it there, but the Yorkshiremen in us knew best) , eat some nice food, have a few beers and play lots of Boules and Frisby. We did all of the above and added ‘game of rounders’ and ‘fly kite’ to the completed action list. The evening consisted of silly story time from the kids round the fire then we all turned in fairly early after all the days excitement.

Sunday – we got packed up just before the heavens opened. Rainy day activity plan kicked in – Museums. Barrow-in-Furness has The Dock Museum. This was fascinating. A converted dry dock, mainly on the history of (the biggest cul-de-sac in England – ) Bowness. Ships, Trains, Grimness, Engineering, Determination. We all really enjoyed it.

After that, almost by random I discovered that there was another museum on something quite close to our hearts – The Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverstone. This consisted of part of an old cinema with anecdotal and historical reference to the comedy duo, as well as memorabilia and a mini cinema showing back to back Laurel and Hardy classics all day long. A very pleasant end to a very pleasant weekend.

We went to a wine tasting event yesterday at The Crown hotel hosted by Harrogate Fine Wine and their suppliers. 70 wines to have a go on, all of a very high standard. I experimented with whites (normally a red man) before going onto the reds.

Quite a fascinating culture the wine crowd. I don’t confess to much about wine but found some of the conversations a fascination. One of the wines I had zoomed in on and went back twice to make sure it was still to my liking was this 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon called “A”. I have always been a of the “you CAN judge a book by its cover” mindset – you can tell by the fonts, the layout, the corners cut, the processes and general attention to detail and due care that has been employed when looking at a book cover or wine label. Some of this has a correlation to the product inside (albeit story, or wine).
So this “A” had a simple black design with an A made with 3 colours. I was told that the colours were the colour of the taste of this wine. Someone with Synesthesia – the condition whereby people can ‘see’ taste, sound and smell – had been used to select the colours on the label and although I had no frame of reference, the colours (a purple, a blue and a dark magenta with white lines if wine addled memory serves me correctly) did indeed look like the taste. I’m on the lookout now for other products where Synesthesia has been used to create a design.

These are possibly the greenest words ever written on dragondrop. They are written on a device that is using 100% solar power. Arguably all devices are 100% solar powered really but this particular gadget is currently exclusively powered using energy from the sun collected using a solar panel which has fed a ‘desktop’ phone battery charger.

Here is the kit – guarded by Misty (a cat). The solar panel (eBay, £25 -a bit like this one) comes in a case that can be free standing, stuck to a window or clipped to a backpack and attached to a charger or gadget (eg MP3 player) via a USB cable. I’ve got a rotation of 3 phone batteries –  in good sunlight it charges a dead battery to full in a day – so I can carry on blogging, geocaching, photogro-faffing and generally digitally documenting whilst listening to music etc or using a BlendTec Blender®. even when I’m away from a mains power source – ie camping or a festival or other such deep adventure ops.

I’ve recently finished reading the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S.Forester. 11 books indispersed around all the other books I’ve read over the last 6 months. After a while I realised I was addicted to a finite resource so I spread them amongst other reading. The series following the life of a Royal Naval officer from the late 1700′s to the erly 1800′s – around the time Nepoleon was making a nuisance of himself. Never before has a series of literature captured me like this.

The story as a whole tracked Hornblower from his first appointment as a Midshipman through the ranks of Lieutenant, Commander, Captain, Commodore, Admiral and and Sea Lord. An inspirational character who’s battles with the French, the elements and himself wrapped up toether in an amazing tale of adventure, anthropology, geography and science. Hornblower and The Atropos was my favourite book but each book had its own special parts, each had its own character.

The questions cropped up recently, in a psychological profile course I was on “Which person do you admire, and why” I chose Michael Palin as it happens but Hornblower was a very close second mainly due to his granite constitution and his problem solving logic.

I was really pleased to hear, during an interview on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show that Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope who is The First Sealord and Equerry to The Queen was a big Hornblower fan. I’ll sleep well in my bed knowing that he’s in charge of the Royal Navy. In the same interview Mark went on to describe how he went on to read all the Jack Aubrey novels (by Patrick O’Brian – known most famously for the ‘Master and Commander’ title) which I’ve just started. So far, so good. Quite odd getting my head round this different character in the same ‘shoes’ as Hornblower. Aubrey likes music for a start – Hornblower’s Achilles heel was his utter tone deafness.

I’ll miss Hornblower. He was a great chap to have around over the last 6 months. A candidate for a DragonDrop Adventure T-Shirt if ever the chance should arise.

Dragongate festival was officially very much fun indeed. After hearing nightmare stories from the crew on site about main stages blowing down, roads in resembling a war zone and a catalogue of other worries, I was, well, worried. Turned up on site around 16:30 and was hit by a wall of positivity. Wasn’t expecting that and I think that’s the thing that turned it into a superb festival. It’s almost like it was a test from the festival gods to see how much the crew could take, testing them to see if they would throw any towels in or if they would come through stronger and wiser (which they did).

Friday night, musically was a bit sketchy – as the main stage collapsed in the tail end of hurricane winds the main stage acts got moved to the 2nd stage, rendering the second stage acts homeless (which I was one off – it was predominantly going to be a FIRE tent). None the less a superb time was had by all of us lot on Friday night.

Saturday the weather calmed down and the festival got it’s act together big time. The kids tent had a stack of activities going on, the Green Dragon (acoustic) also had a top line up as well as the main stage, Xilr8 and the Oblivion Pavilion tents. The Instruments of Jah were a nice bunch with their van full of analogue noise making dub apparatus. Very cool. As the site was near Harrogate, it seemed that most people decided to just get a day pass and Oxfam sold out completely for the day – the place got busy, the music got varied and excellent and sun got his hat on. The bar was the centre of the universe leading up to a crescendo of top acts – Scapegoat Kelly, Bird Man Rallies and Paul Middleton as headliner. I was over by our site in crew camping for most of this as it was Eirene’s turn to go for a wander but every report that came back had thumbs aloft. After 11 the music had to pipe down (licence conditions meets best behaviour) so we had a silent disco. We (FIRE) set up on the main stage. 200 wireless headsets were made available and (the idea I’d initially poo-poo’d) was surreal but fun! As a performer, when I’m playing a gig, a glance around the crown quite often to see who wants to ‘av it, who’s in a groove, who’s listening to the intricate bits, who’s listening to the primal beat of it all. I could still do that but there was such a non connection with people sans headphones. When I took my headphones off it felt very odd indeed. I’d been playing to a quiet tent. After my set (killed even quiet non amplified conga drumming after a while) I went for a wander to discover pockets of people here and there, dotted around the site, listening to our set! How odd is that – checking out a live gig from the comfort of your own camp.

Sunday was a bit of a fuzzy head day. I was massively thankful of Dave who ran the crew mess tent, making cups of tea, soup, foot, sustenance, normality! Pottered around, played a gig with Ricky Hebblethwaite and did some Jam stuff – organized (!) an impromptu kids jam where I had a bunch of kids on stage and let them have a drum and a sing to a backing track. They loved that.

Called it a day late afternoon as the kids were back at school the next day.

As I looked back at the site from the car park I thought “yep, success – look at that, a proper festival, in Harrogate. Who’d have thought it”. Hats off to Matt from Oxfam + his lot, Austin from Pro-Tech and his lot, Hats off to Allan from Smyth and us lot, Hats off to all the muso’s DJ’s and their lot, Hats off to Jules and her lot for the kids tent, but the biggest hats off from me are the people who weren’t connected in any way who turned up and had a wicked time, Spread the word, spread the love! See you next year.

Went to the Lindley Woodstock Festival at the weekend – Technically a private party but had the feel of a early bloom festival. We all had a cracking time. I ended up engineering / stage managing the acoustic / ‘Lindley Top’ / Stage #2 for the day on Saturday – stepped into fill the gap of someone not turning up. I much prefer being involved!

Set in a lovely little (literal) neck of the woods, the event featured two stages / PA’s, Games area (everything from exercise bikes and table football to a bouncy castle) a couple of butty vans, big communal fire pit, an assortment of hippies, muso’s, punters, dogs, a cat and a chicken.
The top stage, the tee pee he pee she pee’s were all done out in acres of fabric that someone blagged from the Millennium Dome which I thought made the place look great.

The music was top notch in it’s variety as much as anything else. One of the surprise highlights for me was the Jed Thomas Band. Even thought they hail from my doorstep as it were, I’ve not seem them live for ages.. Doing the stage mix put me right in the middle of their sound – It was ace. Also loved the output of ‘Uncle Montey’ who’s Bell and Sebastian meets The Devine Comedy tunage was above average.

Anyhoo – back at work now wearing the t-shirt. Photo’s and vids to follow.

I seem to have developed a liking for books set (wholly, or in part) in India. Perhaps it’s the incredible diversity of the place where it’s culture, it’s people and religions saturate and permeate each other like no other place on Earth.

Some of the notable titles on my ‘India List’ would be

• The Life of Pi (a book I was lucky enough to read whilst in India). A must read title.
• Penguins Stopped Play (a true story which looks at the world through the eyes of cricket – Probably India’s third greatest love (after food and music)
• The Death of Vishnu (A symbolic construct of Hinduisms and cosmopolitan living)
• The White Tiger
  (2008′s Booker prize winner, and rightly so, this title unfolds as a letter written by a Bangalore entrepreneur.)
• Shantaram (a stunning true story of a Westerner who goes from rags to riches and back again in Bombay)

And now to add to my list “A Fine Balance” by Rohinton Mistery. A fast paced novel that spans generations of Indian caste history coming up to the 1970′s during India’s “State of Emergency”. The book creates such believable characters, of which the four main characters cover so much ground the book seems to have a job fitting it all in. A delve into the good and evil of India (and humanity, which India is such an incredible representation of) . From the crisp clean hill stations in the north to the squalid rat infested jhopadi slums of the cities where at times you can almost smell the spices as the author describes a street scene. An educational novel from one of humanities cornerstones. A true masterpiece.

What a busy time I’m having at the moment. It’s all go. I’m very excited about a free trip I’ve blagged to Miami and Mexico next week. BA Club Class flights (bed on aeroplane!) 5 star resort, VIP type sketch. Could work out to be quite a big slice of fun. On top of heavy work and life admin tasks that seem to be in abundance at the moment, I’ve got an adventure to get excited about and plan (hard life eh!). I’ve not done that much in the way of documenting my day to day life for some time now so hopefully this trip will get me back on track.

Been doing lots of geocaching and stuff of a weekend. Bought some ace new 4wd Matt boots. Asolo Flame GTX is their rather ott naming convention, but after reading reviews from their predecessors (the ‘Fugitive’ GTX) they seemed like the ones – getting super high scores and rave reviews. Finding them cheaper online than anywhere else, I did the cheeky trick of going into Cotswold’s and trying them on, getting my feet measured up, chatting about suitability for my needs etc. Then guilt ridden, when the chap said he couldn’t budge on price I left them and chose the nearly £30 cheaper online for the same product model. I’ve not been disappointed so far. Not done a proper hike in them with Sophie on my back but the little bimble we did told me that I’d made a good choice!

Also been reading stacks. Finished a biog called “Stuart, a life backwards” which was quite a fascinating read about a ‘chaotic homeless’ person like no other. Reading about some of the injustice on some of the people who were trying to look after them was quite eye opening. The author really got into the guys head. Quite interesting – especially for anyone who’s interested in ‘Care’.

I’m going to do a separate blog on the book I’ve just finished though – it was quite special story.

You Got Nothing Coming, Notes from a prison fish