This morning we went on a lovely family walk (click here to see our route ). We dropped a car off at Fewston reservoir and drove another car up to Thruscross. On the road way up we noticed that there’d been a whole side of the valley razed to the ground – last time we looked, there was a fairly thick pine forest. Our questions were answered when we came across the above information board.
The idea is to re establish and promote native nature and increase the bio diversity of the area.
On the grand scheme of things, this project isn’t even in it’s infancy yet – it’s embryonic. Oak woodlands of this sort take millennia if not centuries to mature so we’re not going to see it in bloom as it were – but seeing a project like this in action is heart warming – some organisations – such as in this case Yorkshire Water, Natural England, the Forestry Commission and the Forestry Stewardship Council, still do still care about the planet after all – and the actions of today’s generation are leaving a positive legacy for future generations.
Alan Bennett - playwright, screenwriter, actor and author
Completely out of the blue on Friday afternoon, I got a call from an old friend who was involved with an event in Leeds that needed a photographer as the arranged chap had dropped out. I jumped at the chance, then jumped at a shower, then jumped at a smart black shirt and headed for Leeds.
Amid the Après-work city center who’s attention had been diverted to Children in Need, I found La Grillade, a vaulted cellar French restaurant celebrating it’s 30th Anniversary. The format for the night was that of a charity night in aid of Yorkshire Cancer Care, in the company of, regular patron, Alan Bennett. The MC – Editor of The Business Desk - David Parkin, set the pace and invited everyone to think of questions to ask Alan, after he’d finished his tea. This teased out a few fascinating insights into Bennett’s creative process – basing his characters on specifics and how he’s actually not (by his own admission) very good at ‘making things up’, and how he really liked the Talking Head format where he got to focus on the detail of a single character at greatly zoomed in level.
Having been lucky enough to see a Talking Heads show at Harrogate Theatre in 2006, and having probably read watched and absorbed more of his material than I’d realised, It dawned on me that I was in the company of a living Yorkshire legend. I then went on to muse an idea that he is to Leeds / Yorkshire what L.S. Lowry is to Manchester. Like Lowry, he’s an acute observer of people and society. Like Lowry, he comes across as quite humble and down to earth with no airs and graces. Like Lowry, he is known by the masses but hasn’t sold out. Unlike Lowry, he’s illustrated 20th Century middle class where as Lowry was all about the 20th Century working class. Different mediums, but both portray a real character of people – brilliantly.
Back to the Yorkshire Legend notion – I’d say Bennett is up there with Hockney, Moore, Saville (of the Jimmy) , Boycott (of the Geoffrey). If the measure of a legend is his legacy, Bennett has already got a fine body of work behind him. And from the twinkle in his eye on Friday night, I’d say there could be a bit more lead in his pencil yet.
So I drive from Harrogate to a town just west of Skipton (and back) every day. Closing the A59 to work on landslip prevention for 5 weeks is fair enough (even though it’s the 3rd year running they’ve done it).
I can live with that. Essential work. Big ticket roadworks. Serious civil engineering – stand back everybody.
What I can’t live with is that they have closed the parallel (ish) Hall Lane / North Moor Road into Kexgill. What should be a +3 mile / 5 min extra route turns into a +15 mile / 40 minute, depending in traffic in Otley) HGV friendly diversion. Apparently (according to the site foreman I spoke to) this is all because a resident complained about his road being used as a rat run. Same said foreman told me that the Police had instructed them to close that road. I spoke to the police who told me they had not done that at all and they shouldn’t cite them as the responsible party – it’s the Highways Agency / Council. My guess is that there’s a Daily Mail reading Harrogate Borough Councillor who lives down that road. I could be wrong.
I pay my road taxes. I’m not a HGV. My road gets used as a rat run and there’s nothing I can do about that. Surely the inconvenience of having increased traffic could be managed (ie – cars only, no LWB / HGV) so that the A59 Blubberhouses doesn’t cost the environment and good commuting folk of Yorkshire thousands of extra man hours and pounds of petrol. All that’s actually happening is that it’s moving the problem elsewhere – the even less suitable for increased traffic Beamsley road is getting hammered.
Yesterday a accompanied a colleague on a road trip. He’s writing a piece on TV’s “The Trip” (2010 starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.). If you’ve not seen The Trip – it’s good – they tour the North of England for a week, stopping at some of the finest gastro haunts we have to offer. They take in some of our spectacular scenery, etc. etc.
The weather was not brilliant for photography – but I snapped happy anyway. The Trip aside, we got to enjoy being ‘tourist’ in its most literal sense, around the Yorkshire Dales. Our 100 mile or so tour of the Dales was a comfortable day drive, with plenty of stops – Click here to see the route I recorded. Even though I’d been to nearly all the locations before I jumped at the chance of this Dales appreciation day. We took in Bolton Abbey, Goredale Scar, Malham Cove, Kettlewell, Patley Bridge, Grassington and countless other view admiration stops. We stopped for lunch at Angle Inn at Hetton – this fantastic multiple award winning foody pub didn’t disappoint. I had Queen Scallops followed by a stunning char-grilled Yorkshire rib eye.
I found it fascinating to experience first hand what holiday makers to the Dales could get up to in a day. I was surprised at how much ground we managed to cover and how many things we crammed in without it being hectic or stressful in any way. Our driving soundtrack was either Bon Iver of the sound of our own voices doing impressions of Adam and Joe doing impressions of Cilla Black doing impressions of the Queen. As per this clip.
So, does anyone have any idea what these are referring to? It’s on the west bound A59 just north of Skipton, North Yorkshire – as per the marker on this map. We drive past it every day, it’s been there for months and it’s really starting to bug me now.
Good friend of DragonDrop James Mulryan shot the above as part of a failed quest at the weekend to find the destination that the signs are so boldly advertising. James ended up near Leyburn apparently, without seeing so much as calamari ring, let alone a whole base of squid.
At the time of writing this google only comes up with this actual photo, when you search, (and shortly, I imagine, once this page has been indexed, this page will appear top when you search for squid squid base squid loc. etc) – neither of which give me anything useful, as to what the squid is going on.
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.
