Dad look-a-like in the Dales

I think this blog is moribund. Oh, well. I'll carry on posting from time to time. Here's a pic of Bertie on a walk in the Yorks Dales yesterday. Doesn't he look like Dad? Especially his eyes and thin smile. Similarities to Uncle Andrew too. Very Kirkwoodian, anyway. [Click on the pic to view at full size].

The Aldbourne Avenue Event, June 1977

Does anyone remember much about this? Been thinking back to it what with all the diamond jubilee stuff coming up.

I think that the 'event' may have been a treasure hunt. Beck, John and I somehow ended up finding someone's lost dog [not part of the hunt] and thereby dubbed ourselves [in a silly voice, said in unison]: "The dog finders!" My diary [pocket format only at the time, unfortunately] says that there was a bike race and swimming. I also recall that we befriended Karen Done and her family during the festivities and build-up.

Funny to think that our kids are roughly the same ages now as we were when.

And another Christmas Dadism

"Well, it's been a lovely Christmas" said in an attempt to try and close off the frantic pressie opening and general excitement and opening the door to having a post dinner nap. I found myself saying this on Sunday to no avail...

Two from Christmas

1. When returning to the house on Christmas Eve afternoon Dad would ask, before locking the door: "Anyone going out to midnight mass?"

2. When opening the door [only partially] to a fully anticipated guest [eg Mum at Naworth on Christmas Eve]: "No milk today, thank you".

Rabbit food

Just a quickie, while I remember it. I was just having a salad for lunch and remember Dad dismissing Mum's suggestion of a salad as "just rabbit food". Speaking of salad, I also also recall his penchant for fruit salad which usually ended up as some oranges and dates with a few over-ripe grapes thrown in for good measure.

Summer round-up - and a great letter

Here's a few that Beck and I came up with mainly over the Bristol and Naworth weekends:

- "I'll read that in bed tonight": when provided with some bulky reading material.

- Making wavy actions (usually too many) with hands to indicate a shapely figure.

- 'Middle piece': a catch-all term to cover the nether regions.

- A peculiar way of pretending to box - involving one fist and the other hand cupped under the chin.

- "Go and see/pay the lady/man": an instruction to make an enquiry or pay for something which you don't want to do yourself.

- "Bring back as much change as possible": what to aim for when you pay the man.

- "Move over the bed": a request for mores space regardless of whether you're in bed or not. (Usually you're not).

- "Oi!": startled response whenever someone switches off the light in the room you're in.

- A knowing nod with eyebrows raised when greeting someone.

Letter of the month: Here's an absolute classic from Beck. Click on the extract below or here to read all six pages of the steamy revelations - mainly from a party which Adam went to as well. It's all there: passionate snogging with "Life Assurance Simon" then "Ken" (who?) spraying Beck's hair blue and gold to say nothing of the "gussetted playsuit" for which I think we really need an explanation. Very funny in a Bridget Jones sort of way with some great one-liners and I love the pace it's all written at.

A trip down Memory Lane

Here's a mini-movie of our holiday house in St Bees in 1979. It's the last one in the terrace. I remember the steps and, I think, peeling the potatoes at the bottom of them as well as the view over towards the golf course. My (frighteningly nerdy) holidiary came in handy for finding the location. Reading through it (as Jenni did in a mocking voice down the pub on the first night) I reckon that St Bees was the last holiday we went on as a complete family. Beck joined us via train a few days in. It was also the holiday when we came home to find the freezer had switched off. Mum and Beck buried the stinking food in the garden.

St Bees is a peculiar village. It still has that depressed air of a former mining settlement and, despite its fabulous beach, seems reluctant to be considered a seaside destination. Most people come only to leave – on the Coast to Coast Walk (which was only six years old when we visited so probably wasn’t such a big thing). The kids dipped their boots in the water (below) as you’re supposed to mark the start of the walk – but we only went along the first few miles of the route around St Bees Head. The path continued inland and we proceeded to Whitehaven – exactly as we did in 1979.

The first sign of the town was what’s called The Candlestick (right) which was an air vent for the mine that’s design was thought to have been inspired by the favourite candlestick of the chap who owned most of the town. The last mine closed six years after our previous visit and Whitehaven has much improved since. I enjoyed the architecture trail (it has the greatest concentration of Georgian buildings in the UK, Beck) and we all walked around the harbour. The waterfront has been tastefully regenerated with a fancy wave sculpture, for instance, but the ‘gold for cash’ stores (a couple of bar stools at a counter in an otherwise empty former shop) on the High Street seem better to meet the needs of the locals.

Curiously and fittingly (considering where the rest of you lot were) Whitehaven has three connections with the US: George Washington’s granddad is buried there; the expansion of New York City was modelled on Whitehaven’s street grid layout and the town was the site of the only attack by the US on the UK (by a seaman trained in the town, pictured left, in 1778).

We planned to catch the train back to St Bees but went in the wrong direction. I had a tizzy, we got off at the first station and took a taxi from Whitehaven home, a slightly unsettling experience given the reputation of taxi drivers in these parts. We’d spotted the infamous taxi rank earlier.

Finally, here’s another mini-movie memory: showing the railway line near our holiday cottage where we used to place coins then return in the morning to see them flattened. When we weren’t doing that we were finding lost balls on the golf course. Happy days.

(By the way, you can view all the pics at full size by clicking on them).