New perspectives

 

Ive known Swine Church since 1953. Across the fields and the Golf Course it was a special landmark . As five year old I had to stand tall to spot it from my bedroom window as my head barely reached the glass of the window , not double glazed , but in the very latest Crital frames my father was so pleased with . ‘I shall never have to paint the window frames’ he said to my mother as they planned their build with Mr Sewell , the builder from the village , Sutton Village that is, or as we proudly say with Thomas Blashill “Sutton in Holderness”. 

So in 2025 I finally get to see the church that was my familiar landmark . It  was locked, we could have got the key from the name on the outside board , but I also wanted to revisit my own church , St James in the village , and look at Church Mount again through the shrubbery. 

There was wonderful Holderness waiting to be rediscovered as we drove to Sunk Island , Patrington  for the Queen  of Holderness,and Hedon for the King  and enjoyed the refurbished Trout Inn at Wansford. Was ever a place called Emmotland , never heard of that one until we got back home and a friend told us of all the great fishing trips he used to have there. Not so for me, my father fished the grayling from Hempholme certainly but mostly the Yorkshire Derwent near Kirby Moorside. I had three days of nostalgia in August then , and only an hour from home, staying in a huge house at Beeford with all 3 generations of our Filey Family . Reuben drove us to another church I had never visited, the welcoming St Augustines Skirlaugh. I’d been to that village many times with mother when we renewed her Blue Badge at the East Riding Offices. I had cycled to Hornsea with schoolfriends , the back way through Sutton to Benningholme , that land of ditches and low hedges and fields and fields of potatoes and wheat and field beans , no traffic and innocent adventure . 

The East Riding villages are still delightful , we spot the gable ends built with the feather pattern of the bricks , the local way,  remember to train to Hornsea , also spotted from my bedroom window , the steam trains and the exciting day when we saw our first Diesel.

My perspectives have changed . I rarely go more than 10 miles from our cottage these days, except the monthly visit to the Eye Hospital with Hull sister when she has her injection.I look from the train window from Filey and still spot lovely cottages, trackways and becks, and on a good day Herons and Little Egrets near Arram ,  and new crops like Miscanthus ,  the Christmas tree plantation  has gone now near Nafferton , but the rabbit warren certainly hasn’t. I always sit on the left hand side of the coach form Filey To Paragon and the right hand side going home . 

I was unable to use my childhood purchase of a secondhand copy of Palgraves Golden Treasury  , a beautiful bright turquoise binding . The book is dropping to bits, much written in from grammar school with many of the poems with little marks in pencil above each word showing stresses.I haven’t binned it .It has string round it . Last night I couldn’t sleep and had just finished the brilliant book by RamornaAsh . She talks much about Gerald Manley Hopkins so was trying to find a poetry book at 4.30 this morning, and eventually found one poem by him in my Mothers “A Modern Anthology “from 1924. I have given away most of my books now for friend to sell for for charity on a stall outside his house on the Cleveland Way , but just kept a newer Palgrave (no GMH of course , not published then ). What a lovely surprise , had never opened it before but inside was my father’s name , and it had all his pencil notes. What treasure for me.

Reuben and I like the Jesuits, and GMH

and we like Iona , both lauded in the book “Don’t forget we're here for ever  “

this book has changed my perspectives .

Sharing the joy

Durer has a lot to answer for , and maybe Archinboldo, as have always been drawn to the visual representation of things I love, and the way the natural world can be represented in ways which make you happy , thoughtful or downright sad . 

I was telling grandson  soon to go hopefully to live in London, that he must go to the  SAATCHI. Beloved and I have been many times in our travelling around days. We have seen some exhibitions which just blew our minds , with the assault they presented, making us react , with the colours some presented , with the draughtmanship some presented ,with the sheer audacity some presented (like a tank of oil). We are a nation of folk who may have opinions, and able to share them unless they are liable to scrutiny by the thought police or the real police. 

This  symphony in green is my Durer.

We don’t travel any more , the trip to Reighton nursery is the furtherest these days.

Imagine then the joy of seeing exhibitions which are right on our doorstep literally. 

I have been nurturing a plant I dug up on the plot.Its doing very well and is now over half a metre high. I have been trying to remember what I planted in the Spot.Its not an Echinacea or a Chicory, or what I have been trying to grow for 15 years , the perennial vegetable called Good King Henry. I have bought a packet of seeds every year and faithfully planted them.I particularly like its Latin name ‘Chenopodium bonus-henricus, an edible Goosefoot like spinach , cut and come again for ever. Just what I need for greens . It has dawned on me that my years of hopeful waiting have not come to fruition yet again. I have been nurturing a Rosebay Willow Herb, a beautiful ‘weed’, which colours the August roadsides and waste ground with its purple flower spikes.When the flowers go to seed  the air is full of the down like seeds wind blown and able to travel for miles on the breeze. I will be keeping it, its is lovely to see close up, and will just have to compete with all the other hopeful erratics in this corner of the old town, including a beautiful Sow  Thistle round the corner.

15 years ago my Echium collection was just beginning. Folk knocked on our door to ask the name of the towering spiked inflorescences appearing above 8foot wall. Seedlings always followed by the hundreds and easily removed as recognized immediately by the spotted first true  leaves. Now even former critics like them as they are indeed Ace Pollinators and flower for months and months until the Spike is finished. (They are biennials or triennials and tender)

In this little corner of town there is now lots of joy to share. In our street alone people are growing pots of flowers outside their houses.We have no front gardens or even gardens at all in our case, just a small back yard. I love the accidental garden outside the flats around the corner from here where the cracks in the flags are supporting self sown flowers from last years pots, and a lovely ‘meadow ‘ of cornflowers has grown rapidly as the warm weather has brought them on.

 

 

Still here

Mother used to say that time rushed when one is old. I’m not old in my mind , but 

as time is rushing I must have made a sea change since my last blog post. 

It always seems to be Monday and I’m putting out the wheelie bin again. It always seems to be time to get spouses lunch prepared when Ive only just cleared the pots, hung the washing on the line and done Wordle and Worldle . 

Boring is not a word I could use these days. I use tired , I use what have I gone upstairs for, I use its time to do the online grocery order again, but never bored. 

Well maybe routine becomes ritual , but in this house we are always delighted when someone is at the door or online to us.  Today we had Kevin from Evri, 2 neighbours, 1 grandson, as well as three friends on Zoom Morning Prayer. No routine here, as we never know what a day will bring. 

 

I have Sue coming to Help with cleaning tomorrow. I have the excitement of climbing down  to the back door of our Newsagent to pay the Paper bill. ( A car drove into their shopfront in the summer and the work to replace is soon to be finished, after they have waded through red tape and planning permissions). I shall walk to the allotment with a bundle of 6foot bamboo canes, a sack of vegetable waste for the compost bin, and a 5l container of drinking water, as we wait for the frosts to finish and the water turned on again. 

No  not boring at all. The pavements in Filey are all looking awful as workmen install cables to every house , BUT joy of Joy the road surfaces in Station Road and Station Avenue have been efficiently re done, so no one can complain of potholes in the town centre.

It’s so long since I wrote anything on this platform that I have actually forgotten how to justify the text alignment. So sorry here. 25 years since i was in the Evron Centre doing all my Computer classes, and nearly 20 since I did my first Blog Post. I didn’t even know how to insert a picture in the first months. 

Today I’m still reading Seed catalogues, Arthur Upfields, Jane Austen (all every 2 years) lots poetry ,Malcolm Guite, Lemm Sissay, the Times obituaries , The Filey Parish Link, . I’m still reading my Bible every day, mostly at 4am . I’ve just done Malachi and Zechariah, and today I began Haggai. I read a Psalm a day. Ive got to 35 again.

Spouse is having to eat some odd meals as I count carbs for him and forbid all sorts of his favourites. WE have stew and Yorkshire Pudding but no potatoes. We have Celariac Mash and sausages, we have Veggie Lasagne made with layers of Aubergine. He never complains. He has always been a delight to cook for . (Note to myself , I am running out of ideas. Mary Berry’s Cauliflower steaks are tasty and easy but can only eat once in a while.

My brain spins when I contemplate Air Fryers, I have a dry Fry pan which have used for 30 years which does the same job. Dixons our local Emporium now does a huge range of silicon inserts for Air Fryers, and the display looks like Medical Supplies. But no ordinary Stainless steel pans with lids. Now I am sounding like my mother!

So now dear readers you have my update. I have not been to Scarborough Much , 3x to Skipton Building Society in last year, I took myself to Peterborough for the day in September to see the Must Farm exhibition in the museum. (No leaflets to buy or even read). Ive been once a month to the Eye Hospital in Hull with Sutton Village Sister, and this is a real trip out , as the train ride lovely, and we often get a lunch together in the Omelette . Filey daughter is running me up to see the Gypsey Race running again. Last year it was amazing. I leave you with the 2024 pictures.