The day was soggy and grey, but I felt the need to bring you a few snaps.

The quintessential English parish church, with classic examples of communications equipment from a bygone era, a phone box that works (well there was someone in it I’m assuming they were making a call!) a post box and parish notice board.

Across the road the wonderful Priest House,  built circa 1448 it is now masquerading as a branch of the National West Bank (and it must be a bit of a nightmare for the estates dept of the the bank; how do you make a timber framed building with leaded lights and a grade one listed building status secure? Any how, it is a bank with character and you don’t see much of that theses days.

Apparently, during times of during times of ‘plague and sweating sickness’* the priest would deliver his sermons from the balcony, so as not to mix with the germ and flea infested throng. Services were also delivered from here during ‘The Commonwealth period’ as during this time the churches were closed. Now my historical knowledge is scant, at school we seemed to jump from colouring in pictures of Guy Fawkes, in what would now be known as the ‘reception class’ to learning about Operation PLUTO in year 12; I’m sure I must have been taught some other fascinating historical facts in between but I’m dammed if I can remember them. I’m ashamed to say I’d never heard of the Commonwealth period. So I asked the boys, all three of them, no joy, so having established it wasn’t on the time table at Mr Uhdd’s  grammar school circa 1960’s, nor is it on the current national curriculum. It even took a bit of finding mousing around the Internet, but here you are The Commonwealth 1649-53

I think it is amazing that buildings like this have survived the risky, vulnerable period where they went from being the most important place in the village (aside from the church) to being old fashioned, scruffy and not as useful as newer buildings to  becoming old enough and historic enough to be protected for prosperity, looking at the next shot you could imagine how it could have been consumed by the the later developments that surround it.

Today Prestbury is a very affluent village it is in the golden triangle, the area favoured by the Cheshire set, Prestbury princesses, professional footballers and their attendant WAGS, (actually overseas readers, if you are not familiar with the term WAGS, it is more of a visual thing than a Wiki thing) the main street is peppered with wine bars and restaurants and independent travel agents ( serving a customer base that has no need to scrat around on the Internet for the best deal.) That said, the current economic climate must have made a hit even here

The White House Prestbury was once a place to be seen to dine, if that’s what you were about.

The website is still up, so you can go and have a virtual dinner for two if you so wish.

*Sweating sickness, it must have been swine flu, ‘sweating like a pig’, gedit? oh never mind, I’ll go.

It has poured with rain today, not like in Cumbria you understand; just miserable, I had to head down to the south of the county this afternoon, it was so dark and dismal when I came out of the house that the security lights on the barn came on, it was 12:45. November eh? Lovely.

The rain made for unpleasant driving conditions with lots of standing water and heavy spray kicked up by HGV’s. On my return journey I came along the A515, Ashbourne to Buxton road, it’s a road with a reputation, not only is it a stretch of road that has a high number of accidents, it has a high number ghastly accidents. The Romans built the road long and straight, but I don’t imagine they did much in the way of speed or overtaking, with pack horses and the odd chariot. Now it is a fast road (in spite of the speed restrictions) and needs treating with respect. I’d just safely overtaken a Landrover pulling a trailer load of sheep, when out of the rain and the darkness, came a black blob, a  blob that was blacker and harder than the wraparound black I was driving through. It took me a second or two to realise it was a tractor, a tractor with a massive bale of silage ( that unhelpfully was shrouded in black plastic) stuck on the huge spikes that stick out of the front of tractors for such a purpose. The bale totally obscured the one 15w light that the tractors driver seemed to think was sufficient lighting for the task. It flashed through my mind, what if, what if that tractor had been a few hundred yards up the road, when I was overtaking, I’d have hit it head on. I flashed my lights.

In my rear view mirror, the strobes of flashing of headlights from the following cars told me they were thinking just the same thing. Not that it bears  thinking about; here look at something sunny and not black, and remember summer.

Not here, but in Cumbria, the Lake District and southern Scotland the irony is that it is the rain that gives that regions landscape such beauty and drama and yet it can also deliver such misery and tragedy.

Wasdale October 2008

When we were in the Lake District last October, we thought there had been a lot of rain and flooding; but it was nothing compared to what has happened in the the last 48 hours, so sympathies to all those affected, especially the family, friends and colleagues of PC Bill Barker and those still out dealing with the aftermath of the flooding and under the threat of more rain today. These photos show the enormity of the problem with more news items here

Wasdale October 2008

What is this life if if, full of care,

we have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And Stare as long as sheep and cows

No time to see when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

  W.H. Davies from the poem ‘Leisure’

To be continued, but if you haven’t the time to wait, you can find the poem in full here

Everything seems a tad too serious, intense and busy at the moment. I can’t see it will ease off very much this side of Christmas. I thought the calls on my time during November/December  would be easier once the boys were past the nativity plays, carol concerts and school fairs age; but other things have seamlessly slipped into their place, I’ve no one to blame but myself.

Spud looking grown up, ( I must point out he’s standing in long grass, his legs have grown, honest.

I need to say no more often and volunteer less. I’m not getting enough ‘me time’, its making me a grumpy bunny

Spud, trying to be elusive

I did get down the field for a wee while this morning, before the rain set in. I need to take a leaf out of Spud’s book

Spud, looking loopy

And just have a bit of fun.

It has been a stormy night and I am very glad we have adopted ‘Plan B’, if we’d managed to pull off ‘Plan A’ the house would not have a roof on at the moment, it would be bound in scaffold and swathed in tarpaulins and I doubt any of us would have got much in the way of sleep last night.

‘Plan A’ was to reroof the house earlier this autumn, for under the heavy stone roof slates there is little in the way of roofing felt with that and the coombed ceilings in the bedrooms meaning that there is no space for insulation, what heat saving we gain on small windows and thick walls, seeps away through the roof. It’s a big job and an expensive one but one we’ve just got to crack on with. Except our carefully selected roofer has put his back out (as a one time self employed person, I feel his pain) he was already behind schedule on starting the job, on account of the poor weather this summer. So we have deferred  the job till next spring. Given last nights gales I feel this was a very sensible move. 

It was calmer earlier in the week

In the mean time Mr Uhdd has been  beavering away on a stopping the draughty gaps and insulating our porch, the build quality of the porch is dubious, so we’ve made the best of a bad job by a new insulated ceiling and pouring vermiculite into the cavities, the trouble is it work in progress and last night was so windy that it has blown drifts of vermiculite back out of the walls, which just goes to show how draughty it was in there, the stuff is trampling all through the house (it’s the knickers draw saga all over again.)

we had blue skies on Monday, it was so still and quiet you could hear the taffeta rustle of a crows on the wing.

Mr Uhdd is running in the Lake District today, although given the weather he may just be  trying to cling on to the side of the mountain for fear of being blown away, its the Dunnerdale fell race, he ran it last year.

there is a very nice pub across the road from the start of the race, with roaring open fires, that seems like a sensible move to me.

Spud and Joe walking home*

It was parents evening at Joes school recently, it went very well, which is great news because school hasn’t always been a happy  place for Joe. Mr Uhdd was fair glowing with pride when he got home; for not only had Joe received a good report, the head stopped Mr Uhdd in the corridor to comment on what a well behave puppy Spud was (the head having seen Mr Uhdd and Spud out on their early morning walk to the paper shop as he drove into school.)

So a pat on the back for Joe and a pat on the head for Spud. Everyone’s a winner.

I’m sure this dog is double jointed.

*Yes it’s November and still Joe is wearing his beach shorts, he has upgraded from his Crocks, to wellingtons, what with the muddy tracks and paths.

‘Quick grab the camera, there’s a bird in the barn, it’s quite big.’

So said Mr Uhdd; a kestrel had found its way into the barn, but couldn’t find its way out again.

It was looking a little battered and bewildered

In its frantic efforts to escape it had been launching itself against the window, its feet were swathed in cobwebs and its feathers ruffled. I don’t know, but I wonder if it is a yearling. We thought it might be  injured, but thankfully it seemed to be more a case of it being battered, bruised and exhausted from its efforts.

we opened a door and it flew outside, into an oak tree, it’s feathers in disarray.

(Mr Uhdd and I planted this tree, I thought oaks were slow growing, or maybe we have been here longer than I realise!)

The poor bird harangued by the song birds before it flew lamely off

across the fields. It’s a treat to get close up to such a bird, but like the tawny owl, you wonder if it is because they are not in the peak of condition that they end up being so close up and personal to humans.

“When You Go Home,
Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow,
We Gave Our Today”

The Kohima Memorial.

“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”

Jose Narosky

There can be little doubt that war changes a soldiers vision of the world, for ever. Sometimes with devastating effect.

And some wounds of war are more visible others, the Shellshock of the World War I straddled the physical and the psychological (the film clip is disturbing, the music beautiful) nothing is ever perceived in quite the same way again.

Anecdotally, from a lady now well in her eighties, talking about her friends husband, coming home from a Japanese prisoner of war camp

He was never the same again, nightmares, nightmares every night; he used wake screaming and sweating. They used to have to dose him with brandy; to calm him. Terrible. Terrible.  You know, he died young? In the 1950’s, cancer of the oesophagus.

It’s only since the 1980’s that this would be called Post traumatic stress disorder, but it doesn’t really matter what you call it the effects are just the same.

(I’d forgotten I’d written this post; we shouldn’t forget.)