The Farewell Tour #2 - 140th Driffield Show, 2015

Looks like this year was my last chance to visit the Driffield Show so as I haven't been for a few years off I went last Wednesday.

I made an early start and I actually only live about 2 miles from the showground so I had considered walking but it's usually so hot and exhausting wandering around the show that I didn't fancy the 2 mile walk back. With hindsight maybe I should've done because despite my early start, traffic was building and the 2 miles took me 54 minutes in nose to tail traffic!

I was hoping to arrive in time to see my friends cow, Bronte, on parade. I was too late, Bronte had already strutted her stuff in the arena and had been awarded second in her class. This is Bronte.

 She is a really lovely cow and seemed quiet natured in the somewhat busy livestock areas with bulls mooing loudly and some other lively cows kicking off.

Bronte is going to have a nice life out in the field after her show appearances this year and as far as I know she will not be eaten.

Bob and I were quite freaked out with the proportions and muscles on some of the bulls, it was actually quite unpleasant to look at because it was like looking at all the different joints of meat on parade, not exactly the best environment for a vegetarian but I had to look as I walked past them.

We swiftly moved along to the sheep pens and photo-bombed some of those guys.

Sadly no Herdwicks which are my favourite sheep variety but look at these, do you think that ginger is their natural colour!

Then I spotted a small pen of deliciously cute little pygmy goats, my favourites :)

On to rural crafts and there were some interesting things going on with willow, rope making, baskets, wood turning and corn dollies.

I realise I didn't get any corn dolly pictures but they were making some lovely things and amazing brooches and corn dolly beads which I would've loved but couldn't afford. I did try YouTubing such things when I got back but I only found simple corn dollies to make and not jewellery.

To change the subject slightly I did find corn wands and lavender wands to make on YouTube and as I had been picking lavender the other day I made these wands, very simple so I will put the link to the video if you fancy a go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6p8VdjPWF0

Back to crafts at the show and some nice entries in the knitting and handicraft section.

Finally, a few photos of the rescue birds of prey, I love the European Eagle owl and the bottom picture foreground is a Goshawk.

A pleasant day out and not too hot and overwhelming on this occasion despite having one of the highest turn outs in a few years, supposedly nearly 30K.

Not the summer I had planned & open to improvement!

I'm sure in the months to come I will look back at this summer and notch it up as one of my worst. At the moment I'm just plodding through it as best I can. Since losing my Gran my OH has been ill and my dad has been ill and then fell and made the existing problems 10 times worse.

I've just reached the end of the week which saw me being a taxi service transporting OH and dad to 5 different hospital and doctors appointments between them. I had absolutely dreaded taking my dad to hospital because there's the hassle of parking and hardly ever any spaces and then I have the joy of searching for a wheelchair to get him inside. On one occasion I was very lucky as an ambulance man assisted with the wheelchair pushing. We went to another hospital the next day and the lifts were a nightmare, it's like a scrum to get in and out, rather like getting on a London tube.

Anyway the end of this difficult week has arrived and generally things are picking up for the poorly ones however my dad will be going for an operation next week which my sister will come over for and organise. Hopefully that will be the start of getting him mobile again.

We got finished at hospital early one day and that meant I could take advantage of a stroll in the sun around the Sunk Island area and along the bank of the Humber where I used to go gathering samphire as a kid.

Cow parsley and teasels at Sunk Island.

A random gate by a field side at Sunk Island (a lonesome gate to a field of dreams)

My route home took me via a new craft outlet at Hornsea Freeport, it was definitely worth a look as they have some great fabric at low prices and pretty much loads of other stuff for sewing, knitting, crochet, felting etc.

I bought a few nice fat quarters.

Not that I'm finding much time at the moment to do anything creative, doing normal work is a task in itself.

I think in the last 5 weeks, other than my taxi-ing duties & school day we've only been out twice, managed a stroll along the walls in York last weekend.

Then last night we went for tea in Scarborough with the little furry friend to Eat Me Cafe. This is called a tin plate feta and walnut salad, it arrives quite quirky wrapped in paper, chased by a slice of key lime pie :)

I'm not sure which street we parked down but Scarborough does have a lovely mish mash of architectural styles as you wander around. I hadn't noticed this wonderful Gothic looking place before.

Next week I will catch up with some work and then hopefully I might have chance to visit the Driffield Show on Wednesday if everything is ticking along ok.

Have a nice weekend :)

The Farewell Tour #1 - Withernsea High School, 60th Anniversary

I've called this post The Farewell Tour #1 and it starts with my old high school. With all my fingers crossed, touching wood and all that sort of thing I will hope to have moved from this miserable hovel of a house within the next 12 months. I won't tempt fate with any other details at this stage but I always knew that when the countdown to a move came, I would start visiting places on a tick list for one last time and record them as my Farewell Tour.

So we start what will be the odd, occasional Farewell post with a definite never to be visited place again, my old school. Basically the place is being demolished in it's 60th year for a new academy so the doors were flung open for one last time for ex pupils to visit yesterday. I guess this post will pretty much be of no interest unless you also knew Withernsea High School so it's a purely indulgent collection of pictures for myself.

I wasn't sure about going as I only have a few happy memories but circumstances this weekend of visiting a sick relative meant my sister was over from Belgium so we decided we would go for a wander round the corridors.

I actually quite like the minimal, austere 1950s architectural style which a lot of schools had back then.

This is the canteen, no happy memories here as the food was awful and there was always a horrible overcooked, stewed vegetable smell. It's surprising this place didn't put me off vegetables for life!

Corridors, leading to headmasters office and other such scary places, bleak but with a certain interest and those floor tiles haven't changed in nearly 40 years.

Not many happy memories at school, I hated the bus rides to and from school which were times when I would be bullied by larger kids, often kids younger than me but who were taller. I hated anything to do with sport, again there was an element of teacher bullying and this was by a woman teacher who didn't like you if you were rubbish at sport or slow at running.

My only happy memories at school were art related things and that was right at the end in the 5th and 6th form when you had a degree of freedom. So I was delighted to walk to my old art room, still in the same spot, and it had hardly changed when I entered.

The large table still in the middle and the slight smell of paint and wax crayons still lingering in the air.

There was an adjoining art room (below) through a connecting door where one teacher would sneak across if he heard a racket going on in our room if the other teacher had left us unattended.

The picture below is the art store cupboard, my friend and I used to monitor the store cupboard supplies and guard it over lunch time whilst we had our pack-up in there to stop other kids coming in and nicking stuff. I was amazed the store cupboard was just as I remembered!

As we wandered around the school the most obvious difference to my day was computers everywhere, however the nice thing about the art room, no computers just lovely things to get stuck in with and make a mess with.

This was a stairwell I remembered well and I used to try and take arty photos of to turn into school art projects.

We move on to a few more rooms, the main assembly hall which was set out with some memorabilia, old school photos, the school newsletter etc, we didn't find anything with ourselves on in fact a big chunk of stuff from the mid 70's to early 80's was missing.

The same old flip up chairs on the hall balcony that had been there since year dot!

Below is the lecture theatre, seemed very small and old fashioned now but had been hi-tech in my day!

A science lab.

Not sure about this, maths room perhaps, geography....

And so as the day got busier, hotter and more uncomfortable and we couldn't reminisce any more we decided to leave. Fortunately I didn't see anyone I know, nor did my sister, I wanted to keep a low profile as I don't have strong connections with this, just an idle curiosity to visit one last time. We bought a souvenir beer and jumper for £1 can you believe, that jumper might be ok for gardening or future decorating in!

No trip to Withernsea would be complete without a stroll down the school drive and to the tuck shop which was next to the lighthouse were we spent all our spare pennies on sweets, and then on to see the beach.

A very long and boring post so Bye bye Withernsea.