Off the beaten track

Well... after an adventure into the unknown without my flak jacket and teflon coating... I have returned... Are you sitting comfortably, then we shall begin.



Once upon a time, Red Riding Hood had one of those moments of lust, intrigue and the desire to go on a journey... what Red Riding Hood forgot to do was consult the stars and think about this with her head screwed on. So she packed up her troubles into the red spotty suitcase (hankies and sticks are just not big enough for a modern girls wardrobe) and caught the Chattanooga Choo Choo to the big smoke.


The big smoke was a huge vast city landscape and not paved with gold as the critics had suggested. Instead, it was a billboard for commercialism, greed and consumerism... something Little Miss Red was not prepared for, still it was an adventure and not all adventures are what they seem. After a while; the glitzy shimmer started to rust, [chapter deleted and memory banked] the promise was betrayed and it was time to head home to the Bubble of Tranquility.


The suitcase is returned to the cobwebby cupboard, the red cloak hung back on the peg at the back of the door, the little red dress patched up and pressed and the red spotty hankies tears wrung out to dry.

Moral to the Story: Expeditions are for adventurers only and not girls from the frozen North.

Tomorrow is a bright new day though... which I am so looking forward to! :)

Dusting off demons.

The cobwebs and dust from the previous year seem to have settled and it is time I returned to this miscellany of mundane musings.

The kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions continue to spill onto the blotting paper of life and are often placed misguidingly onto the hopes and dreams of others.

So set against a backdrop of pending doom

(restructure, redundancy, redeployment and random choices)

the intention is to capture the moments of happiness, freedom, resilience and turning points.

Hold onto your seats, I think 2011 will be a bumpy ride...

Memories of Jack Frost

Having eight inches of snow blanketed across the district has been a joy! It has catapulted me back to the early seventies and eighties when we had proper winters. As with everything from your childhood, the rose tinted glow encapsulates and warms my heart.

Thrown out of the house come rain or shine, we’d walk to school as normal and crack frozen puddles with our heels and watch the splintered pattern emerge. The snow was quite often knee deep and we’d follow the tracks and occasionally push each other into the snow wall to get a frosty dusting.

School was always open in the snow, however we were confined to the classroom at breaks, reading old Beano’s and playing board games. You’d turn up to school in your wellies, duffle coat and mittens on string and have to change into slippers or pumps to avoid getting the parquet floor sodden. We were allowed outside at dinner, the boys would spend their time making cresta run slides down the playground and perform sliding pirouettes to impress the girls or stockpiling snowballs for home time. We would be making snowmen and snow angels with our chapped legs and sore lips. One of the posh girls would have strawberry lip-salve and we would all share and spread our germs!

Home time would see a hail of snowballs from the boys and we would run about scooping great handfuls of snow from the car roofs and tops of walls and attempting to at least get one snowball on target. Our hands would be frozen and we’d get chilblains on our toes. It was expected, it was winter.

Snow meant sledging and sledging meant disappearing for hours on end. Word would spread between us about which hill was the best to sledge down. Granddad had made us a wooden sledge and we would candle wax the runners, however it just sank into the snow with its design faults. We’d use old feedbags instead. At some point my sister was bought a bright red plastic sledge. It was the height of sledging fashion. Three of use could sit comfortably on it; we’d giggle as we’d glide down the hill heading for the bump. If you landed correctly it was great cause for celebration otherwise we’d end up in a heap of wellies, snow and sledge much to the amusement of the other hardened sledgers. We'd come home soaking wet with red rosy cheeks and mum would make us a hot steaming cuppa and Bovril on toast. We’d be wrapped in itchy wool blankets and huddle around the coal fire keeping warm until bedtime.

The big melt. Snow was only pristine and white for a day or so. It soon had the black crust from dusty coal fires and at this point you’d no longer let the snow melt on your tongue as a free seasonal treat. During the melt and freeze period, huge icicles would hang off the guttering and everything looked like it had been touched by Jack Frost. Our bedroom window would be frozen on the inside as well as the outside and we’d blow warm air on the surface and make little spies holes, you could see your breath in the air and we would pretend to be cosmopolitan and smoke. By mid afternoon the windows would drip in condensation and towels would be on every windowsill mopping up the excess water.

We were never hungry, Dad still went to work, Mum would be baking in the kitchen and struggling to get wet washing dry but life went on. All the grown ups would be shovelling snow and it was seen as pride to keep your pavement clear. I don’t really remember gritters and snowploughs every coming down our street, if you owned a car, there was always somebody to push you out of the street. We walked everywhere and shopped when the cupboard was bare.

The perception of global warming has made us soft. The health and safety and sue society has driven us to down tools and whimper at every snowflake. Not me, I’m loving it and despite wearing gloves at work and warming my toes on a dodgy fan heater I found in the store cupboard, I’m reliving my childhood and will be disappointed by the big melt.

Day 22 in the Frozen North

The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,

and what will poor robin do then, poor thing?

He'll sit in a barn and keep himself warm

and hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

A little snowy trudge through a Winter Wonderland...

Come on... get your wellies on!

The Ancient Oaks in the walled parkland of Jacob Smith Park.

Hot Chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows?

Out with the old, in with the New Year...

It is traditional in Yorkshire to first foot. The first footer, the bringer of luck, has to be tall, dark and handsome (okay handsome is not a preference but hell it's my thresh hold, so I can afford to be choosy) and carry with him a lump of coal, a pinch of salt, a piece of bread and a sprig of greenery.

Coal - not easy when you don't have a coal fire and all the pits have been shut down. Hoping a piece of charcoal from the barbie will suffice.
Salt - I am being extravangant, it's rock salt!
Bread - Nice chunk of granary, slightly grubby due to charcoal fingerprints!
Greenery - Luckily most of the snow has melted so a sprig of rosemary will suffice... hopefully that hasn't any bad luck connotations!! Should I edge my bets and check?

In other places, first footers also bring money (nay chance, I'm skint ) or a bottle of whisky (oops too late, will Baileys do?).. but as with all customs and traditions over time they evolve...

So all I need now is a sober Yorkshire tyke whose eyebrows don't meet in the middle carrying a bag full of trundlements on the hour of midnight....... erm not holding my breath for this one!

Raises glass (Cath Kidston cowboy mug to be precise with lukewarm coffee) to the coming year, hope it's a happy one filled with love, joy, achievements and wealth.

Project Shed

At the bottom of every garden should be a shed of some description whether it be a hut, a lean to, a workshop, a snug, a potting shed or home office, every garden needs to be lavished with the love of a shed.

Shed Heaven - in the snow December 2009 - Oh you do look festive!

I painted my shed two summers ago and gave it back a lease of life, it had sadly been neglected by it’s previous owners and having abandoned my former shed with the beautiful stained glass window; my dad made to my specifications. I’ve downgraded to bog standard shed. Still, we must move with the times and habour no regrets about selling the former shed along with the house, it clinched the deal.



Project Shed will see the development of the interior of the shed. Unfortunately getting inside the shed is a bit of an assault course at the moment, but I plan to renovate, paint, reorganise and revitalise my shed. Amazingly the tidy-up fairy folk never venture in here!

Dream “sheds” I have salivated over on the t’interweb:

A Hobbit Hole, courtesy of High Life Treehouses, the round door is so inviting.


Again from High Life Treehouses, the Cedar Spire, oh Rapunzel let down your hair!

A Shepherds hut, in a parallel life, there was one on our land, it had fallen into disrepair and its wooden boarding became the door on the scullery. If I knew then, what I knew now... This delightful sage green sheperds hut is from a collection by Plankbridge.

A couple of sheds from recent trundles:

The I Love West Leeds Festival knitted shed covered in knitted squares and now residing at Armley Mills Industrial Museum. A community piece created by knitters aged between 5 and 95 years.

This gothic masterpiece was found hiding in a garden in Great Ouseburn during the Open Gardens in May 2009.

Christmas Adventure

Image courtesty of Emily Bearn "Tumtum and Nutmeg's Christmas Adventure"

What, with the excitement (!! no really…) of Christmas and the impact of the festive panic, I forgot to post about my journey to Stockeld Park. The family of intrepid explorers set out on the winter solstice with heavy snowfall and temperatures reaching minus five. Added to which the experience of my mother competing in the British Bobsleigh time trials as we glided around corners and the gravitational pull steered us towards Wetherby was one that will be filed in my memory bank forever.

Unfortunately the dry ski slope was closed due health and safety. Apparently you can’t Nordic ski on snow, it’s slippery and dangerous. I bet Eddie the Eagle was never warned about this! So the natives were slightly frosty to the ticket office pixies.

Which way now... No idea!! [the old ones are the best]

There was no red tape blocking our way on the Enchanted Woodland Walk though… step this way for a magical experience…through theatre, myth and mystery…

Back within the confines of retail therapy and the froth of hot chocolate I can understand why the 2000 acre estate has diversified into creating a winter wonderland. Three months of the year, you can keep the wolves from your door by exploiting the beliefs of children, pull on the purse strings of parents trying to recapture the magic, grandparents eager to please their grandchildren in an outdoor activity, anything to keep their wandering hands off the antique glass baubles. Oh yes, Stockeld Park has tastefully marketed Christmas without losing the charm of it’s it rural idyll.

The delightful home of the bad tempered Figgy Pudding!