Nominees

With regard to the Liebster Award nominations I referred to in my last post, I know that many of you out there will have been tossing and turning in your beds - unable to sleep because of the exciting possibilty that you might also be nominated! All blog awards worth their salt have to have rules and here my friends are the rules of The Liebster Awards - if you are fortunate enough to be nominated:-

The Rules

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3. Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4. Provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5. Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7. List these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

My Eleven "Liebster" Questions - These are the questions that willing nominees should answer before advancing the process - like a chain. Copying and pasting will of course help.

1. How are you feeling today?
2. When you look in your mirror what do you see?
3. If you could be an animal for just one day which animal would you be and why?
4. When you were a small child what were you scared of?
5. If you could have any plate of food placed in front of you for your next evening meal, what would be on that plate?
6. When did you come closest to dying?
7. It's karaoke night and you have been pushed towards the microphone. There's no escape so which song are you going to attempt to sing?
8. You can travel back in time to any era, any country - where will you go?
9. When did you last say "I'm sorry"?
10. If you were a skilful artist with a blank canvas, what would you paint?
11. From your memory name a special place you once went to that still makes you smile and why?

And so to my five nominees. Links to their blogs are in my sidebar. I apologise in advance to the many bloggers who will be bitterly disappointed to have been left out. I hereby nominate

Meike at "From My Mental Library"

Jenny at "Demob Happy Teacher"

Madam Thyme at "Peace Thyme Garden and Weather Station"

Bob at "Rhymes With Plague"

Helen at "Helsie's Happenings"

If you accept the nomination all you have to do is follow the rules and of course answer my eleven questions to become a fully fledged Liebster like me! Then pass it on as they say.

Liebster

A fellow Yorkshireman called Lee Firth dropped by this humble blog earlier on to inform me I had been nominated for a Liebster Award. I ran upstairs to check if my suit still fitted and perused my congested social diary. Excited, I wondered where the Liebster Awards Ceremony would be held. The Wembley Arena? Los Angeles? Sheffield City Hall?

Back downstairs I investigated news of the award more carefully and realised it was really just a blogging meme or round robin - aimed in my case principally at people who blog about walking. My heart sank. I don't make a point of following blogs about rambling - even though it is currently my most satisfying pastime. Most of the blogs I read are by people who like eating, moaning and sitting on their backsides far too much!

If you are a Liebster winner you have to graciously accept the  award and then answer a bunch of questions posed by the person who nominated you. Below you will find the questions that Lee Firth put to me with my responses:-

1...What's the most unusual, or funny, name of a place you've visited?

That would have to be The Land of Nod - a hamlet near Holme on Spalding Moor in East Yorkshire.

2...If there was a hole in the bottom of your rucksack and something fell out, what would you hope it wouldn't be, and why?

My camera because for me walking has become synonymous with snapping photographs of the places I ramble through.

3...What is your least favourite area for walking, and why is this?

My least favourite walking environment is disused railway tracks because often you cannot see anything as you stroll along - just bushes and trees hiding the surrounding landscape.

4...Walking poles; help or hindrance?

I have never used any walking poles so I can't really say but recently my daughter undertook the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge and said her walking sticks really helped - like having four legs - not two.

5...What are your preferred weather conditions for walking?

Bright sunshine to illuminate my photography.

6...What was your most embarrassing moment when out walking?

Coming across a fellow rambler who was nonchalantly urinating upon the stile I was just about to climb over. I wasn't embarrassed but he was mortified. I reassured him I wouldn't be contacting the local police and suggested penis enlargement.

7...How often do you think the Ordnance Survey map is wrong?

Once in a blue moon. Britain is fortunate to have such a brilliant mapping service and I wouldn't want to knock it.

8...Do you combine your walking with any other hobby, such as photography, public presentations, blogging [of course], or maybe first aid?

Photography, map reading, blogging and bull running!

9...For those of you who regularly walk in the Peak District; White Peak or Dark Peak?

I love both for different reasons - the wild beauty of the Dark Peak and the human impact upon The White Peak with its ancient limestone walls, chocolate box lid villages and its sweet green pastures.

10..Do you go walking to escape from your everyday life, or do you go to participate in something different, and better?

I go for exercise and photo opportunities and because what I see before me is far more captivating than any film or television programme. I go for the history and the weather and whatever nature has prepared for me that day. And I go because it is the best kind of psycho-therapy you can get.

11..What's your walking bugbear; what really annoys you?

Ignorant landowners who view walkers with disdain. Of course most landowners are not like that at all but I have encountered some horrors and have found myself in arguments I didn't really want. I am also not fond of unleashed dogs that come yelping at you or impede your progress along public rights of way.

In my next blogpost I shall nominate five other bloggers for the prestigious Liebster Award. These lucky nominees must decide whether or not to accept the nomination before answering a bunch of questions that I will prepare specially for them. This Liebster Awards business is all very complicated. There are rules and everything but as I am a jolly sort of chap who'd rather participate than stand carping from the sidelines - I have gone along with it and enormous thanks to Lee Firth for nominating me. How I have lived till now I do not know. The Liebster Award means everything to me. I'd like to thank my family, my agent, my teachers, the postman, the neighbours.... Will you be nominated for a Liebster Award? Watch this space!

Oh drat! I nearly forgot, I have to write down eleven random facts about myself. Let's get this over with quickly:-

1) I am right-handed

2) I met Jimmy Savile but fortunately he didn't follow me to the lavatory.

3) I am an orphan

4) I met her Majesty the Queen Mother and she asked me about East Yorkshire.

5) I have an O level in Woodwork.

6) I am a lifelong Hull City supporter

7) I can make musical sounds simply by creating a vacuum between the palms of my hands. My hand version of "Rule Britannia" is legendary.

8) I never ever deliberately kill insects.

9) The only political party I have ever voted for is The Labour Party.

10) I have visited Easter Island.

11) I wrote "The Headland" available as an e-book through Amazon. Why not buy it, enjoy it and supplement my paltry pension? Soon I'll be publishing a collection of poems - also as an e-book through Amazon. This should be helpful to insomnia sufferers.

Tour

The "Y" stands for Yorkshire

This year, the planet's number one cycle race - The Tour de France - did not actually begin in France but in a much more civilised, cultured and beautiful part of Europe - namely Yorkshire. This past weekend, fans of the Tour de France have been treated to images of our great county and the incredible support of the Yorkshire people who came out in their droves.

At lunchtime today, Shirley and I jumped in the car and headed towards nearby High Bradfield - only to be astonished by the number of cars that were already parked up miles from the race route. We decided to park at Dungworth and then quick marched our way to Bradfield - nearly two miles away.

Just outside the village, we found a cosy place to sit on grassy banking above a hidden drystone wall. And then we waited and waited. An amazing number of vehicles passed by below us as we waited for the cyclists and they all blew their horns as they approached "The Old Horns Inn". There were British police motorcyclists and French gendarmes, ambulances, official race cars, cars and vans belonging to the various racing teams and then the so-called "caravan" which is basically dozens of motor vehicles whose sole purpose seemed to be to advertise things from the French "Carrefour" supermarket chain to Yorkshire Tea. We thought that caravan would never end so we ate our ham salad sandwiches and supped our water.

And then finally the cyclists appeared in their bright helmets and racing spectacles and their colourful lycra outfits. We saw them approaching, they flashed by and then they were gone. Afterwards we made our way through the crowds back to Dungworth - picking up two Londoners along the way. We took them back into Sheffield and one of them said to me - "Wasn't the caravan fantastic?" And I said "To tell you the truth, I thought it was all a waste of petrol."

Naturally, I took some photographs...

Walking up to High Bradfield

Girls spinning in an adjacent field as we waited for Le Tour

Waiting for :Le Tour just outside High Bradfield

A typical part of the advertising caravan

Geraint Thomas leads the way for Team Sky

Roberto Brague and Tomaso Gowans for Team Blog

Harris

Harris - Died in May 2023 at the age of 93

I was going to title this post "Rolf" but "Harris" seems more appropriate now. For a few decades Rolf Harris was Britain's favourite Australian. You might say that people of my generation grew up with him. He was always on our television sets - singing songs like "Two Little Boys" or "The Court of King Caractacus" - and he'd paint huge pictures with the kind of paintbrushes you normally use to emulsion walls or creosote fences. At first you wouldn't know what he was painting but then the scene would emerge like a marvellous optical illusion - often of the Australian bush. Quite brilliant.

He was a funny man who seemed to enjoy being silly. He introduced us to the stylophone and the didgeridoo and his famous wobble board. He was a man of many parts and as a nation  we loved him. He had a hit record with his version of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and he appeared at the Glastonbury Festival seven times. Our Rolf. Good old Rolf. He was even commissioned to paint a portrait of Her Majesty the Queen.

From 1994 to 2003 he hosted a popular early evening television programme called "Animal Hospital". He was the perfect presenter - engaging warmly with pet owners and vets and often tearful when animals suffered or died. There seemed to be a genuine, earthy  humanity about the bloke.

And yet...and yet he was a paedophile. He used his fame to facilitate numerous paedophilic activities with  a string of young girls. He left most of them emotionally scarred and even in old age it seems that he had been accessing porn sites containing explicit sexual images or videos of eastern European children. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to pursue that matter having achieved a successful prosecution in relation to his various other crimes against young girls.

So tonight at the age of eighty four, he's  in Wandsworth Jail. They reckon he'll be out in three years if he lives that long. If it were possible, it would tempting to find an excuse for Harris - to explain why he did what he did - not once but over and over as if addicted to his vile habit - taking advantage of young girls. But there can be no excuses. Harris has been found out and he is where he belongs - behind bars and I know I will not be the only one who feels somehow cheated - a fond memory of my youth corrupted forever. What a shame that Jimmy Savile shuffled off his mortal coil before  the law caught up with him and similarly delivered his just desserts.

Harris painting The Queen

Brilliant

My apologies if you have already come across this very short video by a seventeen year old American high school student called Joe Bush. I realise that it has being doing the internet rounds for a good while but I only came across it today. Apparently Joe is no relation to George Bush Sr or that fellow's intellectually challenged offspring. What was his name?  You need your sound on to hear the musical accompaniment - "Mind Heist" by Zack Hemsey - from the film "Interception" - and don't blink or you'll miss it.

History of the World in Two Minutes -  by Joe Bush

While watching this amazing  two minute video, I was very conscious of the amount of mental processing my mind had to undertake in that time. In a moment you see an image and your brain recognises it - connects it with what you already know and have previously seen - gives if fleeting meaning before another image rapidly replaces it. In that one short video collage  there are literally hundreds of different images and the human brain deals with every one.

Is Joe Bush right? Is Planet Earth's story just a momentary blossoming of life in the endlessness of the universe before the inky blankness returns with millions of lifeless miles between millions of lifeless planets and faraway stars - like distant pinpricks of light  - boiling angrily in the void? Notably, religion and ideas about some sort of afterlife seem to be quite insignificant in Joe Bush's "History".

Oh I nearly forgot - to all of my esteemed  American visitors - may I say - Happy Independence Day!

Westwards

Well dressing in the village of Hope

Shirley is down in Bristol for a few days - it's a national conference related to student health provision. Her health centre has many university students on its list.

So yesterday I had to get up early to take her to nearby Hathersage. Another conference attendee was giving her a lift from there all the way to Bristol, After dropping off my beloved, I drove westwards to walk in virgin territory, pausing briefly in Hope to snap the picture above and arrived in Peak Dale just after ten o'clock.

Compared with Derbyshire's many quaint and picturesque villages, Peak Dale is a sad sort of place. It grew up because of limestone quarrying and most of its houses are squat and unlovely. There's a "For Sale" sign on disused Holy Trinity church and the last remaining shop - the post office - closed its doors forever a couple of years back. I met an old woman in the street. She had lived her entire life in Peakdale and had seen it change. "We've got nothing now. Nothing at all", she sighed just before I stole her handbag... (I made the last bit up).

Around Peak Dale there are the scars of limestone workings. Great clefts in the earth and still the digging and crushing machines keep grinding away. Mostly it's about the manufacture of cement and also limestone chippings for road building. Those ancient oolitic seas of pre-history have given us this unsung treasure - limestone. In the hamlet of Smalldale the air was filled with the smell and sound of the limestone industry which threatens to squeeze this former sleepy little agricultural community out of existence.

By twelve thirty my first ramble was over. Like an American pioneer, I decided to head further west - to Combs, south of Chapel-en-le-Frith on the edge of the Peak District National Park. There, in The Beehive Inn, I enjoyed a pint of orange cordial with soda water (though it was oddly unfizzy) and a packet of plain crisps before heading to the hills.

At some point I lost the path I had planned to take and found myself scrabbling over gates and dry stone walls till I came to a dell choked by Japanese knotweed which -  like posh landowners in deerstalker hats - is becoming a scourge in various parts of the countryside. Once it has got a hold it multiplies and suffocates natural vegetation. Thank heavens there's very little of it in the Sheffield region.

Finally, high on an old packhorse route - The Old Road - I walked by the strangely named Wythen Loche - an isolated moorland farm - and wondered what it might be like to live there in different seasons. And who chose that weird name? Then down past The Hanging Rock and onwards in a circle back down towards Combs. I saw lapwings in a high pasture and where I was going to take a cross country  footpath by another isolated farm, I thought better of it when vicious hounds came to meet me baring their teeth - hungry for delicious Pudding meat.

Back in Sheffield I was - to put it bluntly - knackered. After resting and processing some of my photographs, I drove up the main road to "The Wheatsheaf" which is a Toby Carvery Inn. There I enjoyed a carvery meal and a a Honeycomb Delight Sundae dessert  for a mere £6.50. Delightful and a suitable reward for a long day of rambling. While the cat's away the mouse will play. Here are some more pictures:-

Limestone train near Smalldale

Sitch House near Smalldale - typical High Peak countryside.

"The Beehive Inn" in Combs

Lapwings in a moorland meadow

Wythen Lache

Jaggers

Jagger... No not the seventy year old thick-lipped rock and roll peacock. I'm thinking back much further than that. As a surname Jagger was first recorded in Derbyshire in 1310 though it may have begun its long history in West Yorkshire.  Of course there are many English surnames derived from occupations. A "cooper" was someone who made barrels and a "wainwright"was somebody who made wagons or carts known as "wains" and a "farmer" was...but what was a "jagger"?

Let me tell you... Long ago there were no proper roads over the hills of central England but goods still needed to be transported. A network of tracks developed. At first those who transported goods would have done so on their own backs but later horses and ponies were employed. It wasn't long before men realised that they could lead teams of horses across the country - often carrying heavy goods like lead from Derbyshire's many lead mines. In Middle English a "jag" was a "pack" or a "load" and so a "jagger" was someone who was responsible for carrying loads across the country. I blogged about this before.

In Derbyshire and West and South Yorkshire the surname Jagger has its heartland and the name is also part of our landscape. There are several tracks that still bear the name "Jaggers Lane" and yesterday I walked along one such by-way between Chesterfield and Matlock. It wasn't too hard to imagine the pack horse teams and the jaggers who would have once moved laboriously along that route - taking days to reach their destinations.

Where Jaggers Lane met Wirestone Lane, I noticed an old guide stoop set into the drystone wall. It would have been a good place for the jaggers to rest their animals a while before travelling on to Matlock, Ashbourne, Winster or Chesterfield:-