Gardening in the rain?

It's alright to garden when its pouring with rain, as it has been daily for the last two weeks, IF someone was paying me but no-one is, so I'm not. I've done a bit of pruning and weeding, scraped weeds from between concrete flags on the patio and kept my garden tidy yet the mower is growing cobwebs again. Once a week I should be walking up and down my three 'lawns.' I plug the cables in, get togged up then it rains again so the grass is now clumpy, unsightly, soggy and, without trimmed grass, the garden has been untidy for most of this Summer. Petrol mowers use up valuable fossil fuel to a greater extent than my electric mower and they cost more to buy. So I find other things to do (and cross 'mowing, edging' off my Diary entry, again.) I wish there was a Lawn Gazebo large enough to cover my grass, electric cables and me then I'd keep my lawns pristeen but there isn't, so I'm not. In my ideal world I'd pay for a gardener to mow the grass, get wet and suffer an electric shock. Why does the warm sun shine most evenings when I'm too tired to do anything? Spite, I suspect. TV gardening programmes have manicured grass because dozens of people work seven-days-a-week off-camera. Hope the sun shines tomorrow morning to dry the grass for me to walk up-and-down my 'lawns' again. No chance!

Damems Station KWVR

This is Damems Station, the smallest station in the UK. It is furnished in 1950s style, from the telephone to the fireplace with roaring open fire, to the ticket machine issuing card tickets. Computers have not been heard of nor seen by staff who work here yet I suspect there is one somewhere at KWVR! How else would they enter information on their Web Site? Volunteers act as if they really are living in the 50s. to keep authenticity in their work and to please the paying visitors. It would be terrible if someone was photographed using a mobile phone, in full view of visitors, at any of the stations. Children in particular would notice and, perhaps, feel cheated abit. I've visited numerous times and never seen anything other than 1950s uniforms, machines, tickets, furnishings, coal fires, politeness from all members of staff and I've felt transported back in time to those gadget-free days.

Haworth Main Street

This is Haworth Main Street, a very steep cobbled street not accessible by car. It's an easy walk downwards but you'll be breathless if you walk all the way up to the top! The Bronte Museum sits next to the graveyard and visitors can see where the Bronte sisters wrote in pencil in little notebooks at what was The Rectory. The Black Bull Hotel is supposedly haunted by boozy Branwell and it is very unlucky to sit on his triangular chair (which is roped off from the public) as he might still be sitting there! A wide variety of shops line both sides of the street. One has a Victorian interior and sells long-forgotten housewares (Fairy and Sunlight Soaps etc.) and 4711 fragrances along with Lily of the Valley (whoever she may be?), toileteries, 'smellies' by the crate and is a treasure trove of yesterday's memories. Wuthering Heights was based on a now-ruined building high on Haworth Moors which is sign-posted for Bronte fans to explore. And, best of all, steam trains travel up the Worth Valley to Haworth and beyond through lovely scenery.

Acid Rain Again?

After the cloudbursts last Friday I noticed that all my roses and buds had blackened and died. The leaves had turned from glossy dark green to pale green with gray dust marks. The Rhodydendron 'Madam Masson' (white flowered) dropped all its clusters even though it had been covered in beautiful white flowers for three or four weeks. Lots of flowers and shrubs have burnt leaf edges too. I could only have been acid rain! This wasn't Global Warming this was Global Pollution caused by toxic, industrial chemicals being emitted into our atmosphere then the heavy rain washed it all back down to earth. When are industries going to clean up their act? The world and his dog has known about acid rain for 4 decades! So why no action to reduce their outpourings into OUR atmosphere, the air we need to live on? I remember Scandinavia suffering from de-forestation because of acid rain and it caused an outcry. Yet nothing has changed, has it? We don't need politicians 'attending to' Summits. We need someone 'attending to' Global Atmospheric Pollution and actually doing something to stop the culprits. Yet again I suspect nothing WILL be done. After all they've had 40 years to DO SOMETHING TO STOP INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION and nothing's changed or improved. No wonder people have asthma, breathing problems, congested lungs and develope various cancers. Without Global Atmospheric Pollution these illnesses would be cut by a quarter. Will somebody (with guts) please STOP the problem now before we start drinking heavily-contaminated drinking water and all suffer permanent harm. Thank You!

Another classic car

This is another classic car from the late 1960s in bright yellow with black interior. These cars had a distinct pin-toes front wheel arrangement which was strange to start with but, with practice, drivers got used to this. If, like me, you had a tendency to drive at speed over humpback bridges, brows of hills and got airborne, the wheels tucked themselves under when they lost touch with the road. On landing they quickly levelled out again. The steering went light so you had to keep hold with both hands or you ended up in hedges! The above car was well-known in rallying circles and was brilliant on hill climbs too. Once (and only once) I parked facing the sea on Southport beach only to return two hours later to find the bonnet under the Irish Sea. No Problem! The engine was in the boot at the back and the only things which got wet were sandwiches, my coat, a travel rug and shopping bag. And my feet when I got into the Imp. Sadly, during a rally, a big tree stump fell in love with the underside of the passenger seat and refused to part company with it. It might still be there somewhere in Yorkshire, a rusting lump of metal with flakes of bright yellow paint. If you find it take a photo and let me know!

The original Mini HaHa

In 1965 I bought my first Austen 7 Mini in Surf Blue with grey mock leather interior. It was second-hand but, after a good clean, it looked like new. Three pedal covers were secured over the bare metal plates, (green for accelerator, red for brake, orange for clutch) to customise it then I put 4"-long switch extentions on the dashboard-big mistake! One night I leant across to find a sweet in my handbag in the passenger footwell. Result-one black eye. Next came the flooded dip in the road. Result-3" of water slopping round my feet. Apparently a design fault of all first editions of the Mini. The garage welded the seams watertight before I bought staircarpet from a shop to make the interior quieter and warmer as the heater was underpowered. Result-backache from kneeling and bending to fit that carpet. Then I bought lap&diagonal seatbelts for the front two seats (which had a habit of throwing the occupants forward if you braked sharply!) But the day I was going to fit them I had to drive three miles on an errand and had to choose between going under the backend of a coal wagon parked round a bend or edging out and overtaking it. I chose the latter. Result-two cars in the shape of an inverted V, a headache, stiff neck, car repairs lasting weeks and STILL no fitted seatbelts! Ah Happy Memories of My First Mini.

The Shed Saga

My friend's just phoned with news of her old 6'x6' shed. It's gone! She then spent an hour sweeping up the mess, spent two hours waiting at the local A&E where they removed splinters from her fingers and knees and now she wishes she had cremated the thing instead. "To blazes with it" is what she said. Her new Summerhouse arrives tomorrow so she's sewing curtains with four bandaged fingers. I didn't understand half the words but I suspect they were rude. I'll be getting my invite to the celebrity grand opening soon when she's found a local notary to cut the tape. (George Michael, The Queen, Daniel Craig and Basil Brush have all turned her down.) I expect she'll ask the local undertaker as she quite fancies him. I hope he smiles on the day or it will feel like we're attending one of his regular 'jobs.' One of my distant relatives is known to be on commission from this undertaker because her frown is set in cement so she was a natural choice. Anyway, I can't wait to see The Lodge (so called because she hunted high and low to find the right one for her, large enough to take a camping bed, strong enough to withstand her wild parties and insulated enough to muffle her squeals of delight when she's reading one of her magazines or books.) A photo of The Lodge may appear here in the future-no promises.

Yet another railway photo

Here is another photo from my collection. The Internet is a mine of information about steam railways; projects being worked on, restoration to carriages (that might have been used as henhouses or weekend retreats,) engines having new tubes or tyres, cylinder repairs, repaints, and buildings being renovated too. Summer timetables mean more engines and carriages in use but restoration work and repairs carry on behind the scenes throughout the year. I remember during the 1950s spending weekends in the country with my parents and their friends and children using one such carriage minus its bogie as a quiet retreat where we ate sandwiches, drank ginger beer, built boxcarts from pram wheels and scrap wood so we could hurtle down the steep, grass slope. Inside the carriage it was spotlessly clean with chintz curtains, primitive seating, lino flooring and had a toilet and basin. Most of the time we spent filling our lungs with fresh air except when it rained, of course. My parents spent most of their weekends cleaning wounds and applying dressings to five or six children! It's strange to think that THAT same carriage has probably been renovated at great cost, using traditional skills, and someone somewhere is sitting in it on a preserved steam railway line enjoying the thrill of riding behind a steam engine.