Barbeques And The Traditional British Weather

I think it's fair to say that the last weekend was as close to perfect as it could possibly have been.

I had to work a little on Saturday - system issues and the fact I have had to change the whole working practices of the office meant that I couldn't just disappear, and that's despite me already working 12 straight days, including until 11pm the night before. It's fair to say that I needed a break.

And a break is what I got, at the home of chez Wolfie, the bestest wuff imaginable. I arrived there at around 4pm with the purpose of having a barbeque with his folks. It was a nice and relaxed affair, and I even got to see his Dad wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, which was, erm, pink. It was the first barbeque I have had this year and I have missed the taste of flame-grilled burnedness and inferior quality meat (this was my first barbeque since renouncing my vegetarianism too). However, it was the Aunt Bessie's expensive burgers that tasted decidely dodgy whereas the Tesco Value sausages were delicious, particularly with wood-smoked barbeque sauce and mint stuff.

I also drank a hell of a lot of beer - all hail Tuborg - and we chatted about a whole host of things. Wolfie played with his meths-fuelled (although all he had was whtie spirit) steam engine and it was a really relaxed atmosphere. As I say, for someone who finds it notoriously difficult to relax, it was a Godsend. We also saw some strange UFO things, dancing lights of orange and red.

On Sunday, Wolfie and I decided to check out Howarth, on the Keighley and Worth Valley railway. This is like the railway between Grosmont and Pickering - it was decommissioned by Dr Beeching in the '60s (in this case 1961) and is now a living museum, with trains being pulled by steam locos and stations looking exactly as they did in that era. It was expensive - £9.40 return between Keighley and Howarth - but worth it I feel. We met a friendly train guard who looked like Captain Bird's Eye and a friendly trainspotter who had a massive tripod. And that was just what he was carrying. The train guard told us all about trains and where to get the best views of the scenery from - apparently it was from the third carriage. I also discovered that Keighley had a rather pretty mosque, very much like the ones you can see in Indonesia.

We then hopped aboard and went to Howarth, a town so entrenched in the Forties that you think any flying planes are German bombers It's actually very picturesque and as we climbed up the cobbled Main Street looking at all the olde worlde shoppes, it was great breathing in the fresh air of Bronte country. There were many tea shoppes (perhaps we could do a tea shoppe crawl there), a cheese shop (so I was happy - plus I bought three delicious cheeses, including a tangy blue cheese and a squidgy cheese wrapped in peppercorns) and a delightful olde worlde sweete shoppe in which I bought cinder toffee and Wolfie bought some awful sweets that tasted like soap. We also grabbed some chips and mushy peas and had a pint in The Kings Arms, a local pub for local people. The whole atmosphere was quintessentially British, but without the binge drinking. In fact, the friendliness of the place took me aback.

The highlight of the day for me was looking at the old photographs in the Village Hall. There were many pics of the town - from its transportation, education to village life - and they gave a nice snapshot of history. Local bread vans were delivering bread, girls were dressed up for galas and old buses (including one that crashed in October 1920, killing five people) were all recorded as testament of another age. As I said, Howarth is famous for the Bronte sisters, very famous in literary circles but writing a kind of Victorian sensibility that is not really my cup of Yorkshire Tea. I declined paying £6 for the privilege of entering the museum although we did go to a preserved meadow - which was really just some grass with a path mown into it. There was a nice dry stone wall though.

The other thing that Howarth is famous for is that it's Main Street is the one on which the famous Hovis advert from the late '80s was filmed. So, you see, there's interesting places on your doorstep :-)

Anyways, piccies are here if anyone is interested:
picasaweb.google.com/andrewcraigmorgan/Howarth9August2009#

Barbeques And The Traditional British Weather

I think it's fair to say that the last weekend was as close to perfect as it could possibly have been.

I had to work a little on Saturday - system issues and the fact I have had to change the whole working practices of the office meant that I couldn't just disappear, and that's despite me already working 12 straight days, including until 11pm the night before. It's fair to say that I needed a break.

And a break is what I got, at the home of chez Wolfie, the bestest wuff imaginable. I arrived there at around 4pm with the purpose of having a barbeque with his folks. It was a nice and relaxed affair, and I even got to see his Dad wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, which was, erm, pink. It was the first barbeque I have had this year and I have missed the taste of flame-grilled burnedness and inferior quality meat (this was my first barbeque since renouncing my vegetarianism too). However, it was the Aunt Bessie's expensive burgers that tasted decidely dodgy whereas the Tesco Value sausages were delicious, particularly with wood-smoked barbeque sauce and mint stuff.

I also drank a hell of a lot of beer - all hail Tuborg - and we chatted about a whole host of things. Wolfie played with his meths-fuelled (although all he had was whtie spirit) steam engine and it was a really relaxed atmosphere. As I say, for someone who finds it notoriously difficult to relax, it was a Godsend. We also saw some strange UFO things, dancing lights of orange and red.

On Sunday, Wolfie and I decided to check out Howarth, on the Keighley and Worth Valley railway. This is like the railway between Grosmont and Pickering - it was decommissioned by Dr Beeching in the '60s (in this case 1961) and is now a living museum, with trains being pulled by steam locos and stations looking exactly as they did in that era. It was expensive - £9.40 return between Keighley and Howarth - but worth it I feel. We met a friendly train guard who looked like Captain Bird's Eye and a friendly trainspotter who had a massive tripod. And that was just what he was carrying. The train guard told us all about trains and where to get the best views of the scenery from - apparently it was from the third carriage. I also discovered that Keighley had a rather pretty mosque, very much like the ones you can see in Indonesia.

We then hopped aboard and went to Howarth, a town so entrenched in the Forties that you think any flying planes are German bombers It's actually very picturesque and as we climbed up the cobbled Main Street looking at all the olde worlde shoppes, it was great breathing in the fresh air of Bronte country. There were many tea shoppes (perhaps we could do a tea shoppe crawl there), a cheese shop (so I was happy - plus I bought three delicious cheeses, including a tangy blue cheese and a squidgy cheese wrapped in peppercorns) and a delightful olde worlde sweete shoppe in which I bought cinder toffee and Wolfie bought some awful sweets that tasted like soap. We also grabbed some chips and mushy peas and had a pint in The Kings Arms, a local pub for local people. The whole atmosphere was quintessentially British, but without the binge drinking. In fact, the friendliness of the place took me aback.

The highlight of the day for me was looking at the old photographs in the Village Hall. There were many pics of the town - from its transportation, education to village life - and they gave a nice snapshot of history. Local bread vans were delivering bread, girls were dressed up for galas and old buses (including one that crashed in October 1920, killing five people) were all recorded as testament of another age. As I said, Howarth is famous for the Bronte sisters, very famous in literary circles but writing a kind of Victorian sensibility that is not really my cup of Yorkshire Tea. I declined paying £6 for the privilege of entering the museum although we did go to a preserved meadow - which was really just some grass with a path mown into it. There was a nice dry stone wall though.

The other thing that Howarth is famous for is that it's Main Street is the one on which the famous Hovis advert from the late '80s was filmed. So, you see, there's interesting places on your doorstep :-)

Anyways, piccies are here if anyone is interested:
picasaweb.google.com/andrewcraigmorgan/Howarth9August2009#