When is a Twig not a Twig?

We did some shopping in M & S at Guiseley yesterday afternoon. Oh! go on - I know it was Sunday and all that, but the first person we bumped into in the store was none other than the Rev Barry Miller, who had been preaching at the morning service!

As we left the store I remarked to Dot on how near the car next to me had parked, and was making vague mutterings about thoughtless drivers, when who should we see approaching the said car but Rev. Rod Anderson. He and Pat had also been in M&S.

After leaving M&S we called round to see Ben & Hannah. The original plan had been for a joint dog walk in St Ives, but owing to Ben's late night/early morning and the fact that they were disturbed by Paul knocking on their door in the early hours, having been accidentally locked out by Simon, the joint dog walk didn't take place.

We did however meet a new member of the Martin household. [Here we are - we've arrived at the explanation of the headline] This was another miniature pinscher of about 7 months called "Twig". I didn't have my camera with me, so no photos of her yet. She was quite timid, and obviously very overawed (if not a little scared) of Ruby, but by the time we were ready to leave she had at least approached Ruby and realised that although Ruby was much larger than her she wasn't really a threat.

Return of the Rochdale Cowboy!

I opened the colour section of the Yorkshire Post on Saturday morning, and when I got to the second item I re discovered one of my favourite comedians - Mike Harding.

Mike was born the same year as me, and after an early chequered careeer as a binman, conductor, road digger and carpet fitter, he took a degree in education, paying his way by working in night clubs! The lure of the bright lights became too much for him, and he left education to become a full time entertainer.

His first success was at a live gig at Leeds University in 1967, when he began to tell jokes to cover up the awkward silences between the songs as the rest of the group were tuning up. This patter became part of the act, and when the jokes began to dry up he used experiences and funny stories from real life.

He even appeared on Top of the Pops with Pan's People when he sang "It's Hard to be a Cowboy in Rochdale."



He spent a great deal of time doing tours around the country, and often ended up his tours at the Alhambra in Bradford. Over the years I purchased just about all his (then) LP's, and later cassettes and eventually CD's. These usually consisted of recordings of his live shows, and were excruciatingly funny.

One of the tales he used to tell was called "Quasimodo meets the Virgin Mary" and it tells the tale of the disasters that befall a producion of an Infants Nativity Play. If you have ever been involved with children or Nativity Plays you will be able to identify with many of the characters and situations. If you get the chance to listen to "Quasimodo Meets the Virgin Mary" Do! Alternatively you can read all about it in his book "You can See the Angel's Bum Miss Worswick!"

I used to play it to my school staff a week or two before we put on our Nativity Play. It soothed the frayed nerves and put the whole thing into perspective.

To go back to the Colour Section article, it told me that Mike is going on the road again, but this time in smaller venues. His show will be called "Me, a guitar and some daft stuff" and will take place during February and March at such places as Richmond Georgian Theatre, The Grand Clitheroe, Pocklington Arts Centre, Barnsley Lamproom Theatre, Bury - The Met, Halifax Square Chapel Arts Centre and about a dozen other venues.

I might just be tempted to go to one of them!

A Frosty Morning

It seems that the weather forecasters are getting better at their job. A few days ago I heard Paul Hudson on the local BBC "Look North" programme predicting that we would be in for another cold snap. Both yesterday and this morning he was proved right.

Below is the view of our garage roof (at 10.30 am) and you can still quite distinctly see the frost on it, and the water frozen in the container for the birds to drink from!

Not owning a minimum/maximum thermometer, I have no idea what the outside temperature dropped to last night, but by the feel of the inside temperature this morning, when I got up at about 7.30, the overnight outside temperature must have been well below freezing.

Just take a look at the windows on the side of our garage. It almost looks as though there are some curtains there, or that the glss has been broken. It's actually the frost on the windows you can see!

A Day out in Morecambe

Dot & I were invited to meet our dear friends Gordon & Sue on Wednesday. They had booked in to a penthouse suite in the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. Being the kind of person I am, I did a bit of research on the Midland Hotel before we went to Morecambe.

I discovered a website which gives an interesting account of the Midland Hotels which have occupied the site since the late 1840's.

This was what the first Midland Hotel looked like, and it opened in 1848. The hotel was designed by Edward Paley, a local architect, and cost £4,795 including the furnishings! As you can see, it was a two storey building of grey slate and it had green shuttered windows. It contained forty bedrooms, and although it was a Victorian building, it had a distinctly Georgian look about it!

It was known initially as the North Western Hotel. Its name was changed in 1871 when the Midland Railway Company took over the North Western Railway Company.

By the 1930.s the London Midland & Scottish Railway Company were responsible for the original Midland Hotel, and they decided to replace this building with a more modern structure. Oliver Hill was selected as the architect, and he had trained in the "Arts & Crafts" tradition, and had only recently been converted to "Modernism.". He had no previous experience of hotel construction!
As well as designing the building he took a keen interest in the furniture, decor, upholstery etc. He also gained a reputation for his extravagent interiors, using glass, chrome, vitriolite, marble and exotic woods.

A view of the second Midland Hotel from the convex sea facing side.

The concave side faced the railway station, and was divided by a tower contining the hotel entrance and spiral staircase. At the south end (left on the photo) was a rounded bastion, whilst at the north end (right on the photo) was a single storey cafe.



Hill commisioned the renowned sculptor and engraver Eric Gill to carve two sea horses for the outside of the building. He also carved a circular medallion in the ceiling overlooking the spiral staircase.

The convex, sea facing front of the hotel today.

The Rotunda Bar.

The medallion carved by Eric Gill, which bears the inscription "And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn"

One of the views from Gordon & Sue's Penthouse Suite Balcony.

Another view from the penthouse suite balcony, looking across Morecambe Bay.

This view is looking northwards from the balcony

Whilst this view is looking south. The large building standing separated from the rest is the Battery Hotel.

This is a view of the spiral staircase looking down from the third floor.

Whilst this is a reverse shot from the floor of the hotel foyer looking upwards. You can see the Eric Gill medallion situated at the top of the stairwell.

The Midland Hotel Foyer, with the spiral staircase on the extreme left of the shot.

Just two minutes walk north of the hotel and you will come across the statue of Eric Morecambe.

Viewing the statue got Gordon & I round to reminiscing about the Golden Age of British Comedians and Comedy programmes.

We remembered (quite obviously) Morecambe & Wise, and their wondrerful Christmas programmes (how could anybody forget their antics with Andre Previn/Mr Preview/Mr Privet and the wonderful, nay immortal lines from the mouth of Eric Morecambe after trying to play the piano "I played all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order!" We recalled such people as Ken Dood (& his Diddymen), Jimmy Tarbuck, Ronnie Barker (Porridge/Open All Hours) and Ronnie Corbett (The Two Ronnies), Penelope Keith, (To the Manor Born), Richard Bryars, Felicity Kendall and Penelope Keith (The Good Life). Then earlier comedies such as Steptoe & Son, and The Army Game (remember Bootsie and Snudge?) and Dad's Army.

Passing the now closed Winter Gardens, we observed that this type of variety theatre was where many of the above mentioned comedians would have "cut their teeth" and learnt their trade, after first working their way up from the working men's clubs.

Being the two old codgers we are, we lamented the fact that there no longer seemed to be comedians of the calibre of those we had reminisced about, but felt that the present day comedians had little opportunity to learn their trade in the way of the previously mentioned comedians - they simply appeared on television and became comedians overnight!

Dot and Sue get in on the act!

The siting of the statue, on the promenade, with the hills across the far side of Morecambe Bay is very impressive.

A closer look at those hills revealed that they were dusted in a slight covering of snow!

By the time we sat down to afternoon tea, this was the view we had from the front of the hotel.

A close up shot of the same view, showing the Battery Hotel, isolated from the rest of the buildings.

All in all an enjoyable day out with good company adding to the enjoyment!

A Bit About the Blog.....

One of the interesting things about writing a blog is that you never know who is going to read it. My first blogs tended to be comments on newspaper articles, and were usually extremely critical of the content of the articles. Getting a comment on the blog can be a double edged sword. Those who agree with you usually leave some very pleasant comment, and those who don't can somtimes leave comments that seem to have been written in vitriol!


When I first started putting this blog up I often got comments from some (what I can only describe as a) mad Chinaman! They were always in Chinese, but fortunately there is a translate system on the computer. They were usually comments that were completely irrelevant to my written piece, and probably full of deep oriental mysticism, but they failed to impress me and so I duly removed them from my blog comments. After a little while I think the said Chinaman got the message, as they stopped appearing!


My blog has evolved into something of a "Mrs Dales Diary" on the life of the Bentley Clan. I try to do a piece for the blog every day, and if possible illustrate it with photos (most of which I have taken myself.)


All this is a very long winded introduction to three comments I received over the last couple of days. None of them were tagged to the blog. Two came via e mails and one was by word of mouth.


Our very dear friends Sue & Gordon obviously follow my blog. I got this comment from Sue:- "Many thanks for keeping me so entertained"

Dots best friend, Judy, (from schooldays) made passing comment about the blog whilst she was talking to Dot on the phone yesterday.

All the way from the States Ros, who was Dot's nursing buddy at HGH sent an e mail which commented on how she had enjoyed reading the blog, and that Dean, her husband, had "put it on my laptop."

Do keep reading my blog. It is interesting to know that it is not just the immediate family who are reading it, from time to time! Comments are always welcome too!

The End Is Nigh!

Those of you who follow my blog may remember that before Christmas I had the singular disaster of erasing something like nearly 1,000 records of my CD's. Each CD record consisted of information on the following:

Title

Featured Artist(s)

Composer

Category

Length

Where Stored

Label

Each Track Title and its duration

As I have been retyping the records of the CD's I have also had to type up a lot of information to go on the CD's themselves, so that when they are playing in a CD player the readout gives the information below for each track:-

Featured Artist(s)

Composer

Title of Track & Duration

The good news is I only have 19 CD's left to re enter on my computer and then I have finished! I have also taken the opportunity of storing three distinct copies of the records, so that if I inadvertantly wipe one off I still have two other backup copies on different hard drives and will also back up to a pen drive when the CD's Catalogue is completed!

Return of the Heron

You may remember twelve days ago we had a visit from a heron, and at the time I said I thought that he was standing waiting for a fish to jump out at him from the field behind our house! Well guess what - he returned on Saturday late morning, and once again he stood stock still as if he was just waiting to catch an unsuspecting fish.

He had probably been standing for about twenty minutes when the sheep came anbling by and disturbed him, and he very lazily flew off.

Our friendly heron pays us a second visit!

He returned later on in the afternoon, and once again took up his stance, as though he was waiting for a fish to jump up for him.

He eventually wandered a little further along the back of our garden, and the next time I looked out of the window he had disappeared.

Just a little while later Dot called me to the window, and there he was, craftily waiting by the side of next door's pond - and probably licking his lips (do Heron's have lips??) at the thought of what may be waiting to be devoured in the pond!

I sneaked up to the division between our garden and next door's and managed to get a shot of him stood beside the pond. Now we know why he has been hanging about for the last week or so!

MOT Test Time

I took the Meriva to Whitehead's Garage (on the Castlefields Estate) on Friday for its MOT Test. The reason I took it there is that they do a While-You-Wait MOT, so I didn't have to bother with arranging to borrow a car, or get anyone to pick me up and drive me back.

Their tester was in on his own, so he asked me if I would sit in the car and operate the necessary bits and pieces that he would be testing. He also asked me if I was afraid of heights (as I would be going up in the world whist the car was on the ramps.)

He gave it a thorough going over, and tested everything that should be done. (I had been on the Directgov MOT site the day previously, and it details all the parts to be tested, so it was fresh in my mind what should be done.)

I'm delighted to say that the Meriva passed with flying colours - which is what I expected.

Sgt. Trevor Calls Round

We had Sgt. Trevor call round to see us yesterday afternoon. He looked very impressive, dressed in his army fatigues, complete with hood and full camouflage suit. I just had a slight feeling that there was something not quite right about him, and then I noticed the diamond encrusted collar round his neck!







Trevor is being looked after by Hannah whilst his owners are away, and being a miniature Pinscher like Pixie, I think that Ruby thought that she was seeing double when the two of them scampered into our house!

And you Thought Sheep Were Stupid

It was a cold and frosty morning this morning, but despite that the lady of the house (well both of them - Dot & Ruby!) were out in the garden enjoying the crisp and invigorating air!

So too were a herd of sheep, who have taken to visiting the rear of our garden fence each morning.

They obviously have some affinity with one of the ladies of the house, as can be seen above.

The secret is that they get fed the left over vegetables most days!

Its better than frosty grass!

Bingley hits the news (for the wrong reasons)

About 7.30 am this morning the police were called to an embankment on spare land near the junction of Crosley Wood Road and Kingsway in Bingley. It seems that a man's body has been discovered there.

A West Yorkshie police spokesman is quoteds as saying "Officers are on scene and inquiries are under way to determine whether there are any suspicious circumstances."

As I am typing this the police helicopter has flown past the back of our house at a very low altitude.

Hannah had called in to visit us and had seen the police helicopter take off from the scene a few minutes earlier.

MOT Test

Friday is MOT Test day for my Meriva. Just out of interest I had a look on the Directgov MOT website, which tells you what the MOT Test consists of.


If, after inspection of all the above, your vehicle is deemed fit, you are issued with an MOT Certificate, which basically gives you permission to drive on public roads for the next 12 months. Failure on any of the points are you are forbidden to take it on to the public highway until you have the failures rectified!

I sometimes wonder why there are so many rustbuckets around Bradford!

Pateley Bridge

We had to go up to Pateley Bridge yesterday, and it is a few weeks since we had been there. Many years ago we had a chalet on the riverside on the road up to Wath. For a change we took the road up past the Parish Church, turned left and headed alongside the top of the valley. It was a crisp Winter day, but very clear and sunny. This was the view across the valley.



If you turned to the right you could see almost the full length of Gouthwaite Reservoir, which is one of the reservoirs built to serve Bradford with water.



Another view of Gouthwaite Reservoir.

As the sun broke through the clouds I took this shot, which is looking across the valley. Pateley Bridge is off the shot, to the left, above the dry stone wall.

Whilst we were up here Ruby had a walk, and we met a couple of ladies, one of whom had been a nurse and trained at Harrogate General Hospital. Later on Dot took Ruby for a walk alongside the River Nidd (in the park in Pateley Bridge) and Ruby decided it would be most enjoyable to have a swim in the river!

Dick Whittington the Harrogate Theatre Pantomime

Friday evening found the Bentley clan doing their usual pilgrimage to Harrogate Theatre to see this year's pantomime - Dick Whittington. It was a rather special occasion for the theatre as it was their one hundred and tenth season, and also the tenth appearance of Tim Stedman in the comic role. As has become expected Tim was up to his usual form - the Christmas Cracker jokes (What do you get if you cross a cow with a sheep and a goat? - The Milky Baaaa Kid!) were as corny as ever, and he did his usual stupid boy act.

This year he was Idle Jack, who always fell asleep at the mention of the word "work", and had to be awakened by the audience each time. At his very first entry he singled out a member sat in the front row of the audience, and a running gag throughout the show was a telephone which kept ringing and the person on the other end was wanting to speak to the person singled out. The poor guy finished up having to conduct the whole theatre in a rendition of the song "Tommy the Cat" with the glare of a follow spot on him!

Tim Stedman as Idle Jack

Lara Denning, who played Dick Whittington, has appeared in pantomime in Harrogate in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Aladdin, Mother Goose, and Sleeping Beauty, so is now becoming almost as much a fixture as Tim Stedman!

Lara Denning as Dick Whittington

Harold Chadwick took the part of Sarah the Cook, and worked well, being able to ad lib when necessary.

Sarah the Cook (Idle Jack's Mother)

Local girl Chloe Smith played Tommy the Cat, and displayed her agility with cartwheels and the like!

Idle Jack with Tommy the Cat

Fairy Bow Bells was played by Polly Lister, who has also appeared in Cinderella and Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs at Harrogate.



Adlerman Fitzwarren (played by David Westbrook) last appeared in Cinderella (as Baron Hardup) in Harrogate 2 years ago, whilst Alice Fitzwarren (played byLucy-Jane Quinlan) was a newcomer to the Harrogate Pantomime.

Polly Lister - (who also played Fairy Bow Bells) gave a stirring performance as the Sultaness, whilst Tom Peters who played King Rat, with lots of Cockney Rhyming Slang, made a wonderful villain. He showed his ability to ad lib with the audience, particularly the children, who were booing him!

Once again members of the Bentley family got mentioned in the dedications. This time it was the turn of Hannah and Ben. It just happened to be their 5 month wedding anniversary!

So yet another enjoyable and entertaining pantomime. If you get the opportunity to see a Harrogate Pantomime Production you will not be disappointed. They are truly family orientated and traditional - none of the big star names, just good wholesome family entertainment!

A Surprise Visitor

The area where I live in is what is known as "Bingley Rural" (when it comes round to election times!) and although it is not a town, and although we have fields at the rear of our house, which reach up to the skyline, I have never really thought of it as rural, until today, when I got a glimpse of rural life!

There isn't a river too close by, but a heron settled in the field behind our house, and in fact it is the second time I have seen one in the field in recent times. I happened to have my camera to hand, so I took a few shots of it.

It stayed around for most of the morning, standing very still as though it was waiting for a fish to leap out of the field, then eventually it must have got fed up of waiting, and it flew off!