After our little trip to SW Scotland last week, we headed home on Friday (2nd May) via Kirkcudbright, a place we had forgotten we’d visited before. It was nice to take another look around and look at a property, at least from the outside, that’s for sale in our price range… the house, , but no parking (except on street) and with it’s garden (which we thought was pretty big) across the road, through an archway so detached from the house by a good way… still, it’s made us think that it would be a nice place to live if we ever get to sell our current house!
The drive home was long but uneventful. I was glad that Pete took the wheel as it allowed me to have a bit of a snooze!
We spent part of Saturday (3rd May) down on the allotment, checking out whether the seeds & other plants survived the sunny weather whilst we were away. Thankfully they had done so!
On Sunday (Star Wars Day, May 4th) we decided to park up in Bradley and walk to Skipton to visit the “Artisan” market… It was a nice walk but, sadly, I found the market itself a bit uninspiring as there were not many stalls and the ones there were mainly selling food and alcohol – not sure what that suggests about the region! Although the food looked lovely, particularly the cakes & Indian samosas, there wasn’t anything that took our fancy and we returned empty handed, other than some oil for our smelly oil burner and confirmation from Specsavers that my contact lenses will be delivered next week! And so, we headed back to Bradley.
The most exciting thing to happen was that I spotted a tin hidden behind a lamppost and, on checking it out, Pete found it to be stashed with cannabis… we didn’t take it and, with hindsight, probably should have chucked it in the canal but, instead, put it back where we found it! Pete thinks it was probably a drug drop… not that I would know much about that! All I remember about the two times I ever tried a joint (many, many moons ago I hasten to add…) is that it made me violently sick and extremely paranoid… such fun! Needless to say, I stuck to alcohol for my kicks after that 🤣😆🤪
Although the weather is not as warm as it was last week (although there is a promise that it will improve as this week goes on…), I was thinking earlier this week that I couldn’t remember the last time it had properly rained… we have definitely seen very little rain since our return from Goa, now 3 months ago and, according to the BBC news website, Paul (the Weatherman – Look North in our area!) says:
“…records show the [Yorkshire] region has endured its driest combined February, March and April for almost 90 years.
Just 78mm (3in) of rainfall has been recorded at Sheffield’s Weston Park weather station since the start of February – the lowest since 1938.”
I am sure there will be hosepipe bans in due course as the reservoirs we have visited recently look low and we have never seen the rivers with so little water either… I mentioned to Pete that even the water level in the canal looked lower than usual although, as this is regulated, we are not sure this is possible? Anyway, for now the garden is thriving and the seeds and plants are growing on the allotment so our fingers are crossed that we will get a spell of prolonged rain soon…
After going to see Mum on Monday (5th May), which was a bank holiday in the working world but of less significance to me now I am not working (Pete says every day is a bank holiday a for us! 🤣), and watching a bit of the ITV Good Morning coverage of the VE-Day celebrations with her (which was a bit crap as all they kept saying was how cold they & the weather was in London – namby-pamby Southerners 🤣🤣), I went for my usual walk down the canal in Silsden and, would you believe it, got rained on!
Well, there were a few spots of rain… enough for me to be thankful I had put my raincoat on but not a significant downpour… in fact, the attire spotted on others as I completed the approx 3-mile circuit ranged from shorts & skimpy tops (don’t like to stereotype but these must have been either hardy Yorkshire folk or, perhaps, visitors from the North East 🤣🤣), sensible walking attire / raincoat (seasoned people like me 🤣🤣) or winter-wear including proper woolly hats (obvs them namby-pambies I mentioned earlier 🤣🤣!)… It was a nice walk despite the little April spatters of rain which, in fairness, lasted only a few minutes.
Sadly, there didnt seem to be anything street-party-wise going on in the Grove for VE-Day although I did notice that one neighbour had some red, white & blue bunting up in their window… which is a shame as it was a good turn out last time we did something like that for the King’s Coronation. It was a bit chilly in the afternoon and perhaps, like me, people were keeping warm indoors watching the World Snooker Championships?
Snooker always reminds me of my Nan Brindley (Mum’s Mum) who used to be an avid watcher whilst she puffed her way through her duty-free fags… you could never go on holiday abroad without instructions to bring as many duty-free fags back, legally or not! It also reminds me of being a kid in the 80s, sitting up to watch Steve Davis win another title, and the pool table we had in our dining room… I realise this might sound a bit grand but it was a kids pool table which doubled up as somewhere to store stuff too (think school bags, coats, laundry etc) as you couldn’t get much else in the kitchen/dining room when the table was up! We had to be proper contortionists to get some of those shots in due to the gas fire place being in the way! Happy days 😊❤️
On Tuesday (6th May), it was surprisingly warm and sunny… Pete had spent part of Monday demolishing the little retaining wall in our front garden which was sagging under the weight of the garden slope, ready to rebuild it straight again. So whilst he was prepping the gap left by the wall, I chiselled the old concrete off the stones… I didn’t realise how therapeutic it is to bash something with a hammer – I loved this job and found it very satisfying…
Unfortunately, like a dingbat, I didn’t think to take a “before” pic but here’s a couple of “during” ones and the “after” following completion of the rebuild today (7th May)…
Pete rebuilding the retaining wall in our front garden
And some pics of the garden…
It’s was nice to see all of the chicks on the canal today – one goose had eleven and a duck had at least ten although they were a bit tricky to count as they are pretty skittish and fast on the water!
From what I can gather, we are in for some good weather this weekend so am looking forward to that! Photos always look better with a bit of sunshine 😊☀️
All the gubbins… 
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