Fylde Vintage Weekend

I've been reminded I missed a gig report! A few weeks ago was the Fylde Vintage Weekend, a chance for classic cars, tractors, traction engine and farming equipment to come together for a weekend of displays, some with real live sheep and some without...

David caused a bit of controversy shortly after we arrived. To our surprise we saw him crouched down with his camera lens poking through a tent flap.

"What are you doing?!?" we asked. "I was photographing birds!" he replied... What? By poking your lens into their tent?!? Is that not an arrestable offence?!?

Luckily not...!

We played in the beer tent marquee on Saturday night and had a cracking night.

I was starting to think we wouldn't get away - I don't think we have ever been shouted back for so many encores. It was a good night and a great audience!

A special mention has to go to Rosie the dog who barked her appreciation at the end of every song! I suspect it may have been the clapping that set her off, as she even joined in at the appropriate places in The Wild Rover! Or perhaps that's her boyfriend...

Magnificent Malmesbury 1998

26 May 1998. We are staying at Wychurch Farm, Malmesbury for a few days. As noted in the previous instalment we had taken an unaccustomed early morning pre-breakfast walk down to the trout stream and worked up an appetite trying to spot kingfishers.

At the farm, the farm hands had already been working hard for a few hours when we got back hoping for some breakfast. This was taken around a large table, giving an opportunity to chat to and get to know the other guests.

Two women and a married couple were exhibiting at a weekend craft fair that sounded like a large event. One of the women's husbands was an artist and they were selling his paintings whilst he was away at yet another fair. The married couple ran a pottery and were selling tea pots and planters. We felt deliciously lazy, having nothing to do other than to go out to enjoy ourselves and decided we would start with a look at Malmesbury itself.

The chief item of interest is the abbey. Founded in the 7th century, the present remains are of the Norman building and there is a long history of their decay and collapse following the Reformation of Henry VIII following which the abbey church was purchased for use as the parish church. The magnificent Norman south doorway has carvings of scenes from the Bible and it is amazing that it has managed to remain in such good condition

Details of the carvings are seen in this photograph.

The Old Bell Inn next to the abbey was every inch a grand old English inn!

The village street curved off down the hill with many buildings looking likely contenders for Fran's collection of model houses. Apart from the TV aerials, modern lamppost and bollards, the yellow lines and road junction markings and the road surface itself this street must have looked this way for a long time... er yes well, there's a car parked there, but at least the buildings look old...

The buildings are not exactly all alike! They are all built with the same stone, mostly cleaned on the front, signs of the days of coal fires on the sides, one rendered. Lovely old sash windows. Lovely to see, but I remember from my childhood how draughty they could be even with newspaper folded and stuffed in the cracks!

The pub was called The Smoking Dog and had a distinctive sign showing a painting of a pipe-smoking dog which I'm sure I've seen elsewhere. I thought perhaps it was a well-known painting but a search of the Internet turned up absolutely nothing apart from pages about the pub itself.

We walk back towards the car and are about to head for a village scene that is entirely familiar from boxes of chocolates, tea trays, postcards and jigsaw puzzles - Castle Combe.

Return to Wiltshire, Cotswolds and Avon 1998 Index

Traumatic Time at the Vet's

No, not for the cat... For me.

Tigger has had a urinary tract problem. It started last year around this time and she was really bad then - we thought for a while we might lose her, but she recovered and we knew this time to spot the early symptoms and to get her to the vet's for a couple of injections.

Last night we took her for the second one and they were running a bit late with a place full of dogs. Tigger was safe enough (or should that be, the dogs were safe enough?) but she straight away started a continuous growling and yeowling and the dogs started to get nervous...

Which is ok, except that I am slightly allergic to dogs. We were there over half an hour and when I came out my eyes were sore.

By the time I had driven home my eyes looked like this!

I had to spend the night flat on my back with two cotton pads soaked in cold water over my eyes. I put my headphones on and just listened to music. Fran kicked me a couple of times claiming I was snoring but seriously – how could I have been when I was listening to music?!?

Anyway this morning the swelling has gone down a lot but I think I might find some things to do that don't require a lot of staring at the computer screen!

And Tig is so pleased to be home she's cuddling her brother, Jess, which he is suffering without complaint...

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Whoopsie in Cavtat...

Saturday, 2 May 2009. The coach arrived in Cavtat and we got out en masse, stretched our legs, wandered into the road and generally annoyed folk on scooters, in cars etc. What is it with tourists that they think because they are on holiday the rest of the world should stop as well - until they want something in a shop...

Our guide led us off away from the beautiful bay with its bobbing boats and at first I thought "Huh?" but then it quickly became apparent that Cavtat occupies a narrow strip of land between the sea and a large inlet bay and it was literally only a minute or so before we reached the sea front on the other side.

We were booked into a local place for a drink and had only about ten minutes before we were due there. We had a wander about up the waterfront - and I found the only example we saw of dog poo. Quite clever really... the odds were enormous... as was the pile of dog poo... So I spent the ten minutes with wrinkled nose, cleaning my shoe with tissues...

But for this one spot - spot?!? It must have been almost a mountain, how did I ever fail to see it until... Anyway, but for this one trap left by an obviously rebellious dog, the place was spotless. I put the shoe back on and walked through every puddle I could find, scraped my shoe against any edge of kerb or paving stone and feeling reasonably confident that I wasn't about to mess up everywhere I trod, we went for the drinks which were being served outdoors in a courtyard across the street from the cafe bar.

There were drink and nibbles. We didn't bother with the nibbles but I did go into the main tavern to visit the loo and it had a nice rough welcoming mat outside. I was fairly sure that my shoe was now free from any odious material, but the mat was a bit of added reassurance...

Following the tavern visit we took a stroll along the marble surface of the Promenade pausing only to eavesdrop on a boat owner who was taking umbrage at the charges for mooring his yacht alongside. He had two choices and he chose to sail off to try his luck a few yards further up the coast...

We walked most of the length of the short peninsula and I sat in the sunshine to sketch the tip of it, which curved to form the bay. A few people stopped to watch before making comments in Croatian like "That's the pillock that spread that dog dirt all over the place..."

On the way back towards the coach we had a look in a couple of shops and then met up with everyone else to mill about in the middle of the road until the courier shooed us onto the coach.

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The Christmas Wreck

It was Christmas 1894 that this tale has a beginning. One of the worst ever storms crossed the Irish Sea and a Norwegian barque got into trouble off North Wales, drifting with torn sails until it finally beached in the sand off Anchorsholme.

With huge waves crashing over, bringing down the main mast and with 17 men and a dog on board the ship sent up distress flares. Blackpool's lifeboat, Samuel Fletcher, was taken over land from the old lifeboat house on Lytham Road, behind the Manchester pub, to Little Bispham where it was launched with a crew of 16. Reaching the Abana was no easy business for a large boat under oars, trying to get close to a ship whose mast and rigging were hanging over the side. The lifeboat was large enough to take all of the Abana crew, who were taken to the Red Lion inn to dry out and recover following their ordeal.

The Abana's bell was salvaged and can still be seen in Cleveleys parish church. The original lifeboat house still exists on Lytham Road and even the Samuel Fletcher survived as a pleasure boat on Stanley Park lake. The ship's dog was given a home by a Cleveleys local when the ship's crew returned to Norway. The wreck of the Abana can still be seen off Anchorsholme and is easily reached at low tide.

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A Drowning at Blackpool

We had the unfortunate news in our local paper earlier this week that a man had died after jumping into the sea to save his two dogs that had gone into the water.

People don't realise just how powerful the sea is. Water is heavy. You can easily try for yourself lifting an empty bucket and then filling it and lifting it again. Then think how many buckets are in the wave shown above.

Also people think of Blackpool as having a gently sloping beach and don't always realise that there is a strong undercurrent.

But whether or not the sea looks ferocious or not, people are understandably anxious if a dog looks like being swept out. Tonight's paper confirms that the Coastguard Service will answer an emergency call to rescue a dog.

The sad alternative is that it is so easy to get into difficulties if someone tries to jump in to save one.

There were two deaths a couple of years ago due to the same reason and I still remember the awful day in 1983 when not only did a dog owner drown, but three police officers who were trying to save him.

It's a simple message - call 999. Don't jump into the water yourself.