Living in the village I call my own can sometimes be a little dull, but every now and then a lovely moment arises which makes me appreciate it a little more. The other night we headed out for a stroll over the hills behind my house and stumbled upon a lovely sunset and a group of sheep which decided that I was to be their leader and so began to follow me…
Another day I got all Mary Berry and decided to make some buns, but 50 buns later I decided it was time to use the spare cake mix on something else, and so found a couple of small tart tins and made a mini Victoria sponge – we even drove out to get some fresh cream for it.
It hasn’t all been quite so plain sailing in the village though, as my mother managed to cause chaos by managing to pop one of our car’s tyres on the way home from the shops. This meant that the entire neighbourhood had to listen to the drama unfolding on the street as my mum and sister arrived atop a recovery lorry…
Amongst all this I’ve been working hard to get my new website built, and I’m pleased to report that it’s coming along nicely. It’s been a bit of a drag though, there’s papers all over my room full of numbers and calculations and the week has been filled with a lot of swearing at my laptop as CSS declines to behave as predicted…
I’ll soon be bringing you some previews of the design, so watch this space! This weekend however is time for a bit of relaxation and maybe a trip to Blackpool to check out the new illuminations. What a childhood throwback!
This weekend me and my dad faced a bit of a conundrum, as the Colne R&B Festival, the Burnley Canal Festival, and the Higham Scarecrow Festival were all happening at the same time. After some very intense discussions, we decided to head down to the Leeds-Liverpool canal which winds through Burnley and check out the festivities there.
After a wander down the longest piece of straight bearing canal in the world, we turned a corner and began to approach the hub of the Canal Festival, a newly regenerated ex-industrial site called Sandygate.
Approaching the areawe came across more and more beautifully made up canal boats, starting as we passed The Inn on the Wharf, a pub by an old loading station along the waterfront.
Unfortunately this was Saturday night, and we’d to be back home before 6:30pm in order to wake my mum up and take her to work for the night, and so we soon made an about turn and wandered back along the banks.
On the Sunday we headed back down once again though, as we never really made it to the square where the event was actually taking place. Parking up in an area nearby, we wandered down the hill and over the canal and found ourselves in the heart of the action!
On our way down we wandered amongst the abandoned buildings and mills of Burnely’s bygone industrial age, but I found beauty in the decay and stopped a while to take some photos.
I found beauty in the decay and stopped a while to take some photos.
Once I’d bought a bottle of water ready for a day cooking in the sun, I found my dad in his usefully yellow t-shirt and we began to explore the festivities. I enjoyed a spot of line dancing, watched an array of artists make an array of cool crafts things, and even stopped for a while to watch the awesome Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band – their music was infectious!
After wandering down to the water and watching people have fun going out for a quick canoe in the canal, me and my dad reconvened and grabbed some bao – Chinese steamed buns filled with fried chicken and succulent pork. Heaven!
After eating the weather was getting decidedly English and a raft of grey clouds seemed to be blowing over, so we headed back to the car and I spent the rest of the evening having a lovely relaxing bath – a rather blissful weekend if ever there was one!
In other news I am progressing quickly with the coding of my new website design, and I’ll be asking people to test it out pretty soon! Get in touch if you’re interested – I am particularly interested in people with non-Android and non-Apple phones. More updates on this soon…
Just this weekend was my dad’s birthday (age withheld), and so we decided to head off out to do a few bits and bobs between my mum having to sleep and work night shifts. First up was a visit to our favourite local chippy for a good old fashioned fish and chips, Grandma Pollard’s in Todmorden.
Just in case having fish and chips couldn’t get any more twee, this chippy has an old bus parked up around the back that you can enjoy your meal on, and so we scrambled aboard and perched on one of the tiny little pews to enjoy the greasy goodness.
After this we jumped back in the car and drove up to a spot I haven’t been to for many years, Hollingworth Lake, just over the border in Greater Manchester. We arrived in what felt like ;the downpour of the century, and so didn’t have the chance to grab an ice cream, opting rather to have a quick nosey before heading back to Burnley. Our trip back was interrupted though by quite an impressive sight – a huge bright double rainbow!
I seem to have managed to miss out the second and slightly more faded rainbow, but if you look in the top left corner of the image below you should be able to just make it out!
After dropping my mum off at work for the night, me and my dad shot over to Yorkshire and enjoyed a lovely evening of tapas and sangría at The Tapas Bar in Todmorden. The quaint little bar served us a variety of delicious food – we both slept well after having filled ourselves up with seafood, chorizo and pinchos!
On Sunday my mum was once again busy sleeping after working through the night, so it was up to me and my dad to get out of the house and do a little something to celebrate. We decided to head for Lytham on the east coast of Lancashire, taking our cameras along to see what we could see and hopefully have an ice cream (I really wanted an ice cream this weekend).
After parking up and wandering to the seafront, we stumbled on a collection of rusty old machinery and boats which had seemingly been abandoned along the banks of the Ribble Estuary. I climbed over the railing along the promenade and headed in to investigate…
The line of rusting wrecks seemed to stretch on forever.
The line of rusting wrecks seemed to stretch on forever, so I began to wander towards a couple of beached boats closer to the water’s edge. I was soon however slipping all over the shop on the wet mud, and at one point nearly ended up falling on a stranded jellyfish – disaster averted.
As the rusty collection came to an end, I passed by a good few stricken boats which had long been forgotten about. Ever inquisitive, I stuck my camera in some of the windows and got a little shutter happy.
Shortly thereafter I heard some strange engine noises coming from dry land, and so I headed back up the slope to return to the footpath. I found myself suddenly walking through a makeshift car park on a large patch of usually empty grass, and it soon become obvious that we’d stumbled upon some kind of event.
It soon became apparent that we’d unwittingly come along on the weekend when they were celebrating the Lytham 1940s Wartime festival! The attendees wandering around in period costume gave the game away, but I soon came across a couple of Spitfires which I thought was pretty cool – I recently watched the film Dunkirk and it was quite breathtaking.
After a quick snack by a recreation Soviet army camp, we stuck our noses in the Lifeboat Museum for a quick look around and then headed into the town centre to grab a bite to eat and do a little window shopping.
Full of dried apricots and Pringles, we eventually headed back to the car and I drove us home – 43 miles and I didn’t hit the curb once. Success.
Oh yeah, and because of the long queues due to the big event in Lytham, I didn’t even get my ice cream. Gutted.
As most of the world knows, Britain’s summer comes in dribs and drabs, and we enjoy sporadic hours of sunlight instead of any solid days or weeks of sun. Rather kindly though, mother nature recently blessed us with a nice warm day and so I took the chance to get out ambling in the countryside which surrounds where I live.
We wound up in Hurstwood, a tiny nearby village where one of the buildings dates back to the 1500s. From there we took a hidden path down behind some houses and down to a place where two streams meet, and headed back up towards the road to Yorkshire.
Wandering over a hill, we headed back down one of my favourite words to walk down but least favourite to drive down. The winding single-track road connects my village to the linking road between Yorkshire and Lancashire, and it’s pretty much a death trap if you even attempt to navigate it at anything above 15mph! Winding blind corners and a perilously narrow crossing point mean that it’s not one for the faint of heart – but it is pretty.
Just before we arrived back home we came across as a field of horses, and one in particular stood out as particularly enchanting as its white mane caught the setting sun.
And so concluded another day of rare sun here in Lancashire. It has since returned to the usual programme of grey rainy days, but here’s hoping I can get back out with the camera again sooner rather than later!
After weeks of asking me excitedly if I wanted to accompany him, my dad finally yesterday took me along to see the newly revamped Piece Hall in Halifax, just across the county border in Yorkshire. Before we landed in Halifax though, we first made a stop at the petite little town of Hebden Bridge, which I seem to be frequenting more and more regularly.
We descended into a Hebden Bridge which as rife with activity due to an ongoing vintage car show, but we skirted around the crowds to visit the canal and for me to have a mooch around some of my favourite shops.
We soon stopped for a coffee at a quaint little café along the canal, where we sat outside and took a moment to soak in the atmosphere below a suspiciously greying sky. Needless to say it soon began trying to rain, so we began to wind our way back to the car down the high street.
After a precarious start after having parked on a very steep hill, we were soon on our way to Halifax to find a space to park up and go an explore the Piece Hall. After a quick burger stop, we made a beeline for it (the last time I visited was a good few years ago) and its transformation was pretty amazing.
The previously uneven courtyard of paving and grass has been completely replaced by a multi-level granite, with the entirety of the surrounding hall having been completely refurbished. This work has injected a new sense of life into the building which actually dates back to 1779, and it was buzzing with people of all ages whilst we were there.
I had a good nosey around all the shops, but there’s still many preparing to open in the near future, so we soon headed out to have a little wander around Halifax city centre. Before heading home we headed to see my grandparents at their house near Bradford, but when we got there they weren’t in, so we made back for home and a relaxing cup of tea to end the day.
