Dealing with Sadness

We miss him more than I can say

The passing of our darling cat has left a big hole in our lives. Some things still make us smile and of course the pain will lessen in time. Here are some positives this week. 

Positive art works

Roseberry Topping by Joe Cornish - this month's image on the calendar from Scarey Sis

Celebrating citizenship with bubbles

Shiny new toy for Him Outdoors

Stokesley and Surrounds

The home of Kat Copeland's parents. The whole town is very proud.

Scarey Sis took us for a trip aboard the Moors Bus, which sounds like something out of Harry Potter, but isn't. We were the only people who had to pay - everyone else had a seniors' pass. In fact it was so long since they'd had a paying customer that they didn't know what to charge us. It was a little odd, like something out of Pinocchio or Animal Farm where the unsuspecting characters are driven away to certain doom. We didn't get to certain doom, but we did get to Osmotherley.

We walked/jogged back along the Cleveland Way, having a lovely day out chatting to ramblers and horse-riders whom we encountered. Scarey Sis sounded off about her work and we admired the beautiful countryside; open fields, small woodlands, dry-stone walls, grazing sheep, rolling hills and moors bedecked with heather.

Osmotherley

Roseberry Topping

The Cleveland Way

Scarey Sis

Scarey matches the heather

Him Outdoors' folks came over to visit from Burnley and it was lovely to see them. We had cups of tea and conversation, then giant Yorkshire puddings down the pub.

Malcolm and Barbara Blackhurst

Timmy had got tickets for the match between Burnley and Middlesbrough so he donned his flat cap and we headed to the ground, picking up Buddha in the Bow on the way. Burnley actually played decent football for about half an hour, and then seemed to panic and return to hoof and hope.

Scarey Sis, in Pollyanna fashion, said it was good that we got to see five goals. That's true, I suppose, although both times that Burnley scored, Boro banged one in straight afterwards. It was a shame about the eventual result (although not to BitB, who is a Boro fan and had to sit in the Burnley end with us and try not to smile), but not a bad match all things considered.

Yorkshire Timmy and me

'Supporting' Burnley!

Scary Sis had planned another walk for some scenic photo opportunities but it chucked it down, so we went car-touring and tea-shopping instead.



A rather soggy Roseberry Topping

Although Kat Copeland's parents live in Stokesley and everyone thinks this would be a good spot for the gold postbox (every Olympic gold medal winner gets one in their village), her official town is considered to be Ingelby Barwick (a giant housing estate), so that's where the postbox stands on a non-descript road. We tracked it down (with the sat-nav on Scarey's i-phone) and I posted a letter to Him Outdoors in it.


Week Thirty-Eight: Rest and Recreation

Scarey Sis has been looking after me and I have been doing some work on the computer, downloading photos and getting my hair cut. I am turning 40 and don't want to be one of those old women with long hair. I have been supervised in these activities by Wrinkles - possibly the world's largest cat.

Mid-week entertainment is a trip to Middlesborough Football club to see them take on the mighty Burnley. Recession and depression have hit Middlesborough hard and it is reflected in the attendance which is patchy at best. The Burnley boys sing, 'They're here; they're there; they're every-f*%^ing-where: empty seats, empty seats.'

The first half of the game left much to be desired. Him Outdoors wasn't holding out much hope. Things were maginally improved in the second half and Burnley scored ('We're winning away; we're winning away - how shit must you be? We're winning away'). They then sat back to try and defend the lead rather than pressing on to get another, although we all knew that one goal wasn't enough. Him Outdoors said, 'And you think watching Liverpool is hard work' and there are similarities - maybe not in quality, but definitely in frustration.

And so it proved. Middlesborough scored and the 'crowd' woke up to sing - Burnley fans countered 'We forgot that you were here'. There were four minutes of added time and, in nightmare or fairytale fashion, depending on your persuasion, Middlesborough scored again from a free kick in the 94th minute.

A jog along the Cleveland Way brought rain, views of Roseberry Topping and fantastic toaties, gingerbread latte (ye really, it's delicious) and lemon cake in Glebe Cottage Cafe.

I love coastal cillages like Staithes, where the houses seem to tumble down the cobbled streets towards the sea , which dominates everything. The cliffs are home to nests of swifts; the Lifeboat people have pride of place in the harbour; piles of lobster pots on the wharf make picturesque groupings, while boldly-coloured floats balloon from a moored boat like a fisherman's themed party. A lone fisherman catches herring on the pier while his dog races back and forth barking at breaking waves.

The bright houses not only make fantastic photographs, but serve a practical purpose. Families named their cottages after their boats, and even painted their houses the same three colours as the owners' 'cobles'. This was to aiod the identification of wreckage after the not infrequent disasters along this treacherous coastline.

Two hundred years ago, in the early 1800s, Staithes was the largest fishing port on the east coast, north of the Wash. James Cook arrived as an apprentice here aged 16, and he worked for William Sanderson, a local merchant and grocer who had a shop on the quayside - it was his first taste of the sea and clearly proved to be an influential one.

Tiny alleyways connect the streets and some (including Dog Loup - reputedly the narrowest street in Yorkshire) force you to turn sideways and inch crab-like along them.

The weather is what is euphemistically termed variable. We hide in a pub during a shower, feasting on scampi and chips. Painters and photographers emerge in the new light and replicate the fresh shadows and cleansed lanes. This has long been a destination for artists and the Staithes Group (1894-1909) had a big influence on British art, believing in working outside 'with wind on their faces and salt on their tongues'. We potter around an art gallery admiring the work of many local artists including Laura Knight (one of the group's founders) and more recent painters.

We have dinner with Joe and Sue - friends of Scarey and Timmy and (I hope) ours. Earlier Him Outdoors went mountain biking with a group including Joe and Timmy - he predicted he would be okay going up hills where strength was required, but when things became more technical, he would be lying in a ditch with his wheels in the air. Apparently he was right.

I miss my train in Northallerton but the bonus is that I get to spend a couple of hourse with Numpty Clayton who takes us back to his house (all stone and heavy timbers surrounded by ploughed fields) in his pistachio green van.

In London I catch up with old friends and make new ones - Ali, Cousin Rachael and Psycho Phil. I last saw the latter in Wellington so it feels weird to meet her here in London where she lives now and, oddly, where it feels as though she is visiting me rather than the other way around. We play on the installation of Thomas Haetherwick's spinning seats and pose outside The Anchor on the South Bank before she pedals off home on a Boris bike.