THE MONTH OF THE HAWTHORN

It is almost the start of a new month in the Celtic year. On 13th May, we will enter the month of Huath, the Hawthorn. This tree, though in England it is used as hedging and can be more like a shrub, is also known as Maybush, Maytree, Thorn bush. It is one of the important triad of trees, Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and it is said that when those three species grow together if you are quiet and patient you may be able to see the faeries. Also to fall asleep under a blossoming Hawthorn, is a risky thing to do, you may be captured by the faeries and whisked away to their lands never to be seen again.



The Greeks and Romans saw the Hawthorn as a symbol of hope and marriage, yet in later times, Europeans considered it a bush that was associated with witchcraft. These two contradictory sides to the meaning of Hawthorn, mirror the bush itself, with its dangerous thorns and beautiful blossoms. It is unlucky to cut the flowering Hawthorn and bring it into the home before Maytime, but hawthorn has many uses in the home. If it is hung from the rafters it will keep evil spirits away. To hang a branch of Hawthorn on the roof of your house is said to protect your home from lightening. It is also used hanging from the roof of the milking parlous to make sure the cows continue to be happy and give large yields of milk. The wood of Hawthorn also makes one of the hottest fires and it burns well. Beware, though, if wanting to use the wood of Hawthorn you must never cut it while it is flowering. To cut a flowering Hawthorn branch to use or burn the wood, is to upset the fae and they will take their revenge on you. Many Country people plant a Hawthorn bush outside their homes, also as protection, though it has been heard that a witch has the ability to hide in the shape of a Hawthorn. A thorn from the Hawthorn bush can be carried in a pouch to ward off depression, and is also supposed to be good luck when fishing. Hawthorn has an affinity with water and is often planted next to sacred wells, especially in Ireland where you can see rags, and strips of material hanging from the tree where people have asked for favours.

Paul Nash

Herbally, berries, bark, seeds, branches and flowers are used. The berries are a cardiac tonic, but they must be mixed with other herbs to dilute its potency. Please do not try to make this tea if you are inexperienced, it really does depend on the other herbs in it as well. Its leaves and blossoms can be brewed to create a tea to aid anxiety, and poor ciculation. Hawthorn can be used for health, prosperity, protection, love and marriage, purity, cleansing, happiness and to lose old habits and dusty old ideas. John Piper

Village cottages would be decked with Hawthorn on Mayday and the Maypole often had a crown of the same. Some villages would have branches of flowering Hawthorn that they would carry from door to door, bestowing blessings on all the village homes. Kissing balls and Mayday crowns also incorporated Hawthorn, and these crowns would be left at the end of Mayday under Hawthorn trees for the faeries to reclaim.


Our weather has now settled back into its normal pattern of early May, heavy showers and gusts of wind. These wild gusts of wind come from a local wind that blows at this time of year, it is known as the Helm Wind. It is a wind that develops, a curious pbenomenon that occurs along several miles of the local fells. Though we just get the tale end of it in our village.
The helm wind is a strong, blustery easterly wind that descends the western slope of the Cross Fell Range in Cumbria, northern Enlgand. It roars as it gusts and seems to be able to penetrate the smallest gaps and make your house chill. In certain years it has been so strong that it has wrongly been called a hurricane. A predictor of this wind is the helmet or cap of a certain type of cloud that forms above Cross Fell escarpement itself.

Matisse

Even between the showers, when the sun comes out and the clouds scud across the sky, it is too gusty and blowy to chance doing anything in the garden. Luckily none or my plants are large enough to have been damaged, apart from the honeysuckle its wire backing has been partly ripped from the wall. I am hoping for a good weekend to sort that problem out. Today I am determined to sort my desk in my workroom which is an absolute disgrace, and I must get Sweetpea's bedroom put to rights [I have been storing things in there] and after she has been to Jamaica, at the beginning of June, she will be coming to stay for a few days in the middle of June. So the bad weather is the perfect excuse to sort out her room and make it welcoming again. I know when the weather gets better, I will make any excuse to put off doing her room and to spend my time in the garden.


By the way, if anyone wants to take my 'Greedy Juicy Summer' banner and use it as a badge on their sidebar that's fine by me. The painting is a still life by Cezanne and is not copyrighted and the words are mine.

I SOMETIMES MUSE ON GIVING A WRONG IMPRESSION

Madonna Lilies ~ Stanley Spencer

I sometimes muse whether I make my life in the country sound like too much of an idyll. Yes, it is idyllic but there are downsides as well. sometimes I think that despite the photographs I have published occasionally people paint their own mind picture which is different to the reality. Villages come in all shapes and sizes, and with many different features depending in which area of England you are in. Some villages have village greens and/or duck ponds, though many have lost their village greens by now to development. Architecturally villages differ immensley throughout England as well, you can go from hardy grey granite to chocolate box thatched cottages.

I thought I would like to try to get across to you exactly what it is like to live in my village in the North of England. First let me say that to me, any village living is better than living in the city. My village is rural, the nearest town is just over six miles away, but as years pass I can see the town encroaching ever nearer the village, I would think twenty years ago that the town would probably be about seven miles, but its outskirts are ever widening. If I had to move again, I would be happy to move even more rural to the point of being an isolated house somewhere, though I would have to have communication with the outside world, I am definitely too chatty to be a hermit.

Spring Solstice ~ Paul Nash

Our village itself has grown from a long street with some small offshoots until over the past sixty or so years there have been four small developments tacked on at various times.
The biggest downside is that the A road to Newcastle, the nearest large city, sixty miles away, cuts right through the main street of the village. Obviously as the years go by the traffic becomes worse and worse, although a bypass has been talked about for years. From the west you approach our village over an arched sandstone bridge over the River Eden. This is a fine sturdy bridge, but was certainly not built for articulated lorries using it as a short cut, also the terrible floods we had a couple of years ago have washed lumps of the sandstone stanchions away. Everyone complains about the traffic rushing through the village, especially as the pavements are narrow and old fashioned and there is a bad bend where numerous accidents have happened. Our cottage is on this main street, but luckily we are double glazed and in the garden at the back, the big barn plays tricks with the acoustics and the traffic noise is not too loud and doesn't detract from the joy of the garden and the birdsong.

Autumn Sunlight at Sennen Cove [Cornwall] Laura Knight

The old buildings are all built from a rich red sandstone, a stone that wears away very easily as it is a soft stone, especially in our polluted world sandstone gets eroded very easily. Our barn is of this beautiful sandstone. Our cottage on the otherhand, has been faced and is painted, the next door cottage has been too. We have no village green, but we do have a church with a steeple and an old graveyard, in fact, we have two churches, with graveyards, the Church of England church and the Catholic church. The upside is I can walk out of my door and within a couple of minutes be on a quiet country road and turn off onto a bridle way. Occasionally, the village has a mild panic when there is a rumour that someone is selling more land off for development, but luckily so far, these have just been rumours, as I do believe our infrastructure and cannot take any more homes. We have a village school that is full to capacity, in fact, a few children in previous years have had to go to the next village school.


I would also hate you to think that every moment of my life is perfect, and I spend my days pottering around my garden, in floaty skirts [thought I often do drape a shawl round myself and I suppose at times I do tend to gypsy skirts] musing on the missel thrush on the wall. It often is, but I also have the mundane tasks to perform, the changing of beds, the washing, the cleaning. There are days when I feel stressed and am just happy to come home to the cottage and close the front door behind me and give a sigh of relief. There are days when I can feel slightly down, and a little bit grumpy, this usually makes me realise I have been overdoing things 'burning the candle at both ends' as my Mother would say. It is just I try to find extra bliss in all the small things that make my day enjoyable. Silly little things like the feel of my old straw hat on head when I am gardening, the blackbird that is not frightened of me and sits near my feet if I am quiet with a worm in his beak. The sun shimmering through the silver birch leaves, and later at twilight sitting out in the garden as the stars switch on in the sky and the tiny bats come out from the derelict barn down the lane and dart hither and thither. Or on colder evenings sitting in my living room with the rich smell of incense burning, candles flickering glad to be inside. At the moment my most blissful moments are waking just as the first note of the dawn chorus rings out and lying in bed listening as more and more birds join in then turning over and going back to sleep. Some mornings I even get up for a cup of herbal tea and listen to them before returning to bed.


Today has been a lovely day, the sun has been shining after a cool start and I have been busy planting a lot of my bedding plants and rearranging pots in the garden. I am just at the point where I know I still have a bit to do, but the plan and arrangements are clear in my mind and I have done enough to look around the garden and see some small points of perfection. When I was sitting having a break, I decided I must try to keep an eye on the insect population this year, especially after reading the article about the bees. I have seen one bee, quite a few ladybird and one butterfly. My husband is also concerned about the sandmartins, this year there are not as many of them in previous years, he is keeping an eye on them. I wonder what is keeping the numbers down, is it something about the environment around the river, or is perhaps because there are not enough insects around? He will be watching their numbers, has anyone else in England noticed any difference in numbers? I did think that we had not as many swallows, they arrive later than the sandmartins but the number of swallows in the blue sky looks the same now as other years. I presume they came in two batches.

There is an important happening in the night sky this month. There will be a Blue Moon, this happens when there are two full moons in one month, the second is called a Blue Moon. There is a complication to this, it depends where you live, if you live in the Americas, you get the second moon right at the very end of May, everyone else, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe will get their Blue Moon in June and poor old New Zealand will have to wait until the end of July. This is because of the time zones around the world. We roughly get a Blue Moon in the month every two to three years, so it is very special. Lots of extra lovely Moonlight.

We have a public holiday on Monday in England, so this is a holiday weekend, and weather permitting I intend to make the most of it and get the garden right.

Some of the illustrations in this postings are paintings by some of my favourite English artists. I believe that a lot of people under estimate what wonderful 20th century painters we had in England. The names are underneath the pictures.

A HAPPY MAY DAY TO YOU ALL

HAL AN TOW, JOLLY RUMBLE O

FOR WE WERE UP LONG BEFORE THE DAY O

TO WELCOME IN THE SUMMER O

WELCOME IN THE MAY O

FOR SUMMER IS A-COMIN' IN

AND WINTER IS A GONE

May Morning has dawned bright and sunny, it seems so long since we had a true sunny MayDay. I hope you are all getting up early and washing your face in the May Day dew, then scouring the woods for sticks and flowers to make Kissing Balls. By breakfast we will have made the Kissing Balls and the food will be being made for the May Day feast. We must put our finest dresses on and help each other decorate our hair with spring blooms, because we are off to dance round the maypole on the village green before choosing the May Queen and her attendents. We shall watch a Mumming Play, concerning St George and the Dragon performed by travelling players. Then there will be feasting and dancing taking us up to the moment when the beacon on the far hillside will be lit as day ends and the bonfire on village green will echo it. Late in the evening we may be blessed by a fleeting visit by the Green Man and his Lady, before young village couples slyly sneak away to leafy bowers. There will probably one or two hasty weddings in the next couple of months. I hope you have enjoyed your visit to a traditional English May Day.

I was pleased with the Local History Exhibition, it was never crowded but we had a steady stream of visitors, of which the best thing was that I noticed all that came seem to spend over an hour looking at the photographs and reading the text and documents. We also made a pleasing amount in our Donations Box. One man, who came lives in two old cottages he knocked together, when he was renovating and knocked down a wall there in a little niche he found this tiny brown leather shoe from the late 1700's. It was exquisite workmanship, I thought it was too tiny to have been worn, except for a very young baby, but couldn't see a young baby wearing shoes. It could have been specially made or perhaps very young babies wore such shoes. There is a tradition of building a niche in walls and hiding a shoe in it for luck for the houses. People brought me old photographs to look at and copy, and one man even gave us some old local postcards to keep. Everyone said how enjoyable it was and I was interviewed for the Parish Council magazine LOL!

One man at the exhibition can read houses, by that I mean nothing psychic, he is a retired builder who has always dealt in renovations and he knows what property originally looked like, apparently there are clues in homes. I know from what he has told me before that upstairs my bathroom and one bedroom are a lot more modern built than the rest of the cottage and my dining room and kitchen used to be a single story with just my living room and morning room, where the stairs are having an upper floor, and my upstairs corridor is also a more modern division.

The man that reads houses made me think that I don't think I have ever mentioned the underground stream in my back garden. Before our next door neighbour's moved their son was talking to me about our two gardens, and he told me about when they were digging a trench to make a new bed and to build a wall that deep underneath the soil there is an underground stream, he said that it followed on in our garden. Where it followed on in our garden is on the shady side and it is where I plant my irises which always flourish and I know some types of Iris do like damp conditions.

I bought a pair of dowsing rods, this was about two years ago, and dowsed my garden with them. I was really excited when they started to cross where the underground stream was supposed to be and I could follow the crossing of them across the garden. Then my other half started to look at maps and eventually, with looking at maps and walking the land he found the tiny stream. It breaks away from the main beck and runs down the edge of a couple of fields in the open then after the last field it disappears into an open green space planted with trees oppposite some pensioners' bungalows, it then runs underground through our gardens and we even found where it joins up with the beck again. After it goes through about four gardens it goes under the road and across to where the bridge over the beck is. I find this absolutely fascinating.

One serious thing to think about. My other half showed this article he had been reading about mobile phone masts and honey bees. Apparently scientists think that the rays being emitted from these masts are confusing the navigational system of bees, who are becoming confused and unable to find their hives, also they are becoming confused in their collection of pollen. The article spoke to bee keepers who live beside these masts and they were losing colonies of bees. One man had lost eighty per cent of them. These masts are everywhere in the countryside. Please keep a watch out for bees, I know it is early in our part of England but I have not seen many bees, can we all watch throughout the summer and see if bees are as plentiful as usual or not.

If we lose the bees nature will be in a dreadful state and so will the human race, no one should under estimate the job bees do, they are our chief pollinators, plants will not exist without them. If these rays are affecting the bees, please just stop and think what are they doing to us? I think I might have mentioned in an earlier posting that I was having really bad sleep patterns, and was told to remove my mobile phone from the bedside table as it was too near my head and its rays could interfere with my brain's sleep pattern. I did that and since then, it may be co-incidental, but I have slept soundly. So many people seem to be at a low ebb at the moment it does make you wonder if some modern day appliances are causing some sort of energy waves that are detrimental to certain people.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY......BUT DAISY STOLE SOME LOST HOURS

My favourite small bird the European Goldfinch. I love to watch them play on thistle heads in the common land at the back of my cottage.

This is turning out to be a really busy week with everything geared towards the Local History Exhibtion on Saturday. Naturally, the sunny weather has returned, so yesterday I downed tools regarding the exhibition to spend a few hours in my garden potting on some plants that I have been hardening off.

More birds from the family of finches, such colourful cheerful looking birds, flashes of pure colour as they fly by you.

I did something this year about plants that I will never do again, unless someone in England can recommend a better supplier. Last year I bought my plants from a garden centre and my children bought me some lovely perennials for Mother's Day from a supplier called Crocus. They were really good plants. This year I bought a few more perennials by post and then decided to buy my bedding plants that way, although they come as plug plants you seemed to get a good quantity of them. Once again my children said they would buy me some for Mother's Day, so with their order and me ordering as well the firm J. Parker's has had a substantial order from us.

The Blue tit, I love watching them crawl up the wall of my barn and swing from its gutters, such entertaining acrobats.

I have not been at all happy with the way the plants are arriving, obviously they send them out as they are ready, but this means they come in small dribs and drabs, my bigger complaint is the state of some of these plants. They come in plugs of 66, which as soon as I get I have been opening and potting on before putting their permanent homes. I am beginning to notice the plants that are slightly more mature and are sent out in slightly larger cases, such as the Geraniums and ground cover plants are all doing well, but I have lost half of my petunias, and nearly all my trailing geraniums. I am feeling very disgruntled about these as I not used to plants dying on me. I think I have learnt my lesson with bedding plants, back to the garden centre.


The Mistle or Missel Thrush, they are becoming rare in England, but not if you know where to find them. There is a beautiful one visits my garden.

After doing some gardening yesterday, I sat in the garden, watching the birds, there is a tremendous amount of bird activity at the moment. Just sitting in my garden chair, I watched different types of the tit and finch family, plus of course, common or garden sparrows, blackbirds and thrushes, including the beautiful mistle thrush, my crows, who don't wish to be photographed, plus the collared doves and wood pigeons. I counted eighteen varieties of bird life in one half hour. Whilst I was sitting there drinking a cup of coffee, Mr Heron flew over my garden and I was fascinated to see he was carrying quite a large fish in his claws, he must have been taking it home to the heronry. A Rook was chasing him as he had flown too near the rookery, though, the rook seemed to think he was chasing the heron, I could see Mr. Heron, was treating the rook with distain. The Heron is marvellous to watch, those great wings that seem to go so far without flapping, he is a silent flyer. Magic.!

The wonderful mystical Mr. Heron, to see him fly across an early moon at twilight is an uplifting magical experience.

All my other endeavours are now geared towards my exhibition, I have had a constant stream of visitors from outlying hamlets and villages, asking if the History Lady lives here, and dropping off old photographs and old documents. I am scanning and reprinting a lot of the old photographs, for two reasons, one I wouldn't like anything to happen to someone's personal belongings, and two, you can clean up the quality slightly of the photographs and make them clearer, the same goes for the documents. I have had other members distributing flyers but there is just me and someone assisting me, very ably, organising everything. The manpower of the group will be put to use early tomorrow morning when the display boards arrive and need to be assembled and the tables and chairs set out. I also have got a tea rota going, and have made ID badges for the actual Group so visitors will know the people to ask questions of. I hope the weather says good, because if people are going out for the day, they probably could pop into the exhibition first. Keep your fingers crossed that it is a success and think of me and my modest exhibition tomorrow.

This is a painting of Sir Philip Howard, of Corby Castle, sitting very elegantly surveying his land. Great Corby is one of our next villages and that is my local river that is the backdrop to the painting. The Howards did own most of our village at one time. You can see their coat of arms and insignia on some of the houses in the village.

ONE SWALLOW A SUMMER DOTH NOT MAKE

This is the Silver Birch tree that is in on the common ground behind my house and garden. This was taken in the early morning sunlight, which seems to be glinting on the new leaves which have just unfurled in the last couple of days. Look at that beautiful cloudless sky.

I was sitting in my workroom on Monday afternoon and looked out of the window across the street to my neighbour's yard and barn when suddenly a bird swooped and swerved in front of it, yes, it was a swallow, then another appeared and for some minutes they performed their acrobatic flight around the yard. Today, Tuesday, they are no where to be seen. I have noted this happens every year, the only thing I can think of is that a few swallows make up an advanced party fly ahead and check out their summer habitat then return to report to the rest of the group who are winging there way here. I am confident within the next day or so they will all be wheeling and diving in the sky. The weather has turned slightly chiller which reminded me of the above adage which I have used as a title.

This is the dove cote entrance to the barn that the crows are using, if you enlarge the photo you can see a large stick they have not been able to get inside, and it has got stuck behind the guttering.

I have been trying to photograph my crows, but they are such crafty birds. I got up early with the camera and went down into the garden as I noted from the bedroom window they were busy flying in and out the barn. I quietly positioned myself in the corner of the garden and waited, and waited and waited! I looked round over the common land behind and there were the cheeky birds just out of camera range sitting in a tree looking at me. So no luck yet, but I spent some time photographing various items which are illustrating this posting, explanations are underneath the photographs.

This is the ruin of an old forge [it has no proper roof just some corrugated iron thrown over some of it]. Inside, although the entrance is blocked up now, the forge fireplace is still in the corner. Look at the old wooden dovecote on the side. This is situated on the lane that leads away from the land behind my garden.

On Sunday we entered the fifth moon of the celtic year in which every month has a tree and I did promise to follow the months and tell you a little about the tree of the month. The tree is the Willow, also known as pussy willow or withey. In herbal lore the bark of the willow is used as a pain killer, it contains an ingredient that forms salicylylous acid which is actually the active ingredient in aspirin. Which shows there is a lot of truth in old time herbal lore. The Willow tree is connected to water and is also a tree of the moon. It is one of the traditional woods to be added to the bonfires on Mayday evening. It is said that if you sit under the Willow Tree and listen you will hear the voices of the fairies when the wind stirs the leaves. To plant a Willow tree near your home is to protect it and its branches make superb wands or dowsing tools. You can also carry a little piece of Willow with you to protect you when travelling. Folklore tells tales of Willows uprooting themselves by night and stalking travellers!

These three photographs were taken at Easter when the garden was just showing signs of Spring growth, the beds look sparse but beside some of the markers there are tiny plantlings coming up. The next task will be to put down a new layer of bark chippings.

This is my shrub corner, the lavender is sprouting new shoots and the broom is getting ready to flower and at the fore of the photograph my white lilac bush is showing off its new leaves.

This is the bed I was hoeing before I stopped to take photos. The honeysuckle is flourishing and the new growth of herbs has started in the pots.

Here is the Easter Branch I decorated for Easter, as I have said before, we don't really do decorations over here, but this was a late attempt at me doing some. I will be more organised next year and do more decorations. Unfortunately, by the time this photograph was taken the chocolate minature bunnies seem to have all been eaten.

Many thanks Pea, for telling me the name of the little girl in the red cloak in American comics, of course, it was Wendy the Little Witch. How could I have forgotten that.

ORGANISING MYSELF FOR PIECES OF METIME

Finally managed to spend some time in my artroom actually working yesterday. The first time since before Christmas. I was just thinking when I was working in there, doesn't Christmas seem a long time ago? All that preparation and then suddenly its been and gone. It felt really good doing something creative again. I was bascially just catching up on one or two projects I wanted to finish before launching into my 2007 projects.

I was in my artroom on Saturday afternoon too, basically trying to sort out some sort of flexible schedule. [and I am certainly not a schedule type of person, I prefer to 'wing it', I love lists but time listing NO!] I realise that to keep on top of everything these next few weeks I do have to have a basic day to day rota, to include the serious things but to also give me some precious metime both to keep on top of projects and creating and to just totally relax, whether by reading or watching a dvd. I am trying to keep remembering if the weather stays as mild as it has been, I should be able to get out in the garden next month, to start tidying it, and that will be another addition to my schedule. Of course, it could be that winter will descend with a vengeance and I won't have to think about the garden for a while.



I had hoped to be checking the local animal shelter for another cat by now, as we are really both aching and ready for another cat, I mean Pixie is constantly in my dreams telling me this, but I may have to postpone this a few weeks, as I want to give it a lot of love and attention when it arrives. I want a cat to know us both well.

The way forward, at a busy time like this is lots of lists, write everything down, because I know if I don't I will think of something wonderful to do or create and if I don't jot it down, I will forget it. Basically my lists run along the lines of, must dos, don't forgets, yummy things to do, inspiration for future things. I am known as the Queen of Lists in my family, although, Sweetpea is fast coming up behind me in the list stakes. A true chip off the old block, where lists are concerned.

I want to thank you for all the wonderful, lovely comments you left on my last posting, comments such as these mean such a lot and certainly sprinkle some happiness over my day.

Do you like my dream house at the top of this posting. Imagine living in a beautiful Elizabethan house like that with wonderful flower and herb gardens surrounding it. What magic would happen there! I found this illustration on the net along with these two glorious vintage seed catalogues from the 19th century, what wonderful romantic illustrations for the front of a catalogue.



I went on an expedition on Saturday morning to a factory outlet a few miles away. I went to be there for it opening before it was too busy, as the annual sale was one. I managed to get stacks of both soft and hard storage bags, crates and boxes. Also found one or two wonderful bargains in the sale, amazing bedding, voile panels, and curtains at ridiculous prices, end of lines etc. I just commented the other day on Pretty Lady's site, how like her, I never feel the necessity to pay full price for much, I would much rather go out into a sale or wait for a reduction, it always seems to me that after items have been in a shop for a few weeks they get reduced. Most of my house has been furnished by buying at times where there are good discounts or reductions on, and I haven't had to compromise in my choice of goods at all, they all are exactly what I was wanting at the time
.

A completely different subject, what an amazing amount of birds there are around at the moment, especially of the tit family, such as blue tits. I was standing looking out of the bedroom window this morning watching them all fly about and clinging to the side of barn, they do such wonderful acrobatics. There are also flocks of small birds, such as sparrows in the scrub behind the garden. I have never seen so many birds about in January.
I wonder if the weather is so mild that they might be nest building early? I must look through my binoculars to see exactly what other kind of birds are flying around the scrub, there will be plenty food about for them this year. There was also a bluebottle buzzing at my bedroom window, I have never seen one in January before. These last two days I have also noticed that the evenings are just getting a tad lighter, though I have got to admit the mornings don't seem any lighter yet, perhaps, that's just because we have had some dull grey mornings.



I also found this photograph of Scarborough in Yorkshire C1895. When I was a child the whole family used to go to Scarborough for a week in the summer. My mum and dad, my unmarried aunt, and my grandparents. I used to save pennies all year to spend on my holidays. It was so exciting the train journey, arriving there going to our bed and breakfast boarding house, where we stayed every year, until the owners really became friends of the family.

The first trip of the holiday to the beach, the first paddle of toes in the sea, such simple pleasures, but what fun. I can always remember I also was bought some new pairs of bright cotton shorts just before we went on holiday. I can still remember one bright blue pair with white circles stamped on them. My first purchases were always a bucket and space and a pack of flags to fly in the sandcastles I made.

The best thing of all though, was the first donkey ride of the holiday. One year the donkey was skittish and it was spooked by something and it took off racing down the beach with me clinging to the saddle and grandfather chasing it as fast as it could. Luckily it stopped of it s own accord. I remember I decided to avoid the donkeys for the rest of that year but had forgotten about it by the next. I must tell some more Scarborough stories sometime.