Pocklington - 4 years on

(4 years - and some classic issue 4 - Steranko's Nick Fury, Seth's Palookaville and Ellis and Cassaday's Planetary)

Oct 19th 2006. A special day in Bruton family history when we moved the 131 miles up north from Birmingham to York (all detailed here).

It's now been 4 years since we moved, and it's honestly been the best thing we ever did. The house is lovely -even though we're still trying to get the builder to fix the bloody roof properly - yes, still trying - roughly 3 and a half years after reporting it and we're still having problems. All I can say is thank god for the NHBC. The fuss of getting the builder to do anything is incredible, until we get back in touch with the NHBC and within half an hour of them phoning the builder he's on the phone to us arranging a time to come round.

Louise's job is still great, my job in the primary school is still the best thing I've ever done. But best of all, Molly is completely settled into life here in Pocklington. Her primary school was lovely, a perfect place for her to grow up. And then we had the secondary school non-problem. A choice of two, catholic in York or local comprehensive. My heart goes out to any of our friends in Birmingham going through the nightmare of getting schools sorted.

So she's settled into her secondary school - loves being big and grown up, has a great time with her sport and after school clubs (she's on the Netball team already, plays football, hockey and wants to do basketball as well). The only downside is the problem with homework. It's just about settling down but it's been a big shock for her (and us) and we've had no end of arguments about it - the teenage years are going to be fun, I can tell.

So 4 years. 4 great years. Here's to many more.

Easter Holiday Time.....

Off to Londesborough the other day for a look and a walk. No reason, we just hopped in the car and headed off to a couple of the local villages we'd never been to:



View from Londesborough park.



What's left of Londesborough Hall



All Saint's Church, Londesborough.



Just a path.

Pocklinton pictures - snow, snow, snow

More Pocklington pictures, snowy ones.....




(All Saint's Church)


(Our new library, in theory opening sometime late 2010)


(Snowy main street)


(Pocklington School)


(Pocklington Beck, just up from West Green)


(West Green, preferred snowman building ground for family Bruton)

Fun in the snow ....

It's been snowing a little here in Pocklington........


(There's a devilish look in her eye, a snowball in her hands. Sometime in the next minute I became nothing more than a target)



(It's a snow bear)




(Someone thought it would be funny to drop the big snowball onto her head)

Tour Of Britain hits Pocklington...

Nearly an hour of waiting, roads closed off, ridiculously hot and sunny, beers in hand - the Tour Of Britain passed through Pocklington and came right past our front door. Lots of excitement, lots of crowds. The police and outriders passed by, the lead two riders go by, then five minutes later the other riders pile through. And that was it.

Good fun though. Nice to sit on the front step, relax and kick back - chatting to all who pass our door.

More holiday stuff.... the week we've had.

Another holiday week down, 4 already gone. How can that be? Only 3 weeks left? Insane.

The last week has been spent having fun. Back to normal holiday times, after the Anglesey Holiday and the week virtually trapped in the house with the painter at work. So it was back to the Holiday planning sheet....



You'll notice it's a little fuller now than it was last time.

This week has consisted of:
Monday: Mummy surprise
Tuesday: Chill day, market and grandparents
Wednesday: Ikea and Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Thursday: Cruckley Farm with Molly's friend
Friday: Cruckley Farm with another friend - Molly's choice!

Okay, Monday was a big surprise for Louise. Molly and I had been sitting on this for days and days. Our friends and the children were heading up for the day since they couldn't make it up for either Louise's birthday or Molly's. The day was spent at Burnby Hall, running around, feeding fish and running some more. Louise had been led to believe we Molly and I were at the cinema so we picked her up from work (since we were already allegedly in the area anyway) and had great delight in seeing the disbelief on her face as we rounded the corner to see our visitors on the doorstep. Wonderful times.

Wednesday was lovely. The main thing we had to do was go to Ikea to get a couple of bookcase expanders - those things that sit on top of the billy bookcases we all know and love. The reason we need extender thingys? Too many books and graphic novels. My fault, all my fault.

After getting to Ikea and doing the inevitable thing of spending far more than I'd intended to (storage boxes, kids plates and cups - the sorts of things they may as well make compulsary for an Ikea visit really) it was off to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, somewhere I'd meant to go since moving up here. And it was everything I hoped it would be. We had a great few hours there. Could have easily spent many more - we only did about a third of the place in our time there. But it was really lovely.





(Part of Babara Hepworth's Family Of Man and then the photo that everyone seems to take of it)





(Jonathan Borofsky's Molecule Man 1+1+1)



(Some Henry Moore with Molly doing her best impression)



(Part of the Peter Randall Page exhibition that Molly thought was really wonderful, this was "Multiplication By Division")

And after the Sculpture park, into the cafe for a much needed rest and a bit of experimental photography (her idea, not mine!):







She was very tired by the end of the day.

Then onto Cruckley Farm for a couple of days. We'd arranged a couple of play dates for Molly with a friend coming round on Thursday and Friday. And Molly decided she wanted to go to Cruckley Farm with both of them. Cows, pigs, goats, sheep - standard farm stuff really, but lots of open pastures where you can walk through and feed the animals by hand - one day Molly will grow out of these places but I'm glad it's not quite yet.

A good week.

Apologies from Yorkshire and the Humber.

I live in Yorkshire and I love the place dearly. But tonight it's a horrible place to live in. Tonight the populous of Yorkshire elected a fascist to the European parliament. A shameful thing.

They call themselves the British National Party but they represent nothing about the Britain that I know. And on this weekend of all weekends, where we celebrate the anniversary of the D-Day landings; that first push to reclaim Europe from the fascists of Nazi Germany.

Every person has their right to vote for whomever they please. But I have an equal right to despise those who voted BNP and here in Yorkshire it seems I have a lot to despise.

missing gigs again.....

That Petrol Emotion are touring again. And it's one of those tours where I'm going to find it so difficult to make it to any of them. Not good. Either too far away on a weekend or on a school night. Bother. And this is after missing out on the Kraftwerk gig in Manchester happening in July. (I could get tickets from ebay but I haven't got the 300 quid or so that they're going for.)

It's something I really miss about living in Birmingham, having gigs on the doorstep that I could walk to and walk home from. Now I have only the choice of York or Leeds, driving to gigs and sriving home. it's just not the same. last year I was really lucky to be able to get to see That Petrol Emotion in the summer holidays and Carter on a saturday, but it looks like this year I wont be so lucky. Damn.

Holiday fun, biking with the Brutons....

Today Molly and I went for our first proper bike ride together. She's on the big bike now and is so very proud of herself and she and I cycle our way around Pocklington on our new bikes. We didn't venture that far, just a mile or so there and back, but it was great being able to see the place you live from a different perspective.

I've walked most of it at some point or other in the two and a half years but having the freedom of being on a bike means you can go exploring that little bit more, something Molly and I are determined to do over the coming months.

At one point today I even found myself making the altogether rash and stupid promise (just to myself) that I really have to look at cycling the five or so miles to work. Maybe one day.

Tomorrow it's back in the car for an early start and a trip to Hull for a not too pleasant meeting. More on that tomorrow later in the week.

Grey days at school..... and protest marches in Pocklington

Well, this final week of school before the half term has been a bit of a downer and no mistake. Starts off with me in a prime funk after a weekend away. Then I just run into a wall of work as soon as I'm back. Every day this week has seen me start with the very best of intentions and then get bogged down with jobs that can't be finished, work that is so horribly bitty and unending.

To top it all off, it seems that everyone at school is under a horrible grey cloud at the moment. All is not well it seems.

Finally, tonight I came in and pretty much collapsed into the chair. Absolute exhaustion had got me. So it was possibly the worst time for dear old dad to ring up and ask me if I'd forgotten the planned protest march heading off in half an hour from then. I wasn't in the mood for this. Did he not realise all I wanted to do was sink into an exhausted slumber?

The idea of protest marches in Pocklington is rather new. Being a rather sleepy little town in the shadow of the Yorkshire wolds we're not usually required to arrange angry mobs to go rampaging around the streets of the town chanting slogans. But there's a growing frustration in the town regarding East Riding Council's decision to bring in car parking charges to the town. It came to light a few months agao and since then opposition has been building. Liek I said, we're a rathe rquiet town, not really benefitting from the tourism of the nearby coast or the attractions of York, Beverley and Bridlington. But ERYC have got it into their heads that they should really have one homogenous charging policy for their car parks. On the face of it, it does make sense. But get deeper into it and the disparity between us and other, larger towns means that to charge for parking in the town would more than likely seriously harm the future prosperity of Pocklington.

But ERYC seem committed to bringing them in. Which is why about 200 people marched from the town centre to the rugby club where the council were holding a consultation event.

I'd honestly decided not to go. But I did have to go to the post office and on the way back found myself having to walk alongside the growing crowd of people waiting for the off. Guilt got the better of me and Molly and I found ourselves joining the crowd on our first ever family protest march. Strange times.

Pocklington Pictures

A long time ago I thought it might be nice to start photographing this lovely town of ours. I got off to a good start and then, as is always the way, stopped.

Well, since we were out with the camera today for the Flying Man Festival it seemed an ideal opportunity to start again:

5th Annual Flying Man Festival

Every year, at the start of May Pocklington has a strange occurrence of flying stuffed animals. All day long they get thrown off the top of the church to plummet to safety at the landing zone beneath. It's all part of the annual Pocklington Flying Man Festival, which took place this weekend.

The reason for the flying teddies? One Thomas Pelling, who decided to try coming down from the church tower on a zip rope back in 1733. The men who were meant to be securing the rope on the ground were a little drunk, or so the story goes, and Pelling smashed into a wall of the church.



So, being British, we decide to celebrate this strange and unfortunate man who met his end in such a silly way. The Flying Man Festival is a 3 day celebration based around All Saints Church with hot air balloons filling the sky, stalls in and around the church and on the Sunday the flying teddy bear slide.

Molly's taken part every year we've been up here and this year it was Charlie Bear's turn to ascend the tower and be sent hurtling down:



Handing Charlie Bear over at the "departure lounge"





Charlie Bear takes flight!



Bear and child reunited. Molly says Charlie had a great time and was only a little scared at the top.

We had, as usual, a lovely day and everything about the festival went very well. This year we even had the added bonus of a flypast by a Spitfire (and unfortunately this happened after the camera batteries died) which was rather spectacular.

Easter Holidays stuff

The plan fro yesterday (Sunday): bed early, get 6 hours sleep as recommended by some scientist in the new Wired mag, wake up early, hget loads done and have fun all day.

The actuality: not so good. Up late. Felt shit all day.

Although we did end up taking the parents to Burnby Hall & Gardens for a nice, sunny afternoon of hide and seek and photos:







Even got one of Molly, rare as she's going through a phase of running away whenever I point the camera out:



Then Molly grabbed the camera and started turning the tables on me:

Half Term days out: Malton

Not quite a day out - we had Maths homework to complete first, but today we headed off to Malton for a little trip out. Lunch at a tea shop where I had some lovely Yorkshire Puddings in onion gravy. Except I had to send them back - who knew that traditional onion gravy was made out of the beef sock and still had bits of cow left in it? Oh well.

Took the camera along but didn't get that many shots of Malton, just some of Molly and me in the tea shop, some of the sheep market and some of the gorgeous alleyway of collectible shops we saw...