Number Seventy News

Last Sunday it was extremely blustery half way up the Sheffield Hills, and by the time I got to the top along Long Lane out of Loxley it was very very extremely blustery, from the SSW, approximately.  But one could make progress, in bottom gear on the flat, with the wind on the port bow.  The views were good – the valley and hills in autumn colours, the galloping clouds in a variety of shades of grey, with the occasional patch of ragged blue.  After a few miles I decided that at my age and with no competitive events other than sailing past Bell Farm boy racers coming up, a morning out on the bike didn’t have to be about suffering so I dropped down into the valley.  High Bradfield first, where a high wall sheltered me from a sharp squall.  The church here is magnificent, and magnificently sited on the hillside. Very classic North of England. Then down to Lower Bradfield on one of the most dangerous roads for cyclists I’ve been on for a long time – not traffic, road surface.  Pottered up the valley a short way, beautiful woods turning through all the reds, orange and yellows. Spent 15 minutes looking at the world from the bus shelter while another shower passed by, then off alongside the Damflask reservoir, more beautiful tree colours and so back in time for lunch, which felt well deserved.

I say “the singing one” because I do know one in a cycling and pub-crawling context. It’s not him, though a pub and drink were involved.  Chris Wood plays guitar and fiddle, used to tour as a duet with Andy Cutting, but turned up at the Black Swan as a solo act.  He’s big, bluff, assertively Southern (Kent) performer, hiding behind a very fine London area accent, complete with the occasional glottal stop.  The slightly rough stage persona is belied by some of his songs, however – the exquisitely sentimental and tender “One in a Million”, and a song for the victim of the Stockwell tube police murder.  He didn’t sing one of my favourites “Hares on the Mountain” which is a lovely little number about the yearnings of boys for the girls who seem so inaccessible.  He also started the evening with an obviously new song about the credit crunch and the bankers.  He’s good, though the length of his introductions and rambling diversions mean that I felt slightly short-changed in terms of number of songs. 

No, not my account of everyday life at number 70, but a reminder that there is a fascinating exibitionat the Queen’s House, next to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.  The exhibition is called “Turmoil and Tranquillity: the sea trhough the eyes of Dutch and Flemish masters, 1550-1700.”  It’s the most wonderful collection of marine paintings from that period, covering everything from shipwrecks real and imagined, illustrating life’s uncertainty and brevity, and usually with some icon to encourage viewers to turn to salvation, to scenes of shipsbecalmed, fishing, or fighting.  There are some interesting themes drawn out about trade and exploration too.  It’s on until January 11th 2009.

And it’s always fun to go to Greenwich, though this time I didn’t have spare time to enjoy the foreshore, the park, or the town itself.  But South Eastern Trains got me there and back expeditiously.  It’s strange to see commuter trains in Yorkshire of 2 or three carriages when the standard in so much of the London commuter network is 12, or 8.  And then there’s Virgin Cross Country (of blessed memory) who thought it was a good idea to replace 8 coach HSTs with 4 or 5 coach Voyagers. Don’t get me started.