Number Seventy News

What is really the best thing about canal boating, apart from being in a cosy floating shoebox, is being in a boat and looking down on the countryside.  And nowhere better than on the Leeds and Liverpool canal above Gargrave, where the canal climbs onto nearly its top level through the Pennines and winds along the contours in a most spectacular fashion.And you can moor just about anywhere for the night, in the depths of the countryside, far from any roads or rails or airports, andclose to sheep and cows and birds and other noisy nocturnal critters.

Can you believe main city streets with wide cycle tracks at each side and delivery lorries unloading and not parking on the cycle track ?  Can you believe streets lined with full cycle racks all day and well into the evening. Can you believe none of the thousands of cyclists wearing lycra, or cycle helmets, and just sailing about their business with elegant ease ?  Can you believe traffic light phases specifically for bikes ?

Copenhagen.

One of the more irritating effects of the recession or credit crunch or bankers’ toilet or whatever we are going through is the axing of pleasant ways to travel in favour of less pleasant ones.    One used to be able to travel to Norway by ferry from Newcastle.  In 1966 it was Fred Olsen lines to Oslo, then there was Fjord Line and Color Line and latterly DFDS to Kristiansand and then Stavanger or Bergen.  But no more.  An historic link severed.

Second choice, given that one is starting from the North of England, was to fly to Oslo from Manchester.  One landed conveniently in mid afternoon, without having to get a train to Manchester at 4 in t he morning.  Indeed, now you can get a train mid-afternoon, in order to get the one flight a day which drops you in Oslo Gardemoen at quarter to eleven at night.

Third choice would really be train, via London, Cologne, Copenhagen and Gothenberg, but one doesn’t always have the two days it takes.

So it’s Hobson’s choice – Hobsonair from Stansted to Oslo Torp. Now, like most of Hobsonair’s airports, Torp is not actually at all close to Oslo, but it is quite handy for where we are going.

I will spare you an extended rant about the practice of Cross Country trains of putting a two-coach train on its Stansted service – effectively discouraging those who like to get a seat if they are spending a couple of hours on a train, and move on to Stansted itself.  It is a zoo .   Hobsonair doesn’t provide any helpful signs, which would be cheap, nor or course enquiry staff, which would be a cost.  The staff they do provide all look thoroughly unhappy, and tired and cross, which more or less means that 100% of the people on both sides of the counter are unhappy and tired and cross because they are in the wrong queue or have 1kg too much baggage or a £40 fine for smiling or still 4 hours to go to their next loo break.

Hobsonair more or less has you filing onto the front of the plane while the passengers from the previous flight are still getting out the back. Not actually a problem, they seem to be able to refuel and refill the trolleys in 20 minutes and reset the inflight commercials to interrupt your contemplation of the clouds, if of course you can move your head in the position you are in crushed between two merely average size human beings who are overflowing their ridiculously narrow seats. We of course arrive on time at Torp, file past the passengers waiting to get on (it’s a bit like the Underground) and find that Torp is relatively calm and quiet, possibly because only Hobsonair and some of its continental pals drop in 2 or 3 times a day.

It’s not really that I object to flying being cheap, it’s having it appear cheap – and only if you abide by the rules, don’t want to take any luggage, and have a computer to check-in on-line.

We came back from Copenhagen to Manchester on SAS – really quite civilised. Copenhagen Airport was extremely elegant.

One day, I’m going to take the train, or investigate the freight ferry from Immingham.

Possibly the longest gap in the history of blogging – but it’s been a busy summer.  So posts will follow, in various categories.

The Royal Show has ceased but the Great Yorkshire goes on and on – and seems to have more and more for everyone.  We always say that to really understand rural shows you need to go to the Great Yorkshire and also one of the really small ones – Farndale in Yorkshire or Hayfield in Derbyshire.  The GYS is enormous – you can’t experience it all in a day – even if you miss out the entire farm machinery section, and the car salesmen, and the kitchen gadgets and 90% of the clothing stalls.  Maybe when I retire I’ll get a 3 day ticket and really linger around the forestry, and the eco-bits, and the side rings for cattle, sheep and pig judging, and really sample all the free goodies in the food tents and see all the show-jumping.

25 years ago the PSP went out one evening to Elvington and Sutton on Derwent on a wonderful collection of ancient and modern cycles, leaving the pub late into a July evening, and as we pedalled along, a stately and eccentric peloton, a barn owl flew silently above us in the not-quite-wholly-dark.  For reasons which are no longer clear to me, we decided to divert from the bridleway at Gipsey Corner and take our bicycles, and tricycles, and tandem, along the footpath, through the wood, over stiles,along the narrow edge of a wheatfield beside the hedge.  It was, therefore, rather late, probably about 1am when we paused at the end of Long Lane, to admire the summer lightning glittering on the hills which ring the plain of York.  A warm, still night – no rain – and no lightning on the plain.  So back, unsteadily into the city, stopped only by a passing police car who was concerned by the lack of lights on the Dursley-Pedersen.

And the next morning, we awoke to the news that York Minster’s South Transept had been gutted by fire in the night, though whether caused by a random lightning strike, or divine wrath directed at the Bishop of Durham, no one has yet discovered.

So, 25 years on to the night, a few of us pedalled out to the end of Long Lane to reminisce, and then repaired to the Bay Horse in Marygate to reminisce some more with other less stalwart souls.  There was the odd rumble of thunder, and the occasional drop of rain, but we, and the Minster, were spared conflagration.

Pond has 4 fish.

2 goldfish, Marshall and Snelgrove.

2 shubunkins, Hunted and Smallpage.

So far so still alive

Apart from the fact that everything in Lincoln seems to close at 4pm (if it can’t manage to close at 3) we had a pleasant visit.  Noted that the cathedral west front has a very horizontal feel – better from a distance than close up.  Internally seemed to be more choir than nave but had a nice cloister.

A tea-shop served us what they called a “plumb” scone. We thought later that it would go nicely with the “chicken and leak” dish advertised elsewhere.

Gino’s Italian restaurant – very popular with the younger set – very average.

Duke Wiliam Hotel – elements of Fawlty Towers and a bizarre line in brown hedgehog pillows but probably 5/10 as B&Bs go.  The breakfast sausage was herby and probably local.

Lincoln bike race provided very satisfying entertainment on Sunday. 11 shortish laps and a really challenging short sharp cobbled winding hill for good spectator participation.

CAROL’S COMMENT. And the reason we went was to support Kit, who finished 10th out of 200 entrants, just over a minute behind the winner. All of the family who live in England were there to cheer him up the cobbles on Michaelgate.

York Spice, on Bishopthorpe Road. Best Indian Restaurant in town, I’m sure. Excellent variety, well cooked and all dishes distinctive. (So unlike an appalling take-away in Sheffield, some years ago, where each of the 4 dishes we ordered was an identical brown oily sludge). Support the economy – eat out !

Alas, ice and lack of oxygen have got to the fish. There were four, then three, then one – now no more. RIP.