Grim

A grim day and we awoke at 5.00 to rain lashing the windows, and became increasingly anxious about the leaking roof. A brief loft inspection a few hours later revealed that no rain was currently dripping in - wind in a different direction perhaps. And then L went to talk to our next door but one neighbour the builder, and he's going to come and have a look tomorrow. All we can do for now. But this weather - oh god, the wind roaring down the chimney, rain hurled against the windows all day long with no let up, and so dark! I feel threatened, somehow unsafe the whole time, and the hormones of hell are ravaging my brain chemistry at the moment too, so I feel like an adolescent - moody, irritable, volatile, extreme - only not so young!! And now I'm working on a job application - the first for months - and struggling to feel upbeat about it after all the knockbacks, and the hopeless admininstrative chaos so far demonstrated by this organisation, although in all other respects it appears to be a job I want. And I've got to go off to get the train to Leeds in a bit for my reading group, and after last week's train experience, and the continuing inclemency of the weather, this too makes me anxious and grumpy.

But anyway, here's a lovely gate from the coastal path at Silverdale, and some berries, and the glorious view from the top of Arnside Knott, looking across to the mountains, or fells of the Lake District.

Arnside

We are just back from Arnside, where the sun shone on us for much of the time, save Friday afternoon when we first arrived in light but persistent rain. Deep into Autumn now, with morning frosts, lots of damp leaves on the ground, the smell of leaf mould and fungi and slightly rotting windfallen apples. The light on the Kent Estuary is beautiful in all weathers and at all times of day, it seems. I managed to catch a shot of a train going over the viaduct, which elegantly spans this part of the estuary, giving Arnside its iconic view.

Drip Drip Drip

Yesterday it really did rain like everything is coming to an end... and we discovered that our roof is leaking. L noticed ominous dark circles on the ceiling in her green room, and up to the loft she went, and yes, drip drip drip. All I see is £ signs. But the ship must be watertight, so one way or another ££££ must be found. There is also a fearsome leak under the back door. The door appears to fit tight, but under the (brand new) carpet just inside, the solid floor is soaking. So, trying not to go into panicky home-owner meltdown here.

And what better way to be distracted from home maintenance issues than to go away! Off to Arnside for the last part of L's 60th celebrations, and a little bit of my birthday celebrations. It's over on the West coast, or more accurately on the estuary of the River Kent just where it opens into Morecambe Bay. We went there for my birthday two years ago and it's beautiful. Happily, the rain has stopped and the forecast for tomorrow and Sunday is actually quite good! No post tomorrow as no wi-fi and I didn't really understand Lucy's helpful hint about telling Blogger to post for me while I'm not here. And anyway, if I'm not putting it up that day, it isn't really a post for that day is it? NaBlo is just a spur for me, and seems to be working so far! November 6th will be the joker in the pack!

Winter Whitening

In the waiting room, waiting for L. The sound of an instrument, a low buzzing, not the high-pitched whining of the drill, and the radio playing Stone In Love With You by the Stylistics. Not a song to sing along to. I keep thinking the receptionist is attempting to do so, but it's a certain sound the printer makes as it whirrs into action, spewing out whatever dentists' receptionists print off. WINTER WHITENNG, announces a laminated notice on the noticeboard, inviting you to pay £315 for tooth whitening thus
It isn't only the Christmas tree lights that can be extra sparkly this winter. You could have brighter, whiter teeth in time for Christmas!!
In smaller print it also suggests you might like to treat your family and friends to tooth whitening... The radio burbles and babbles as two schoolboys with heavily gelled hair go into the dentist's surgery with their mum. There is congestion on the M25 in Nottingham. Industrial action on London Underground.

Replacement

Eleven o'clock at night, and we stand shivering along with maybe forty other people outside the front of Rochdale station, where large plastic barriers suggest extensive road closures, and are not encouraging for us, waiting as we are for the rail replacement bus service. Just a little way down the road to the right, a darkened minibus is parked. I remark on it to L immediately, but we decide it has nothing to do with this story. The line is flooded at Littleborough, and our train has terminated here. Those of us who know the area are aware that the main road is in that case very likely to be flooded too, and that a 50-seater coach would not be able to negotiate the twisting, steep and narrow alternative route over the tops. The promised bus has not materialised, and railway employees are nowhere to be seen.

Stranded and fed up, we begin to talk to one another. Someone says they have been told that the bus, when it arrives, will not be able to get beyond Littleborough, which for us is about halfway home. Others begin to joke anxiously about opening a local church for us to sleep in. A bearded man with grubby glasses wanders about remarking repeatedly that we are doomed, in the style of that character from Dad's Army, but without the Scots accent. His companion is coming up with an elaborate strategy for getting to Leeds, involving returning to Manchester and getting a train to Huddersfield. As it is already well after 11pm, this seems a little optimistic. A large group of young football fans from Bradford breaks periodically into song 'I wanna go home! Let me go home! This is the worst trip I've ever been on!', and occasionally '1 -nil, 1-nil 1 -nil!' suggesting their team met with success tonight, despite the torrential rain, which must have rendered the pitch one vast sea of mud. A softly spoken young man from Todmorden is discussing the possibility of a lift for one person, with a nervous Asian man and an American woman. His Dad is on the way, and, as there's a child seat in the back, there will only be room for one other passenger. I enter the conversation gently, and begin to explore with the nervous man the possibility of a taxi. He is keen to establish how much L and I would be willing to pay. L's face says she is not willing to pay at all. I am beginning to feel desperate, and think that it would be £8 well spent if it meant not having to share a church hall floor with twenty football fans for the night.

About this time, a shabby looking man, unshaven, with wild grey hair, approaches us in a manner I can only describe as sidling up. Out of the corner of his mouth he asks where we are going, and when L and I, the nervous man and the American woman, tell him our destinations, he mutters that we should go quietly and stand beside the darkened minibus, without drawing attention to ourselves. There we join a large man with a beard and pony tail and bags of bottles, who has been waiting in Manchester since nine o'clock. He is puzzled about the flooded railway line, remarking that it is usually the road and not the track that gets inundated, and says he is wondering if the reservoir has burst its banks. Slowly, others join our waiting party, asking for clarification of the situation, which we cannot give, but we all remain vaguely optimistic that the shabby man will drive us home eventually, and that this will not cost us anything, though he has not at any point made it clear he has anything to do with the train company. In the mean time nervous man is on his mobile phone, still trying to get a price for a cab, still trying to establish whether L and I and the American woman will share it with him. We have just agreed, when the unshaven and tousle-headed driver arrives, opens the minibus and lets us on board without putting any lights on. His mission has been to avoid being overrun with football fans, a goal we all heartily share.

We set off, driver cracking slightly off colour jokes, nervous man asking 'what did he say? Did you get that?', and popping small tablets whilst sitting sideways on his seat. At Littleborough station a poster asks How's Your Train Running? Some lads get off, joking about going to Sainsbury's to rob some food. The driver says the kebab shop will still be open, then tells an even more off colour joke about the Jamie Oliver sausages on sale in Sainsbury's. 'Did you get that?' asks nervous man, eager and anxious. I tell him I don't think I can repeat it. It turns out, despite large puddles, and areas where water is pouring across the road, and some slightly alarming downhill water-planing, as shabby man drives at a fair speed, we are able to get home using main roads, though not by the most obvious route, which is perhaps flooded as we anticipated. At one point we pass a 50-seater coach coming the other way, and the driver pauses, opens his window and calls to the driver that there is a bunch of passengers waiting for him at Rochdale station. 'You'll like them!' he shouts, and laughs as we move off.

Rain

Rain today. Last September as I drove back and forth into Lancashire to do the job I was soon to lose, I used to think often of death. Not really in the sense of dying in a car-accident. There is something strange and unreal about driving, the sense of being a body moving fast through space, as if you could just take off into the ether.

I die on the rain-drenched road
drive into the sinking clouds
wipers sweeping wet curves
across the glass.

I die with my hands lashed to the wheel
all the colours coming together
a small bird flying up from the ground.

Leaves And Berries

We picked sloes this morning up above the other side of town, ready for this year's sloe gin. I can see this becoming a birthday tradition. We made it for the first time last year, and have just bottled and started drinking it. It's like delicious warming cough medicine! And the colour of a rich rose wine.

We found a lovely path we'd never been on before, beside a small stream, in a tiny wooded side valley, of the kind we have so many of round here, and spotted several holly trees with tons of berries. We shall return when the time comes to deck the halls! Despite the weather forecast, the day was dry and slowly the cloud broke up, and we sat on a bench and looked into the valley for a while at the end of our walk, wishing we'd taken the camera. These shots are from this afternoon, when I decided to go out again, just up our lane.

We had lunch in town and then came home to chocolate birthday cake and coffee!