Cumbria


Kill the little grey bastards!

But only if they’re in Scotland or Cumbria, I quite enjoy watching the ones in the city. Grey squirrels moving North of the border are carrying Squirrel Pox, which the local reds have no immunity to.

Red squirrels with the virus will suffer skin ulcers, lesions and scabs, with swelling and discharge around the eyes, mouth, feet and genitals.

Eeeeew!

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"You're not from 'round here, are you?"

Apparently I spent some of today in “the most Chav town in Cumbria”. It’s bollocks of course, and people like the mayor of Cleator Moor should learn to ignore sites like Chavtown. I think some officials believe that because it’s on the internet with its own domain name then the site must be authoritatuive, rather than the work of bored surfers saying the most outrageous things they can think of behind the cloak of anonymity (as opposed to Spinneyhead, where I often say the most outrageous thing I can think of in the full knowledge that everyone knows who I am.)


Digital fells

I was quite surprised at Christmas to discover that, televisually, my parents had gone digital. As far as they knew, the bitty TV had only just started to be pumped out by a local transmitter. Considering how far behind Cumbria is in getting initial digital rollout it’s something of a shock to find it’s the first region that’s going to have analogue turned off.

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WCU

If you pop over to the shop and get the ultra cheap download of Another Education/ Ruby Red you’ll find the latter stotry is set in an imaginary West Cumbrian University. Twelve years later and life, sort of, imitates art as the University of Central Lancashire plans a campus in west Cumbria, only a few miles from the fictional location.

From Mum, who actually sent me the newspaper cutting, prompting me to go and find it online.


'I've canoed on that.'

It was a bit odd to go to Cumbria but not head home. As Mum and Dad were in Cornwall until a couple of hours ago, there didn’t seem any point in getting sidetracked from Dave’s housewarming.

I haven’t been out drinking in Cockermouth since the early nineties. Refreshingly, the pubs haven’t felt the need to trendy themsleves up or anything.

I managed to make it most of the way through the night without mentioning sheep, which is for the best. Very tired, I’ll try to put together a coherent post tomorrow.

And, for reference, the value of Spinneyhead is on the rise at Blogshares, the only market that counts.


Slow Blues Day

I’ve been in a wierd mood all day. The realisation that I’m three days away from being unemployed again struck me this morning and, along with some other stuff (lots of little things, which is the way it works with me) brought me down.
Hopefully I can get some writing done soon. Heavensent is on sporadic updates and I’ve had an idea for something a bit more biographical (in fact it’ll be stealing and then fictionalising some stuff I’ve blogged.)
The Friday Five never appealed to me, but this long list of questions has been doing the email rounds recently so I think I’ll share my answers-
1. What time is it? 21:44
2. Name as it appears on your birth certificate? Ian Pattinson
3. Nickname: None that I know of
4. Parents name/s: Jen & Ron
5. Number of candles that appeared on your last birthday cake: 33
6. Favourite food : Food
7.Date that you regularly blow them out? 11 Jan
8. Eye colour: blue
9. Hair colour: black/ dark brown
10. Piercing: no
11. Tattoos: no
12. How much do you love your job? My job loves me so much it has set me free. If I come back then it was meant to be (Hah!)
13. Favourite colour: blue
14. Hometown: Born in Bridgend, but family home is in Cumbria
15. Current residence: Victoria Park, manchester UK
17. Been to Africa? no
18. Been toilet papering? no
19. Loved somebody so much it made you cry? yes
20. Been in a car accident? yes. They weren’t all my fault.
22. Sprite or 7UP? sprite
23. Favourite movie? The Italian Job
24. Favourite holiday: Chamonix last year
25.Favourite day of the week: Saturday
26. Favourite word or phrase: Arse! (or Buttocks if I’m being polite)
28. Favourite restaurant: Haven’t gone to enough to really decide/ Yo Sushi, cause that’s where I went last.
29. Favourite flowers: Daffodils
30. Favourite drink : Alcoholic- Jennings Sneck Lifter, non Alcoholic- Fresh ground coffee
31. Favourite sport to watch: skate boarding
32. Favourite ice-cream: vanilla- with my own insane concoction of chocolatey bits and sauces slathered on the top
33. Favourite Sesame Street character: cookie monster
34. Disney or Warner Bros.? Warner Brothers
35. Favourite fast food restaurant: Lahore
36. When was your last hospital visit? I work in one, so Thursday. For real, Christmas ’99 after being hit by a car.
37. What colour is your bedroom carpet? green
38. How many times did you fail your drivers test? none
39. Who is the last person you got e-mail from before this? Feed back to my blog, the New York Times and lots of spam offering me mortgages, septic tanks and porn.
41. Which single store would you choose to max your credit card? Forbidden Planet
42. What do you do most often when you are bored? surf and blog
43. Name the person that you are friends with that lives the farthest away? My sister in Val d’Isere
44. Most annoying thing people ask me? When are you going to ask her out?
45. Bedtime? 11pm-1am
46. Who will respond the quickest? Dunno
47. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? Jenny, Brian and Emma, because this is a reply to the ones they sent me.
48. Favourite all time TV show: Buffy
49. Last person you went out to dinner with? Jenny, Brian, Damian, Elke, Daz and Emily, or, if you extend it to mean any meal, my parents today.


New life for old silos

Just up the road from home (High Trees, Cumbria home, not Manchester home) is an old redbrick building that used to be the pump house for Cogra Moss (even further up the road, through a wood and nestling in a horseshoe of hills). A few years ago, it was found to contain a manufacturing lab for ecstasy. In Kansas they think bigger, using an abandoned missile silo to manufacture LSD.


Censored Slope

In South Cumbria there are three hills called Cockup, Little Cockup and Great Cockup, and so it should stay. In Colorado, there used to be a ski mountain called Mary’s Nipple, but some prudish idiot decided to shorten the name to just Mary’s. At some point they’ll notice that quite a few hills look like breasts and demand that they all be flattened.


Bigger Toys

I was going to see Brian’s micro racers and raise him a remote controlled tank, then I thought why not go the whole hog. And remember ‘Part exchange is often welcome on interesting military vehicles’.

Alternatively, I could go looking for seized property such as race cars or even houses.

Deep down, though, what I’d really like to do is move back to Cumbria, settle somewhere nice in the Lake District


A quick post. I’m off to Cumbria, to enjoy the mountains and get loads of pictures for the site, so postings may get a little sporadic for the next week or so.

Seeds

The narrow bridge was a bottleneck, and there was always traffic across it. The ravine below provided enough rocks for cover that the squad could, one by one, sneak through. Lensman watched his men flitting from one spot to another. It took great concentration and was only possible because he knew what they were doing. Across from him, Kess had his baby long rifle at the ready and Mov was ready to deploy a stonk. If they were spotted, they would blow the bridge and withdraw into the mountains.

As each man came through, they took up a defensive position. They were spreading out further and further downstream. The last man came through. Lensman followed him. Mov came on a few dozen counts later and Kess after the same delay again.

The river fed into a wider, gentler flow which they would have to ford. Beyond that, the ground was flat- by the standards of a mountain man- and the cover less obvious. They went downstream, away from the road, until they found a crossing of rocks deliberately placed in the river.

Lensman stole a glance at Mov. The veteran appeared worried, unsure of himself outside his natural habitat. As squad leader, Lensman could not acknowledge that he felt the same fear. He had to keep up the confident fa�ade as they headed into this alien landscape. Kess scanned the far bank, nodding when he saw nothing of danger. Lensman sprinted across the rocks, slipping on ones mid stream but staying upright, and dived into a covering position on the far shore.




Noon updates aren’t about to become the norm, but as I’m going up to Cumbria this evening, it seems the sensible thing to do.

Seeds

Old Morn�s boat had been fossil fuelled when it came up river. A country away from the nearest refinery that motor was now useless as anything but a source of ferrous for smelting. A paddle wheel had been forced onto the back of the boat, driven by a low-pressure steam engine. It was like sharing the river with someone breathing regularly and deeply through their teeth and swinging a hand through the water.

Marra had guided the boat from the lake below the waterfall and through memorised channels until a second tributary joined the river and it became too wide for branches to span. Only when she was sure there were no underwater obstacles would she give Morn his first lesson in steering.

They threw a sky anchor into the canopy until it caught a sturdy enough branch. The boat swung into the current as the rope tautened, coming to rest mid stream. Marra shimmed up the rope and fastened the dead anchor far enough ahead to deflect all but the largest debris. She continued into the canopy and threw nuts and fruit down for Morn to catch.

Apart from terse instructions during Morn�s lesson, Marra had not spoken all day. He hoped she would break her silence over their meal, but was to be disappointed. She filleted fish quickly and expertly and laid them inside a specially constructed steam box on the engine while Morn shelled the fruit and nuts. They threw the chaff over the side to attract more fish toward the trailing line.

Night descended quickly once the sun started dipping below the tree line and it was almost pitch black by the time they had finished eating. Marra pulled the insect net about the cabin and rolled into her blanket without a word.

Much later, Morn woke to the strangest sound. For a moment he feared they had left the engine to build up excess pressure and it was blowing off steam in uneven bursts. A moment�s consideration made him realise the noise was Marra, sobbing in her sleep. He reached across and touched her shoulder. She took his hand, laced her fingers with his and the sobbing subsided.