I’ve just had the following text message conversation with my eldest daughter…
Amanda : will u lend jodie £20 to put towards a mothers day present
Me : Yes
A : cud u give it 2 me tmoz ?
Me : Yes
A : Thank U and get mum a card from yourself and stop been so horrible
Me : She’s not my mother
A : Shes the mother of your kids same difference
Me : Its mothers day not wifes day
A : You will never learn
She could have a point.
I didn’t leave Yorkshire until I was a teenager, never had the need to you see, we have everything we need right here, right here in what we often call “Gods County”, it being the idea that an omnipresent being who forces people to sing songs that praise him every Sunday (here’s me thinking vanity was a sin), would create the whole world and then make Yorkshire just for himself, and us Yorkshire folk of course.
And so every year for at least the first eleven years of my life we would venture as far as the Yorkshire coast for our holidays to a little known place called Cayton Bay which nestles in the armpit of the jewel in the crown of Yorkshire seaside resorts, Scarborough.
Wednesday morning, 1am, a 5.3 earthquake in the region, buildings shaking, things falling off shelves, people ringing their local radio stations all day long telling how their building shook and things fell off their shelves.
What earthquake ?
Stick with me on this one, it gets complicated.
I may have mentioned in the past that my Uncle Ralph (not a real uncle but real enough for me to care) was the catering manager at the famous Headingley Cricket and Rugby ground for many years, and that as I grew into a gangly youth I was employed by him in a variety of jobs inside the ground on matchdays.
A number of years ago, ok about ten, when Ned and I, ok not so much me, more him, but he persuaded me ok, when Ned was into his long distance cycling phase, this is the same Ned that did Lands End to John o’Groats last year and I’m reminded that he had three weeks holiday to do that and I never took mine last year,
Anyway, this year, ten or so ago, he suggested, no wait, I think I suggested, that as a warm up to the annual Great Yorkshire Bike Ride (more later, we may enter again this year) we should do a one organised for Marie Curie on a circular route from Lotherton Hall in Leeds, you could pick a leisurely 25 mile one or a more energetic 40 mile one, Ned picked the 40 mile one of course, pah ! a mere bagatelle my friends.
So, after my refusal to fly anywhere last year, to the total disgust of my family upon which the last laugh was on them as I helped eldest daughter pack a few kilograms of clothes and all her make up in a clear plastic bag then wave them off half a mile away from the airport building just one week after the Glasgow airport useless terrorist attack – I am launching my 2008 campaign to get us to holiday in England this year, or Scotland, but not Wales – Ireland would be ok too.
Melissa Etheridge and Bruce Springsteen – no other superlatives required.
…and the big one at the back, is he one of ours too ?
This weeks Inspire me Thursday inspiration is “action painting”, a style of painting practised by the likes of Jackson Pollack where huge canvases have paint dribbling, scribbled, smeared and gobbed on, then the artists gets down and funky with the paint with the aid of body parts, sticks, bricks and bicycles.
Well I didn’t have an acre of space on my dining room table and I’m not allowed to bring my bike into the house, but I still managed to spray paint and ink all over my laptop while doing this one, “Sunflower” is what I call it, done in watercolour, acrylic and indian ink - and if you look closely you can see Jake the Retreiver stuck right in the middle of the sunflower.
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