Hi there and warm greetings to all of you from both of us.
This shot is us at a great party in Wales, well nearly in Wales, on the boarder actually.
So what has been happening here in November you ask? After all, I did say last month it was high time we should be slowing down after a rather frantic year of global travel and hosting visitors. All of that stuff was a delight as past blog pages have shown but a good relax was well in order.
Our cool autumn days in Wetherby are now all but over and the early chill winds and biting frosts of winter are creeping in with the shortening days. As I write this it is 3:30 in the afternoon, sunset is nigh and despite some sunny breaks today my little weather monitor tells me it's 2.5 degrees outside. This sort of early darkening afternoon does encourage one more towards fireside reading than to outdoor romping. Thankfully I have this blog to compose so I will set about recalling all the excitement November provided us.
The Wetherby festival (four weeks of music, culture and comedy) came to an end with a final evening show hosted in the crypt of the St James church. Yes the crypt. Where bodies were kept. A subterranean space with a small stage contained beneath ancient Gothic, stone vaulted ceilings. 
Enter via the dark leaf strewn pathway at the base of the damp towering spire, under trailing and dripping branches, on past gravestones and down a dark, dank flight of moss covered stairs.... We entered a warm, bright and lively space to find a gaggle of folk swathed in various attire, many in costume milling around a bar and all the usual hue and cry of a well fuelled party in full swing. We were there with our tickets booked to be part of a show titled the Sleazy Speakeasy. Hardly the flavour one would expect in an Anglican church premises but never the less a highly rewarding, crude and hilarious night was had. As well as some really fine blues music, a virtuoso comedic musical routine by the hostesses, and a bit of average stand up comedy, we were entranced and enthused by a visiting group known as The Devil's Jukebox headed by the wiry and inexhaustible Dr. Ezekiel Bordello. This team of five ( including a washbasin bass player) produced some of the best, most entertaining and raunchiest honky-tonk/whoopie-band music and lyrics we have ever heard. www.myspace.com/thedevilsjukeboxuk . (I have just checked this myspace site and some dumb kid rapper has dumped his video in as a viral friend and the devil's jukebox music is overplayed by some daft rap muck. If you want to hear the juke box music you have to scroll down the site to friends messages, find the 22/10/09 4:45 entry and turn off the (c)rap singer.)
A wonderful night and yet one more reason we keep being surprised by how much fun we can have in little Wetherby. Yorkshire and "the North" has for so long had the reputation of where there is always "trouble up 't mill"and " its nowt but grim oop thare". Those post industrial days have long past and we attest that it's grim oop 'ere no more!.
The 5th of November is Guy Fawkes night and Wetherby celebrated on the 7th (Saturday) with it's annual firework display.
It was every bit as good as last year's and later that night after Gail returned from work, the neighbours came over and we launched our own small firework display and supper. Never to be discouraged a bit by the cold and rain Gail would not be thwarted in dragging us out to the front lawn to set off her hoard of explosives. Regrettably there is no photographic evidence of us huddling wet and cold in the doorway as Gail ignited her charges. 
The following weekend we headed due west and almost into Wales for a 40th birthday party in a small country pub. Karen is an Aussie who also works for Alliance Medical and with these two things in common we have become friends and attendees at each other's parties. The night was great, food great, company great, and conversations varied. Gail and I slept over in the pub, lovely modern room, but were not quite up for the on-party lunch the following day considering we had to head across country to get home.
That party was followed the next week by the East Keswick "Call my Bluff" Wine and Cheese Night. East Keswick is a small village near Wetherby and it has a very active Village Hall committee who ensure lots of fundraising activities are planned through the year to raise funds and improve their hall. This night the proceeds were given to the Children in Need charity but the group has provided the village with a great venue and a heap of really great nights out. An invitation to join our wine night buddies on their upcoming, black tie, new year's eve is a temptation.......
The format for the wine and cheese night was that tables of 8 were given, as the night progressed, 8 bottles of wine and 7 cheeses. 
The "Expert Judges " propped up on stage, delivered three alternate descriptions of the particular item being tasted and the tables had to choose the one correct description. A simple plan but the night descended into most enjoyable pandemonium and a surprisingly close competition between the tables. 
Our table of only six was, perhaps due to the volume of available wine , less accurate in our choices of described attributes. I can say however that the wine and cheese was all of excellent quality and covered many of the world's finest grape growing and cheese producing regions. None of which either of us can remember.
The "Expert Judges " propped up on stage, delivered three alternate descriptions of the particular item being tasted and the tables had to choose the one correct description. A simple plan but the night descended into most enjoyable pandemonium and a surprisingly close competition between the tables. 
Our table of only six was, perhaps due to the volume of available wine , less accurate in our choices of described attributes. I can say however that the wine and cheese was all of excellent quality and covered many of the world's finest grape growing and cheese producing regions. None of which either of us can remember. Other photos taken this month include some visits by our wild creatures, 
a bunny Gail has taken a real shine to 
and a relative of Manuel's hamster I failed to teach how to swim underwater.
a bunny Gail has taken a real shine to 
and a relative of Manuel's hamster I failed to teach how to swim underwater. 
Also captured on film by Gail was my attempt to bring a loft full of ceiling batts home from the hardware store, during the year's strongest windstorm and using only a mini. It's not easy being green. It is also interesting, in a painful next day sort of way, how many of my muscles get no use at any time in my life other than when installing roof insulation.
It is a bit early, but the chrissy lights have been lit in town for a fortnight and I knew you'd like to see them. 
It is a quirky thing but this year the lights were again put up for free by the good village folk of Wetherby volunteering their time. But Oops!... What, no "Turning on the Lights" ceremony??? 
The local hairdresser was most dismayed and gathered up funds from other local traders sufficient to pay for a minor local celebrity to come and turn on the Wetherby lights... I don't know who this celebrity will be nor when the lights will be formally turned on but one thing is for sure, they will have to turn them off first....Finally for this month, I scan into these blog pages this month's issue of Yorkshire Life which features a 4 page picture spread on Wetherby. Click on them to read the words, it is a gentle tour of our little town. 
So that's it for November, Do enjoy the December season of festivity and family gatherings. We will be sure to enjoy our time here with good food, friends and fond thoughts of those far away. I will write again in January, two oh one oh, until then ho, ho, ho, Happy Xmas and a Merry New Year!
