Rosco and Holmfirth and Yorkshire wine.

Some little time ago we had promised Rod and Tina if they ever needed someone to look after their dog, Rosco , while they went away.... Gal and I would be happy to do so.  About a month ago Gail got a call setting us up to do just that, and to stay at Tina and Rod's home in Holm, Holmfirth, at the top of the Pennines between Huddersfield and Manchester.  This was the view from their kitchen when we arrived......

RESULT!

First task on arrival was to get some heat into the old stone walls and Rosco was first to show us where the paper was .  Great game tearing it all up for the fire.   Sorry no photos of the house, I sort of think that is invasion of privacy, but it is a converted farm building, part of which, the now bathroom,  was the pig shed.  Rod and Tina have done amazing things and the place is a dream of country style and comfort.  Cold though these stone homes.... when left alone for a while.

 Next up was a long dog walk.  Found a little track through paddocks and past a waterfall reached down the side of a wonderful place called Underhill, built totally under a hill by an architect and there are photos in the RIBA if you care.  I don't need to explain the rest of our scenic photos so just enjoy  the few we took. it was a wonderful walk this day and the ones that followed over different tracks we didn't take the camera on.

Oh, I may have forgotten to mention..... Right near to Tina's and Rod's home in Holme is Holmfirth Vinyard.  Yes, in West Yorkshire! 
It's the second most northern English vinyard.

We now just have to visit the most Northern.... Its even closer to Wetherby!

Anyway we called in sampled their medium dry white and light red, both quite stunningly drinkable and with good complexity and sugars.  Most surprising considering the land and the climate but the german varietal grape they use is a hardy and productive beast.... Well worth a visit.... nine quid a bottle at the cellar door makes it a viable local drop,

 The restaurant was rather nice too and I can imagine if there was ever a fine warm day in Holmfirth in summer this would be a spectacular place to go, small tho so bookings would be recommended.  Matt and Ret, you could plan a visit here on, say the 26th March, on your way from Manchester to stay with us on the 27th?  Or we could take the hour trip from Wetherby and do both northern vineyards on the 28th.... now there is an idea for Manlangang wine tours...... a Yorkshire wine tour, who'd a thought?

And then , on the last day of our dog minding, winter arrived and spat snow on us all here in northern England.
  Of course England stops when it snows... stupid. We made it home just fine.
Got a good six inches before we left Holme and found Wetherby had not escaped the heavyfall  when we woke, dogless the next morning at our own home.

And so February 2012 began. 

We sat inside for the whole next day filling out forms and copying documents to send to THE QUEEN giving her  reasons why, despite the fact our visas to stay in the UK will expire in March, she should , really should, allow us to stay and continue our Wetherby Adventures....

We posted the forms and our passports off to some grey faceless public servants who spend their boring pathetic little lives processing endless pieces of paper in vast soulless rooms looking for minute errors and reasons why perfectly competent capable but ex-commonwealth tax payers like us should be kicked out in preference to EU criminals and social security grabbing desperadoes who have thieved enough lucre to bribe their way through the system.. 

I have no reason to believe that this is anything like the truth but we do worry we may be sent home.....wherever that is now, or will have to be .... more on that later,  probably or hopefully over a bottle of fine French champers,,,,, and cheese , and in celebration of our extended tenure.

Aussie Day Party 2012

 
 SO WE MISSED AUSTRALIA DAY IN WETHERBY,  but we did enjoy it in Jersey if you look at the next blog entry below.   But as you can see we had planned a great date for it.  Saturday the 28th was the Wetherby Aussie Day this year and it was a cold but sunny day. We have been most proud to have every year selected a fine weather day for our Aussie days and this year was the best.  We had between 20 and 30 folk turn up of which there were equal numbers of locals, Gail's work friends and some of my friends from Leeds Savages.  Regrettably because some of our good  friends from past years have returned to Australia there were not many Aussies and even fewer photo taking friends (Karen, Kylie and Jon were most missed) so the selection of snaps this year comes from Gail's and my best efforts to remember to take pictures.

The theme this year was BYOG&N and MYOP .  Bring Your Own Grog&Nibbles and Make Your Own Pizza.
Thinking there may be few nibbles bought along Gail laid out some cheese.  We had previously spent a day prepping the Pizza toppings.  Of which there were ample.  We had the party start time of noon and as no-one had shown up by 1pm Gail started in on the cheese.  

 It wasn't that long before the house filled up, the music kicked in and the first takers of the pizza fest stepped up to the table.  Amy Trish and Cora  were first in and there were three choices of base, tomato, roast capsicum or pesto then a bewildering choice of meats, vegetable or seafood.

Oh, and Vics again bought along one of her cake creations in theme ,
 Look at this will you,
There are Kangaroo, Wallaby, Platypus and Koala roasting marshmallows and drinking grog, a cockatoo on the fence, a snake or two, a campfire, real fire see later, and of course a pizza with the mandatory dropped slice.  Brilliant and again, thanks Vics.

 The pizzas went down a treat Gail and I worked the ovens and made sure everyone remembered to collect their own pizza.  Sort of distracted us from photo taking until the fireworks which I hosted and tried again to control.  No one died, no one took photos but there was one incident where one multi -shot cannon thing sort of misfired and scattered the crowd..... one singed overcoat, one holed stocking, one party goer escaping down the stairs and quite a few expletives, most exciting, but as I said no deaths again ..... so.....success....!!.

And then we came inside to light the candles on the cake and share it around.  How cool is that ?
Some folk left and others stayed. 

The music went on as did the chatting.

As did the drinking.

Until 10pm.

 10pm was when Gail and I had sort of agreed to launch some night lanterns. 
Gail found these on  'tinternet and they were fantastic fun.  
The night was cold and still so just perfect for these things.  You light a fuel cell suspended beneath the paper canopy, it heats the air inside and the whole thing floats off into the breeze.   Most , most beautiful and those who remained all got to light one up and launch it off. 
These photos Gail took do not really do the event justice. Not that they are not great photos.....

The last one was launched and rose for ages floating into the heavens and to wherever out of sight...... when those remaining folk returned into the warmth of the house, the chat and the drinks and nibbles, and the cheese, always cheese.

And eventually everyone left the party
and then I had to push the last few off into bed.....
at about 3:30am ,

despite the fact there was still cake left.

The next morning, well, early afternoon, we knocked up some leftover pizza and finished off the pavlova Gail had made and settled down into a rather calm discussion and catch up before a short drive to Leeds to catch the train back to London for the last two guests

The clean up took almost no time, in fact most of it is still waiting to be done..... Well I'm deciding what to do about the carpet......vacuum first I suppose then evaluate.

As far as Wetherby Aussie Days go the fourth one was up there with the best of them.  

Thanks to everyone for making it such a great day, and night, and morning.

A kick start to 2012 - Jersey

January was always going to be the few weeks of recovery from 2011.  Normality re-established itself with Gail returning to work and staying away for days at a time prior to our planned escape to the warmest place in the UK.  Jersey is publicised as such and I love a bit of warm do I.  They lied.  Well I suppose it was still the warmest place in January in the UK but we stayed well wrapped up and got wet a bit. 

We like Jersey.  

The above shot is the lighthouse (obviously) at the Western south isthmus of the Isle, place called Corbiére Point where lots of ships wreck.  The Jersey coast is littered with wrecks, after all it has been a disputed Isle for some time. 

We were not all that history focused but are aware of its Huguenot occupation, German occupation, British occupation and close French ties all of which provides scope for research and is not the role of these pages which are just to capture the highlights of our adventures.

 Jersey is pocked with sculptures depicting theme and history and we include a few of interest.  This one of the population welcoming the British back after the WWII german occupation, that's the union jack being waved.
 The one to the left here is hung outside the Tourist info office and is blue lit from below, I am sure if I read the plaque I would know what it represents but I didn't so you don't.

This one I did read it is a thank you to the people of Jersey for rescuing all on board the wreck of the Saint Marlo in 1995, some 300 odd souls were pulled from the sea in heavy weather off that same Point Corbiére in the first photo.

We took our little rent a car all around the Isle over the four days and met many and saw lots.  We had to pay for 20 quid of deisel as part of the hire cost and in a ford fiesta microturbo that would have got us to Yorkshire and back so we wanted to get about as much as we could.... I mean 20 quid.... that's a lot in real money.  This much thirstier vehicle is an amphibious oyster harvester.  Jersey is famous for oysters, potatoes (Jersey Royals), and of course pretty cows and thick cream.

 The pic on the left is of Mount Orgueil Castle, never breached since the 1100's or some such, again look it up. The foreground is potato crop germinating.  Sloping sandy soil, south east facing for sunlight the covering is thermo plastic with 300 or 500 holes a sq meter and is rolled out after ploughing and planting and rolled up when the tubers have re-germinated.  The Jersey royal potato crop is much awaited on mainland UK.  Jersey is part of Britian but not part of the UK, it has it's own currency and police and tax..  Look it up if you are that interested.

This here left pic is a stack of ice age new lithic rocks (megalthic) is the Dolmen de Fadouet which a local bloke called, I forget, Alec or Arthur or something, knew an awful lot about.   http://jersey.typepad.com/faldouet_dolmen/ gives a little bit.  We walked all around Gorey with Alec or Arthur, I forget,  and he knew lots of history but not much about the little local furry animals Gail wanted to know about.  Or about local gossip and rumour and intrigue, financial skulduggery and pirates that I was interested in.  Nice bloke tho.

There was a sign on La rue de Moulin on the way into Belval Cove saying ducks on the road.

 But I am pretty sure these are geese, but we didn't run them over anyway.

This was why we were going to Belval Cove, we were recommended that the Hungry Man did the best Jersey Crab sandwiches in the Isle.  Turned out they had no crab.  Despite the sign.  That was the story of our Jersey stay. If we went somewhere on Tuesday it was open all week except Tuesdays, unless we went somewhere on Wednesday when that place would be closed but only on Wednesdays.  And it was off-season so many places were closed every day.  We still like Jersey.

 Thankfully our Hotel room was available every day and as we got a special deal at very reduced rates we enjoyed our time in it a lot. http://www.grandjersey.com/reception?gclid=CL2Op-X4i64CFQ8gfAodVismwQ tells you all.  Room was huge, view quite nice and the champagne and flowers on arrival very special.

 Heating controls were not too hard to figure out and there was plenty of ceiling height, always nice.

It took us almost no time to settle in

 Before heading to the bar for a cheeky couple of margaritas, straight up.

As it so happened, this was Jan 26th, for those of you who don't know, that is Australia Day.  Landing of the first pommy settlers in Sydney, 1778.  It was only right that we celebrate with a 3 hatted Michelin star restaurant meal at Tassili.

Quite nice Starter, iberian ham, rhubarb icecream, trio of duck

 Main of deceptively filling local fish, beluga caviar and sea foam with accompanying tied and stitched vegetables... Quite nice

A special cheese menu with friends of gingered fruits, jellied whatnots, pickled pots and spiced bitzies all described if you enlarge the photo here but not necessary really.

 We do like a nice cheese platter and mixy things to go with do we.

 Then there is the seemingly everywhere currently fashionable Amuse Bouche, they used to be called pallet cleansers and were usually lemon or lime sorbet but now, all posh eateries seem to have happy mouths.... this one was a blindingly sumptuous mango plop inside a mango fruit dab on a mango creamy splat.  Quite nice.

then there was dessert. Chocolate trio and ice creams..  Also quite nice. Wine was an Aussie White from the McLaren Vale a voigner of some splendiferousness which matched the fish to perfection and carried through the rest of the meal quite nicely, but I may have said that.

This here is the old entry to St Hellier's General Hospital which is now quite a modern and well funded place. It has it's very own MRI machine which it lets the private hospital doctors use.  It is very busy. We walked in and asked to talk to the boss of MRI.  Gail spent a good half hour chatting to the staff head and I chatted to a nice Jersey girl patient in the waiting room.  Gail has now sent the MRI boss her resume and while there is no position available there, nor do we particularly want to live in Jersey, but you never know,  the head girl of MRI is a Yorkshire girl so Gail and her have that in common as well and you never know where your next friend is going to come from do you?   

On the same day or another day, it matters little, on a drive around we found the Crab Shack and dropped in for a wine and a fish lunch.  The Crab Shack is one of a group of eateries owned by the family that used to make Jersey Pottery, the pattern of which is on the table mats, you can still buy it but it's made in Poland or somewhere now..... Anyway the food is good and the view and location fantastic, and it was open on the day we went so that was a plus.  

 I think these two shots were taken the same day as something else, anyway on one of our drives around trying to use 20 quid of diesel.... we only used about 7 quids worth and saw the isle twice, well bits of it.  Anyway these two shots are of the St Ouen coast and long beach.  They do car racing on the beach.  Gail wouldn't let me take the rental on the beach. There was no one on the beach. She wouldn't let me race either. We had plenty of fuel. I still don't understand.

Last day , looking down from Fort Regent onto St Hellier and around the bay towards St Aubin

 Again from Fort Regent but looking towards Fort Elizabeth across the port.

 This one and the one below at Le Hocq Point. You can glimpse the edge of one of the many Martello towers on Jersey in this shot to the left.  More on Jersey's Martello towers on http://jersey.typepad.com/martello_tower/

 And as it was our last day and we had made sure we had the right day, not like our Spanish holiday, we went back to Gorey to see it on a sunny day rather than the miserable blowy stinking wet cold bloody excuse for a day we chose to take a walking tour on.  As a final point of interest and as I didn't include any photos of the german WWII bunkers that litter Jersey, if you look at the row of houses behind Gails head, second one from the end on the right, that is a concrete gun emplacement made to look like a house but aimed to protect the harbour.  There are a few such camouflaged bunkers but this is the cutest.

And then we flew home to start the prep for our Aussie Day 2012 party on the Saturday.