getting out

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Last weekend I was East of the Pennines ( read this marvellous link from Wikipedia -Long Live Wikipedia!) – this weekend I am West. I have been told by a reliable source that it rains a lot more in Manchester than Sheffield, as the rain is often used up by the time it gets to Sheffield over the hills ( it is raining today). I have had some the best and most memorable holidays tramping around the Yorkshire Dales, the Peak District and the Pennines and they are all part of the UK’s national treasures with Victoria Wood and the man in my local corner shop.

Edale from Mam Tor

I once stood at the start of the Pennine way in Edale and thought how satisfying it would be to walk the length of it, lots of people do. I would have to be super fit or time free to do it.  I am sure you know the Pennines are referred to as the backbone of Britain.

SONG OF THE DAY – The Hill’s Are Alive -The Sound of Music -Julie Andrews

I must start to write a list of subjects that need more songs. I often write a post and want to link it to a song , and only 1 or 2 very obvious songs come to mind, ‘Running up That Hill’ Kate Bush is the other one, I suppose, and ‘Ain’t no Mountain” which I posted earlier this week. That would be a good list to start.

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The wordpress people try very hard to help us in our quest to post a day through 2011. This  photo challenge  is easy, as I seem to be ‘looking up’ a lot, even when I am down. Sometimes you cannot avoid the upward looking. Especially if you are going up! It helps to look up, as there is so much to see. In London most of the best architecture is up there.

Most of my ‘up’ images are as you would expect an ‘up’ image to be. Evidence number one me lud. The stairs…….I think I took this at Greenwich Dockland Light Railway Station, at about 7pm one night, on my way to work. So often I am glad the stairs move on their own and you just have to stand still as you levitate towards your destination.

This next set of stairs is Kentish Town Railway station at about midnight after I had been to see a friend’s choir performing in Brighton. I was probably taking the picture whilst plucking up the courage to make the ascent as I was, by then very tired, having been to Brighton and back , and sat through quite a long choral piece. At times like that you just want to yell ‘beam me up Scotty’ and be at home in the warm.

SONG OF THE DAY – Hold Your Head Up -Argent ( The long version!)

I love the band in this one particularly the guitar, and the organ…and we can all do with reminding to hold our heads high. Even if it is just so watch the view. x

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We stayed the night in our rural abode, well not actually ours, as in we own it,more is the pity, but the place where we were staying. We had the bright idea of inviting the other people staying down the road for a barbecue. As most of the crowd were vegetarian, with a couple of fish eaters it was mostly about the vegetarian kebabs. Mr P. made skewers from willow and hawthorn..we thought we’d do a bit of compare and contrast…the hawthorn won….

It was a lovely evening except somewhere from saying ‘let’s all have a barbecue!’ the evening turned into me and Mr P being like super hosts, running hither and thither …did not really sit down much, and if it was not for KB, Mr P. might have spent the whole night crying in front of the barbecue all on his own. The highlight of the evening for me was not the company or the amazing views, but the barbecued bananas…yum.

SONG OF THE DAY In the summer time -Mungo Jerry

More than any other reason I have posted this song to remind men of all ages and ethnicity that the sideburn is not a good look, and I hope it will never return as a look that we consider to be in any way chic or fashionable…please. I have to say the lyrics leave me a bit cold too, as I  do not find that I have women, have women, have women on my mind in the summertime anymore than I have any other season. My problem, I know……enjoy! x

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OH MY LORDIE! Where did the time go?…I looked at the date and there it was! Today is the longest day…I must have blinked and May and June just went …..Tomorrow it will start to slowly get darker again. I am in deep shock. It always seems absurd for the kids not to be on holiday at this time of the year when the nights are so light, because by the time you get to the end of July /August  you are already losing so much light and the end of August it is all over for the long evenings for camping and walking.

It is always a bit depressing, though the up-side is when we do get to December 21st, I am always a bit uplifted that it starts to get light a little bit at a time. So 17.16pm today in the Northern hemisphere is the time when the axis of the wotsit meets the oojamiflip og the whatever.

Today is a day when it is cool to be a pagan/druid  and dance around things. I reckon it is cool to be a druid and a pagan any day.  Stonhenge is  definitely the place to be seen! A bit like Trafalgar Square on New Years Eve, I always think it would be great to go, but always end up not, due to my reticence to being in places with big crowds and no chance of a  decent toilet opportunity. Rubbish – I know. So today I just need to remember that it is the longest day and breathe it in with all my might. Take in all that light and remember it for those days when it is dark and gloomy.

SONG OF THE DAY– SANDY DENNY – Demo version of Who Knows Where the Time Goes. Did not really know this singer until along time after her premature death in 1978.  Seems apt today to listen to this. Don’t get too sad.