Robert's occasional blog...


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Drove across the Vale of Belvoir yesterday, to Melton Mowbray via Langar and Scalford. The Vale is especially attractive in its late autumnal mode...not exactly' Vermont in the Fall', but well worth seeing. It remains almost as I first knew it some 50+ years back, with the exception of some industrial development around Langar and the inevitable speeding motorist.

Amazing to consider how many folk live in Leicester and Nottingham all their lives and never visit the Vale, or that adjacent section of East Leicestershire around Tilton and Quenby - the end of the "rolling shires" - which is equally scenic....

Rather nervous and wary as I approached the Melton junction where I had my April road accident, but got through unscathed - and then parked up for a slow walk around the town.

Came back home via the Long Clawson/Hose/Harby route and called in for a late pub lunch. On the strength of a recent excellent experience I ordered Ham 'n Eggs...reasonably priced and most enjoyable - but not quite B... B... standard!

Overheard in Melton Model Railway shop, as a middle-aged man answered his mobile:

"Oh, hello dear. Yes, I'm just in the filling station getting some petrol..."

Cheers

Robt P.

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Aaah, Langar, my old stomping ground. You must have passed my old bungalow, first one on Musters Rd as you come from the crossroads. It was a farm next door, but now a housing estate, crammed like sardines. It's a lovely drive to Melton from there, I had my first born there, and had to catch the bus from Langar to Melton for antenatal visits. One bus in the morning going to M.M and one coming back in the afternoon. Miss either one and you were scuppered. I would wander Melton market to kill time. Our milkman came from Long Clawson and bought cheese as well as milk. When we moved to Radcliffe, we kept him on and we were the only ones on the street that had him. Happy memories.

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Even though I found your colourful rendition of the countryside of the Vale of Belvoir most delightful I thought it was a little presumptuous of your good self to presume not many people seem to appreciate the scenery about that part of the shires. And then to top your Blog off we hear your good self visited a Model Railway shop, the picture I conjure up in my minds eye of your good self leaves a lot to be desired. Trilby dirty Macintosh and brogues.

Rose.

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Good stuff Rose...enjoyed that...accurate description too, as Ian will verify, except for the trilby.

Candid portrait in Ian's Lincs Aviation Day thread - 'George Clooney come back, all is forgiven!'

My point about viewing the Vale was not that it is 'compulsory' to enjoy seeing it, but that many folk from the nearby cities choose never to visit which, IMO, is rather sad.

Cheers

Robt P.

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I agree with the fact that if it's on the doorstep we don't bother with it, since I've been out here in cabbage county we have never visited the cathedral, museum of Lincolnshire life or the Lincoln transport museum at Hykeham, yet when I lived in Nottingham we often paid a visit to said locations

looking forward to more posts on your blog Rob

Cheers

Rog

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looking forward to more posts on your blog Rob

Cheers

Rog

Especially the one that starts with the line

" Had another great day out in 'Bomber County ' with Beefsteak ,Plantfit , et al ..........."

!jumping!

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Fulbeck (sp) too it seems...great portrait opportunity for you, with GK emblem as a backdrop and the hot sun beating down...just prior to him being carried bodily inside for H 'n E, washed down by BC !cheers!

Fynger also gets invite - he can get discounts with his mate the landlord!

Cheers

Robt P.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Perhaps one of the places that Nottinghamians visit but once in a generation is Sherwood Forest's Major Oak.

First went as a nipper and took my kids there for the second visit. Thirty years on I paid my final call (I'm next 'due' as a centurion!) in the company of my three grandchildren.The visitor centre was quite busy, with the usual amenities including the gift shop selling Robin Hood material and toys for - somewhat surprisingly - reasonable prices. The twenty minute walk onward to the tree took more of a toll on Grandad than the children, who enjoyed leaping out from behind the trees as honorary members of Robin's merry band. The Major Oak has been subject to much specialist arboreal attention over the years and certainly, behind it's protective stockade, looks in much better health than previously. Slow trudge back for me - not so for the grandkids, who seemed to have enjoyed their first Edwinstowe excursion.

Just wonder if they will visit twice more in their lifetimes?

Cheers

Robt P.

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  • 4 weeks later...

You can't kid kids:

My 9 year old grandaughter told me that she is going to pass the driving test on her 17th birthday, and be driving around in her own car the same day - for which she is already 'saving up'!

"Very good", says I ... "Will you give me a ride in your car?"

"No", says she.

"Why not?", says I.

"Because you'll be dead by then..."

Cheers

Robt P.

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  • 10 months later...

I've been 'stored unserviceable' following a fall from my ladder, whilst cleaning out guttering - luckily I live in a bungalow, not a 3 storey place!. X-Rays at Newark revealed no hip bone/pelvis damage, but much bruising...staggering around like Groucho Marx...
No longer the tuned athlete, that no one remembers!

Newark Hospital A&E: 37 minutes
QMC A&E (estimated) 4 to 6 hours?

NB: Nottingham & Notts references within a blog, great rarity.

Also had a PC virus, which buggered me up yesterday.
Could only watch in amazement as my brainy daughter sorted it out last night in about 10 minutes flat...
Classic 'generation gap' etc.

Off for a soak in the tub, in deference to my aching carcass - I'll worry about getting out only when I've managed to lower myself in!

Cheers
Bockscar

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  • 4 weeks later...

Apart from the worry about the clothes, and I'd personally wear jeans and my Che Guevara tee shirt as a gesture of being a once fashionable, but now an uncaring old git, are you allowed to take photographs, and if you do, will you stand a good chance of being arrested as a peado, God forbid, but thats the way of the sick, wierd world we live in, from all sides I'm afraid.

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  • 1 month later...

Whilst we might suffer an autumn wasp bite in Wollaton or a bee sting in Beeston, consider what can happen elsewhere...

My Thailand based son tells me that a, middle-aged and physically fit, South African ex-pat neighbour of his - living just a few houses away - was, last week, bitten (in his kitchen!) by a lethal Russell's Pit Viper and, despite rapid hospitalization - including ani-venom injections - was dead within the hour.

So don't worry about our Sandiacre spiders too much...

Cheers

Robt P.

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Makes the occasional Georgia rattler sound almost friendly! :unsure:

I was reading a few weeks ago about Burmese Pythons, released by some idiots in the Florida Everglades. Apparently they like it down there and are breeding to the detriment of local species. The article went on to say they could spread as far North as the Tennessee border. Sure wouldn't want to meet one of those suckers in the garden.

Dave

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ALways thought a pet python would be cool - I'd call it "Monty"! tanning.gif

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Our Georges pet Royal Python is called Steve after his hero Steve Irwin, me, I don't care for it very much, but I have to admit that he is a bit of a cutie. I worry that he might get out and devour one of the dogs one night when they are asleep, more likely they'd tear him to pieces given half the chance.

Going back to an early posting of yours about the Major Oak, Rob. It was one of our play places when I was a kid, we used to stay at Uncle Eric's at Edwinstowe and go up there every Sunday morning. There was an old boy in charge who used to sit outside the opening in the trunk in a deck chair. My cousin who now lives in Morecambe reckons she has some photo's of us both peering out the gap, I'd love to see those but she hasn't a scanner.

I took our Scout group up there on a trip about 10 years ago, boy had it changed, you couldn't get anywhere near the tree, probably a good thing.

I recall another, similar tree called Robin Hoods Larder, it was a hell of a walk from Major Oak, through some very eery parts of the Forest, I recall it blew down in a storm in the late 50's and the bits were sold off as souvenirs, anyone remember that.

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Thank you Stan! cheers.gif

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I remember being able to actually play IN the Major Oak....Know th story of Robin Hoods Larder...but not old enough to be able to have seen it in person.

This is the best picture I can find of it I'm afraid:

rhlarder.jpg

I was very lucky to have spent much of my childhood rambling around Sherwood Forest. My uncle was the caretaker of the local school and knew everybody, he was one of those loveable people who was everyones pal, so we got to know the coal miners, gamekeepers, forest wardens and everyone involved in Edwinstowe and the forest. I remember him telling us the terrible tale of the game warden who had his arm torn off by a badger, I think that this was just a little story to make us aware of the dangers of the forest and to respect the wildlife. My mothers side of the family, the Browns, always loved wildlife and my cousin still does, imagine, in those days the Red Squirell still ruled supreme.

If it was suggested to us that we would have to make the arduous journey for a weekend at Edwinstowe via Huntingdon Street and an East Midland bus, we couldn't wait.

If you ever wander down the footpath along the river to the railway triangle next to the Dog and Duck, the weir that is still there in the river, was built by my brother, cousin and I one hot summers day in 1959.

Happy days, never to be forgotten.

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