Wednesday. Not a shorts day then.

Stuff I ordered from ebay has mostly arrived now. Though i am still waiting for pink flamingos for the garden. The monster high clothes and other dolls clothes...garden lights and dolls all arrived. Disapointed about the flamingos.........

So here we are at Wednesday. Monza and I have been rattling around since 3am....it is bouncing with wind and rain. We both declined the opportunities to go for an early walk with the sunrise. I got out washing. why? Well it is loads of towels and blankets from the back of rusty van. I put them out on the washing line anyway. So far they have been washed over another four times. Then drank tea. Then some more tea. Pox this is set for the day.
"Loverley" said Lee as he woke up with monza jumping on him"well at least the car does not leak.....do yer want tea?"

So we drank tea and cuddled Monza whilst contemplating the plan for the day. It was to be Wetherby calling back through Huby to see a house.
I have to check out a house today. I have no hours at work so i am drinking tea and doing research. Some American friends are coming in September to find their Yorkshire roots and soak up the atmosphere. I say froends! Only two have actually met me ....though i guess by now those who have not will have been duely versed as to our strange excentric yorkshire ways. So for my part checking out the house is essential. Needs to be near a good pub!
Next......the itinerary. More tea and more research as the rain batters the windows

There are small castles. There are churches. There are effigies and gothic huge castles. There are mansions and cellars filled with history and ghosts. There are stories......portraits....places museums and a prison some ruins....an abbey.....Whitby.....Pickering....Scarborough.....york.. Harrogate ....Ripley church stuffed with their history.....(family member was vicar......known as "the plague pastor" as he stayed when all others ran away......a railway (this has nothing to do with it. I am just throwing it in...) in fact everywhere in this part of Yorkshire is related in some way to this family.........ancient it is.....All this has to be fitted into one week with time off for eating.
"anything else I need to fit in?" i asked after reading out the list....

"Otley.  Ilkley.   Wetherby.    LEEDS!!!!" intejected Lee taking time to look up from his utube about repairing and replacing car bits.

The weather forecast is heavy rain all day. Yes it is good that fonz car does not leak.

Now 4pm and it is still hammering with rain and the car still does not leek. the sun room however is a different matter and water is collecting like it is to sink the Titanic.
My mission to find the house was acomplished and the car is still going strong.

 Through a farm gate that has to be opened and shut securely. That was me soaked then..........and there was a notice saying beware the BULL!!!!

 So we did not mess around. up the farm road we went ...


past a herd of cows all of which wanted to say hello......

 into the working farm yard and there it is. I had found what I was looking for. eventually. we got as far as 20 minutes from our house and went in predicable circles. my directions are not all they might be.....ask any one!

 we went into the farm yard and turned around then left straight away. after all we were not actually invited!

 The view coming back across the farm land.....

 and yes there was a bull in that field.

 So the mission was accomplished. The house is gorgeous in a fabulous place and It was all booked for the dates required last night.....so it is a good job that it is all gorgeous.

Jobs a good 'un.

Back home Lee proceeded to find more out about Fonz car. It turns into an estate car and all the back seats fold down to make a massive space. He found some storage compartments in the back still with junk inside.....old pair of trainers and some tools so far.

Lee says that someone paid about £35,000 for Fonz when new. He was "top of the range"........Monza will be pleased.

About four weeks until my birthday so I ordered this Glen Kilpatrick print on canvas........

whitby-photography on ebay. it is only small. this is okay....as I only have small walls.

Off we went with Bowie playing

 The Fonz has a CD player that works. It can have six ready to change......Bowie was one of them that Lee randomly picked.       Off we set with Bowie playing to take Monza for his walk.
In the golden oldie days when I still had a hair colour...usually red or pink sometimes blond and once green by accident.  I adored David Bowie. I spent months following the serious moonlight tour. So off we set with Ziggy playing guitar jamming good with Weird and Gilly and the spiders from Mars.........

 Monza waited patiently ....well kind of...     for neighbours to move their cars and then Lee loaded him into the boot of the car. He was very good about it though he was used to a big van all to himself I wondered if a car boot might be a bit of a come down for him....

 The next thing about having a car instead of a big van is that we can go and park inside the old grave yard for the walk......the van had to park in the drive.....it is easier to keep Monza away from strangers.

I took Elizabeth Taylor doll. This is the doll photo of the day......

he fits very well into the boot. which has a big window and two side windows, Monza was delighted with his new view driving by.

So when Tuesday dawned at about 4am Monza was already downstairs waiting for me to take him out. I did so in my pink dressing gown with a coat and hood as it was pouring with rain. I looked to see if the dawn was worth a photo and noted the grey mist. I brought Monza back, made tea and took a Yogurt for breakfast in my pocket and Monza and I had breakfast in bed.
Lee informed me  that the car needs to be road taxed before we can go anywhere.The fact that we did yesterday is besides the point. The post office does not open until 9am. This left quite a while. so we all went back to sleep.

Eventually it became a normal time of day and we went and got the road tax we needed. Loaded Monza into the boot of the Fonz car and set off for a drive in the mist and rain.
We headed up to the Otley Chevin planning to go around past the Royalty and Chevin pub to Otley and come back Menston way. The police had the road closed up by the Chevin as there had been a big smash up. change of plan....

The photo is all we could see, so we went to an Asda store and bought a new mobile phone as Lee had dropped his new one and smashed the screen It only kind of works. irritatingly when the phone rings it will not allow it to be answered. So we missed the call about Lee's medication delivery.
Pox.

 By the time we stopped at the local trading estate and had lunch it still rained. I stayed in the car with Monza as he is not ready to be left on his own yet......

Lee was gone about half an hour. When he returned the car would not start as the battery had run down......so we had to jump start it in the car park.
The adventures start.........so new battery it is then.


" He played it left hand
But made it too far
Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band....."

"done it!" said Lee as he came in for dinner. "lots of things fixed today!"
"oh good. We can have dinner then"
He had fixed the central locking system. The Fonz has a few faults.....comparatively he is new and pristine.... but.there are a few niggles..... a sixteen year old car  which has had some very obvious prangs and cost £250.00 ...So what do you expect?
a slushing noise when we brake........and the central locking mostly the boot and an extremely dodgy back door which has had a very obvious prang. The paint work does not match and the door has no handle. This is okay as there are three other doors that do.
we keep discovering things....like a shades holder up above the driving seat. it fell open and out popped a pair of wraparound shades with Harley Davidson  logo on one side. AND the boot is a twin opening tailgate...for putting in shopping........two electric sun roofs and lots of controls on the steering wheel for this and that......

"Now Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo
Like some cat from Japan, he could lick 'em by smiling
He could leave 'em to hang
'Came on so loaded man, well hung and snow white tan...................."

The fonz. It is a car.

 The fonz is a car acquired yesterday which was a Sunday. I told Lee that it was his mission to got to Bradford and "just buy something that goes". So he did. and very pleased at his own brilliance he is too.

 The Fonz comes complete with the usual lumps bumps and rust you would expect from a sixteen year old car from a dealership specialising in third hand cars and MOT failures.  It was cheap anyway and then Lee being LEE knocked them down on price again. The clutch slips and it "pulls to the right".....and due to this they were selling it as parts only....Lee bought the whole car knowing perfectly well he could fix it.

 The fact that Lee is a well qualified car mechanic has been forgotten in the mists of time and overlooked when wondering what the hell we are going to do now that A man with a van business is gone.

 The Fonz. This car named its self.
Lee went over to Bradford with his father. Father gave him a lift in his Scoda, though through sheer exasperation Lee drove there and Father followed the Fonz home. Lee had to stop to wait for him as he would only drive at 30 miles per hour and this took a lot longer and nearly caused a pile up.

" ah wouldnt buy it. its got leaves in't engine an no tax or insurance" said father "They don do tax an insurance!? Ah wouldn buy it"

"DAD! tek yer fingers out o the running engine the fan will tek yer hand off when it kicks in!!!!" yelled Lee "TEK YER HAND OFF THE FAN DAD!"

" it got a pipe missin there...look..."
"DAD!!!!! the fan will tek yer arm off...ger it out the road of the FAN!!!!"

and so on. What the dealer thought I can only guess at.

Lee did really well and spent two hours poking swinging on and driving The Fonz. The battery was dead so originally he had to be jump started.
The Fonz is a sixteen year old Renault Megane Scenic. He has working electric windows,,,and two sun roofs. A radio and CD player,,,part leather seats and a huge boot and back seat for Monza the big hairy dog.
The Fonz was not picked for make or colour simply that he runs, has MOT and Monza fits into the back. He cost £250.00. Which is £249.00 approx over budget. When Lee first turned up it was £390.00. So we have wheels.

It is now 6.23 am . I am just making tea. Then Monza and Lee will get woken up. We  all need a drive.

Another August bank holiday, Rusty the van is revived, and a dinasore bone

 Well actually it was not in fact a dinasore bone, it very recently belonged to a cow. Even so it is still a large bone which weighed a lot
. We had this bone in a carrier bag. it was still obvious, as it was huge and leaked blood...... all up the busy street back to the van. Just in front of us was a little dog on a lead with a lady paying no attention because she was on her mobile phone having some banal conversation shouting about.......er not a lot really. The dog did not care either, HE had spotted the bone.......the lady continued her conversation in a distracted manner. the little dog followed the bone......we walked around a lamp post, so did the little dog, the lady on the mobile phone was now tangled around a lamp post by her dog. ...she did not even notice.....we kept on down the street.

The friday before August bank holiday, everyone is going somewhere other than where they live.
The whole of Yorkshire cueing behind caravans on the way to Whitby! the traffic was jammed all the way back to Wetherby. Otley was nearly empty. We parked rusty the old van and had a wander around.

 Monza the German Sheperd insists on coming with us. The bone was for him of course.  We took our usual route past the old mechanics institute building.....

 stopped and marveled at the stone detail, and wandered again what it all about......

 Past the Methodist hall....

 resisting the invitation to coffee....

 I love the detail in this building too........Then on to a factory shop to buy a pair of sun glasses. The sun was bright and Lee was getting a migraine. So we spent £3.00 on a new, as yet unbroken pair of sun glasses, this is £2.01 over budget, as we never spend more than 99p on anything if we can possibly help it........

Next we went to all the charity shops and the church. This is being refurbished, so I could not go and see my favorite effigies of the Fairfax family. Still never mind, I did find the memorial to my favorite ghost.....

 Caroline Wood is said to haunt Bolling hall in Bradford. after the death of her husband Captain Wood, she is said to wander from room to room. she never got over his loss. There is a beautiful portrait of her on the stairs opposite her husband. She is my favorite ghost, if she is indeed a ghost in this place,  Her portrait is compelling, I love to go to Bolling hall, just to see this picture alone.
I was delighted to find her memorial in Otley church and get a photo of it....so here it is.

 The stained glass in Otley church is very beautiful, every week...if the church is open I go to see the fabulous windows......

 This visit, the sun was streaming in through a small window casting light onto the alter rail....This is a very manipulated version....

 These two pictures are variations of this. The bottom one is how it actually looked.....

 Stained glass from the alter.....

 Detail from the choir.....

 usually I go straight to the effigies, and as they are closed off for cleaning, I spent time in the alter and choir area....

 This.....I need to research. How come !? I here you all ask...well dear readers I have nothing to write about this.....fascinating as it is... and it is...I know there are great stories here....

 Light ...great Yorkshire light..so beautiful on this day, with the bright sun outside.

 A carved detail from the choir area.....

 The lectern........

MORE stained glass......then out of the very noisy doors into the sun, and the modern world.

we went and bought some steak pasties to eat under the market canopy.....

as Lee had earlier bought new sun glasses and it is about to be a bank holiday in Yorkshire.....the heavens opened and it hammered with rain and wind. just before this it was a perfect summer day...flip flops, caravans and sun glasses. now it turned into a hurricane.....

We had to wait to sit on the covered benches to eat!

after this we slopped and squelched to the butchers to get Monza a bone and the humans some sausages.......

we did a lot more squelching and slopping back to the rusty old van with the big bone...Ii was extremely flappy slop slop...as I always wear flip flops. it is a hangover from when I lived in Cornwall that I refuse to give up.

Folk art primitive raggy doll.

A folk art primitive rag doll made from a Kim's Whims pattern

I have called her Hannah, and she is signed and dated with her name on the back of her neck

August pictures.

August pictures