The Orton Diaries

Hallooooo, Space Chums! Incredibly, the half-term holiday is over! It's already a week since I was here- Fawcett Mill Fields, near Orton, by Tebay (if you know the M6 junctions) in Cumbria:

 I've been going to Fawcett Mill Fields for over ten years now- which I can scarcely believe, since it seems only months since we took the Eskdale to Ravenglass miniature railway, when we used to stay at Esk View, the big pink granite house near Boot, a year or two before the Foot and Mouth Crisis. Gary S was my "gaffer" back then, so it's even stranger to try to reconcile his passing with those memories.
As you can see further below, it's a substantial gathering of middle-aged people and their offspring of various ages. The first night of the weekend involves people travelling from Aberdeen (like me, this time, for the first time), Glasgow and London catching up over a late dinner. The Saturday and Sunday feature a couple of long walks (ten years ago, when the children were very young, that only meant walking to the swing park in Orton - more recently, it meant Wet Sleddale, home of the Withnail Bridge, near Shap.) This time, we had a gentle excursion along the River Eden, to an 18th-century folly called Lacy's Caves (check out my trepidation as we enter the sandstone chambers- well, they were very dark!)

We continued on through the village of Glassonby to the Bronze Age stone circle called Long Meg and her Daughters. Wordsworth described it as: " that family forlorn...whose massy strength and stature scorn the power of years". If you recall "Shoebox Zoo", the great wizard Michael Scot (played in the show by Peter Mullan) was reputed to have turned a witches' coven into these stones; but it's thought Long Meg is actually an even older Neolithic menhir. The eponymous Colonel Lacy, creator of the caves, apparently tried to destroy the circle with explosives until a sudden thunderstorm frightened his superstitious workmen...

So, here we are, posed among "That Sisterhood in hieroglyphic round". Since this time of year also coincides with rugby matches, it's become traditional for the men ( and now the boys) to watch Scotland in the George Hotel in Orton after the walk:

Unfortunately, the pub has been sold and, at present, doesn't look anywhere as nice as this although the fire was still roaring away. One of the bar staff dutifully fetched her own portable tv- satellite having gone West with the previous landlord- and switched on the trivia machine for the younger members of the party. I couldn't give a stuff about rugby as long as I can get a pint or two or three. There wasn't a big selection and the whole experience was a bit dismal, especially after a pasting by the Welsh.
You can see the Sitting Room at the top of this page (Minstrel Gallery not pictured) where my team trounced everyone else at Pub Cricket- I am not magnanimous in victory- and where I also chaired a pop quiz that was too difficult for our party (Which Beach Boys song contains the lyric" I'm a real cool head"?/ Which British rapper appeared in Dr. Who last year?)
On Sunday, we set out on a walk along a disused railway line with a pretty 1930s-style illustration of a nearby viaduct but the rain was far too heavy and the winds too strong. I was soaked to the skin and my gloves took a day to dry. We stopped off in Orton to visit Kennedy's chocolate factory. They're no longer selling the "brainy" Acticoa stuff although there's still plenty to choose from:

I was sleeping in the self-contained Garden Room at Fawcett Mill- which this year has a portable tv, so I could keep up with Being Human- but it has no en suite facilities which is a bind at my time of life, frankly.
On Monday, I was fortunate to get a lift again back to Aberdeen, where I was able to do a bit of shopping- Forbidden Planet's stock was more varied than it had been before Christmas- and I was back to reality in Elgin by seven p.m. that night.  When Gary died in 2008, I found the weekend at the Mill really therapeutic- that was the year I tried to invite the fancy-dress pirates in the adjacent house over, which I felt was his influence at work ! Last year, during my probation at Eastwood, it was also a very welcome break; this year, however, I felt disconnected and fretful. The extra travelling didn't help- an additional four and a half hours either way (no offence to the wonderful people who let me be their passenger)  - but one notably positive thing was that Alison's choice of reading reconnected me with Armistead Maupin.

I read all of the trashy, dishy Tales of the City series in the mid-to-late 80s, ending  with the glum "Sure of You" -appositely enough in the back seat of the Camerons' car on one trip back up the M6, possibly from a weekend in Brough. I went to look for Maupin in Elgin Library and found this book. I devoured it in a couple of days  as I rejoined familiar characters who were also at various stages of middle age.
It doesn't have an outlandish mystery as an over-arcing plot- no cannibals or suicide cult leaders this time- but it still has that "fabulous" blend of sentimentality, hedonism, deadpan wit and far-fetched coincidence. While it serves as a palate cleanser from my usual diet of superheroes, monsters and robots, don't think I've decamped wholesale to a literary Rainbow Nation. Oh no.

This thing of beauty is the cd reproduction of the 1979 vinyl long player version of one of the most popular Dr. Who stories of all time and I bought it two weeks ago in Elgin's Waterstone's. The six-part tv story (which is very repetitive when watched in one sitting) is reprised here in an hour with sonorous linking narration by Lord Tom Baker. Yes, Sarah's radiation poisoning clears up mysteriously quickly and yes, Harry has nothing to do; but with all the fat cut away, this most beloved of classic Who adventures is fresh and engaging. My very favourite aspect is the magnificently doomy music by Dudley Simpson- all sinister, martial brass and woodwind. I would very much like it if Modern Doctor Who would dispense with the upbeat John Williams fanfares and return to the unearthly howl of Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire's original, alien theme. I've even grown to like the frantically- bubbling "mash-up" version employed by Big Finish for the last three years, in the Eighth Doctor adventures (but more of that next time...).So, a bit more terror at teatime, Mr. Moffat.

Next: Mercurial
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