meandering ~ discoveries and drizzle

Where do you go when it is damp, cold and continuous drizzle?

On holiday to the north Yorkshire coast of course!

And here we are.

And I am loving it…the winter bleakness, even the dull and damp weather can’t diminish my enthusiasm.

Our 1 bed apartment (see this link if you are interested) looks out over the sea; crashing frothy waves, the occasional surfer (brave), the more than occasional dogs running round and the rolling sea mist.

The journey north was quick last Saturday so we stopped off at Great Ayton (birthplace of Captain Cook) for refreshments and a wander. Too muddy for the little park, we wandered round the churchyard of this Grade 1 listed 12th century church – the Church of All Saints with its cute entrance gate. Though why there has to be an ugly’clean it up’ sign for dog owners attached to the ancient gatepost baffles me – surely no-one would be so disrespectful in a grave yard not to clear up after their pet.

The church is still used today for special services but has no electricity or heating. The tower was removed in 1880 and the whole place is a mix of different periods adding to it and taking away. It is though, a wonderfully peaceful setting and if I were to be burried one day this is the sort of place I would choose, under the great Yew trees with rampant blackberries, ivy and a carpet of snowdrops.

Members of the Cook family are burried here, though we didn’t stop to identify the graves.

I was quite taken by the old vicarage next door which you can see here over the wall standing in front of the newer church of All Saints. It is currently up for sale for the first time in its history and is quite a wonderful house – peeking through the shrubbery for a quick nosy I could easily see myself living there and all for £875,000. Dream on in my case.

Saltburn is not far away from Great Ayton so we arrived before tea, located the flat and dragged our bags up the never ending staircases to the 2nd floor (no lift) but then we need the exercise. We never pack light when going self catering – there are certain things I always take ‘just in case’ after finding some rather unsavoury equipment in previous rented accomodation, one is a sharp knife and our potato peeler (I find other peoples are often blunt),a cheese grater (we have come across some quite rusty ones in the past), a clean jug (I once discovered that it is quite common for some people to use a jug to take a urine sample in for the doctor – so I take my own…jug that is), my steamer (as we never boil our veg and most places don’t run to a steamer), a chopping board (as most will have had meat chopped up on them)….yes I am picky when it comes to the kitchen….oh and a couple of extra towels to supplement the ones provided.

I might add that thankfully – this apartment is well equipped other than the steamer.

Then I take my library of books – this trip I have included two on sketching, as that is one reason for the holiday, the Michael Mosely book Just One Thing to read and make notes, an interesting book called Shiny pennies and grubby pinafores : how we overcame hardship to raise a happy family in the 1950s by Winifred Foley, A Stitch in Time by Una Stubbs (recommended on someone’s blog and which I bought recently for £1.78 as new), last years Country Living Spring edition (still waiting to see this years in the shops), my February folder of magazine cuttings, notes and ideas and my planner.

So I am well stocked up.

On Sunday we abandoned our holiday for a few hours to go across to Yarm to visit my mum for the day. It was the best day so far…calm, sunny and really pleasant – so we bundled her into the wheelchair and pushed her the half mile to the local park and the cafe. It was a good visit and mum enjoyed herself so we were not expecting the barage of calls the following day when our holiday proper began. Sixteen calls throughout the day – I had set my mind to not answering any of them and letting it go to voicemail. It was always the same questions ‘when was the next carer going in?’, ‘why was I not answering straight away?’ Knowing the carers would alert me to any problems I knew she was safe and cared for and honestly…I just needed to enjoy one day of my holiday away from the never ending calls.

I didn’t enjoy the day much in the end it was as bad not answering the calls as it is answering them. I rang her just before the last carer came as I always do and of course she was not pleased that I had not answered her calls and I said I couldn’t possibly be on the end of the phone all the time and sometimes had to have a shower, go shopping or to the doctors etc. Her huffy reply was she wouldn’t be bothering me anymore ever again, which of course then makes the guilt too much to bear and my palpitations worsen and a sleepless night ensued. It was well after the early hours and a long conversation with DH wondering how we can manage this new period in our lives as mum becomes more anxious and needy of us and has to call for reassurance as soon as a carer leaves.

So on Tuesday, true to her word, we had no calls. I rang her at my usual teatime call and told her who the next carer would be and when Vera was on the TV and she was grateful I had rung. I rang her again at 8pm to tell her to put Vera on (thank heavens for Vera on a Tuesday) and all is well again. I expect it will be business as usual again now and she will have forgotten our conversation of me not being on the end of the phone all the time.

Whilst dodging the calls on the Monday, we had a stroll around the centre of Saltburn, checking out possible places for a drink or a meal and having a browse in the craft and gift shops. We returned to the apartment for lunch, a healthy egg salad open sandwich on rye bread and afterwards drove out to Skinningrove, the next coastal village down.

If you have never been and experienced the delights of a gritty, down to earth northern coastal village, then Skinningrove is the place. Fogotten in time, and with no injection of any serious funds from the council budget, I presume, it has a raw charm which I quite like but would not appeal to many who no doubt would prefer the nearby picturesque villages of Staithes and Runswick Bay.

The original cottages, in what would have been a small hamlet, are so lovely. Built with the local sandstone blocks of a soft orangy-brown hue, topped with red pantiles, they once housed families making a living through fishing or agriculture, before the industrialisation took hold.

In the early history of the village there would have been only 13 dwellings, but this was all to change when a seam of iron ore was discovered and in 1848 the opening of nearby Loftus ironstone mine attracted, not only a large workforce, but the building of long rows of tightly packed terraces to house them in and the place expanded within 40 years to 348 dwellings resembling something that looks more at home on the outskirts of Manchester.

This dense mass of red brick terraces (the remaining ones now rendered and painted) with only a back yard and no garden covered the valley bottom and was encased either side by steep hillsides, the mine workings being on the top. Do click on this link to a photo on Facebook to see the sheer scale of the model village (I am sure like me you will be amazed). It is said to have had over 80 small shops within this tight knit community. I would imagine that these brand new two or three up and two down houses in red brick would have been thought a luxurious place to live in the day but now suffer from needy maintenance and repair.

These terraces are some that remained after the clearance in the 1980’s

On our stroll around the streets we came across a few notable things.

I thought this hidden away Fish and Chip shop in an old garage round the back of the houses quite enterprising.

And when we came across this sculpture the ‘shanty town’ of sheds littering the hillside on both sides started to make sense.

It is a land of pigeon fanciers. Makeshift huts and sheds, some in a state of near collapse are a continuing reminder of the dedication of the many pigeon fanciers that lived here.

The slopes of the valley would have been their only green space to grow a few vegetables and house their pigeons. It is hard to tell whether some of them are still in use or just abandoned; there seems little evidence of any gardening or winter crops…and not a pigeon in sight.

Eventually, this boom went into decline and progressive closure of the mines led to mass unemployment and in 1958 the last of the mines closed for good. The 1980’s saw extensive demolition at the heart of the village and the long terraces replaced with some very unspectacular more modern social housing, which does nothing to enhance the appeal of this village, but has given each family a small garden. The village has since been awarded the status of a Conservation Area – far too late in my mind. Many of the really old buildings had already been destroyed. Still you can’t help feeling that this village presents a true picture of its history, where the pleasant and picturesque sits tightly together beside the decay and decline and has become an enduring memorial to changing times.

Just as the village itself is in decline so is the hobby of keeping and racing pigeons – it is no longer a young man’s sport anywhere in this country.

It is that kind of idyllic place, nestled into the surrounding hills with a beach on the doorstep and a peaceful atmosphere, where you want it to be beautiful and cared for. A place to treasure. But the reality is different. The community is still tight knit but there seems to be a complete disinterest in improving or acknowledging the decline of their surroundings. When we passed an old chapel, now used as a builders storage unit, I asked the guys working there what the inscription said on the carved stone above the doorway. They were quite amused came out to have a look and said they had never noticed it before! Looking on as an outsider this whole village feels more like a poor urban area and only the rugged beauty of the shore and hills around saves it.

I saw this quote on Facebook ‘History is made up of ordinary days, lived one at a time’.

This sums up this strange place where Skinningrove’s past has shaped the community that’s here today and will continue into the future.

It is Friday now and we still have more discoveries to make this holiday, sketching has been quite minimal so far given the continuous rain, but that doesn’t matter – we will try again another day…maybe even another holiday.

Back soon x