Gretton - Harringworth - Seaton - Lyddington - Thorpe by Water - Gretton

11.5 miles, with Barry, Eddie, Gordon, Maureen. Sunny, very warm day.





The sun was shining in Gretton, though some of the valley was in mist. We followed the Jurassic Way from Gretton, out past Harringworth Lodge, and over the fields, across the road from Deene to Harringworth and into Shotley.









Two views of reflections on the very still lake near Harringworth Lodge.





A goods train on the Welland viaduct, seen from just above Shotley. You can see Harringworth church steeple and further back, Seaton church.





From Shotley we walked into Harringworth, taking the footpath past the stables, and through the churchyard. The church was open - it was cleaning day.



Inside the church is a plaque commemorating Fanny Maria Blaydes, nee Page Turner, who died aged 64. She was the wife of the Vicar of Harringworth. On 21st August 1884, she was returning home in a pony phaeton, from a visit to friends in Gretton. The pony took fright for some reason and reared up. Mrs Blaydes fell out and died on the spot. There was an inquest in the Swan Inn, Harringworth, and the Rev Blaydes later had a stone placed by the road where she died. The full story was published in Taking Stock No 1, by the Gretton Local History Society.

The stone is inscribed

Hic Obit

FMB, Aug . . .1884

Sudden death, sudden glory.

I'd noticed the stone several times, but was intrigued in Jan 2005, when I saw that someone had left flowers there. A sad footnote on the plaque in the church was that one of their sons died at sea at the age of 21.

Eggs for sale in Harringworth.The path goes alongside the house, but was a bit tricky to follow properly.I have several photographs of Seaton church through the viaduct - this is Harringworth church, looking back from the valley floor.Once we had found our way back to the correct path, we crossed the Welland, and made our way round the renovated farm, through a 'stile' where you slide the bars through the posts, and out to the road between Caldecott and Seaton. We crossed this and almost immediately on our right was the path over the disused railway up towards Seaton. From Seaton we took Grange road, which became a track and led us gradually down to Lyddington, passing by, but not climbing nearby hills.We are not sure what this is - on Lyddington village green.

From Lyddington we walked up Thorpe Road, with its double hill, then down towards Thorpe by Water. We didn't go into Thorpe, but took the footpath opposite Thorpe Road, after crossing the road between Caldecott and Harringworth. This crosses a couple of fields, then goes under another disused railway, and over the Welland on a bridge with one handrail.We followed the river for a while, until crossing a field towards some trees, where the path comes out near a farm building. From here the path continues up hill by a hedge, then cuts across a field to a gate. At this point we crossed the railway line which is still in use, and after another kissing gate, made our way through a field with evidence of ridge and furrow. We came out at the gate behind the church.



The trees are changing colour down near the river.

Credit Check?

And I bet you thought I got all this gear for FREE, didn't you?



Ya, that is a good laugh! As you might imagine the Blog/just me generally/ goes through or at least sees a lot of gear. I have some interesting stories as a consumer. These are comments from transactions just from the month of December to date in early Jan. . It was a big month for me. A lot of money going onto and getting credited back to my CCs. And enough cash transactions I'd rather not add them up right now. I thought I'd share the good will I received. The comments here are based on real incidents on a few retail purchases, refunds, exchanges, warranty from 12/4/12 till today. Some of which are still being processed when this blog post was published, on 1/13/13, much to my dismay. No one knows who I amor cares who I am when I am buying gear. Although one of the sales staff in all of this did recognise me from Cold Thistle. It was fun to chat about some of the great productstheirstore did offer.



Steep and Cheap *A+, in stock goods,almost the speed of lightshipping and easy returns to the CC. aka Backcountry.com *A... in disguise. Only an *A for Backcountry because they dicked around on a price match and lost a sale for the effort.



Mtn Gear *B+ (reason: initial delivery was a little slow across state)

Bought on mail order. 5 business day delivery. I get 2 or 3 day delivery from the Portland stores as a comparison. Called the retail store a day before I was to be in Spokane and wanted to know if I could try on a couple pairs of boots. Walked in with a pairbought via mail order. Walked out with a new pairafter paying the difference in retail price and sales tax. Easy transaction. Mtn Gear has a habit of selling items they don't have in stock and making you wait. Likely happened with the mail order pairin this case..if the shipping time from Colorado is a clue. Hard to make a living if you have to inventory and warehouse every item in your mail order catalog. But some actually do just that.



Eddie Bauer *A+ (reason: everything was amazingly easy and seemed fair to the consumer)

Bought at retail in the local store. Returned a couple of items, one 9 months old with out receipt. The other items 6 months old. All new with tags. No receipt refunded for the lowest sale price. Fair enough. But more than 1/2 of what I had paid originally. The rest were refunded to my card and credited to my account the next working day. And because almost everything I was interested in buying or might have been interested in buying was at 50% off I dropped another $500 while I was there. But the the biggest reason I spent an additional $500? Was because I knew Eddie Bauer would stand behind the products no matter what I decided. Now or a year from now.I may not love everything they make but I know I won't get stung buying or returning it. EB is fast becoming one of my favorite gear supplier and that of my partners. Begrudgingly may be but none the less it is happening.



Patagonia *was a D-* now a solid F (reason: terrible return/refund time frames and communication)

By far the worst retail experience I have ever had with one company to date and involving the most amount of money on one transaction. Returned a used item ($400) and a new item ($250) no receipts. (my bad) The used pant was refunded at the full $400 the new jacket @ $100! Not happy about that and shouldn't have returned/accepted that price withthat kind of a loss. Down $150! That is less than half of retail. 1/2 is thekind of price I like to pay not what I want to lose.I was a bit shell shocked on that one so I took a gift cert, and wanted to think about what I wanted next at Patagonia.



Mail ordered a new $450 jacket. Paid via a CC. Free 2 day air. 4 working days to deliver. Returned jacket. They received in on the 28th. Acknowledged via email on 28th. Refund was not been processed and not back on my card until Jan 4th. Quoted anywhere from 7 to 10 working days.



Bought more at the local retail store, 3 current, new items. $950 @ retail. Paid cash.Retail store didn't have a very good color selection but I needed to know sizes. After some thought I asked both retail andmail order if it was "easy" to exchange items for color through PatagoniaMail Order. "No problem" I was told. Patagonia mail order received items for exchange, ( I paid for tracking) no acknowledgement of that receipt. They got them on the 12/ 28. I received the replacements on Jan 12. Time frame to date? 16 days. Iwas told today it will be at least10 WORKING days. They hit their estimate. What others seem to be able to do in 36 hrs.I really like some of the newest Patagonia gear. Just way too much to deal with trying to get exactly what you want if the retail store doesn't have it. And a little weird on returns.They ended up replacing the items for color and credited my CC on one item instead of doing an exchange and returning it. They did apologise how ever when I called looking for my jacket.



Zappos *A+ (in stock items, sale prices,fast deliver, easy returns)

I ended up buying a new Patagonia jacket and the matching pants from Zappos that Patagonia took "forever " to replace or simply kept. These guys always rock. I should give them more of my business.



Mountain Hardware *C- (reason: slow delivery and not such a great warranty)

Ordered a new jacket.Paid with a debit card. Did it the same day at the RAB order below. 5 days on delivery from RAB. 18 days for delivery from Mtn Hardware. Dismal. Returned a pair of gloves on warranty. Gloves were obviously damaged on a rappel. But leaking previous. I was offered a 50% discount on a new pair of gloves. I bought the gloves offered on "warranty". Same price you could find on line any time BTW. Not like the old days when they actually honored the "lifetime" warranty.



Dynafit *A+ (quick delivery)

5 small orders in 45 days. No fuss, no muss, credit card and ground UPS from Colorado. 4 days. Easy on onereturn (miss ship)as well.



La Sportiva *A (quick delivery,two really odd and separate addresses)

No fuss, no muss, credit card and ground UPS from Colorado. 4 days.

They rocked getting out two pair of skis to wildly differing mtn town addresses very quickly.



Moose Jaw *A (but could be an A++ if they would ditch the slow boat deliveries)

Ordered a $600 jacket on CC. Took for ever and a day to arrive on FED EX/USPS

8days, 6 working days. But once returned, the return was processed next day. Refund on my CC the next. Almost the best ever.



US Outdoors *A, Items in stock, quick delivery (from Portland) and easy returns. Some what slow getting it back on the card. They took a week.



Outland USA via Amazon.com *A+

Free shipping and 3 day delivery including the weekend, Tenn. to Seattle WA!



Cold Cold World *A+ (worth the wait)

Impeccable custom orby design packs, made by hand to your order, delivered in a timely manner. It doesn't get any better than that. Seriously, it doesn'tget any better on custom gear.



RAB *A (again quick delivery)

No fuss, no muss, credit card and ground UPS from Colorado. 4 days.

Ordered a new jacket. Paid with a debit card. Did it the same day at the Mtn H order below. 4 days on delivery from RAB. 18 days for delivery from Mtn Hardware. There stuff is good enough that I stopped fretting about the odd sizing for me and simply have the garmentsprofessionally tailoredif I can't live with the factory fit.



Native glasses *F

Warranty replacement for faultyitemscost me $35. on my credit card and myshipping. And two returns to get it right. I won't buy another pair of Native's because of the really bad customer service after the sale.



REI *A+

Love them or hate them. Never a hassle on returns for any reason and aquick refund back to your card. Almost immediate credit card refunds but always within 24 hrs since I started paying attention a few years ago. If they have what you want still an amazing place to do business with.



Everyone has a holiday shopping story I suspect....some good, some GREAT and some just as bad. That is mine for Dec . What is your's?

Bicycles, Walls and the Passage of Time

Over the holidays I received a DVD of a film diptych that I'd long wanted to watch: Cycling the Frame and The Invisible Frame, directed by Cynthia Beatt.



In 1988, Beatt made the short filmCycling the Frame. Described as a "cine-poem," this 30 minute documentary follows a young British actress (Tilda Swinton) as she cycles along the perimeter of the Berlin Wall in what was then West Berlin. It is a 100 mile journey along mostly abandoned roads and overgrown dirt paths crossing forests and fields. The ever-present wall, with its menacing guard towers, turns the landscape surreal: It severs railroad tracks, creates paths to nowhere, and separates waterfront properties from the bodies of water they front. As Swinton pedals, she vocalises her stream-of-conscience thoughts about the things she sees and how they make her feel. As she grows tired of cycling and overwhelmed with her surroundings, the film begins to resemble a dream sequence. Finally she arrives to her Brandenburg Gate start and concludes that "this place is mad."



More than two decades after the original journey, the director and actress set out again to film the follow up, The Invisible Frame. In , they retrace their route along the now long-absent Berlin Wall. A visibly more mature, sharper dressed Tilda Swinton cycles the perimeter, this time weaving back and forth across the phantom border. There are signs of life now: The roads have bike lanes and motorised traffic. On some of the dirt paths we see joggers, dog walkers, children and other cyclists. But despite an apparent return to normality along these stretches, the majority of the landscape is no less eerie twenty years after the wall's removal. We see abandoned buildings, barren fields, dingy looking lakes, random bits of strangeness. It's as if scarred, dead space remains left where the separation used to be. Disconcerted, Swinton meditates on this as she pedals, concluding that "when one wall comes down others come up."



While these aren't cycling films exactly, the prominent role of the bicycle is impossible to ignore. From a practical standpoint, a bike was necessary to make the films happen. Much of the route along the real/ phantom Wall is not accessible to cars, and traveling 100 miles on foot would not have worked with the scope of the project. The speed of the bicycle matched the speed with which the narrative needed to flow, and even the camera crew traveled via a cargo recumbent. As each film progresses, the bicycle begins to seem increasingly important, merging with Swinton's visceral sense of self. She starts to mention it in her stream-of-conscience utterings, to talk about space in relation to not just her, but to her and the bike, to confuse herself with the bike. While this contributes to the mystical feel of the films, it will also be recognised by cyclists as a completely normal sensation to have during long rides.



It was interesting also that the bicycle seemed well-matched to Swinton's person in each of the films. In the original, the actress's flowing clothing looks worn and a little disheveled; her hair natural and slightly unkempt. The bike she rides is a rickety swoopy mixte with faded paint. In the newer film, Swinton is dressed in a stylized and sophisticated manner. She wears architectural-looking clothing and shoes. There are sharp angles to her haircut, her hair now a platinum blond. The bicycle she rides is angular and modern, its paint metallic. This transformation in personal style and bike echoes the rift I felt between the earlier and the latter films. Cycling the Framecame across as spontaneous and exploratory, whereas The Invisible Frameseemed stiffer and more choreographed. The actress/cyclist is no longer the same person and does not relate to this landscape in the same way. She talks about openness, but speaks in political and philosophical generalities and is seemingly less present in Berlin itself.



Can we ever recreate an experience, or re-visit a place? And can we ever really understand another country, as we tour it on a bike with a foreigner's benign detachment and predatory curiosity? These are the questions these films, with their collective 200 miles of cycling along a real/ unreal wall perimeter, ultimately seem to be asking.



If you are local and would like to borrow my copy, drop me a line. The Invisible Framecan be viewed on netflix, but the original Cycling the Frame was not available online last time I checked.

Wedding Day!

Jessica and I got married today! We had a beautiful ceremony filled with friends, family and love. It really was a perfect day. We'd like to extend our thanks to all those that helped make this day perfectfor us. We appreciate and love you all!



Special thanks to Timothy Young for officiating, Staci Drouillard for the incredible cake and our friend Paul for taking beautiful photos throughout the day! And a very special thanks to Carah Thomas, Rod Dockan and Al Oikari of Cook County's Most Wanted for providing the awesome music for our ceremony. You guys were incredible and we totally loved the "Joy of My Life" song... you guys are the best! Thank You :-)

Jemez Creek Picnic

We stopped at the gas station across the road from where we normally buy Indian fry bread since there was no one selling it, and bought bean burritos and peanut butter cookies to have a quick picnic by Jemez Creek. There was some water in the creek but not as much as is normal during April. One photo is from inside a covered picnic area looking out toward the trees and road. Another is of a tree that has grown up through the roads, a real bonsai tree.

For Kevin.....

Godspeed my friend.......you are missed.



"People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I
didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't preparing for them. It didn't even know
they existed."
- Cormac McCarthy


http://kevinlandolt.blogspot.com/

The Amazing Bloomin' Cactus

This Christmas Cactus was given to me six years ago when it was about 6 inches high. Now it is 24 inches across and the highest branch is 15 inches high; the pot is 7 inches high. The first half dozen flowers bloomed last weekend. I counted 20 full blooms, 6 more ready to bloom, 10 medium sized buds and more than 50 small buds just coming on. It is incredibly beautiful, the pictures in no way do it justice but I just had to share. The most blooms that have ever been on it at the same time has been six. Has anyone ever seen a Christmas Cactus with so many flowers?