The Poet Laureate

I bought myself a book in Salts Mill - which, in itself, isn't unusual. The bookshop there is such a rich and tempting cornucopia of literary goodies. What made this more exciting was that the author, Simon Armitage, was there doing a book signing. Simon is the current UK Poet Laureate, an honorary position granted by the monarch, on the advice of the Prime Minister. He was appointed to the position in 2019 and will hold it until 2029. The role doesn't have any specific duties but the incumbents generally provide suitable verse for national occasions (which must be quite a daunting task!) You can read Simon's poem for King Charles' Coronation HERE.  I rather like it. 

Simon Armitage was born and lives in Yorkshire, and is Professor of Poetry at Leeds University, amongst other positions. I've read some of his work before but he came to my attention originally when he created the Stanza Stones, in collaboration with the sculptor Pip Hall. They are rocks scattered across our moorlands, inscribed with verse by the poet and forming a sculpture trail of some 47 miles across the high Pennines.  I have been to find a few of them in the past. (See HERE).

Advent Windows #6

Here are two detailed windows that both need close inspection to enjoy their full beauty - but beautiful they are. The first belongs to Martins, one of the estate agents who have premises in Saltaire. Appropriately, it features intricately cut houses and a church, and Father Christmas on his sleigh, pulled by reindeer, swooping through the night sky. 

The one below takes inspiration from the wonderful C S Lewis series of Narnia books: 'This is the lane of Narnia', said the Faun. 'Where we are now; all that lies between the lamppost and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea.'  Aslan, the great lion at the heart of the books, is depicted at the top.  

 

Christmas sparkle

Just to continue the Christmas theme a little longer, here are some of the decorations and Christmas trees that adorned Harewood House last year. It must take them days to set it all up so beautifully each year - and there are always enough baubles to supply the entire city of Leeds!  

It was delightful though. You have to be pretty hard-hearted not to be warmed by the sight of a traditional tree laden with lights and trinkets. There were as many decorations below stairs as there were in the State Rooms too, with an array of Nutcracker soldiers in the kitchen as well.  

Christmas Day 2023

Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas, if you celebrate it. 

'For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. 

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.' 

Isaiah 9: 6-7

This nativity scene is part of the reredos behind the altar in the Lady Chapel at York Minster, directly under the extraordinary Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in England. (See my earlier post HERE). The reredos isn't medieval, because this part of the Minster was destroyed in a fire in the 1830s and was closed for a long time. I think the carved altar screen dates back to the 1920s. It is ornate but pleasing nonetheless, showing the magi on the left and shepherds on the right, worshipping the infant Jesus. 

These depictions of the Christmas story (the reason for the season!) can leave us feeling that it is all rather sweet, lovely and 'far away' but, as the video below shows, it is a very current story. 

Baubles and candles

More from Harewood House: 'Below stairs' (that is, the servants' realm) was decorated rather more traditionally than the State Rooms that I featured a week or two ago but still sumptuous and with more baubles than you could count. If I just had a single tree as pretty as this one (below) I'd think I'd done well! 

For those heavily invested in Christmas decor, the gift shop had baskets full of trimmings. Basically you could choose any tasteful colour scheme and find masses of decorations to bring it to life. 

And the stairs were twinkling with (battery-operated) candles. It was delightful. 

A different kind of rainbow

Many people locally have been excited at the appearance of extremely rare clouds known as nacreous clouds or 'mother of pearl' clouds. My Facebook feed was full of photos one morning and I was a bit frustrated that I'd missed them. I've said before that I can see hardly any expanse of sky from my current house and I hadn't been out anyway because of the wind and rain of storm Pia. Later in the day, towards sunset, I popped out to put some recycling in the bin and I glanced up. I thought I could see a bit of pink so I raced inside and grabbed my phone and took a few photos. On reviewing them on my phone, I couldn't see any colour so I concluded I'd stared at a bright spot and got one of those retinal smears that can temporarily happen. Excitement over. 

It was only later that I looked at the photos on a bigger screen - and - yes! There it is, unmistakably, a little patch of rainbow cloud. Wow! It feels like a real privilege to glimpse this, even such a small patch in such uninspiring surroundings. They are usually only seen in winter at higher latitudes in Scandinavia and northern Canada. The technical explanation is HERE on the Met Office page.  

It seems that even a storm can bring gifts with it. 

Advent Windows #5

Here's someone with a sense of humour! Jane's 'Christmas Down Under' window is a tribute to their friends who live in New Zealand. 

The window below makes wonderful use of the stained glass which is a feature of many of the village houses. It was added when Saltaire's housing stock was sold by the mill's owners into private hands in the 1930s. People started to make alterations to the houses once they were no longer bound to the mill and leaded windows were fashionable at that time. 

Advent Windows #4

Here are two more successful, clear and colourful window designs. Window maker Jamie chose the theme (above) 'to pay homage to all the cheeky cats patrolling the village'. (There are so many that they even have their own Facebook page - Cats of Saltaire!) As I was taking the photo, a man I presume to be Jamie came along the street and entered the house - with a dog! 

The other window shows a variety of objects with a Christmas feel, simple but bold:

Salts Mill Christmas

I always enjoy a wander round Salt's Mill's galleries and shops and it is even more special just before Christmas. It has big, tastefully decorated Christmas trees - nothing tacky or overdone. At the weekends in December they have choirs or bands performing festive music in the 1853 Gallery, amongst the Hockney artworks, the books and art materials, and the precious Burmantofts pottery. When I was there, the Bradford Concert Band were playing, just a handful of musicians but in that vast, enclosed space the sound reverberates really strongly.  I was humming 'Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly' for hours afterwards! Fa la la la la la la la la!

Advent Windows #3

Sir Titus Salt, the Victorian founder of Saltaire, usually creeps in to the Advent references somewhere. His luxuriant beard makes him a dead ringer for Father Christmas, so why not? This was a window in a house on a narrow street in the heart of the village, where there are inevitably cars parked outside. The reflections of the lights in the car roof added even more sparkle to the scene. 

In the old Salts Hospital, now apartments, one of the residents, Lou, has taken up an ongoing theme of the Christmas song 'On the first day of Christmas'. Each year the next verse is depicted, but with a 'Veg on the Edge' (our community gardening group) twist. She says she only initially intended to do one verse of 'The Twelve Days of Vegmas' but people have made it clear they expect to see more! Seems like she's given herself a challenge for quite a few years to come. 

Advent Windows #2

Deceptively simple and actually quite clever, two creative displays that make good use of the multiple panes in the windows of our Grade II listed houses. 

Elizabeth, who made the display below, has gone for a Victorian theme, in keeping with the age of the surrounding village: 

Advent Windows #1

As is now the tradition, Saltaire's residents and businesses have gone all out this year to create 'Advent Windows' throughout the village. One or two are revealed every evening from the first of December until Christmas Eve, the period of Advent, to make our own village Advent Calendar. This started in 2006 and has become a much loved feature of Saltaire. I know many regular readers of this blog have come to love them as much as I do, so I shall of course show a selection again this year. 

My first choice has these two angels with doves, and bright stars in the sky. I think these vibrant, bold but essentially simple designs are usually the most successful - certainly the easiest for clear photos. Its creator, Natalie, says she is 'wishing for love and peace in the world'. Aren't we all? 

All the windows, as they are revealed, can be viewed on the Saltaire Inspired website HERE.

Mizzle

'Mizzle' was the best description for the weather on a recent short walk at Bolton Abbey. I found this helpful explainer: 'Mizzle' is not, exactly, the same as 'drizzle'. As the word implies, it is mist that is lightly precipitating into droplets, but the droplets are small enough to remain airborne and do not fall as drizzle.' It added atmosphere to the scene but didn't make for the most pleasant walk, especially when it did occasionally segue into proper drizzle. Happily the café in the village provided coffee and then soup to bookend the expedition. 

Our rivers are swelled by so much rain but generally speaking they are just about coping with the volume. 

In parts, a few autumn leaves still cling on despite the best efforts of named storms to dislodge them. (We have just had Fergus, hot on the heels of Elin - fancy names this year!)

There was a waterfall that I haven't noticed before, cascading down near the footbridge. On the other side of the bridge the stepping stones were nowhere to be seen. 

From the end of the bridge you get perhaps the best view of the ruined end of Bolton Abbey, trashed by Henry VIII's reforms in the 1500s, though the other end of the building was preserved as a church for the local population, and it is still used for worship to this day.  

Swan song

Two very random shots taken on a walk along the short stretch of canal towpath just beyond Salts Mill. There were more swans than I've seen in a very long time. This year's brood must have been very healthy and the cygnets kept safe from predators. 

Further along, they are continuing the process of demolishing HMRC's (the tax office's) old banking centre. They have trimmed all the foliage beside the railings so that you can now see the building in a way you couldn't before. What you can't see from my photo is the ditch alongside the towpath that prevented me from getting close up to the fence - so it's a poor photo but one that I'm posting just as a record of the demise of this once busy and significant building.

When it has been demolished (a long process due to the amount of equipment, electricals and asbestos in the fabric) plans have been approved to build a riverside village of 289 houses here, with some small commercial office space for flexible working and a café facing a new 'pocket park' - Saltaire Mark II you might say. See HERE for impressions of how it may look. 

As a postscript, I'm adding a couple of photos I took (on a different walk) from the other side of the river, where you can see the HMRC building from the back. From there, there is more evidence of the demolition actively happening. It won't be much fun for the people who live in the adjacent Victoria Mills apartments (to the left in the bottom photo), whilst all this work goes on. They have a construction site opposite too, where some retirement apartments are under construction. It won't be long before the area has completely transitioned from a business and industrial zone to a residential area. 

A lone tree and an old sign

A bit of an arty shot, taken on the edge of Barden Moor just above Embsay. Lone trees are attractive to me in any season but the lack of leaves in winter shows off the wonderful structure. This was only a small bush but evocative nonetheless. 

In the village of Embsay, I came across this old signpost, wreathed in a creeper. I love the pointing hands. You don't see those on modern signs.