Spring Lamb

Yesterday saw us inadvertently exploring remote parts of Lincolnshire, our home county.  We took a wrong turning in the car, which is easily done in our “outback”.  Single track roads with no passing places are always entertaining when meeting the odd motorist daft enough to travel these ancient tracks and lanes.

The wonderful thing about this particular slice of  English countryside is that I am instantly taken back to my childhood days of huge, wild hedgerows and small grassy meadows; a time before the fashion for monstrous open fields became the norm.  And although it is not quite officially spring here in the UK, the world has a distinctly spring-like feel to it.  The hedgerows are itching to burst into their unkempt green spring splendour; and the birds are twittering with excitement that winter is almost over.

Like most British rural counties, Lincolnshire has its fair share of sheep, and of course, spring lambs at this time of year.  The ones in the photographs were spotted at Spridlington, close to my parents’ farm.

So it’s official in my midlife mind.  The longest, coldest UK winter we’ve had for many years is over.  And spring is here, with its snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, lambs, birdsong; and the promise of green-ness.  What joy.

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Another one bites the dust

News reached me this week that the small village pub which my friends and I have frequented on a regular basis for many years has called time for the last time.  This will be a huge blow for the local community as well as lovers of the fortnightly pub quiz.

Thirteen rural pubs are shutting down in Britain each week, a rate 20 times higher than three years ago, and beer sales are lower than at any point since the Depression of the 1930s.  Experts say that while national bar chains such as Wetherspoons are thriving, community and village pubs are being forced into administration and “popping down to the local” could become a thing of the past.

The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) estimates that around 4,000 village pubs have disappeared since 1980 – the result of increasingly tough drink-driving laws, cheap supermarket beer, rising costs and alcohol duty, and the smoking ban.

But Harrogate bar owner Jay Smith has decided that enough is enough.  He says that it is the small village pubs which are closing at an alarming rate rather than the town bars.

Jay struck on the idea that if communities took the pub on themselves and ran it on a voluntary basis, it could ensure the future of the village local. He thought it would also be a very good way of getting communities back into the pub. They would only have the pressure of paying the mortgage or rent as everything else would be provided by the community; any profits would go back into the pub or the local community.

He decided to take his idea to a television production team, and thought no more about it until they contacted him and asked if he wanted to be involved in putting a programme together, and he agreed to present it.

Jay has spent the last year filming Save Our Boozer, to be screened on the TV channel Blighty over four consecutive nights from tonight, Tuesday 8^th December.  In the series, he visits five closed or failing pubs and enlists local residents to run them.

Jay leads each community through an intense six weeks of training and hard work to revamp their pub – and decide whether they are ready to take it over for good.

Jay has experienced the highs and lows of the industry at first hand. Ten years ago he lost his house, his car and very nearly his business when his first bar failed to break even. But he turned things around. Now, he wants to do the same for the British boozer, one small pub at a time.

Local pubs are the backbone of British society, particularly in rural communities. Once they close it is very unlikely that they will ever re-open because people move on, find new venues and learn to live without their local. Save Our Boozer is hoping to inspire people to support their local boozer and save the species from extinction.

Save our Boozer is on Blighty from Tuesday, December 8 at 8pm.

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Noisy British lover loses sex appeal

This story made me laugh out loud, especially when I saw that Caroline Cartwright was 48 years old.  Sounds like this middle aged woman is a proper midlife howler.  Go girl!!

Quote from Yahoo News: A British woman lost her appeal on Tuesday against a ban on her noisy sex sessions, after a court heard how her marathon romps that kept neighbours awake sounded like someone being murdered.

Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s “howling” lovemaking sounded “unnatural”, “hysterical” and “like they are both in considerable pain”, Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England heard.  A 10-minute recording of their sex sessions was played out in court, which also heard how she tried covering her face with a pillow to muffle her cries of passion.

Neighbours at their home in Washington, south of Newcastle, complained about the noise, as did passers-by and the postman.  The couple were banned from “shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance”, but Caroline Cartwright, 48, appealed under human rights laws against her conviction for breaching the ban.

However, a judge on Tuesday upheld the original conviction and ordered that the banning order should stay.

Caroline Cartwright said she was unable to stop the din.

“I tried to control it. I even tried to use a pillow (over her own face) to try and lessen the noise,” she said.

The judge, Recorder Jeremy Freedman, rejected her claim.

“We are in no doubt whatsoever about the level of noise that can be heard in neighbouring properties, in the street and in the back lane,” he said.

“It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance. It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration — this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.

“It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode — virtually every night.

“We do not find there is any infringement of her human rights in any shape or form.”

The romps typically started at midnight and lasted several hours, the judge heard.

The couple’s next-door neighbour Rachel O’Connor told court: “It’s just quite unnatural. The noise sounds like they are both in considerable pain.  I cannot describe the noise. Totally excessive and I have never, ever heard anything like it.  I put my television in my bedroom on as loud as it could go and they drown it out.”

The local council set up special equipment in O’Connor’s flat and recorded noise levels of between 30 to 40 decibels, peaking at 47 – as loud as a conversation in the very same room.

Marion Dixon, a council environmental health manager, took notes which said: “I heard a male voice howling loudly, which I felt was very unnerving.”

Her colleague Pamela Spark called the sounds “hysterical, almost continuous, just screaming.  I found it very disturbing and I noted that it sounded like she was being murdered.”

Dixon said when the council confronted the couple, “Mr Cartwright held his head in his hands but Mrs Cartwright seemed to find it quite amusing.”

End of Quote from Yahoo News

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