In the park

A couple of hours in Hull across lunchtime yesterday gave me a chance to take a walk around some places from my childhood. I enjoyed looking around the area where my great-grandparents lived and worked and trying to identify the site of the chapel on the steps of which my Great Grandmother is said to have died! I made my way up good old Stepney Lane, where I'd walk to school and back and was surprised to recognise so many small details considering I left there when I was just nine years old. Much is changed but a good deal is exactly as I remember - except for being so much smaller, of course!

At the top of Stepney Lane, on Beverley Road, is my old school, now Stepney Primary School (renamed from Beverley Road Junior School some years ago) Such a fine building, I tried very hard to place exactly what was where and have only just worked out where the entrance I can picture in my mind is!

Across the road is Pearson Park, one of my favourite places and somewhere which seems to feature at regular intervals in my life.

I braved one of the coldest days of the year - in Hull the Northeasterly wind really doesn't have anything to stop it and I'd forgotten how bitterly cold it blows! I walked past the bowling green where Daddy and Grandad both feature on the honours board (if it still exists) As a small child, walking through the park on the way to my grandparents' house, we'd stop to see if Grandad was playing bowls and stay a while for a chat. Daddy felt proud to follow his father's footsteps and play there too and was particularly chuffed to win the competition which meant that the Boyd name was engraved twice on that trophy.

Here's Grandad with other members of the Pearson Park Veterans bowls club in front of the pavilion, in the 1960s (I think) He's standing, wearing a pale raincoat, fourth from the left.

Here's the path along which I took my first wobbly solo bike ride - I can remember shouting out "I can't stop" and then falling off, laughing!

Pearson Park was also the site of my nursery school - Miss Dolman's. I'm there on the right, holding on to the waist of the girl in the dark blazer in front of me. Can you imagine what Health and Safety issues would arise from this scene today?

The large house with two gables and a grand front entrance has long been developed into an hotel and in the garden where the seesaw photo was taken there now stands a modern house. I seem to recall this was a prize from a competition on a cornflake packet but quite how true that is, I have no idea!

In the far corner of the photo there's a brown stone house, which, like many of the large properties around the park, is converted into flats. Guess who just happened to be living there when I first met him?

Over the years, we've fed the ducks and fished with a net and a jamjar for all kinds of creatures. I've played in the playground myself and then sat on a bench with my Mum watching Edward play on rather safer swings and slides with softer landings than I had.

Thank you, Zachariah Charles Pearson, for a special place indeed.

Sorting out, clearing up, moving on

Today we took down the Christmas tree and all the decorations were packed away for another year. As I take the baubles down from the tree, I always think of doing that same job twenty three years ago when the very first twinges of labour pains began! That year we'd waited until Twelfth Night but these days, once Christmas is over, we prefer to clear it all up sooner rather than later.

When we got back from a couple of days in Hull yesterday, I finished the Christmas jigsaw. I did it single handed this year since my Mum couldn't be with us and Edward had other distractions, namely a new laptop to play with. I sat there until late last night, finishing it off as a distraction from a worrying phone call earlier in the evening - Mummy had fallen and was being taken to the hospital for X rays in case she'd fractured her hip. Fortunately my cousin Christine was on hand to keep me in the picture and a phone call later reassured us that she was fine - no bones broken, thankfully. She was kept in overnight however, "just in case".

This morning, having checked that she was ok and en route back to St Mary's, I put the new Roomba to good use and left it zooming around the sitting room whilst I came downstairs to the studio to finish off my Christmas Journal. I think I shall have to have a sort out down here before long too, don't you?

More fun

We've been up in Hull again and spent last night in the company of the delightful Susoolu . Fortunately, I was the guilty party when it came to choosing and booking somewhere to eat last night, so I can take all the credit for offering an opportunity to enjoy the small idiosyncracies of the place.

"We opened three years ago and used to be a pan-Asian restaurant, but now we serve Global food. Special today is Beef Wellington"

"Do you want wine as well Sir? - give us yer glass then" (at which point wine is poured into a tilted glass held a foot above the table, can-of-lager style)

"The Goan Fish starter is off - would you like to choose something else?" (yes, if you'd bring me a menu)

I don't think the evening convinced my two companions that Hull is anything but the gastronomic desert they believe it to be. Having said that, my Chicken Biryani was pretty awful, Mark tells me his King Prawn Sambal wasn't much better, in spite of the radish content and we can only hope that our guest's "House Curry" was more successful! Next time we'll eat at the Parkway Chippie...

On the way home, conversation included a discussion on the trend for totally tasteless over-decoration of houses for Christmas, at which point we screeched to a halt in front of an inflatable Tigger, drunkenly propped up in front of an illuminated Santa on a motor bike.

Why?

Sadly I couldn't offer any suggestions for Susoolu's latest knitting conundrum, so in awe of the amazing complex cabled yoke was I. All I know is that no way could I bear to take out so much lovely knitting and redo it - I think I'd simply keep it as a pet and take it out to stroke and admire daily!

Visitors

One of our visitors in particular made herself very much at home this afternoon. What fun we had!

Lucky

He came.

He brought us many lovely things and some amazing surprises.

I was especially pleased to learn that, however old we are, some simple things continue to amuse and delight (as long as the mobile phone isn't far from hand)

But eventually, the pleasures of more technologically advanced presents won Edward's attention.

We had a lovely Christmas Day and hope you did too. We enjoyed Bettine's company and though we missed my Mum more than I can say, I spoke to her on the phone several times during the day.

"How has your day been?" I asked her around 7pm last night.

"Wonderful" was her answer.

It made me smile.