There is a new post at the new blog address: The Cats With A Bank Account The blog address for A Yorkshire Memoir has reverted to taskerdunham.blogspot.com (instead of taskerdunham.com), i.e. I have removed the custom address. If you are reading this, please check you have the new taskerdunham.blogspot.com address in your reading list or sidebar, or other bookmarks, rather than the custom taskerdunham.com which brings you to this page.  There is more information about why and how I have made this change here.  ..read more

I am attempting to remove the custom address from A Yorkshire Memoir. The address should revert to the original taskerdunham.blogspot.com (instead of taskerdunham.com).  This is to prevent the blog from becoming inaccessible when the subscription to the custom domain expires.  It seems to be working so far, but you may need to link through this holding page until you change the address on your blogger reading list or sidebar, or in other bookmarks.  ..read more

The flatland where the River Humber branches into tributaries was once an expanse of permanent marsh. It dried out gradually over the centuries with the construction of river banks and drainage ditches, making agriculture possible. Some areas were improved by a process known as warping. In warping, river waters are diverted into the fields to deposit layers of fine, fertile silt. It is carried out by building low embankments around the fields and filling them through a breach or sluice in the river bank. The water flows into the fields at high tide, and after being allowed to settle, is drain ..read more

Rosemary (Share My Garden) wrote about her visit to Tyneham, a village in Dorset abandoned in the Second World War because it was in an area needed for military training. The residents never returned. She also remembered, as a child, picking gooseberries in the garden of a house in a village abandoned to the rising waters of a new reservoir. Mardale Green It reminded me of a passage in ‘Fellwalking With Wainwright’, which has haunted me since I bought the book in 1985. I think of it often. Oh to be able to write like Wainwright.  I will never go to Mardale Head now without thinki ..read more

Imagine you received an annuity at a young age, never had to work, and had enough to fund your activities within reason. How would you spend your time?  Waterfall Soon after the death of her first husband, my wife’s great-grandmother married a wealthy bachelor who, although himself a translator rather than a writer, was very well-connected in London literary circles. Their dinner party guests included, among others, Maxim Gorky, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, and Joseph Conrad. They holidayed in Rome, Athens and Egypt in the nineteen-twenties and -thirties.  ..read more

Following Dave Northsider, who has repurposed an old oil tank to make raised vegetable beds, I filled this old half water butt with soil from the compost bin, and sowed a row of carrot seeds. It is 22 inches across, so I plan six rows at three-weekly intervals. As the fresh compost is full of worms, the wooden strips are there to protect the first row from digging birds. The bin spends the winter covering the monster rhubarb plant to give us a few tender pink stems in early spring, so this seems a good way to use it over the summer.  As I sowed the seeds, carrot fly lined the lawn, bounc ..read more

New Month Old Post: first posted 30th October, 2016. A song for dads to sing to their children.  What a super singalong on BBC Four on Friday!  It Started with a Kiss, or rather for us with a bottle of Chilean Shiraz. It was followed by a fabulous edition of Top Of The Pops 1982, from 15th July. After several weeks of watching the constipated faces of Brian Ferry and Martin Fry (get the look!), it was great to have some good tunes for a change. Following Errol and Hot Chocolate came Dexy’s Come On Eileen, the perennial Cliff Richard, David Essex’s Night Clubbing, and Irene Cara’s ..read more

This story on the BBC caught my attention because of its similarities to my own situation.  My heart goes out to this young mother who, aged 33, has been diagnosed with cancer. After two weeks of “migraine”, she was persuaded to see a doctor, who immediately sent her to hospital. Two hours later, she was talking to an oncologist. An MRI scan had revealed 7 brain tumours, and a later CT scan found 3 in her lungs, which was the primary site.  As I understand it, all tumours are gene mutations. She has a mutation of the ALK gene that produces a rogue protein that causes affected cells ..read more

Conservative governments are non-interventionist. They do not like the state to run anything. They spent the 1980s and 1990s selling off the country’s assets and giving away the proceeds. It continues today in their unwillingness to pay for public services or regulate things properly. Some of them would privatise health and education if they could get away with it. That is why, if my health holds out, I will not be voting Conservative at the next election. I will see the bastards go to hell before I do.  And yet, in the 1980s, they did intervene. A 1978 television documentary, ‘Now the Ch ..read more

Northsider Dave will immediately recognise this as from the rear label of a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. It acts as a temperature indicator, beginning to turn from white to blue below 12°C. I brought this in from the garage at around 6°C.   “Drink Cold” it tells us. Why cold beer? Some pubs serve it so cold it could give you brain damage. You cannot taste it properly. Is that because their beer is so awful they don’t want you to?  Not so Newcastle Brown. I don't see why I should be told how to drink it by some Dutch outfit that bought out the company and don’t even make it ..read more