For Blighters Everywhere

I haven’t written anything here for ages, so this is a quick catch up.

I have just returned from my yearly fortnight in Scarborough sluicing out student property between lets.  Brenda Durham –small, kind, cheerful and packs a mean cleaning punch -  came with me.  For which I’m very grateful. 

In between sluicing we walked, ate curries and fish and chips and discovered real ale.  I’ve always been a wine woman but now wish you could get Copper Dragon Golden Pippin in France.  The Golden Pippin pub – the Leeds Arms had a report on the wall of how a Victorian landlord of the pub had had acid thrown at him by a vengeful lover.  She was heard to say, “Take that, you blighter,” as she did it.   

 

There were also various modern warnings and instructions scattered about - possibly influenced by the acid thrower’s spirit - warnings to blighters everywhere.

 

   

   

Scarborough is still an eccentric place.  There’s band music most days in the open air by the Spa.  Pensioners pay to sit in deck chairs and listen.  I don’t understand where all these people are coming from.  They must have been relatively young in the 60s! 

 

I too am a pensioner but have no wish to sit in a deckchair by Scarborough Spa.  A friend of mine once tried to sit in a deck chair out of season when he thought there was nothing going on.  A man came up to him and said, “It’s 50p if you want the organ to start”.  What’s to say?

One afternoon we took a trip a few miles up the coast to Ravenscar.  George III was kept at Raven Hall in his mad periods by a doctor who had written permission to beat the king if he gave trouble, or behaved like a blighter.  Raven Hall is now a hotel and we sat with tea and cake and gaped at the view.

 

 

It’s good to be back home, though, and the dog is ecstatic to be taking long walks out again.  And the countryside is still beautiful.

 

Yesterday Mike and I went shopping in Grand Frais in Perigueux, my favourite vegetable shop in the world.  The French are wonderful at  displaying fruit and veg.  



Even though some of their foreign product names are a trifle eccentric.

 

 

I may buy these as Christmas gifts for friends.  "Take that, you blighters," I will say.