From Rochdale to Ocho Rios, from Ocho Rios to Dorking, from Dorking it's back to Rochdale

This is a special appreciation post for Rochdale, Lancashire. I love Rochdale.

I love the drive to it from Ramsbottom/Bury (see right) - up some twisty roads and undulating country and then down, down into Rochdale and its terraced houses, neighbourhood pubs and on into the city centre. The photo below shows that descent into the outskirts.

Here are some images of the town - some sundry views, the town hall, an aerial view of the city centre with some horrible high rise apartments blocks that I don't love, and some of those terraces:






I love the personal history associated with Rochdale - it's where my grandfather (Harry Purdy) was born, where my great grandfather (William Nugent Purdy) was born, where he married his first wife (Emma) and had three children (James died in infancy, my grandfather and Edward who is Suzanne's grandfather). It's the place they left for a new life in the southern hemisphere (William married his second wife in NSW, Australia and even she was from Rochdale!).

I love the mystery of Rochdale. I have no idea why William and Emma decided to leave Rochdale and travel to the other side of the world. He left all of his family behind to do this - generations of Purdys had lived and worked in Rochdale as master plasterers/labourers:

His father - James Purdy
and his father - Joseph Purdy
and his father - Jacob Purdy - and no one knows why they left.

The picture on the right is of some Rochdale pioneers . It's an image from the Rochdale museum that has stayed with me after I saw it in 2003 and I often wonder about the people behind the image and how they figure in the branches of their own family trees. Similar photos I have of my Rochdale family look very similar in appearance.

The Rochdale football team is obviously close to my heart as well. As soon as I was old enough to learn about how Rochdale fitted into my DNA I began to follow the fortunes of Rochdale AFC. For what seems like the last 300 years the team has been at the bottom of the football league. In the old days there were four divisions. Rochdale AFC were always anchored a few places about bottom of the 4th Division. These days we have the premier league/the championship and Division 1 and Division 2. And we've been largely in the same location. Until....about two years ago when somehow we made the playoffs last year at Wembley. Inconceivable! We lost at Wembley...but then this year we finished high enough to try for the playoffs - those are the Gillingham games I mentioned a few posts ago. Sadly we didn't quite make it but there is always next season. These photos come from Spotland during the first leg. Many thanks to Christine who was there!! This is the view Christine has, from her possie in the stand, looking to her left,

and then looking up the pitch to the right.


Back to the mystery of Rochdale - this is a picture of assistant Manager Dave Flitcroft. He was brought on as substitute, and as Christine tells me "came on as sub in last match of season - no one knows why - never has before".

And finally - here is the aforementioned Christine.

Love and peace - W

Snowflakes are falling, I'll catch them in my hands...

I wasn't intending on two posts in one day but we've just come back from a drive up the mountain. The weather was stunning and it was snowing so, of course, Jacky has to dance around in the snow and drag me out of a nice warm car. The first photos are just before we got in the car - as you can see, it was quite sunny. The snowline is just above the carpark.

On the way out of the driveway I took this one of the autumn leaves in the sunshine.

By the time we got to the carpark on the mountain the cloud rolled over the peak and the sleet was just starting and then the snow began to fall and just like in the David Gray song I've quoted from in the title - the snowflakes were caught in our hands. That's Jacky disappearing into the snowy murk and just before she came back and dragged me out of the car.





Love and peace and snowflakes - W

Like the north wind whistling down the sky, I've got a song

It's the weekend and I found some time to take some more photos of the animals and things - will get to them in a sec. The photo left is of our front door. Shock horror probe I know but it's taken from where the pine trees were that I chopped down a few posts ago.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have seen the weather pixie with his brollie out all week - some torrential downpours (about half an hour ago) have been mixed in with lovely sun drenched weather (right now). Yesterday my boys' football team had their second game. Last week we got hammered!! Much closer yesterday - a three all draw. I ref'd the first half - crisp beautiful sunny morning when I started, then after 10 minutes a terrific cold blast of wind and blizzard conditions!! Weird.

This morning's photos followed the same pattern - when I started nice and sunny but I could see a huge black raincloud envelop the mountain and then head towards us.

While I was taking this photo I noticed two desire paths, one that the sheep had made down to the pond (in complete contrast to the track I take around the trees - they'd made a desire path through them). The other path was originally made by us going down to the chook house and the sheep have adopted it. Fascinating stuff eh. Where else would you get this kind of gold? Here they are (sheep one first)
I decided to try and showcase a different clutch of animals today. First - the horses. We have a guest - Midas is a very cute little pony - cheeky and extremely inquisitive. First photo is Kash (note the correct spelling please Jacky), then Kash and Midas sniffing around a feed bin and then Midas close up.
Last week I had Bazil featured and Finn got upset so here he is with his smart new haircut, inside and outside (including his 'say please' cutsey act.




...and here's Jacky's horse Charlie being ridden by Aimee (she also happens to be in my sixth form English class). He won lots of ribbons as you can all see.

In case you haven't caught up with the news - Rochdale and Gillingham drew 0 - 0 in the first leg. Come on the Dale! Second game is in the coming week. Look out for a special Rochdale themed post next week to celebrate (whateva happens).

Love and peace (and understanding) - W

We love the Arsenal, we do...

Woo - I'm feeling shaken and stirred at the moment and I need to vent! I don't mention Arsenal that much in my posts but this one is different. My beloved Arsenal went down to MUFC (affectionately known as 'the scum' by Arsenal fans or 'gooners'). I got a sinking feeling this morning when we went behind one nil and never lost the feeling!! In the end we lost 3-1 and 4-1 on aggregate over the two games. While this is not the end of the universe as we know it - it means we have no chance of a trophy this year. Manchester United by comparison are still on course for 4 trophies - Premier League, FA cup, Champions league and they already have the league cup having beaten Tottenham Hotspur, affectionately known as 'old scum' by gooners, earlier this season. It's tough to take.

I repeat - While this is not the end of the universe as we know it, it's tough to take. I love that old Bill Shankly quote - “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." Warning - generalisation looming = New Zealanders don't get this...at all!

The rugby culture is very dominant in NZ but it completely lacks the passion of the UK football culture by comparison. I support the Auckland Blues and the All Blacks but not with the pride, dread, anguish, pain, hope, passion that I support Rochdale and Arsenal. I know when the All Blacks lose a game the entire country is gloomy but this is because NZ's place in the world is largely defined by how well our national team (in our national sport) does. This is a different feeling of loss to what I'm feeling now. The Arsenal fans - gooners - are part of a huge family who live for their team. Don't believe me? - have a look at some Arsenal blogsites and you'll see. These are knowledgable people who share something - the agony of supporting a team (the ecstacy is short lived and infrequent - mostly it's agony). Gooners (and every supporter actually) know two things - one - next season is always there so there is always hope, two - we have to endure the bitter disappointment of the present. When I went to Highbury (and the Twelve Pins pub on the Seven Sisters Rd in Highbury) I was amongst my people. The feeling of belonging was intense!! I felt the same at Spotland - Rochdale's footballing home.

This week The 'dale take on Gillingham home and away in play-offs for promotion. Christine, Lewis, Fran, Tom and I will be in agony all over again (see above). Be kind to us!

Here's a little taste of the passion of the gooners. This was taken from Old Trafford - possibly when I was there!! Tina and Paul and I went to MUFC in 2005 to see The Arsenal - Tina even stood with us in the away section where this was shot(she's a good egg).



Love and peace - W

I chop down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavatry

It's been a cool weekend - sunny and mild once the frost clears. I chopped down some pine trees that were hanging around by the house, I ate my lunch (muffins with plum jam and lashings of tea) and ... other things.

Here is the photographic evidence (hedges trimmed to show off the mountain, Soda the cat is on one of the stumps). plus some assorted snaps of the sheep, Bazil, horses (Charlie and Cash), and some autumn leaves.

Love and peace - W

Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged

It seems I've blogged everywhere about the Barack Obama book I'm reading because it relates to different parts of my life - it's on my principal blog, and the one for my class. Funny though that I haven't written about it much on my most personal blog. So...here's one just on the book.

I'm pretty much finished the book and ready to send it on to someone else (Jesse gave it to Samantha, Samantha gave it to me). The last section of the book is about his getting back to his family's roots in Kenya. Here he is talking about when he lands at the airport (a woman at the airport recognises his name and asks if he's related to a Dr Obama - his father):

That [someone recognising his name] had never happened before. I realised; not in Hawaii, not in Indonesia, not in L.A., or New York or Chicago. For the first time in my life, I felt the comfort, the firmness of identity that a name might provide, how it could carry an entire history in other people's memories, so that they might nod and say knowingly, "Oh, you are so and so's son."

I can relate this to the first time I went to the UK in June 2003. When Christine took me to Rochdale and to meet her friends, children and Irene - I felt this same reassurance of identity. When we went into the Rochdale co-op museum an elderly gentlemen there assumed we were brother and sister. I felt this same comfort and firmness of belonging that Obama expresses. I've mentioned to others that I felt sharp/distinct/completely in focus in the UK. I remember so much of the time in 2003 when Jacky and I went to the Edinburgh principal conference and then went south to Christine in Bury, then back to London to stay with Paul and Tina. I know there was a special intensity at work - although Christine and I had been writing to each other for over 30 years, we'd never met and the sights and sounds of England/Scotland were so vivid and alien to us. Obama describes a special day in Kenya when he can summon up each moment in his mind almost frame by frame:

It wasn't simply joy that I felt in each of these moments. Rather, it was a sense that everything I was doing, every touch and breath and word, carried the full weight of my life; that a circle was beginning to close, so that I might finally recognise myself as I was, here, now, in one place.

This is a terrific description, very poetic and very apt to my own situation.

Later in this chapter Obama comes across a British man who had grown up in Kenya, moved between the two countries a few times and settled in Kenya. When Obama asks him why he says -

"It's my home, I suppose. The people, the land...it's funny, you know. Once you've lived here a while, the life in England seems really cramped. The British have so much more, but seem to enjoy things less. I felt a foreigner there."

I have the same vague feelings about living in New Zealand. For me living here seems really slow, cosy, extremely distant and really blurry (the Tim Finn line about a tyranny of distance!). I feel like a foreigner here. A stranger in a strange land. Pete and others find this hilarious, I know. Before 2003 I was firmly of the glib 'wherever you go - there you are' philosophy. Travel smavel! But then 2003 came along and we began the OE stage of our lives (mmm - 20 years after our peers).

The Obama book has hit some nerves!