Bingley Weekender 2022

Bradford and Bingley Rugby Club, West Yorkshire. Sunday 07-August-2022.

The original plan had been to spend Friday in York doing the tourist thing followed by York parkrun on the Saturday morning. Then a long drive down to Letchworth to spend Saturday evening with our friends. When Mary investigated the cost of accommodation the prices were ludicrous, presumably because it’s still peak holiday season. Decided to save York for an autumnal, off-season visit and devised an alternative plan.

We went and ran our NENDY (Nearest Event Not Done Yet) at Keswick, event #355.  A very level, scenic, out-and-back along a disused railway track starting from the old railway station. Then back home for a shower and the long trek south for a lovely evening with our friends Christine and Paul in Letchworth.

Mary had received an alert from a music app and discovered that Rag’n’Bone Man was appearing at the Bingley weekender on Sunday afternoon so we booked a day ticket for the Sunday. An excellent way to break up the journey home and fit in some live music.

As it turned out the app was partially correct in that Rag’n’Bone Man was appearing but got the date and time wrong. He was the headliner on the Friday evening not mid-afternoon on Sunday. Never mind, the joy of festivals is that you get to discover new bands you’ve never heard before even if you don't get the one you were hoping for.

On the Sunday we drove back up from Letchworth and decided not to pay £15 for parking at the festival. Instead we went to the station car park and paid a whole £1 for all day parking and got a five minute taxi to the venue.

It was all very relaxed and spread out, a small but perfectly formed festival. 

A couple of pints and a food stall lunch set us up for the afternoon.

The first act were Zuzu who we were both very impressed by, very up-beat, pop-rock trio from Liverpool.

Sea Power. Cannot remember anything about them which probably says a lot.

The Slow Readers Club were up next, a very impressive band though more to Mary’s taste than mine.

White Lies. We also enjoyed them.

The headliners were the Pixies who both Mary and I found a little harsh and discordant although they clearly have a following based on the number of T-shirts we saw. 

After an hour we decided we had enough and give the last half hour amiss so we could hit the road early at 8:30pm. A 20 minute walk back to the station car park and we were away up the road to be home at a reasonable hour.

My Life In ... Albums

The sixteenth in an occasional series of alternative Curriculum Vitae because no-one on their death bed says "I wish I'd spent more time in the office"

Facebook. June 2018.

Music has been important in my life. Like Marcel Proust's madeleine it can evoke memories. 

There was a meme on facebook: "Day N of the 10 day challenge. These are my most influential or go to albums even if only now and then. Post a cover each day, no need to explain and nominate a person each day to do the same. Today I nominate Y."

I accepted the challenge (thank you, Tim Harris) but refused to nominate anyone.  I am where memes come to die. I considered the "no need to explain" rule stupid. Context is important. Two people can chose the same album for wildly different reasons so I am recycling this meme this time with my reasons. The albums should be in date order but this is the sequence I posted them back then.

Day 1 of the 10 day challenge. "My People Were Fair and Had Sky In their Hair... But Now They're Content To Wear Stars on Their Brows" by Tyrannosaurus Rex (1968).

I was more of a Tyrannosaurus Rex fan than a T.Rex fan. Like many I listened to John Peel's late show under the bedclothes and was introduced to many a strange musik including Tyrannosaurus Rex back in 1967. I rushed out to order this album as soon as it was announced. I continued to buy every single and album until early 1972 (Telegram Sam and Electric Warrior were my last purchases). For more detailed memories read the post My People Were Fair... 50 Years On.  Then there were the concerts, the tribute bands, the movie launch, the visit to the tree where he died and there are people I've met online and later in real life who continue to feature in my life to this day [read all Bolan blog posts]. The cover by George Underwood was a thing of mythological strangeness.

Day 2 of the 10 day challenge. "Graceland" by Paul Simon (1986).

I was introduced to this album by a colleague, Colin Williams from BIS, and it has been a staple of my playlist ever since. Nowadays I usually wait until Mary is out of the house since she reckons that she has heard it too often. According to Wikipedia "Graceland became Simon's most successful studio album and his highest-charting album in over a decade; it is estimated to have sold more than 16 million copies worldwide." Love the music, love the lyrics. My favourite lines include:

"It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts"

"Over the mountain, Down in the valley, Lives a former talk-show host, Everybody knows his name
He says there's no doubt about it, It was the myth of fingerprints, I've seen them all and man, They're all the same"

Day 3 of the 10 day challenge. "Transformer" by Lou Reed (1972).

Second year at college hanging out with Mike, Pete and Vince (aka The Walton Wastards). I have to say we were a bunch of misfits who never settled into university life but that is a longer post. The urban myth was that both images on the cover were Lou Reed himself in macho pose and dressed as a drag queen. This was indeed a myth [See Artwork]. Another album much listened to at the time and since. It painted an edgy, decadent, seedy portrait of NYC that my first visit there in the late '80s did little to dispel. 

"And the colored girls go 'Doo do doo do doo do do doo...'"

Day 4 of the 10 day challenge. "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Stratgey)" by Brian Eno (1974).

Another favourite from the college years. The Walton Wastards owned all the Roxy Music albums between us and it was natural that we would segue onto Eno's solo works. Like Roxy a feature was the clearly articulated but slightly surreal lyrics. 

"Maybe she will do a bit of spying with microcameras hidden in her hair"

"But her sense of taste is such that she'll distinguish with her tongue the subtleties a spectrograph would miss"

Day 5 of the 10 day challenge. "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" by Eurythmics (1983).

It could have been any one of several Eurythmics albums but this won out. Annie Lennox is one of the great singers of our generation. I downsized my vinyl collection as space was a challenge when we moved from a house to a smaller apartment and many albums had not been played for years. As the dealer was carrying the crates to his van the bottom dropped out of one and spread the contents over the tarmac like a magician saying "pick a card". In a moment of "what would you save from a burning building?" I grabbed three Eurythmics albums (this, "Touch" and "Touch Dance").

Day 6 of the 10 day challenge. "Blonde On Blonde" by Bob Dylan (1966).

I acquired this from my brother back in the day. He never bought many albums, didn't seem to care much for music, only had half a dozen albums, this being one of them. Not sure when it changed hands, probably college era as he did not own any kind of music system. His loss is my gain as this is one of the great albums from a 20th century poet. I also acquired Elton John's "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player" in the same transaction.

"But me, I expected it to happen, I knew he'd lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street, And shot it full of holes"

"She takes just like a woman, yes she does, She makes love just like a woman, yes she does
And she aches just like a woman, But she breaks just like a little girl."

Day 7 of the 10 day challenge. "Hunky Dory" by David Bowie (1971).

To quote from my Desert Island Discs post: If I were to nominate my favourite album it would not be a T.Rex album which might surprise some, it would have to be Hunky Dory. Some timeless lyrics and a gentle playfulness not found in the subsequent classic albums (Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs).

"So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test"

"I was stone and he was wax, So he could scream and still relax. Unbelievable"

Day 8 of the 10 day challenge. "Visible World" by Jan Garbarek (1995).

The back story to this is that we had never heard of Jan until a few years ago but Mary’s copy of the Rough Guide to Jazz kept falling open at a page with a picture of this slightly strange looking man so she figured she had to go buy an album. The first one we bought was the haunting and evocative Visible World. Since then we have acquired several more albums and have seen him play live several times.

Day 9 of the 10 day challenge. "Fantastic" by Wham! (1983).

Pure, unadulterated pop at its finest. I like pop music, I like ’80 pop music, I like Stock, Aitken and Waterman, and Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go is, for me, the archetypical example of what a pop song should be. That and Like a Virgin by Madonna were two song that rekindled my penchant for pop music. I have all their albums but this first album is the best.

Day 10 of the 10 day challenge. "Bumpers" by Island Records (1970).

Back in the late '60s and early '70s sampler albums were a way for record labels to promote their artists through cut price compilations. I was in the middle of the sixth form halfway between O-levels and A-levels. It was an idyllic summer. This double album I bought with money from a summer job working on an archaeological dig at The Lunt Roman Fort. That was also the summer I spent two weeks digging at Portchester Castle under Prof. Barry Cunliffe. The only purchase I made as a result was the self titled Renaissance. 

Since it's my game, my rules here are two extras.

Day 11 of the 10 day challenge. "Tommy" by The Who (1969).

This is one of the albums I regret getting rid of in the downsize. As well as the music, the packing was amazing: limited edition no. 24867, gatefold sleeve, booklet with artwork and lyrics. You don't get that with a CD and definitely not with a download. I bought it from the only record shop in Kenilworth - a dark and gloomy cave presided over by a dark and gloomy woman. In those days most of the shop was given over to "proper" music i.e. classical, with a small browser box for those albums that stated "File under POP for Popular". My copy had the original price label 85/- that is to say 85 shillings or £4.25 in decimal currency. Further resonance is given to this album in that I saw The Who perform the whole album live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970.

Day 12 of the 10 day challenge. "No Secrets" by Carly Simons (1972).

Another purchase from my college years (a period of intensive vinyl buying). My college friends joshed me that I only bought it because I could see her nipples on the cover. In fact I have a penchant for female vocalists, so much so that my vinyl collection was sorted into four main sections: classical, collections, pop, and attractive female singers (or bands with female lead singers). The latter section obviously features Carly plus Madonna, Linda Lewis, Minnie Ripperton, Cher, Kate Bush, Maria Muldaur, Kylie and many more... Some great songs on this album.

"Well you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not you're with some underworld spy
Or the wife of a close friend, wife of a close friend, and..."

That's enough.

Postscript [28-Dec-2025]:

Talking to the daughter of a friend in the pub, I realised that I need to clarify. These are not my favourite artists but albums. For example, Paul Simon is a fine musician, but he's not on my top 10 list of artists. That list would include Sting, Blondie, Kate Bush, Madonna and Van Morrison for starters.

Borgo Divino In Tour 2022

Cisternino, Puglia, Italy. Saturday 02-July-2022.

Cisternino was the fifth date on a nationwide tour of a three-day wine tasting events organised by Borgo Divino. The format follows other wine fairs we have attended, you get a glass, a neck halter to carry your glass and a voucher for a set number of tastings. 

There must have been about fifteen stalls representing around 30 producers from all over Italy and Puglia was well represented.

We were joined by our neighbours Stephen and Kate from across the alleyway.

The council closed off a couple of streets and, as well as the wine stalls, there were a dozen posters on all sorts of wine topics including regions, grapes and glasses, very informative.

At the second stall we tasted a wild ferment wine (using only wild yeast strains present on the grape skins) which fell into the "interesting" category. Wild ferment is always a risk, sometimes fantastic but not always wholly successful. 

Third stall: even at this stage they were not too bothered about crossing off the glass symbols on our tastings tracker.

We had also bought tickets for a tasting plate of local salami and cheeses, etc. but we were running out of time so took it home for lunch the next day.

Multiple wine tastings later we went for a pizza at Da Tonia's, then back out for Round 2.

We had tasted wines from Ciu Ciu in Penrith back in March [Low-Intervention Wines from Europe] so were interested to taste others in their range. We tasted their sparkling Passerina and still Pecorino wines. 

The fair was from six-thirty till midnight every evening. At seven on Saturday the streets were deserted, by midnight they were still buzzing.

We went back out on the Sunday to buy some wines, the Ciu Ciu Pecorino mentioned above and Kia Ros, a rose made from the Nero Di Troia grape, from Domus Hortae in northern Puglia.

Other wines we liked were: a rose called 26 Agosto from Villa Agreste, Prima Filaro from Monte Marcuccio, both from Puglia, Greco and Falghina from Torre del Pagus in Campania, and a Sangiovese from Tuscany (producer not noted).

A very enjoyable evening with new wines to drink in the rack!

Mura Di Lucca parkrun #116

Lucca, Tuscany, Italy. Saturday 25-June-2022.

We have finally crossed the line between opportunistic parkrun tourist to intentional tourist. Until now we have only done other parkruns when we have been away on a trip and there is a parkrun within reasonable distance (plus some close to home). That has changed. We planned this weekend away specifically to do the unique Mura di Lucca parkrun.

We plan to spend half the year in our second home in Cisternino, southern Italy. Well not entirely true, this year we plan to escape the August heat by returning to the UK for four weeks.

With fewer commitments to take us back to the UK we can now do some internal tourism, visiting other parts of Italy. First on the list was Lucca. Not only do we get to do a new parkrun but we know friends of friends who have an apartment there hence an opportunity to meet up and socialise with them. There are Ryanair flights from Brindisi to Pisa from where it is an hour’s train ride to Lucca. As luck would have it our friend had just dropped somebody off at the airport and was able to hang around and give us a lift back to Lucca.

We had booked an Airbnb that was only six minutes walk from the start of the parkrun which is the closest we have been to the start of a parkrun (apart from Mole Valley where we stayed in the hotel in the vineyard).

Unsurprisingly there were a fair number of tourists some of whom we chatted to before and after. Mary had a chat with the run director and volunteered for the role of "Camminatore di Coda" (tail walker). He offered her the vest with "Tail Walker" on it but she insisted on the Italian version.

After a bilingual briefing off we went. 

The walls are only 4.5 km round so the course starts clockwise with a short out and back around the first bastion and then does a single anti-clockwise circuit of the walls. It is a very scenic parkrun with beautiful views of the city and countryside with lots of shade from the trees lining the path.

Risultati di Mura di Lucca parkrun per l'evento n.116. Il tuo tempo è stato 00:29:15.

Congratulazioni per aver completato il tuo 133° parkrun e il tuo 1° a Mura di Lucca parkrun oggi. Hai finito in 32° posizione su un totale di 53 parkrunner. Sei stato 22° Maschio e 2° nella categoria VM65-69. Dai un'occhiata all'insieme dei risultati della settimana sul nostro sito web. Complimenti per la tua prima corsa a Mura di Lucca parkrun. Abbiamo impostato questa come PB.

Not my best time this year, not my worst. Always happy to come in under 30 minutes. For me it was unique location number 34 so I still have a way to go to reach my Cowell (100 unique locations).

Mary got ample opportunity to practice her conversational Italian with the walkers at the back.   

There were 27 first timers out of a field of 53 so tourists account for half the parkrunners with the Wimbledon Windmilers and Porthcawl Runners represented. Afterwards there doesn’t appear to be a standard café so we all dispersed to various locations for coffee and/or breakfast.

The rest of the weekend was spent walking miles and miles in and out of the narrow streets of the old town, eating and drinking, doing cultural stuff and, as an added bonus, a concert on the Saturday night: Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets [gig report].

Monday afternoon we again got a lift back to Pisa airport and were back home to Puglia before midnight for a final nightcap and bed.

PS.
Milan Nord is on the list as my nephew and godson lives there as does his mother and grandmother. Just not sure when yet. 

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets at Lucca Summer Festival

Lucca, Tuscany, Italy. Saturday 25-June-2022.

With no prior knowledge and a massive amount of serendipity we managed to be in Lucca on the right weekend. 

We had gone to visit to Lucca for the weekend as a bit of internal Italian tourism and to do the Mura di Lucca parkrun. We were wandering around town on Friday afternoon when we saw posters for the Lucca Summer Festival including this concert on the Saturday night, the first of the series. 

Nick Mason formed the band in 2018 to play all the early years Pink Floyd material. This was an opportunity absolutely too good to miss. A quick trot to the box office where we bought the best available tickets, amazingly it was not sold out.

Pink Floyd were essential component of my playlist in the late 60s and early 70s, basically the college years. I bought the album Saucerful of Secrets when it first came out. At college me and my mates were into prog rock and such like. We took it in turns to buy the albums and we would go round to each other’s rooms to listen to the albums that we didn’t have and visa versa.

My copy of Saucerful of Secrets had a slight scratch on side two because my mate Pete accidentally dropped the vinyl while taking it off the deck and, trying to catch it with his foot, kicked it across the room. Fortunately the damage was slight as he was wearing rubber soled plimsolls and there was carpet in the room. Not that I hold a grudge but I still remember it clearly.

This is what I looked like then. Nothing says prog rock like long hair, a cheesecloth shirt and denim jacket.

The show included a full-on psychedelic light show. 

The concert lasted for 2 and 1/2 hours with one 20 minute interval. 

We got to hear a pretty full set list of that early material played by very talented musicians: former Blockheads guitarist Lee Harris, bassist and Pink Floyd collaborator Guy Pratt (session player with so many famous names), vocalist and guitarist Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet, and Orb keyboardist Dom Beken [wikipedia].

Update: added Astronomy Domine clip [1:30]

Pink Floyd were never on my bucket list because the band as I knew it no longer existed so to get to see the original drummer together with an impressive array of musicians play that early catalogue live was a real nostalgic treat. 

So now I have seen them and I did buy the T-shirt.

North Wales Coast Path - Spring 2022

Pen-Y-Bryn, Conwy, Wales. Friday/Friday 01/08-April-2022.

This was intended as a week's walking holiday on the north Wales coastal path but it turned into more of a patchwork quilt of entertainments. Sadly two of our friends tested positive for Covid just before and had to drop out.

Friday 1st: drove down from Penrith to Pen-Y-Bryn for a takeaway fish and chip supper and general chat with our friends.

Saturday 2nd: Up early to do parkrun, of course. The parkrun was very short drive down to the Conwy estuary. A straightforward out and back along the estuary path, starting and finishing at the RSPB sanctuary.

Then it was back to the cottage for breakfast part two and a drive all the way down to Weybridge in Surrey for our friend Ceri‘s belated (by two years) 70th birthday party. We had very sensibly booked a room in the Inn where the function was to be held. We ate, we drank, we chatted a lot and danced a little.

Sunday 3rd: we then drove all the way back up to Pen-y-bryn in time for tea and a late Sunday dinner.

Monday 4th: the first proper walk: around Great Orme head. We set off from the cottage, walked round several less than interesting housing estates until we hit the coast path. It was quite a breezy day.

On the way out we saw the famous Conwy goats that had invaded Llandudno during lockdown.

Moving time: 4:52:57, distance: 22.17. The longest walk we have done for years (literally).

Tuesday 5th: Bodnant Gardens. Our friend Kate was not able to partake of long walks nor, after yesterday's epic walk, were we. Instead we opted for some gentle garden wandering.

The extensive grounds had all manner of plants including some interesting looking water's edge plants.

The Pin Mill which was moved brick by brick from Woodchester in Gloucestershire.

More delightful meanderings through the Italianate Grade I listed gardens.

Our cottage was well equipped and at the top of a very narrow, winding and unlit lane so we decided to eat in most nights. The exception was Tuesday evening when we had an enjoyable meal at LAVA hot stone kitchen in Conwy.

Wednesday 6th: another long walk along Colwyn Bay. First we went to see the seals off Little Orme head.

En route we passed the picturesque church of St Trillo, the smallest church in Wales with room for a congregation of six.

The interior of St Trillo's church.

The Llandudno pier funfair provided a splash of colour on an otherwise grey walk.

Moving time: 3:31:15, distance 16.34. Not as bad as Monday. Thanks to local knowledge we learned there was a number 12 bus that runs along the coast so we could just keep walking until we'd had enough and catch the bus back.

Thursday 7th: In the morning we had a look round Penrhyn Castle and in the afternoon it was a visit to Conwy. A walk round the city walls, with a view of the castle, and down through the town to the harbour.

Some interesting buildings in the town.

Friday 8th: the long drive back to Penrith after breakfast.

A nice mix of activities and a good opportunity to catch up with our friends some of whom we had not seen since our holiday to Hadrian's Wall just before the first lockdown.