Durham May 25th 2013

The road to Durham is festooned with orange gorse at this time of year. Well, I say orange, BB claims it's yellow. We spend an hour shouting and pointing at Things Orange and Things Yellow along the roadside, scoffing at the other's sightbuds. Both convinced the other is a visual plonker. As an artist I obviously have the more subtle palette, but who needs subtle when faced with bright orange gorse? I wonder if there's a Specsavers in Durham, he's due a new pair of specs. We compromise  with Yellowy Orange and Orangey Yellow. I'm right though...

Durham is said to be the prettiest city in England. I'm glad someone else has the responsibility of awarding such prizes, but we agree it is certainly a very striking place. It is perched on a bend of the Tees, complete with Castle, Cathedral, University Colleges, Libraries, Museums and Theatres.
We park the van outside the city centre, not realising just how small the centre is, and unbungee  the electric bikes- a lengthy palaver -  put on all our fluorescent gear and set off into town - which turns out to be all of 400 yards away. We tether our steeds securely to a large cast iron pillar. You can't be too careful in unknown new cities, however pretty they are. Un-fluoresced, we set off on foot to the town over a bridge and up a hill to the market square. The roads are full of pedestrians - very quiet pedestrians, I think it might be nice to hear some music.

 Be careful what you wish for in Durham....  A wiry man in a kilt, from the Cameroons, plays ceaselessly on his bagpipes for four hours on the bridge. You have to admire his endurance. And his knees. Not sure if you can call this eerie wail music though, unless you live north of the border. It is the equivalent of Morris dancing, aka skipping with sticks, which can hardly be described as dancing- unless you live south of it.

It is a strange fact that when you hear the Geordie tongue in isolation on TV, it bears little resemblance to the Scottish brogue, but up here in the wild, so to speak, the Geordie tongue is very obviously its first cousin. No doubt in Newcastle - a future Duchess destination - the dial on the accent wavelength will twiddle towards Full Scots. Being a colourist, I like shades of almost anything - except 50 of the grey variety - and, with Henry Higgins, can well imagine it would be possible to pinpoint anyone by their accent within two streets. No of course I can't do that. He was fiction, remember? But on our travels it feels like England is gradually being subtly, tonally, coloured in, and there is something delightful in that mile by mile progress. A vocal picture of the UK is beginning to emerge.
If Full Scottish is deep purple, Durham would be lilac.

In the market square is a strangely proportioned bronze warrior, a hussar with a huge busby on a rather small horse - not being unkind, but it's actually more of a pony. Perhaps tall horses were a rarity near the Northumberland border in the 19th century. I can almost hear  the sculptor, in deep purple accent saying,
'Will you look at that, Jimmy, why didn't someone tell me I got it wrong before we cast the wee bronze?'
'Och, no one will notice his busby's as high as the pony's legs, they'll think it's perspective.'
And sure enough, they did. The mammoth-headed warrior, Lord Londonderry, coal miner of the 22nd Light Dragoons, and his sturdy steed are still there to tell the tale, and very striking he looks too.

The indoor market ought to be a place we could buy slippers for Best Beloved - or so I thought. He has resisted this purchase for two months since he discovered the soles of his existing pair had literally broken in two, on both feet.  I didn't like to ask how he achieved  that precision.
   BB likes to think things through before committing to anything new, but there is time for thinking and then there is action. So we make for a shoe stall, me full of hope we will finally bin the ex-slippers, he, actually in the mood for a slipper quest. Do not mock, this mood is rare as a working-class Tory Cabinet.
Wonderful shoes. Astonishing prices. There has to some very well-healed brass in Durham if a market stall sells shoes for £375.  Maybe that's the result of having a bishop in residence. To be honest, it felt unsettling, a market stall with Bond Street prices. So we exited the market sharpish and found a pair of suitable denim shoes outside on the street for £11.99.
   I catch sight of a shop window that is crying out for capture, and force BB to offer himself up for white handed torture. He looks disturbingly  relaxed about having his ears cleaned. Must try that sometime.

 Faith in market stalls rekindled, we wend up to the Cathedral - a huge old monument, not lovely, but solid, like a castle in its austerity.
It is an interesting Cathedral, you can almost hear history chanting in the aisles, hear the chip and chisel on the massive pillars. Once a place of worship, now a tourist attraction. Is that the future for the Bank of England?

We enter the Cathedral, excited by the thought of wonderful photographic opportunities. Out with the cameras, No, wait! A huge billboard proclaims photography is a sin. They've updated the Commandments: 'Thou Shalt Not Photograph Thy Neighbour's Church, has been tacked on the end. 

The disappointment takes BB to a place darker than the cathedral interior. That's because he's got the bug. The one that makes it impossible to enjoy somewhere unless it is captured and brought back home in triumph to be admired. I've worked out that behaviour is a remnant of the Caveman instinct; he goes out in the morning to shoot things, shoots a thing, and drags it back home to his cavewoman for her appreciation. Why do you think taking photos is called shooting for goodness sake? It's therefore perfectly normal male behaviour to feel thwarted when there is no shooting and no trophy.
Eventually, feeling sorry for my thwarted hunter-gatherer, I approach one of the purple- clad guides and ask if we might be able to buy a photographic permit. I feel a bit like the Wife of Bath petitioning for a pardon.
'Oh yes,' she chirps, trotting off at a pace Lord Londonderry's pony would have found invigorating, 'the verger can sell you a permit.'
'The notices say it's forbidden.'
'Yes, we don't like to advertise it.'
'Curious,' I mutter, 'first time I ever heard of  a church not wanting to rake it in.'

But to be fair, they didn't charge for entry like York and Lincoln. Just asked for a 'suggested donation' of a fiver. I must admit, left to my own devices I would probably pop a pound in the box, so their canny suggestion works very well at raising guilt levels, and a cash bonanza.  Since we refused to pay to go round York - at £9 each it was beyond possibility at the time - I have often wondered whether such a rather grasping approach works? Isn't it better to guilt-trip every tourist, not lose every other other one through poverty, or anger? I've held that act of discrimination against York ever since our visit, see it as a place less than welcoming to the non-affluent. Not that it cares.

As we search the aisles of the cathedral for the elusive verger our guide suggests, sotto voce,
'Of course we have very good photos taken professionally you can buy in the gift shop... Very interesting angles you can't take yourselves.'
Ah, so that's it! Architectural porn. Everything becomes clear. No wonder the permits aren't advertised, they've got a nice little earner going down in the vestry. But I can resist her temptations. Where's the self respect in carting another man's kill back home?
'I'm sure your photos are excellent,' I respond, 'But it is the taking of  interesting photos for yourself, that is the point for a man with a new camera.'
  I forgo to mention he is a well-disguised but rather frustrated hunter-gather. There are good historical reasons to believe that pagans are not encouraged within these hallowed halls..
Unable to buy me off, we trot on looking for the Elusive Verger, but getting tired of us trailing behind her, she breaks into a canter, and I fall behind, unable to keep up with this athletic pensioner. As she gallops off into the distance we find a promising looking man in a long dress. A fully dressed man in a church is always someone worth talking to, don't you find? He turns out to be the under-verger, who tells us the permit-wielding Top Verger is on his lunch break.
BB is so fed up by now he decides to take a photo anyway, and that is that. We now have one illegal photo of a wooden statue of Mary, and very fine it is too. Cost us a fiver in donations, but it's from a unique angle, from having to hide his camera under his t-shirt. All the other visitors are too busy taking photos to notice this strange, suspicious bulge...

It is tiring being a tourist. We need chips. We sit in the overcrowded market square in the shadow of Lord Londonderry, and next to the obligatory town centre Bank Holiday Funfair. Far too many chips and not enough space to pack them away inside us, but we struggle on, unable to leave what we've paid for.
 A few gifts later and we are ready to repair to the Duchess.
We have a rendezvous with Ivy. I didn't tell you about Ivy - not her real name - but she's a gem. I had phoned last week to make a booking for the Sat night in case we needed electrically recharging ( how prophetic that turned about to be) and found a rural campsite near Middleton-in-Teesdale. BB was very pleased with my choice since he'd once been there on his Pennine Way hike as a lad. I was pleased to have found anywhere at all as I'd left it a bit late to book. But sitting having a cuppa about an hour after the campsite was booked, a very angry lady phoned me up and accused me of not liking her campsite enough, and I could go somewhere else if that was the case.
'No, no,' I replied, bemused and amused. 'My husband is very excited by coming to stay on your farm, as am I.'
'Well you can spend £20 and go to one of the big campsites if you want.'
'No, if I'd wanted to do that, I wouldn't have booked with you.'
'Well, you sounded like you didn't like our site.'
'If I did, I am sorry. I've never been to your site, or even to your locality, so listen Ivy, my name is Ali, let's start again shall we?'
    She grudgingly agreed, and our booking was confirmed, so now we have to be in time, or Ivy is quite capable of selling our space to a more favoured camper.
We found the site more by good fortune than instructions in the Caravan Club handbook. Ivy seemed to enjoy making her site unobtainable in multiple ways. A creative old thing. As soon as we entered the farmyard, there she was, chirpy soul, asking for the £12 fee before we had even ascertained we were in the right place. I decided not to mention her hissy fit in case she threw another and turned us away. Cupboard love I know, but we needed the electric cable kept in her cupboard. So, all smiles, we parked up a bit too close for comfort to a caravan and awning on the bottom hard- standing. Mainly  because the ground was too wet, the hill too steep to attain the top one.  A big field, five vans in a little row down one side.  Cue a song: Five white campervans parking in a row...

Now I think about it,why are all campers and caravans white? I will give that some thought and get back to you later.
So we plug in, next to the world's quietest sheepdog, and his two pets who seem to spend a lot their time pestering him for walks. They don't say hello, or anything at all to us. I expect we are regarded as fly-by-nights. They have a car, a caravan, an awning full of kitchen equipment and an electric buggy. Ready for anything - except civility.
We  recharge our leisure battery. It works. Now we have lights, pumps, happiness. Pleasant countryside, but we find we like the wild bit of camping now. No neighbours at all improves a night out. It does not necessarily improve the evenings and the  mornings however.  We can stay until midday on a campsite, so no rush to avoid parking charges. Or angry famers.


Off across the Dales we go in search of waterfalls. Well, why not. They are here, so are we, neither of us have anything better to do.
High Force is what it says on the tin. High and forceful.

A massive storm brought down half the forest in 1992 - and proof that no one uses open fires any more, there they still are, all along the  path down from the High Force pub. We pay £2 each to join a stream of other camera-wielding humans, but when we get there we aren't allowed up to the top of the falls. If I was ten years younger I'd vault the locked gate, but I'm not, so we content ourselves with a spot of raging. BB does a good rage when he's prevented from re-treading the boards of his youth. The Pennine Way was one of those boards, all 270 miles of it he danced along, and now there is no knowing what he will do if we don't feed him soon. So we make our way back to the local pub to find it has been taken over by aliens.

Dressed like power rangers, they have to be recorded for posterity.
'Would you mind if I take your photo? I've never seen aliens before.'  BB starts to edge away with that look of, 'Nothing to do with me, mate.'
I was only being polite, asking for permission. Always a good idea towatch your manners with Space Invaders. They look at each other a bit non-plussed to have been found out, and confer with the mother ship.
 'I won't put it on Facebook' I assure them. Still hesitation. 'But if you have a camera, I could take a photo of you two on that.'
 I get my photo, they get theirs. How do I know they are aliens? That's easy, all the other bikers take their gear off when they get to a watering hole, possibly because they are overweight and sweaty, whereas this pair are slender as sticks. Bodies not standard biker sissue. Their bike is slender too, unlike the padded and furry monsters that gleam all along the front of the pub.

One is a tricycle, the height of  a Landrover, and height of comfort for its Master and his Missus. It's powerful speakers blare out rock music as they all get booted and spurred. There is strict protocol here. The men start gathering, opening compartments to reveal their leather togs, the women trail after, then have to disappear back into the toilet to do whatever it is that female bikers do to prevent hat-hair.  A spot of lippie, squeezing into leather trews in private, whilst the men complete their toilette in public.These men are confident, don't care who sees their hairy chests or sweaty feet.  Off with the trainers, on with the boots, jackets, helmets - with less hair, fewer worries about hat hair. Finally at an unseen signal they line up along the road and peel off, probably in order of superiority. They are all over 60 and all over 16 stone.
An amiable crowd that keeps the country towns and pubs in business. It is a very social lifestyle, like a troupe of baboons moving along with furious speed to the next watering hole to repeat the exact same rituals: de-robing, quaffing,chatting, preening,grooming, re-robing and off they go again. It is one of those fascinating subcultures that only emerge on Sundays. Exit the church, enter the Old Gits Club.

Now we are off across some of the most beautiful rolling empty countryside to be seen in England. The occasional biker roars past, but generally it is Bank Holiday Sunday, sunny, and not another soul in sight.
The Duchess is ideal for seeing over the dry-stone walls. In this part of the country they sport extra layers, stony frills, two ruffles deep that run the length of all the walls and distinguish them from the common and garden types seen elsewhere.
And here are Gypsies parked up along the wide verges with wide-girthed ponies. We are near to Appleby where the great horse fair takes place, and in front of us is a curragh, driven by a young man down the left hand side of the road. His dad drives a van down the right hand side so we are unable to overtake. The pony looks so skittish I wouldn't like to try it anyway. Then Dad zooms off, the boy makes a pointing manoeuvre with his whip, I think he is beckoning us past, but in fact he is doing a U turn in the road. Somehow the Duchess avoids collision with this one-horsepower vehicle and we drive on to the highest waterfall in England. We think we might collect waterfalls like stamps, so this one is essential viewing:

Hardraw Force... More Hardraw than force I'd say. We find a spindly stream pissing over the edge of a cliff. It isn't impressive in terms of water, but it is high. We see it on the day after the skies opened and a lake fell out, so this is a good day. Don't think I'd bother if hadn't rained for a week. It actually looks better in a photo than in real life. We paid £2 each to view this,
 The Penny Black of waterfalls, simply because of its height. No, I can't remember the exact measurement, but it was at Hawes and you have to go through the Green Dragon Pub to reach it.
A very unfriendly bar person has to guide us through her pub to the waterfall path. She is not happy about it but we have no idea why. There's a notice saying muddy boots aren't welcome. This proves a bit of a problem because unlike the path at High Force, this path is entirely made out of mud churned up and freshly liquidized by yesterday's storm. What a shame the only way back is through the bar room.

Right, now it's time to set sail for home where my Diddly Daughter awaits complete with Kindersprouts, (A bit like Kinder eggs, sweet and full of fun) husband and niece (Ditto). They are occupying our home on a Northern break, whilst we are skirmishing amongst gypsies and waterfalls. What a wonderful happy ever after weekend.





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