It's On The Turn ...

It's on the turn , finally ...

No , not the carton of milk in my fridge , but summer into autumn . A whole month of warmth and blue , blue skies had lulled me into a glow of careless good humour .

Till this morning when a predicted brisk wind became ferocious and , fearing for life and limb , instead of going on the bike I took the bus to Keep Fit . Well no , two there and two back actually ... a total of four bus rides , admittedly short , so that I could use the gym's cycling machine for ten minutes and the treadmill for another ten .
What was that about global warming ?

Apart from that I'm building up layers of fat to see me through the winter ... not round my middle , fortunately , but stacked as pots of chickpeas ( much nicer than tinned ones ) and soup in the freezer , as though I didn't live a three minute bike ride from the supermarket . 
Even YD , not normally a squirrelly person , reports in her turn a freezer full of small mineral water bottles of home-made chicken stock and a future of Venetian risotto .
I might even make some muffins .

Outside the rain's coming down sideways , and inside I've just filled the biggest mug in the house with coffee and picked up my book again .

I've got to find out what happens at the end .

Back To Work ...

No , I'm not going back to work and I doubt whether anybody would rush to offer me a job these days ;  but I would like a shot , if I could just do it via this place's back-to-work-scheme .

 It was Open Monument day in town last Saturday , dedicated this year to our industrial heritage . Usually only too keen to nose in normally non-public spaces , I couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to admire the  'pancake factory's'   deliveries yard or queue in the sun to have another look at the old jail's smithy .

But as I came round a corner near the supermarket , I almost cycled into this and couldn't resist  .

An old shipyard run these days by enthusiasts to look after old boats and  to provide apprenticeships  .

It's tiny and very run-down but ingeniously cobbled together with whatever was to hand .... one wall consisted of a patchwork of old shed doors . They seemed to specialise in rehousing orphaned windows , too .

 But the boat builders were all overwhelmingly keen to explain every process ,

the tools were impeccably stored , every piece of work glowed as beautifully planed and sanded wood should

and you knew that nothing would ever be wasted . I wandered about wondering if there was a vacancy for a coffee-maker /wood-stroker ... 

The only snag , of course , being that , much as I love all the boats I see every day 

I don't really like the water and am a hopeless sailor . The chances of suddenly getting very wet indeed are just too high .

What Can I Say ?

I'm becoming boring ... unfortunate in someone who blogs .

It's become so bad that the other day as I walked into a shop , the young assistant didn't even blink and just carried on moaning into her 'phone  , "Yes , I know so-o quiet . Only loads of women with grey hair ." , and didn't notice that , having cast a glance at her bemotto-ed cushions  ( so last year ... a bit like me , obviously )  I'd  left . I can be sniffy , too,  you know . 

Luckily I was in Deventer , a smallish town I like inordinately and promptly found lots of better things to do .

It's full of narrow alleyways , full of nice surprises .

 

Like the big working river , full of barges , just at the end of this lane

 

Or this imposing gate in an alley only wide enough for one small passerby

 

The spray of orchids in someone's window box

 

or these very blue and very perfect trumpets winding up a drainpipe  .

 

There are dozens of little shops and they're , all but one , packed with interesting things  ... I liked the way this one , full of bricabrac , even when forced by illness to close for business had found something pretty to write the message on . Who else remembers collecting angel scraps at school ?

The street names ; Long Bishop Street , Short Bishop Street , Behind The Monks  ... 

the tempting bars and the way that just round the corner there are two Cuban cafes and a proper tapas bar for the witch to sober up in ...  

The shop that just calls itself  THE Bread Shop .

And , of course , the best street decoration I've seen this summer ... dozens and dozens of rainbow coloured brollies everywhere .