Lovely gardens and places to Potter about in, in Alnwick.

Alnwick Lion

Barter books.

Having a bit of Farne...

Some travel from near, Durham, some travel from far, (Spain) but somehow we are all in the same boat, travelling to Inner Farne, an island famous for its puffins.  Only now it is just out of the Puffin Season, but still we are happy to be swooshed wet with the waves over the bow, peer at the black shags against the black rocks festooned at their tips with bright white poo, sniff the pongy brine and scan the dark sea just in case tiny flapping wings signify one of the most characterful birds in Britain.    I feel very silly, when I realise that the Spanish woman - a vet in trainee at Cordoba Uni - has managed to travel here from Newcastle and will return in one day whereas I have had to get my act together, check out the route when staying in Berwick last year and until my bus arrived this morning, was still uncertain I would get here from Alnwick.   Yet in reality it is all fairly easy, once at Seahouses a boat is imminent.

I guess in season our small boat will be packed, but there are only about 20 of us today.  Our first sightings are of seal sleeping in the sea, noses up, bobbing.  While others flip their flipper in greeting from the seal coloured rocks. I could happily have spent the day watching them, but there are other islands to skirt, stories to hear of about brave Grace Darling, heroic rescuer at 22, but dead herself only 4 years later, and then our final destination the National Trust site, once home to St Cuthbert but now  home to thousands of birds.   NT staff spend a large chunk of time here, joined by keen volunteers.  We have an hour here, time to wonder the marked path, and watch the clumsy footed shags, wonder at the world they inhabit.  They are charming.  In season the noise and smell must be intense, today we can just relax and enjoy the sights, before a last potter on the beach and the boat thrashes back to the coastal town busy with tourists.  How Cuthbert survived all alone there is a mystery, how puffins spend their days at sea, astonishing,  and for all the intripid tourists another small adventure has just ended. 

Update, re Mr. B.. FOI

I have just found out that I can use a Freedom of Information request to try and find out the paper work initially submitted when Mr. B, set up the company I was involved with.   I have no way of knowing whether it will provide helpful information, but every now and then I chip away at things and try to see if that establishes information that confirms or denies criminal intent.   I have to be a bit elliptical, but have passed the information onto the police in the hope that they will follow up on it.   

I may not be able to get the company investigated, but just having a bit of helpful information and advice can make a big difference.     I know people have said walk away and of course most of the time I do not think about it, but at times now when my income is down, or if Jordan or Ashley appear is plays out, or when I think of my father's death and how supportive he was, how he ingrained himself into the fabric of life.   Worse things have happened to me, but this was really really really difficult, and therefore somehow just chipping away at it, seems to be important.    That is all I can do, unless another person comes forward and the police see a pattern and prosecute, 

Gutted

Cat gut your tongue
       Gut your eyes
               Gut your fleas.
Catastrophies
    Lion Hunter Down
I picked you up so tenderly
As if that would stop your
Head flopping, limp body
Implode the guilty silence.






The night we ran over the cat,  the car was not travelling fast,  we saw it clear by the side of the road, away from harm,  turn away from us, and then horrifyingly turn again and launch itself in front of our killing machine.    For over a year the poem has gestated waiting to come out.  Yet most of the time and especially when I am stressed I blunder in and blunder in. If I am very critical of other people's mistakes (which I am - when they have consequences) I absolutely hate my own, yet sadly make many. For example every year I do my taxes, every year I record the details and then every following year I can find all the paper work for years gone by but never the previous years information even though all this information is kept in one place.  The Bermuda  Triangle seems to exist in my living room, and in my brain, but this current error seems so gutting - I just do not know how one can be so incompetent.

I complained, queried, emailed back and forth to Companies House when I was first defrauded.  Each time I recorded that they did not handle fraud even though they have a fraud department.     Recently I was following up on my situation with them and registered that they had given me a place where I could ask for the case to be investigated so immediately asked why on earth they had not given me this information before.     Their records are good back they came with the emails in which they had sent me the information.  I still have all but one of those emails and I can confirm there it is in black and white and yet somehow I did not see or understand I only understood that Companies House has a fraud department that does not investigate fraud.    True I was very very very stressed at the time, true I found communicating with Companies House just the reams of information in their emails confusing,  true the one moment when I seemed to have clicked as to what they were saying I could not find the organisation or the address they had previously sent me.  There does seem to be one email missing and I noted that at the time,  but that does not explain how one can be given the information one is seeking and yet still not see it.    I know I blunder on and do things too quickly sometimes, and it is interesting how sometimes mid rant one can connect to a bit of information and then somehow lose it again, but why why do we or should that just be I make these really stupid errors, errors which stop me resolving the very things that I am in touch about.    Now the catchily named Insolvency Service who turn out to be the people I should have contacted about the potential fraud may not investigate the case as I have closed the company.   I may not be a dead cat, but I may be dead in the water.... totally gutted.

Wedded bliss?

Your marriage or civil partnership should be recognised in the UK if you follow the correct process according to local law - you won’t need to register it in the UK  is what it says on the UK Government website, so when my now ex husband came to the UK and said we should get married in the UK I refused as we were married, or were we?

I did consult briefly two lawyers re my marriage, one said they thought it legal the other said it was not, emotionally I worked on the basis that is was, but asked my then husband to the UK to meet friends and family before arranging for him to come over permanently to the UK.  He came we were a disaster together, and so parted, but one of the reasons we were a disaster together is things like him insisting we marry.  Now I realise I have discovered that he might have been right....

Listening to Sunday today there was an item about an Islamic marriage that was made void as it had never been followed by a UK civic marriage ceremony - it caught my attention and I have been doing some delving again and the picture still is not fully clear.  However, had I had a civil marriage it would have protected me legally - whether it would make a difference to my ex husband would be less clear, if we were already legally married, no if not yes. Is this why he wanted to get married? 

Luckily, he tells me we are now divorced and he is married again and settled. I do need at some point to probably follow up on this but this has really unsettled me.   I told him in good faith that we did not need another marriage for our marriage to be accepted in the UK, but I can see the situation was greyer than that and I should have been open to more discussion on the topic. I suppose I was suspicious as to why he wanted it because I could not understand it, and suspicion is not a good basis for a relationship!  

I am also suspicious that the only person who I am talking to about this is myself as I have just confirmed to myself my checking my blog is being recorded as a reader!!!! So all these years wondering who on earth is reading this, well now I know - me!!!! 

The year Bob lost his teeth!

Cambridge Folk Festival has woven its charms through my life in three phases.  I first went there with my future first husband when we first met, and had a wonderful time there.  One of his best friends took me there several years later, when he became my partner.  John Green sadly died some years ago but even though we split up before then, Cambridge became a favourite place to meet up when he ws down with his best friend Graham for the festival.    Now partly in his honour I try and return each year to spend time with Graham and just have a brilliant time hurtling between stages and laping up the music. This year was no exception, they are still there, but I am exhausted after one day and what a great day - from young musicians maintaining the folk tradition, to the legendary Peggy Seeger, who in her 90s was able to remind people of the link between folk and polictics with her ditty on Trump in the White House.    This was followed by Eliza Carthy, who is a great model for women, large, loud and wonderful and wonderfully talented, and had everyone up and dancing, then on Stage 2 the dancing continued with Arcadian band Vishten, but the best was Songhoy Blues from Mali. Driving blues guitar and complex rhythms they brought the house down.     There used to be an amazing festival in the desert in Mali, sadly I never got to it, but the presence of ISIS in Mali has had a devastating impact on the music scene there,  as they have tried to crush all music.  The band formed partly out of protest to use music to fight back.   It was almost warm enough to be in Mali, it is fantastic to be able to sit under the stars and end the evening with First Aid Kit, whose lyrics follow in Seeger's protest mould, and St Paul and the Broken Bones, who I couldn't quite get my head around, but who was a great way to end a memorable day.

Oh yes and Bob and his teeth.  Well the charm of Cambridge are the stories woven each year of the people we have met, and those attending.   For example  Paul, sadly died, almost whilst on route,  a weird complex angry artist,  and John, who was last seen at Addenbrookes,  unable to manage another year.   Bob,  another friend of John's, was always coming but some how never got there till 2017.  He still tries to cut a dash with the ladies and almost had some success last year, but the disappearance of his teeth this year seems to have discouraged him somewhat, however, it has been the source of great humour.     His teeth have had a night out on their own, getting lost in the bed clothes and tent flaps.  As the only woman in the group for several year's attendance, I also enjoy this insight into male bonding, and love having time with this special group     I might be into tea and cake they into guiness and wine; somehow the bonds of time grow stronger with each Cambridge.