grumpyf1

They don't write 'em like that any more, do they..? I don’t want to imply that I’m some sort of tough guy, but I didn’t even sniffle when Jack slipped into the icy depths at the end of “Titanic”. There was no lip-trembling when Bambi’s mum died either. Excluding the time I realised I’d run out of coffee and the shop was shut, I’ve avoided tears for some considerable time. A story from America tested my resolve this week, though. A chap called Matt, from St. Louis in Missouri, sold a VHS player on eBay. (Don’t laugh – we only got rid of ours last year.) His old-school tech sale received a similarly vintage-format response from the buyer, in the form of a letter through the post. It came from an 86 year old man In Phoenix, Arizona, who praised Matt for “your care, your efforts, and your promptness”. Wow –someone actually thanking someone for something. That’s got me pretty emotional already. The old chap’s story is so much more than that though. Having found a pile of...

Cumbria is home to many amazing visitor attractions. The county boasts myriad places to go and things to do, including delights such as the World Of Beatrix Potter, the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway and historic Dove Cottage. Hell, we’ve even got the Cumberland Pencil Museum. But lurking over the border in North Yorkshire, something new is coming, something so daring, it could steal away our valuable tourist trade. It is... ‘Sausage World’. Go on, admit it – you want to go already. Food producer Heck have had plans for a visitor attraction and expansion of their factory in Kirklington approved by councillors, and the new building for groups will doubtlessly draw in the crowds seeking a sighting of sausages, or cheeky chipolata-based action. It’s bound to go with a bang(er). Co-founder of the company, Andrew Keeble, reckons it will attract “loads of school trips”, before revealing that their machine can turn out a staggering 1,300 sausages every minute. Who doesn’t want to ...

Big, isn't it..? A long, long, time ago, I was on holiday on a Greek island, whose name eludes me – it probably had a “thos” at the end.  Out for an al fresco meal one night, the power went off, plunging all of the local area into darkness. As we were close to the sea, there was an total absence of man-made light. It was like someone had flicked the switch on a celestial light show. In an instant I saw more stars in the sky than I ever had before, eyeballed the Milky Way in all it’s glory for the very first time and experienced a quite stunning, humbling, moment - utterly beautiful. True, several large glasses of cheap local retsina may have helped enhance it, but it’s stayed long in my memory... a bit like the aftertaste of the bargain booze. Friends Of The Lake District want a piece of that sweet action (darkness, not budget plonk) and are hoping to achieve ‘Dark Sky Reserve’ status in three years. The plan is to limit artificial light pollution, which will make the a...

Lunch out? Not unless you want snow balls... I’ve got a confession to make.  Lean in a bit, because I’m going to whisper it. Bit more. Did you have curry for tea? OK, good. I’m a weather nerd. There, I said it. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be an astronaut or a fireman – I wanted to present the weather on the TV. I was lining myself up for a career at the Met Office when, at about 18 years of age, I discovered I was allergic to studying. Anyway, despite a jam-packed and varied career over the subsequent years, I still have a fascination for the world of meteorology. I even have one of those clocks that projects the time and the external temperature onto the ceiling at night, so I can see how cold it is outside whilst lying awake worrying that I might have wasted my life and been more successful with girls if I’d been more into cars than clouds. So far this year, I’ve gazed at a chilly reading of -5C a couple of times, and been grateful for previous sensible ch...