Comments on: Days Like This, No 18: A Dip in Goat???s Water

By: McEff

McEff — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 16:40:43 +0000

In reply to EchoohcE.

Hi Mike. Great stuff. Small Water has been on my target list for many years. One of these days (warm days) I might finally get the opportunity to take the plunge. It’s a beautiful little tarn.
I went snorkelling in Low Water, on the Old Man, once. Never found a sausage, never mind a bottle. It was good fun though.
All the best, Alen

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By: EchoohcE

EchoohcE — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 14:17:12 +0000

Great post Alen. When I was young I used to do a bit of tarn swimming in the Lake District; I think it started in the summer of 1976 funnily enough! It didn’t last long after that year…
One memory I have of that year is snorkeling in Small Water, above Haweswater on the Nan Bield Pass route. The water was so clear I could see old bottles (including a Codd bottle) lying intact in the mud, so I dived down and rescued a few. The water was deeper than it looked – about fifteen feet or so! Good way to find bottles though.
Cheers, Mike

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By: McEff

McEff — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 14:08:41 +0000

In reply to Kaura.

Thank you very much.
Alen

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By: Kaura

Kaura — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 12:15:10 +0000

An excellent collection of consonance.

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By: McEff

McEff — Sun, 12 Apr 2015 12:21:14 +0000

In reply to Steve Bibby.

I like the idea of gathering as opposed to collecting, which is more formal. I’ll go along with that.
That’s a fantastic memory. It’s like the beginning of a story. Hope the dock leaf search was successful.
Alen

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By: Steve Bibby

Steve Bibby — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 23:04:49 +0000

Collecting requires systems and code, I suspect. I ‘gather’ bits of glass from Seaham’s beaches. And the odd fossil at Redcar and Marske (and last week at one of the old quarrys near Frosterley). I doubt that counts.

Alen – when I was a kid (maybe 10) I remember me dad taking us over a mountain/hill. He seemed to forget that, having walked over it, the car would be on the wrong side. He hitched a lift to collect it.

I recall needing a toilet stop so I persuaded mam to let me wander into this wooded glade near the road. I wandered off, looking for dock leaves, and stumbled upon a pool – perfectly blue and clear, with white stones lining it. It was about 6ft deep, and 10 ft across, and sort of rugby ball shaped. It was stunning. You could through a penny and see it flit to the bottom, bubbles streaming from it’s edges.

Forgotten until now.

Steve

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By: McEff

McEff — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 15:56:13 +0000

In reply to Jo Woolf.

Hiya Jo. Ah yes, old slides. That’s a collection I’d forgotten about. I reckon I’ve got somewhere in the region of 3,000 stashed away, many of which have not been seen since the day I got them back from the Kodak laboratories in Hemel Hempstead. Fossils is another I dabbled in, but unless you live in a fossilly (is that a word) area they are hard to come by. And yes, the summers were better in those days. That’s a fact.
All the best, Alen

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By: Jo Woolf

Jo Woolf — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 15:47:02 +0000

Fantastic, Alen! I enjoyed this very much. As a former collector of fossils, shiny rocks and old bottles I can readily sympathise. Well, I still collect fossils and shiny rocks. I love how you have preserved all your old photos, too – that must have taken some doing, going through them all. I can almost feel the heat of those summers, because of course summers were better then. And the tarn swimming, bbrrrrrrrrrrr! You were brave. The sea sometimes tempts me in, though, the higher the breakers the better!

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By: beatingthebounds

beatingthebounds — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 12:13:27 +0000

In reply to McEff.

It always strikes me as a relatively humane zoo, the animals have so much room to move in. It’s a regular day out for us.

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By: John Arnison

John Arnison — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 11:05:21 +0000

Perhaps we could do a swap, a few plugs for an old hat,that sort of thing!!

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By: McEff

McEff — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 10:32:23 +0000

In reply to Steve Bibby.

That’s a tale and a half, Steve. I’ve never been swimming in the Tees and I don’t intend to after reading that. Redcar beach is the nearest I’ve been, and I can honestly say I’ve never experienced sea water as cold as it was on that day. That’s the North Sea for you.
So far you appear to be in a minority of one in the collecting and crazy hobby stakes. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I suspect it’s a good thing.
Cheers, Alen

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By: McEff

McEff — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 10:22:39 +0000

In reply to beatingthebounds.

Blimey, Mark, you should write a book about that lot. I remember the Brooke Bond cards as clearly as anything. There was always a race to open the box after my grandmother had been to the Co-op (or t’Cope, as we used to call it). I had a collection of them, and like you I haven’t a clue what happened to them.
I went to school in Dalton-in-Furness, and in those days the area that is now the animal park was just a wilderness of hawthorns, overgrown mineral railway lines and haematite-mining subsidence. It’s strange to go there now and see giraffes and rhinos wandering about the place.
Cheers, Alen

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