Cockermouth

I haven't shown you the village yet, so will end this trip with that.  Cockermouth is a colourful little village where the River Cocker joins the River Derwent.  Given the village name I was, like many people, expecting it would be on the coast; that it would be at the 'mouth' of the Cocker where it flowed into the (she quickly double checks Google maps) Irish Sea.  As it turns out, a 'mouth' can also flow into a river, lake or reservoir.  Who knew?  

At the bottom of the street is the pub:  The Bitter End...

Being located where two rivers conjoin is a big disadvantage in times of flood.  Everywhere we visited, there were lines marked on the outside and inside of buildings showing the level that the flood of 2009 had reached.  It must have been awful. Floods are the main natural disaster Britain has (I gather there are some 'baby' tornadoes and the occasional mud slide).  Fortunately, most of the buildings in Cockermouth are built of stone.  

I don't know what the place was like before 2009, but we formed the impression that the village had re-invented itself and gone slightly upmarket. We've watched Tynemouth change from a relatively mundane place (well, any mundane place on a coast with an 11th century castle and priory).  Tynemouth Front Street is now very tourist orientated and to a certain extent, so is Cockermouth.   Then again, so is the entire Lake District.

The River Cocker

We saw a number of flood barriers that impressed Bill.  I think it would be quite hard to trust that your home or business wouldn't flood again.  I'd be inclined to put anything I valued on the upper floors!

I thought Cockermouth was a nice mix of history, charity shops, upscale gift and baby shops, an old and a new book store and a handful of antique shops.  I could almost imagine us living there, but on reflection, I like where we are:  a few miles out of Newcastle, on a hill, 25 feet above the River Tyne, which flows freely into the North Sea.

Keswick Crafts

Bill and I had a day out at Keswick after Sarah and 'the Simons' had gone.  Martin and Helen went in a different direction and we got back together for dinner.  I was thinking I'd been to Keswick before, but perhaps it was Kendal...all those Lake District villages, all those K names...



I noticed the lovely old Congregational Hall.



Bill was the one that noticed there was a crafts fair on.  Bless him.




I mainly look for ideas, but then when I was looking at some things made around maps, the gentleman behind the table began to talk to me.  



I was taken with his little map-covered notebooks, about 3 x 5 inches, if that big.  He explained that he started framing map sections and cutting his own mats. He had developed his own style of what looked like double matting, but was in fact just a second groove cut to frame the hole in the middle. He hated to see the matting from the hole wasted, not to mention the bits of map that were outside the framed section, so he began making these cute little notebooks.

I was saying how much I admired people who could 'make something from nothing'.  He said he disliked the terms 'upscaling' or 'up-cycling' or even 'recycling'.  He preferred to think of it as giving something a new life. He went on to show me his price tags.  They were tiny sized tags the usual shape of a rectangle with a pointy end.  He said they cost a lot to purchase, so he started making his own. Sure enough, the back of his cardboard tags showed that he drank whiskey and ate cereal.  By that time, I was so impressed I had to buy one of his little notebooks.  I was just going to tuck it into my backpack, but he insisted I needed a bag:  it was a lovely replica of a brown paper bag, made from magazine pages!

He had no business card or I'd be sharing that with you.  He was quick to point out he wasn't a business, this was just his hobby.  Bill would probably say that in fact the man was in sales and that, as with all sales jobs, he sold himself well.  He was certainly easy to talk with.



I then went on to he next table and spoke with his wife, who had enjoyed eavesdropping on our conversation as she stood there knitting.  




I admired her fabric wares, but didn't feel the need to purchase any.  I will admit to taking note of some ideas, particularly for what she called a 'Wendy basket', after her friend who shared the idea with her.  If I ever get around to having a go at that I will certainly share it.

All the while, Bill wandered off and snapped a few photos. 



I finally caught up with him and we went for a pot of tea and a couple of scones at Bryson's, just hitting the last of the late lunch rush.





After standing in a queue for a bit, we lucked out and got a table in the window.  We sat drinking tea, watching the world walk by and baking in the sun!

Billy Bonka's Death by Chocolate

One of the other things we did when the whole group was together in Cockermouth was to have a Murder Mystery over dinner on Saturday night.  It was Helen's idea and she planned the whole thing beautifully, even posting invitations to our characters!  I won't say we were exactly typecast, but the people Helen chose to put against the characters was quite amusing.  I think we were all a bit nervous, this being the first murder mystery experience for many of us and I certainly have never done any sort of plays or acting.  In spite of all that, if you've never done this, I'd highly recommend it, but everyone does need to enter into the spirit of the thing for it to work.  It was great fun!  Thanks to Simon and Bill for sharing their photos...

Inspector McClue in Death by Chocolate 

"It's the 15th of April 1900, Easter Sunday. Paris is the centre of world attention as millions of visitors arrive for the opening this weekend of the International Exposition. Amongst them is an elite but diverse group of individuals staying at the Hotel Paradiso. As they gather for dinner, however, the peace of the hotel is rocked by an explosion. Billy Bonka, the foremost chocolate manufacturer in America, is found dead in his room, having apparently been killed by an exploding Easter Egg. Suspicion falls on the people around this table.

One - or more - of you is a murderer. Your task is to discover who that killer is. Fortunately the famous amateur detective Hercule McClue is on hand to assist your investigations."


Guests :

'CHOCOLAT' BERTRAND - The greatest legend of the Belgian chocolate industry, he is known as much for his ruthless business practices as for his suave bonhomie.

MARCHIONESS DUCHAMP - An internationally notorious artist, whose work has scandalised two continents, and whose private life has done much the same.

MARIA VON SCHNAPPS - The young businesswoman who has just taken over as head of a long-established Swiss chocolate firm.

MIKE BISON - The rising star of American boxing. He's in Paris for the Olympic Games, where he's sure he'll win a gold medal.

DAME BARBARA CARTHORSE - The most celebrated beauty in England, as well as a hugely popular romantic novelist.

DR. DORIS JOHNSON - An amateur archaeologist specializing in the Aztec culture, she is regarded as being eccentric even in a field populated by eccentrics.

DR SIGMUND FRAUD - The controversial psychologist whose theories have won him a small band of devoted disciples and the hatred of conventional society.


Inspector McClue makes his contributions via video conference.  You didn't know those were available back in 1900, eh?

And of course we had to have some chocolate on the menu!

At some point it started to get a bit wacky, but who could resist a tiara, a pretty hat or a stainless-steel-scouring-pad-beard? 

But all's well that ends well and the good guy got the girl...

Hats

One morning in Cockermouth, I took off on my own.  It seemed like a good idea for several reasons:

• Gathering a group of people and a new baby can be like herding cats.
• I was ready for some solitude.  I enjoy gatherings a lot and I'm not aware of overload until I get this overwhelming thirst for my own company.
• Part of that thirst is also about being able to potter around and see everything (Bill makes it sound like a crime) without anyone being impatient with me.

On this journey I found several things I later dragged Bill around to see (he enjoyed it, really). Two things were these hats, which I ended up buying, from an amazing antique warehouse.   I'd no idea Bill was going to snap my photo when I tried them on for him, hence the silly expressions, etc.

That bird is in a picture, not on the hat (see below).

These hats are vintage - even more vintage than I am!

And on the subject of hats (and vintage), did I mention we were celebrating Martin's 40th birthday as well as Bill's 65th?

Bill bought him an 'old man' cap, just like his own.  I wonder if Martin will actually wear it?

When at Jennings, waiting for the tour to proceed, we played around with Bill's hat.

I quite liked it!

[Note to self:  wear eye make-up when on these little jaunts...]

Oh!  And speaking of hats, there is this one that I bought for £3 at a charity shop.  

I spent an afternoon with a glue gun sticking on fabric flowers...but that's another post!

Jennings Brewery

One of the few things we all did in Cockermouth together was to tour the Jennings brewery.  I wasn't that keen on it but I was pleasantly surprised.

First we got a little history of when John Jennings bought the brewery from a woman, whose history was unknown and I can't even recall her name, which is annoying.  His photo, and those of several of his descendants were on display. I do remember the man saying they brewed 50,000 barrels a year. Each barrel holds 32 gallons and there are 8 pints in a UK gallon.  I could hold the numbers in my head, but not do the math! And Jennings is considered a very small brewery.  They were taken over by Marston's in 2007 and have expected to be closed on any number of occasions, but Marston's have supported them and maintained the Jennings brand.




Then we climbed a bunch of stairs made of metal grating.  I've learned not to look down.  Martin chose to stay behind with Charlotte and her pram, tended by the tour guide's wife who minded the till. She was promising him tea and cake to keep him occupied. Martin seems to have this effect on women, I don't know how he does it. I'm certain he has never gone hungry in his life, not in the presence of any female possessed of any cooking skills.

I don't remember all the details, but will tell you what did stick.  For one, the soaking of barley is called malting.  It smells lovely.  The stainless steel vats are enormous.  A large part of our house would fit in one.  Just looking down into an empty vat made my stomach flip.  The guide said that men have to go down inside to clean the things occasionally and they get terrible claustrophobia. I'm not prone to such a thing, but I fully understood their difficulty.  




Another part I remember was the toasted malt.  He showed us a series of jars labelled 'pale', 'crystal', 'amber' and 'chocolate'.  Then we went up more metal stairs and there was a room full of paper bags full of grain and several open plastic tubs.  I asked about rodent control, a question he didn't seem to like (it's contracted out).  Does anyone remember when The Book of Lists came out in the late 70s?  It brought to light that the governing bodies had a permissible number of rat pellets per unit of cereal...

We nibbled the various grains, only I gave 'chocolate' a miss.  The others all tasted of lovely toasted cereals but everyone agreed that 'chocolate' tasted like burned toast.  I recognise charred food when I see it.  

We also visited a room full of hops.  These are a flowering vine that adds the bitterness to ales and beers.  If you see a dried vine draped around the bar or other feature in a pub, it is usually dried hops.  While we stood there crushing the herb-y leaves in our hands he told us how producing ale was the response to poor water quality in the West and hence our livers developed the capacity to metabolize alcohol.  In the East, however, boiling water for tea was discovered to make the water safe and so many Asians do not have the capacity to deal with alcohol.  This article supposes that the lack of liver capacity drove the need for tea rather than the other way around.  I've no idea which, if either, way around is correct.

Yeast is also important for making ale and beer.  For ale, the yeast floats on top, for beer the yeast is at the bottom.  Yeast can be re-used as long as it's viable.  Each brand has its own type of yeast, never mind its own type of hops and cocktail of malts.  There is a yeast bank for all the brands somewhere, and after the flood of 2009, this bank was called upon when they were able to resume brewing.






At the end of the tour we each got three half pints to try from the half dozen on tap.  The Simon's (what Bill calls Simon & Simone) were methodical and managed to get one of each kind.  Bill and I didn't have that forethought.  In any case I know what some of the ales tasted like and Bill and I don't favour the same kinds; as with many foods he tends towards the sweet, I prefer bitter.  

The guide went on to explain how some of them got their names.  That's one of the best things about visiting a British pub, checking out the funny names on the taps.  For example 'Cocker Hoop':

"The name is derived from 'Cock-a-Hoop', an old custom of removing the cock (or spigot) from a barrel and resting it on the hoop of the cask before commencing a drinking bout, but was changed to reflect the brewery's location on the banks of the River Cocker."

or 'Sneck Lifter':

"In northern dialect sneck means door latch and a sneck lifter was a man's last sixpence which enabled him to lift the latch of a pub door and buy himself a pint, hoping to meet friends there who might treat him to one or two more."

I enjoyed this tour more than I thought I would.  I was vaguely aware about malt, hops and yeast, but I didn't know anything about 'fish finings', or fish 'swim bladders'.  Apparently these are added to beers and wine and then removed ... or not.  First I heard of this!

Martin finished off his (second or third) pie and joined us for a round of photos.  Apparently the youngest always gets posed pulling a pint.

Old Grey Goat

(Sorry, Bill, it's your own fault for choosing that lodging and I just can't resist.)

It's amazing how quickly five years has passed.  Five years ago, Bill turned 60 and the family gathered at Kettlewell.  This blog was there to report on it.  Later that year eleven of us went touring Route 66 (with a few additions) in an RV.   This year there are no grand tours planned, though we do have more trips planned in our motor home.  

This year, for Bill's 65th birthday, the immediate family  - that's Bill's three children and their partners:  Helen (Martin), Simon (Simone), Sarah; and Helen and Martin's six-month old daughter, Princess Charlotte) - all gathered in Cockermouth at The Grey Goat Inn.   

Helen and Martin came from Manchester, Simon from France, Simone from Germany, Sarah from Edinburgh and us from Newcastle, so it was no mean feat to gather.  

The Grey Goat Inn was, until about a year ago, a pub; now it is a 'holiday let'. Bill and I were the first to arrive and when we walked in we saw the owner. We were all quite shocked, as we recognised one another.  Hugh owns and runs a pub near us.  I've written about that, too.  I should go visit one afternoon (when it's quiet) and take some photos to share.  It's a pretty amazing place.  We knew Hugh had a place in Cockermouth, we just didn't know it was this one, it being let by an agent.  And while it's been a long time since we were at the Tynemouth Lodge, he recognised our faces from back when we went more often.

I was going to show you a bunch of photos we took of the Grey Goat, which dates back to 1780, but the website does that just fine.  Just click on that first photo and take the tour!

Easter approaching, I made everyone an Easter chick, using a pattern I've only ever seen the ladies at the sewing group use.

Amazingly, on our first jaunt around the town, Simon spotted a bunch of these in the window and said I'd just come early for some shopping!