Dockwray Square

These lovely new houses are striking in several respects.

One is that they sit on a cliff that overlooks the river. Another is that they are situated where as late as the 1930s there were slum clearances. Photos of what used to be in North Shields are here on the library’s website.

The library and other websites describe the slums along the Fish Quay as being between the tall stairs that link the quay with the Tyne Road on the cliff top above.  The stairs are there still and we routine use one or another of them to get down to the promenade at the river level.  This description made us both remember our visit to Mary King's Close in Edinburgh, where all the tenements were built in layers between the market street and the lake (sewer) at the bottom.  There aren't houses off those stairs anymore, only offices and restaurants to my knowledge.

Dockwray Square was originally built as elegant housing in 1763, but because of little provision for water and drainage, they deteriorated to the slum level of the houses nearby and the well-to-do moved into Northumberland Square a few blocks away.

Dockwray Square has since been re-developed, in the last 10-15 years, I'm guessing.  Were we to move, I think Bill would consider living in one of these houses and though I’m slightly less enthusiastic I have to agree they are rather attractive.  And they are right across the road from the High Light…


Just to be confusing, this is Low Lights


So what has this to do with Stan Laurel? It will be old news to the local folks, but he lived in the old Dockwray Square at number 8 for about 5 years around the turn of the last century. There is a plaque on the wall of that house and a (not very good, IMO) statue of him in the green.  

Home boy made good and all that...

A Sunday Walk – Part II

We walk along here quite often – at least once or twice a week – much as we do past the Castle and the Priory. It’s almost a reflex action if I have my camera with me, I’m somehow compelled to take certain photos. No doubt one day I’ll be able to show you the Priory as it appears virtually every month. I feel just the same about the High Light and Low Light in North Shields, the two white buildings in this photo.













They are landmarks that have been there for hundreds of years - in some form or other since 1725, guiding ships into the mouth of the River Tyne, safely past the Black Middens.  I think it's seeing paintings of the quayside from the 19th century that show one or both of these lighthouses and then seeing them for real is the thing that really gets me about them. 

They are now private homes; I can’t imagine what that would be like, having such a strangely shaped house, not to mention one built in 1808.  However, come to think of it, I remember that the former windmills that were used to drain the Norfolk Broads have also been converted into houses, which would be roughly similar.

I remember a few years ago when the Low Lights was for sale.  The description is all that remains:  apparently it has 4 bedrooms. 

Well, enough maritime history. Tomorrow we’ll talk about Stan Laurel for a change.

A Sunday Walk – Part 1

I had a couple of items to pick up in North Shields and I invited Bill for the walk. We took the straight way there, but the scenic way home.  I've mentioned before that North Shields town centre not a pretty place, probably because much of it suffers from the 'modern' thinking of the 1960s which resulted in hideous buildings.  There are a few grand buildings left, however.   


First of all, the name comes from an old word, shiels, which means a shed or hut. Back in the early days of the Priory of Tynemouth,


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the monks needed food and they gave permission for the fishermen to build their huts on either side of the Tyne, hence, North Shields and South Shields. I understand that back then you could walk across the river at low tide. The ship building industry and coal shipping obviously caused the Tyne to be dredged to create a port.

 Still, Tynemouth is only a village and North Shields a town; there are more services and shopping options in North Shields. I also find the staff are much more straight forward and approachable.  With the exception of the post office and the restaurants, people in Tynemouth often strike me as incredibly rude.  I take all my other business to North Shields.






It wasn’t until I was looking with open eyes at North Shields that I found the old Library. Two of the ladies in the sewing group worked there for years and both said it was as beautiful inside as out.  Looking up through the windows we could see an elegant banister and part of a conservatory roof.  The 'new' library is a horrible glass and concrete box, but must larger I'm sure. 



 Then there is the old town hall, now offices and a restaurant.


Also the Registry Office, where people go to register births and deaths and to get married in a civil rather than a church service. It used to be a shipping office and it overlooks the river.

Standing in front of the Registry office looking up the Tyne, you can see the river ferry approaching the landing that I showed you the other day.


Further up river is a very large ferry that does a daily trip to Amsterdam.  We also found a sign directing us along the North Shields Heritage Trail, a walk I’m determine to take one day to show you the other parts.

It has been bright and breezy around here of late and the Tynemouth sailing club is just around the corner, so to speak. You can see parts of the Fish Quay (that word in pronounced KEY, strangely enough, not one I ever encountered in the States, but then I did live pretty far inland.) This is where fishing boats have unloaded for hundreds of years, but the fishing trade here has largely gone the way of coal mining, textile factories, ship building and steelworks. That said, the Fish Quay is still the best place to buy fish and chips or fresh fish in this area; I’d put them up against Long John Silver’s any day.  My mouth waters just thinking of it. 

Even better, we've discovered a new place to shop!  But that I will save for another post.

The Pier and the Cricket Pitch

When I was a child in Oklahoma City I loved secret hideaway places, many of them probably quite unsafe: up in the huge elm trees in our back yard; the funny little shack next to Grandmother’s house, behind the dry cleaners, probably full of carcinogens; the 3’ tall storm drainage tunnels, with only a trickle at the time, but I couldn’t always see the other end when I entered.



My best friend and I would explore endlessly, even trespassing at times. I remember a tree that bridged a small stream on the grounds of the posh private Casady School.  We had to dodge the gaggle of guard geese to get there, though adults who saw us never said anything.


There was also a cracked old swimming pool full of tadpoles and frogs alongside a quartz cave at the back of a big estate somewhere in Nichols Hills. We walked on the railway tracks for miles, skittering up the embankment when we heard a train coming. Looking back now, I’m horrified at the dangerous situations we put ourselves in, but it was all so very interesting, these places.


I still have that sense of wonder now, when we walk the trails and alleyways around here. The whole area (the whole country) is criss-crossed with public footpaths, bridle paths and cycle routes.



Trespass is prevented with tall iron gates, or stone walls sometimes topped with broken glass. In any case at 55 I’m much less likely to crawl through a gap in a fence than I was at 10. The great thing is that I don’t need to.


There are sheltered little paths like this one that lead along great stone walls and bring one out next to a cricket pitch.


Out the little wooden gate are endless narrow streets and alleys and tall old houses with fire escapes and tiny balconies or yards.

There are plenty of railways, but the tracks are made fairly inaccessible and the speed of passenger trains doesn’t bear thinking about even it if did still seem attractive.

Instead we can walk the mile length of a pier that takes us nearly out to sea.  We can see the priory and the beach from a different angle and appreciate why the small houses behind the cove called Priors Haven are on a road called the Spanish Battery.  



Bill says there used to be cannons on the cliff before there were piers, when discouraging invaders was more important than guiding ships into the mouth of the River Tyne.



We got to pondering how many different ways people find to enjoy the water: fishing, swimming, surfing, jet skiing, sailing, rowing, photographing...



It really was a gloriously sunny and, with barely any breeze, it was almost warm. In spite of having done a six-mile race in the morning, Bill let me walk him around another 4-5 miles in the afternoon.

Soap Experiment

I haven’t written specifically about anything frugal lately, though I would hope that all the reading and walking that goes on here exemplifies an inexpensive lifestyle with frugal hobbies. Most of our frugality probably qualifies as passive – the things we don’t do or buy. Even the active things are small: walking to the store, hanging laundry, cooking at home. Now and then, however, we experiment with a new idea.

 We are among the very few people I know who don’t have an automatic dishwasher. I’ve only ever owned one once. It was in the house in SLC when I bought it, probably an old-fashioned model, but I wasn’t very impressed by it, so I’ve never bought one since. For only two people I’m not convinced it actually saves labour.

Anyhow, I noticed a recipe for homemade dishwashing soap on The Simple Dollar (see Question 10) that I thought we could try. I found some washing soda at a hardware store for 85p and we had the other ingredients on hand. We seem to go through a lot of dishwashing soap and through the cheap stuff even faster than the more expensive brands. I also thought it would be a good way of using up some of the many remaining small bars of hotel soaps we collected over the years of business and vacation trips. Even after years of using them at the gym and at home, we still have a significant supply; so bad that I don’t pick them up any more. We also have a significant number of soap bars from Ella’s collection of gifts for Grandma.


I started out grating the soap bars, which was tedious, but Bill got out my grandparents’ meat grinder and that was miraculous: soap bars to soap powder almost instantly. The recipe was relatively simple, but it did warn that the contents would foam after each addition. They weren’t kidding it foamed.

The results initially were worrying, separate solid on top of some sort of liquid. Bill cut through the block of soap with a knife and it did gradually absorb most of the liquid. The instructions do say the result is fairly solid and to put it on the sponge rather than in the water, which is what I do with dish soap anyhow.

It does more or less clean the dishes, but it turns the dishwater a horrible grey and I think it leaves a bit of a film on glassware. Nothing that drying them immediately doesn’t take care of, but more work all the same.

Since then, we’ve talked about other ways to cut down on dishes that need washed: use the same coffee cup all day, the same saucer for snacks, cook larger batches of food so that the skillet or pot that was dirtied provides more than one meal. Perhaps washing dishes more consciously would also help. There is actually a prescribed order that starts with glassware and ends with pots and pans. I think we already do this, but wouldn’t swear to it.


Bill says he doesn’t think the chemistry of the recipe makes sense, mixing acids and alkalis, etc. He remembers as a child there being one type of soap which came in big green or pink blocks and one would ground it up to wash either dishes or laundry: kitchen soap. I’ve no idea what it was or if it can now be purchased, but he wondered if that was the soap we were supposed to have started with. Seems unlikely, given it was an American recipe and kitchen soap is not part of my childhood there.

I’m glad we tried it; it was an interesting thing to try and we had fun doing it. We’ll probably even use the stuff, though I won’t promise. Would I recommend this recipe? Nope. Would I try another experiment like this? Absolutely! We’re considering using just the washing soda in very small amounts – wearing dishwashing gloves, of course.

Putting aside whether calling this sort of thing ‘fun’ is beyond warped....

Do you ever do fun experiments like this in the name of frugality?

Burnt Out

I noticed a funny smell in the East Wing the other day.  I checked the iron, but it was cool.  Then I noticed that the screen on the PC no longer had a picture or an operations light, but the keyboard and the big box did have lights.  Bill confirmed my suspicion that the PC had burned itself out and we turned it off and left it to cool.

I'm typing this on a new laptop with which I've yet to make friends.  I'm sure there are many nice things about it, like the squillion times faster Internet, but the screen resolution isn't as good and I've spent a good deal of time trying to adjust settings and kill off all the garbage that new computers use to make you crazy. 

It seems so strange to be talking to you on a different computer that I almost feel I've lost my 'voice', like I'm starting all over again as a blogger...ridiculous.  Instead of whinging about what I don't like I need to count my blessings:

• I had the money to just go out and buy a new computer, even if I didn't allow myself to get a snazzy one.  We looked at Sonys and Macs and I walked away just as if they were Jaguar cars or Alexander McQueen dresses; nice to look at, but stupid prices.
•  Nothing was lost off the old PC:  I still have all my photos and...AND  I DON'T HAVE TO DO MY TAXES ALL OVER AGAIN!  I got all the way done to some last hitch on the Utah form and that's when the PC began to crumble.  I could have filed for an extension, but I think figuring out that puzzle once is sufficient punishment for having any income at all. 
• I have loads of posts written and all I need to do is add the photos and hit publish.  I never stopped having ideas or writing, they just aren't on this computer ... yet.  We've had loads of adventures the past few days, so all I have to do is be patient with this Japanese computer that was made in Germany and we'll be champion, right?

Obstacles

I’ve fallen off my posting schedule again, I know.  First of all my computer decided it didn’t want to know about the Internet any more; Bill said it was the physical connection that wouldn’t work any more.  I’m hoping to replace the old PC with something more modern, but at present am still shopping.  Meanwhile, I need to use Bill’s computer, awkward for both of us.  That’s one obstacle.

Way back when we had our front porch re-built I insisted that the builder make our front door open outwards.  He argued with me about it, but I thought it was because he’d have to re-do what he’d started as he gave me no other reason.  I can now give you two very good ones:

• One has to push visitors out of the way to let them in
• The prevailing wind from the SW catches the door and threatens to send it to Denmark if one doesn’t keep hold of it, sometimes a real challenge

As part of addressing the latter I placed a large cut stone where it might save the door’s hinges in the event that the door escaped someone’s grip.  That turned out to be another obstacle, one not for the door.

Last Thursday morning we were setting off to walk to the library and the post office.  I turned around to say something about the weather to Bill and somehow fell over my own door stop.  Books went flying, shins and knees are grazed, purple and green (but then Green was the chosen colour for May anyhow) and my ribs landed with a thud on top of my camera lens, making me wish again that I had one of those nice small, flat kinds. 

We managed to finish our errands following the application of a band-aid but I’ve not been running since.  We went to Mike’s for the wedding tea as planned on Friday but I came home and went back to bed and stayed there until Saturday night.  At 55 I don’t bounce so good and my every muscle felt aggrieved.  These things happen, though, and it’s not serious at all.  We’ve been walking a lot and I hope to try a short run again tomorrow, ribs permitting.

It seems a small thing, really, a few sore muscles, but I found I just couldn’t make myself deal with the runaround of moving text and photos between computers on top of feeling yuk.  However, must get back on track…

I just wanted to let you know you weren’t forgotten!