Blob Thing Crosses Some Bridges And Finds A Strawberry

Blob Thing says:

Well this is all very exciting isn't it?

Yes.  It is.  I assure you, promise you and guarantee to you with a promise of a full refund.  You're right of course about that being an empty guarantee.  You haven't paid any money to me to read my words.  None at all.  They're free.  On the house.  Gratis.  My gift to you, faithful readers and others who stumble across this page.

It is very exciting.  Today I will get to the end of telling you about our adventurous walk to Morpeth and about the surprise we found there.  But that's not the exciting thing.  Nope.  No siree.  Negativo.  Ignore the "negativo" because who would say something like that?  The exciting thing is that I am writing my blog somewhere new.  I've been here before of course.  I've even blogged about here before.  Remember that time when a dragon in a giraffe costume stole my "Autistic" badge?  That happened here.  Just in the next room.

Today I'm writing my blog inside the Literary and Philosophical Society Library.  We're currently in the Sir James Knott Room so you know where to find me.  We considered writing downstairs where there is a silent room but for today at least we're upstairs here among thousands of books.  Last time I was in this room we had come for a poetry reading and music performance that we came to mainly on the grounds that it was free.  This time we've come so I can write my blog.

But that's not the most exciting thing.  The most exciting thing is that my person has just done something that she has managed not to do ever since moving to Newcastle.  She has joined the library.  Exciting, isn't it?  It's part of her plan you see.  I just heard a train horn!  Twice!  She hasn't got much of a plan yet but she knows that it includes lots of writing.  LOTS of writing.  She knows she has some kind of a writing gift of course.  People have told her.  And she's started writing more this year, especially in the last few months.  Next year she wants to learn to write.  Develop some skill.  Learn how stories, non-fiction, poems, and every other type of writing actually work.  She wants to play with words, play with ideas, play with writing prompts, enthuse about the wonder of composing.  She is a writer.  She says so.  Therefore she is.  Next year she also might get to the point of entering a competition or two.  Or submitting some work.  She'll only do that if the composition process looks joyful though.

She also needs to learn about proof reading and editing.  Take the story that she published on her own blog a few days ago.  It's a Christmas story.  It's more than 15,000 words long.  We all know that a year ago she would not have been able to write such a story.  Personally I think it's pretty good but maybe I'm a bit biased on account of being her soft toy.  Maybe not.  Others have read it and the reaction has been good.  But it's not proof read.  It's not edited.  So there are lots of typing errors and little things that could do with tweaking.  What I say is that she should do the proof reading.  Do the tweaking.  Change the dates.  And then attempt to get it published somewhere for next Christmas.  That's what I say.  I'm just a small pink soft toy but sometimes I get ideas.

I'm in the Lit & Phil Library.  And my person is a member.  And she is a writer.  And she is as excited as I am about what she might find in 2017.  Today, on 22nd December 2016, next year is a mystery.  This year was a mystery too.  There have been surprises this year.  Lots of them.  Last year was too.  At least that's what my person says.  She hadn't expected to be diagnosed as autistic last year but that happened.  I wasn't alive for most of last year.  I was only created on the evening of December 31st.  So I didn't get to experience much of 2015.  This year has been a constant surprise for me and there is a vast amount I haven't been able to tell you about.

Like that day we walked to Morpeth.  We were nearly there.  Success almost guaranteed.  If you want to read about the rest of the walk you'll just have to read my other posts.  Some of what's there may surprise you.  Things did not turn out as planned when my foolish person attempted to take us through Bothal but they turned out well after many adventures and some time travel too.  Bothal is a safe place now.

On our walk into Morpeth along the course of the river Wansbeck there were only two more bridges to cross.  And then we would be there.  My person said that we deserved a rich reward when we arrived and that she might even treat us all to a pot of tea in a cafe.  And get this:  She said she might even buy a cake.  A cake!  My person said that!  She doesn't usually go so crazy.  All the memory wiping must have affected her in some way.

Here's the first bridge.  It's called the Morpeth East Bridge and the excellent bridges site tells me that it was constructed in unknown.  That's okay.  All I need to know is that it's a bridge and that I like bridges.  Don't I look wonderful carefully sitting on the metal rails at the side of the bridge?

Here I am again, sitting VERY carefully.  The view downstream is behind me.  I did have to be very careful because the gap between the two pieces of metal I'm sitting on was very nearly as wide as I am.  If I hadn't held on so tightly I might have been blown into the river by any passing gust of wind and that would have been my doom.  So I held on and held on and gripped as tightly as it's possible for any soft toy with no limbs to grip.  I was lucky.  I didn't fall into the river and the photo was worth all the unnecessary risks I took.

Here's a close up of me sitting in a similarly dangerous, precarious, spot that would make you hold your breath with suspense and terror if you had seen me in real life or in a movie.  Blob Thing:  Daredevil.  But unlike the fictional Daredevil I haven't got any special skills and I'm not a highly trained fighting machine.  It's true that Winefride and I did manage to hold back the stone sentinels of Bothal graveyard for a while but we wouldn't want to make a habit of such extraordinary escapades.

We walked on.  Further upstream.  Towards the land of Morpeth.  Until we arrived at our final bridge of the day.  A pretty footbridge.  This is the Stobsford Footbridge.  It's called that because it's a footbridge.  It's by a ford.  And it's the Stob.  No, I don't know why it's called Stob.  The bridge was placed over the ford in 1931.  The faithful bridges site says so.  But it wasn't originally placed there.  It got moved.  By people.  Not by a storm.  It was originally sited at the bottom of Curly Kews.  Honest.  I'm not making that name up.  Curly Kews.  The local paper speaks of a "shocking scene" on Curly Kews this year.  There was a collision on the road.  A one vehicle collision.  A police car collided with some railings.  In Morpeth that is enough to qualify as a "shocking scene."  I guess that hundreds of people would have had to be hospitalised with the shock of seeing such a sight.  Shocking.  My person is shocking too!  Earlier this year, probably on a similar date to the Curly Kews incident, a woman in the market looked my person up and down and angrily said, "Shocking!"  I think that woman had to be hospitalised too and is possibly still in a maximum security psychiatric ward.

Here I am, in glorious sunshine, by the Stobsford Bridge.  I understand that in the town this is known as the green bridge.  Even though it's blue.  A woman is just to the left of us making noises under her breath as she looks at books on a shelf.  Maybe she's autistic too.  Maybe she just likes making noises.  Maybe she can't help it and has funny lungs.  Maybe in future we'll sit in the silent room downstairs.  I just think the light is better upstairs.  It includes a bit of natural light.  I must admit I wish that Newcastle had the reading room we liked so much in Manchester.  We would almost have lived there.  She's still there.  The books on those shelves are all about the Second World War.  I think my creator might like some of them.  Titles like "Holocaust Journey".

You can hardly see me in this picture.  I do like bridges.  Next year I want to see lots more of them.  Lots more.  And I'll pester my person regularly if she doesn't take me places to see them.

And so we arrived in Morpeth.  My person told Winefride and me that we would be going to a cafe.  If we could find one suitable for sitting in quietly with a nice pot of tea.  We liked the cafe we found in Manchester last week.  But I've said that before.  I wonder whether there's anything that crazy in Morpeth.  I do like pots of tea.  If they're filled with nice tea.

We walked into Morpeth.  Tired.  Thirsty.  Sun-beaten.  Drained from the Battle of Bothal.  In desperate need of refreshment before seeking transport back to the citadel of Newcastle.  We hoped that somewhere we might find a place that would welcome three weary adventurers with open arms and provide some refuge from all we had witnessed.

We hoped.  We dreamed.  We fantasised about tea.  I hoped the tea wouldn't cost too much or my person would probably renege on her promise and drag us away from the cafe with the words, "It's too much.  Let's just buy a large bottle of milk and drink from that instead."  My creator taught her that trick.  In many ways it's a good trick.  Why should my person pay a pound for half a litre of a sugar drink filled with flavourings and caffeine and colouring - that perhaps necessary evil entitled Coca-Cola - when she could buy two whole litres of milk instead?  A good trick but, I hate to say it, a trick that could take us away from our cafe experiences.

We hoped.  But we couldn't have hoped for or expected to see a sign like this:

All welcome.  Even three footsore wanderers with slightly muddy shoes.  Only my person's shoes were slightly muddy.  My shoes and Winefride's shoes weren't muddy at all.  Because we don't have any shoes.  I wonder whether my person will ever borrow books from this library.  It's not as if she needs any more.  On the other hand the library might have some books that would help her in her writing.  I noticed several written by the Opies and they're all good for finding ideas.  All welcome.

Not only that.  Another smaller sign told us the admission cost.  Free.  Absolutely free.  No charge.

A miracle!

These last two pictures from an amazing day show Winefride, my wonderful sister, and me.  We're sitting with a big mug of tea.  Not a pot.  And we're sitting with a big bowl of strawberries and some home-made shortbread too.

Music was playing from a local little orchestra and we sat in the sunshine outside the United Reformed Church and felt very blessed indeed by the entire situation.

You couldn't beat this.  It was better than going to a cafe.  And there wasn't any chance of my person complaining about the cost and dragging us away.  Thank you church people for the miracle.

That's the end of my account of that day.  Thank you for living it with me vicariously through my words.

Oh, that person who was making the noises moved on about sixty seconds ago.  I think she's going to borrow the book that stood between "The Secret World" by Hugh Trevor-Roper and "Crusade in Europe" by Eisenhowe.  My person says she would have read a book by Hugh Trevor-Roper in college but didn't because she had to completely reorganise her course and provide a new curriculum.  So she didn't ever read what he had to say about Archbishop William Laud, a man who wasn't lauded by his many enemies.  I wonder if he said more sensible things about Laud or about The Secret World than he did about the fake diaries of Hitler.  Probably I will never know.  That's okay.  There are much more important things to know.



[2160 words]

Blob Thing Witnesses The Strange, Forgotten Past Of The River Wansbeck

Blob Thing says:

I'm not going to talk much at all today.  I've just got some pretty photos to show you.  They were all taken on our epic walk from Stakeford to Morpeth.  I've already talked about our journey as far as the Bothal Mill bridge on the river Morpeth.  My person has been shocked at how much I've had to say about the experience, especially about Bothal itself.

We had been forced to spend a lot of time away from the river on our river walk.  My person says that it was about an hour.  I say that it was about seven months and that my person has forgotten many key details of what happened to us.  Now we had reached the river again and we wouldn't be diverting from its course again before reaching Morpeth.  Nor would we be diverting the river from its course.  We didn't even have a shovel, let alone any heavy engineering tools and I doubt my person would have been able to divert an entire river with only the use of her bare hands.  Even if she was as strong as Klaus, the giant I met once, or as powerful as the Angel of the North I doubt she would have had the skills to manage to divert a river.  In any case, where would she divert the river too?  It was very happily flowing down a valley, purpose built/eroded for the practical use of a river.  Diverting the river onto the hills would seem to be a fool's errand.  So leave the river where it is.  It's not doing anyone any harm except when it floods.  Are we agreed?

It was lunch time.  I decided that we should stop here.  It's a pleasing spot with the ruins of industrial works on the river that once would have driven mill equipment and turbines.  The area has a big industrial past and much that once was made has been unmade and only a few stones remain.  Some massive structures aren't visible at all now.  The colliery near my house is gone and you wouldn't know that there were tunnels under the ground.  And as for Bedlington iron works?  You would have to work hard to see any sign of that and yet it was a very important place once where wrought iron was discovered and where the rails for the Stockton to Darlington railway were made, as was the first train that ever left King's Cross in London.  It was important but is now invisible.

So we sat and ate our lunch and that was much appreciated by the three of us.

And so began our walk along the river.  We couldn't see much of the river very well because the valley got quite steep and the path had to be quite a long way above it.  There were lots of trees and other plants in the way.  That's okay.  They were very pretty too.  I want to tell you about an unfortunate incident.  I saw a branch that hung across our route and I decided that rather than just going under it I would climb the tree and walk along the branch to see if the view was any better.

It was difficult to climb up there but I made it.  It must be admitted at this point that my view wasn't much better from the branch than it had been on the path but it was fun being up there and I pretended that I could see all the way to Morpeth, all the way to Stakeford and all the way to Newcastle too.  I don't think my person fell for it though because she told me I was being silly.

Then Winefride saw me up there and she decided to follow.  She didn't have reins then so there wasn't anything my person could do to stop her and she skilfully climbed the tree and walked out onto the branch.  She looked a bit wobbly but seemed happy enough and she settled down onto the branch and laughed.

Here we are.  Don't we look utterly fabulous, eight feet above the ground?

But then the unfortunate incident happened.  Winefride started to walk back along the branch to get down again because I said we needed to hurry up and get to Morpeth.  I shouldn't have said that about hurrying.  Because Winefride took me at my word.  She hurried.  And she hurried too much.  Poor Winefride.  She lost her balance and fell to the ground far below.  I was very worried because it was a long way to fall and she was lying there silent and not moving.  I didn't want her to be hurt.  It was quite the unfortunate incident wasn't it?

But then she wriggled and opened her eyes and giggled.  She was fine.  I was very relieved indeed.

As we continued our walk we discovered some more interesting things from the forgotten past.  My person will tell you about them properly if ever she manages to blog about our day out.  I think she already explained about some of them when she walked along the same path before on that difficult day when she took me on one of my first adventures and then forgot about me until the adventure was over half way through.  I missed out on all the sights I'm going to show you now.  Silly person!

Here I am on a coat of arms that was carved into a rock face.

And here are Winefride and me sitting on the remains of a wall.  I think this was part of an old chapel.  It seems an odd place to build a chapel but maybe it was busier here once.  Or maybe someone wanted to have very quiet church services.  I went to a church yesterday.  Sort of.  I think my person half-liked it even though it was sort of church.  It took place in an art cafe in Manchester.  A very nice place.  There's a man outside the window shouting and making a big noise right now.  Well not right outside the window.  I can't even see him so he must be a long way away and shouting very loudly indeed.  Not the window of the art cafe.  That's not where I am right now.  Right now I'm sitting with my person and we're in my creator's house.  Later we're going to go out on a bus to a little place we like and we'll go to charity shops and drink some tea.  I'm looking forward to that.

Here's a close up of us looking particularly stylish on the wall.  I wonder who worshiped here and whether they did it in English, Latin or perhaps in Urdu or Sanskrit although that seems unlikely because not many people in Northumberland worshiped in Urdu or Sanskrit in 1800.  Sanskrit is an amazing language that I don't know how to speak.  Urdu is probably a good language too but my person has some holy books that were written in Sanskrit and every word seems to be more philosophical and full of meaning than the last.  I haven't ever worshiped in Sanskrit or Urdu.  Or even in Cornish and that's a much more local language to Northumberland than Sanskrit.  I don't think many people worshiped in Cornish in Morpeth though.

It's possible to worship in Cornish now though.  I'm going to show you some now because it's nearly Christmas.  Here's the start of the song that Mary, Jesus' mother, sang after being told she would bear a child.  It's taken from the Morning Prayer liturgy that you can find here if you happen to be inspired to worship in Cornish or see what the language sounds like.

Ow enef a vur/ha an / Arluth: ha’m spyrys re omlowen/has yn / Dew ow / Sylwyas.
Rag / ef re / vyras: orth ys/elder y/vaghteth/-ef.
Rag otta, a/lemma / rak: pup denythyans/-oll a’m / gelow ben/ygys.

My person says it's a little bit like Welsh because the languages were related.  I got her to take a picture of a piece of Welsh graffiti yesterday in the toilet at the art cafe.  She didn't mind because it made her laugh.  It was a question she used to see a lot when living in Wales whenever something was displayed in English only.  BLE MAE'R CYMRAEG?   Oh yes, here we are sitting on the wall.

And here we are on top of another wall.  This wall used to have a well at the bottom.  I wonder if it was a holy well with a spring formed by a saints head rolled onto it like the one at Holywell in Wales.

I will share two more photos with you.  They both show me in front of a viaduct.  This was designed by Stephenson and still carries the railway over the river Wansbeck.  I was sad because my person said that when she had walked that way before the plants were less green so she could get a better picture.  She also said that the water level had been lower then so she had been able to climb down the river bank and stand on a rock almost in the middle of the river and had been able to get a very good picture of the viaduct.  We couldn't do that.  These are the best we could do.  That's okay.  Maybe we'll go back again one day.

Next time I'll finish telling you about our epic quest.  How we finally reached Morpeth.  And the surprising thing that we found there.



[1592 words]

Blob Thing And Winefride Find The Magical Bridge And Stones Of Bothal

Blob Thing says:

It was proving to be a most amazing day.  I'm not going to say anything more about the events we had already experienced and how I nearly died in the graveyard.  I won't speak more about the rhyming man or the green witches who sheltered us in their castle for five days until it was safe for us to move on.  If you want to learn of those events read the previous two posts.  You won't believe some of what you read there.  My person doesn't believe it either.  She thinks we had a very nice time in the graveyard at Bothal.  She thinks it was a perfectly ordinary day of adventure.  Because the green witches played with her memory.  So that's that.

We walked down the hill from the green witches' castle until we reached safety.  The water.  The evil that had nearly destroyed us could not touch us once we touched the pure flowing water of the river Wansbeck.  Then we would be able to continue our epic quest to find the fabled city of Morpeth.  [Enough Blob, stick to the actual events please.  Just this once.  Please Blob.]

Yes.  Down to the river.  As we reached the very treacherous path to the water my person got very distracted.  And why wouldn't she?  She suddenly stopped.  Pointed.  And shouted, "What the frell is that?"

I would have thought it perfectly obvious what the frell it was.  It was a bridge.

We had found the fabled rickety troll bridge over the Morpeth.  [Now now Blob.  You know perfectly well it wasn't a troll bridge.  And you know that it's not fabled.  Do you even know what fabled means?]  Okay.  But it did look rickety.  At least more rickety than the stone and metal bridges we had crossed already on our adventure.  I'm not going to admit that there aren't any trolls dwelling near the bridge though, only that we didn't see any trolls that day.

I like bridges.  I like to be photographed with them.  I have a desire to be photographed with every bridge across lots of rivers and my person needs to get a move on in finding them all for me.  This bridge is one that few people see.  I thought it very exciting to see it.  This is a suspension bridge and there aren't many of them on the Wansbeck.  It can only be used by pedestrians.  You would never fit a train on it.

Here's the picture of me with the bridge.  Don't we both look stunning?

Unfortunately we couldn't use the bridge to cross the river.  We weren't allowed.  I believe that there is a track that runs from the church to this bridge.  On the other side is the rectory where the local minister lived.  He would have had a massive walk every day to get to his church so the parish built him his very own suspension bridge.  Wasn't he a lucky man?  Nobody is ever likely to build a suspension bridge just for me.  I bet nobody has ever built you a suspension bridge either.  There isn't one for my person either.  On the other hand she doesn't need a suspension bridge to get to the toilet in the middle of the night.  We've just been to a kind of church service in which people talked about getting to the toilet in the night.  It took place in an art cafe and wasn't like any normal kind of church service.  But that's today.  It's not the adventure day.

No, we couldn't use the bridge because both ends of it are in private estates and since we couldn't go in the private estates we couldn't cross the bridge.  I wish we could cross it one day.  I'd love that.  I wonder if they could make me some kind of special swing and I could swing back and forth under the bridge and above the river.  My person wants to have a special swing and be tied onto the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and go swinging when it's raised.  Or just be tied to the bridge and lifted high above the river.  Sounds like fun.

Never mind.  We soon found another way to cross the river.  We descended the treacherous path and encountered this stunning sight:

Stepping stones!  I love stepping stones and these ones were amazing.  They're also very obscure.  We saw a sign in Morpeth recently that told of the stones on the Wansbeck and whoever wrote the sign hadn't ever heard of the Bothal stones.

I won't tell you how many times my person, me, and my sister Winefride crossed the stones but it was more than one and less than a thousand.  We had so much fun and I watched happily as my person went completely happy flappy and Winefride jumped back and forth across the stones.  I'm glad she didn't fall in.

Here are some stepping stone pictures.  This first one is of me, standing on one of the stones.  The rickety troll bridge is in the background.  Beautiful.

This is the view from the stones if you look upstream.  Beautiful.  Even without me or Winefride in the photo.  I wanted to be able to walk along the light and into another world but obviously that would have been impossible so I stayed on the stones.

Here I am with my sister.  She is so brilliant.  Hmm.  Neither of us are managing to look at the camera for this photo.  We're autistic and sometimes find it hard and sometimes my person has to take lots of pictures before she gets one where there is eye contact between us and the lens.  You can tell this was a long time ago because my sister hadn't got any safety reins.  I love her.  She makes my adventures much more fun and when we're home we play together quite a lot.  When we're not playing with other friends of course.  Or when she's not lining up her toys and I'm studying.

Here we are on the stepping stones.  Awesomely gorgeous.

Then it was time to leave the stones and we had to leave the river behind too because the path didn't follow the water.  We had to adventure again and even had to head back through Bothal to get on the right path.  That's a whole other story that I'm not going to tell you about because my person isn't letting me.  It wasn't quite as scary as the story I told of our first trip through Bothal but it was staggeringly stunningly stupendously stultifyingly [is that the right word Blob?] strange.  I won't tell of the vampyre, or of the society of rainbow unicorns, or of the way crazy Jack Williams caused the transformation of our friend Graig-Pethe into a marble plinth.  I won't tell of the battle between the local minister and the evil Lord Farage who called for the execution of all people of a different colour.  Including my sister.  I won't tell of how the green witches destroyed the Scimitar of Broken Dreams.  I won't tell of any of the adventures we had on our second trip through Bothal or how my person's memory had to be wiped for a second time after we were transported back in time again.  My person won't let me.  And the rhyming man himself vowed me to secrecy about some of the things that happened.  Believe me, it's better that you don't know the full truth.  [Blob, that's enough.  Seriously.  I think you make some things up.  I think you do it just because you enjoy it.]  See, my person doesn't know the full truth.

We passed through Bothal without incident [that's better Blob] and reached the river again.  It was crossed by a much sturdier bridge.  In fact this was the bridge we were aiming for, the one on our walk.  The stepping stones had been an unexpected bonus.

Here I am with this bridge.  This is the Bothal Mill bridge, built in 1982.  It's wide enough just about for a car and a walker.

We had done it.  It had taken us seven months and six days.  But we had finally reached the mill bridge.  Seven months of adventures.  There were more than enough to fill a book that would undoubtedly be the bestseller of the year.  As someone said about my last post, "Eat your heart out, J. K. Rowling."  I don't want her to do something quite so drastic.  It's a shame I have to keep silent about our Bothal adventures.  Don't you want to know about what Lord Hampton was doing with Brenda Smith's sisters and a pack of perfectly ordinary living tarot cards?  It's quite easy to do divination with living tarot cards because they tell you the interpretation themselves.  You deal the fool or the devil or the hanged man and they rise up out of the cards and speak.  Have you ever talked with a hanged man?  I have.

We had reached the river and the bridge.  It would now be a simple matter to walk along the river to Morpeth.  And it would be lunchtime soon.  I do like lunchtime.

One final picture.  Here I am on the bridge with the river behind me.  It's beautiful.  I'd recommend that anyone walks the route we did.  And don't worry about passing through Bothal.  It's quite safe now because we cleansed it thoroughly.  Have no fear about it.  Bothal has returned to the light.

[1583 words]

Blob Thing Fails To Find A Toilet Before Finding A Magical Graveyard

Blob Thing says:

Our day had been going very well so far.  Any day on which you find a surprise deserted play area cannot be marked down as a failure.  We were quite sorry to be leaving it.  At least Winefride and I were.  I'm not sure my person would have wanted to stay there.  She wanted to carry on with our walk.  Winefride just wanted to stay and play all day and I was torn.  I like playing.  And I like walking and exploring.  The swings and the slide had been a lot of fun and I didn't know when I would next get the chance to play.  But I knew there was an adventure ahead that had been very carefully planned.  So carefully that we would still lose our way a little.

So we walked on from the play area back along the path alongside the river Wansbeck.  It was at that point that I realised something.  I think my person realised it too when I mentioned it.  I found that I really needed to go to the toilet.  Maybe that's too much personal information for a blog post?  Well you need the toilet too don't you?  It's nothing to be embarrassed about.  People are very strange with the ways they get embarrassed about normal things that everyone does.  I've heard tell that people used to sit together on toilets that had lots of seats.  I don't think many people I've met would like to do that sort of thing now.  I've asked my person and she said that her great grandparents had an outside toilet with three seats but that she wouldn't want to share a toilet with anyone.  I think it's funny too how there are different rules for toilets.  How standing up toilets can be a shared experience but sitting down toilets can't.  Having said that, I get a bit embarrassed too.  Because it's not usual for small soft toys to need the toilet.  Or to eat cake in cafes but I really enjoyed my cake yesterday and the salad I helped my person eat.  I'll blog about that cafe sometime.  They sell tea.  Lots of tea.

So I needed the loo and so did my person.  Whatever were we to do on a riverside path?  Fortunately we were presented with a solution.  Within a few minutes.  A solution.  Hoorah!  Hoorah!  Two cheers for the solution.  Two cheers for blessed relief for my person's bladder and my whatever it is in the anatomy and physiology of a soft toy.  I don't think I actually have a bladder but I haven't ever been X-rayed and I'm not ever going to let anyone dissect me to find out what's inside me.  Maybe my creator knows the answer but she hasn't told me.  Maybe she doesn't know what's inside me at all because she didn't know that I was inside me did she?

A solution.  A solution.  We saw a sign pointing the way to a public toilet.  I was very pleased.  Happy that such places exist.  So we followed the path to the toilet.  And our joy turned to despair.  Despair!  Because this was the public toilet the sign had pointed to.

It didn't look very promising.  Fortunately my person isn't a man because the men's toilet was locked.  We looked in the women's toilet and then had to look inside the disabled toilet too.  It wasn't in the best of condition.

My person said that she didn't want to use this toilet.  She said it didn't look comfortable at all and she would get embarrassed because the door had vanished.  A bird watcher on the other side of the river might have seen her if a bird watcher on the other side of the river happened to exist at that moment.  And the shock might make the bird watcher fall out of the tree they were perched in to get a better view of any passing kingfishers.  That's what my person said.  [No I didn't.]  I told her that I didn't want to use this toilet for a much more sensible reason.  My reason was that I didn't think the toilet was quite in working order due to most of it being missing and it not having any water running to it or from it.  I didn't want to use a broken and missing toilet half covered with pieces of wood broken from the door.

But what to do?  What is a soft toy meant to do when the public toilet turns out to be a very public lack of toilet?  I could have got quite worried about that.  I didn't.  I'm a very sensible soft toy.  I knew what to do.  I would find a quiet place out of sight of all paths if possible and pretend that the ground was a toilet.  I told my person to do that too but she seemed to already know about such desperate courses of action.  She's quite lucky really because things like this are easier for her than they are for most women.

I'm not going to give you all the details of our toileting.  You don't need to know.  My person says that you didn't need to know any of what I've just said and that she would have preferred not to have had to type any of it.  All you need to know is that the toileting was successful.  My person says that you didn't need to know that either.  My person says that nobody reading this needs to know that and that anybody reading this probably didn't want to know it.  She isn't making me delete it though.

We walked on from our successful toilet of whatever manner it was and continued alongside the river.  It wasn't long before we approached one of my favourite things.  A bridge.  This one in the background.  It carries a road.  Immediately behind it is another bridge.  That carries a footpath.

We didn't cross the bridge.  That wasn't in the plan.  And we had a problem.  From this Sheepwash Bridge - for that is its name - we couldn't continue any further along the river.  There was no path ahead on either side.  It makes a river walk quite difficult when you can't get to the river.  So we had to walk a very different route and try to get back to the river at a different point.

Our route was very steep.  First we had to follow the steep road for a while and then we left it and joined a steep footpath.  Somehow we would find our way to the correct other end of the footpath and find a way back to the water.  Spoiler alert:  We did it.  And it was worth doing it.

It really was steep.  And there were trees for my person to photograph.  Here's one.  Maybe there will be others if she writes her own blog about the day.  She could certainly make a blog of the graveyard and took some nice pictures there, even some without Winefride or me in them.

By the time we reached the other end of the path we were all eager to see the flowing water again.  Our eagerness had increased after we had managed to get a bit lost once.  It wasn't our fault exactly.  We followed the sign post.  And we tried to follow the exact route of the path on a big map.  It wasn't our fault that the post pointed the wrong way.  And it wasn't our fault that the path on the map didn't bear much relation to the path on the ground.  It was annoying and I know my person felt a bit cross.

Eventually we made our way back to another road that we could follow back towards the river.  First we had to pass through a place called Bothal, a place where (rumour and hearsay has it) there are many witches covens.  I can believe the rumour and hearsay.  The whole place did feel a bit funny.  I liked it.

I was going to tell you all about our adventures in the village today but I've talked enough I think.  You'll have to wait until the next post to hear all about the magical graveyard from the title and see lots of lovely pictures of us there.  It was a beautiful place.  I wonder if we'll ever go back.

My person says I should apologise for talking so much about toilets that I couldn't talk about more interesting things like the mysteries of Bothal.  If you've been at all offended by it then I am sorry.  That wasn't my intent.  I just wanted to tell you what happened.  I promise that next time I will get on and tell you about how strange life was in Bothal.  I think we were quite lucky to have escaped.  I don't know whether any of the covens are evil or whether they battle each other with terrible magics but the thought of my sister Winefride being sacrificed to appease some crazy demon fills me with horror.  Perhaps we were being protected by the incantations of a green witch all the time we were there.  Perhaps.  Even if you doubt it I dare to say that you can't prove that it didn't happen.  I'll tell you about it next time.

Love to you all.


[1563 words]

Blob Thing Experiences The Wild Stepping Stones Of Morpeth

BlobThing says:

My person hasn't been letting me write my blog for the last few days.  And in the last week she has only taken me out on two adventures.  I don't think she has been feeling that great.  But I'm sure she will again and I think that next year will be even brighter than this year.  For me.  For Winefride.  And for my person.

The first of these adventures was to Morpeth but I'd just been talking about the bird that swallowed me whole and I felt a bit nervous so I spent almost the whole day hiding in the bag in case the bird spotted me again.  My person tells me that she did walk past the bird again.  I was glad that I was safe.

The second adventure was very special.  My person took Winefride and me to the Great North Snowdogs farewell event.  All of the dogs were there including the one that we hadn't been able to see because there was no public transport.  I hope that when another trail is organised in 2019 there won't be any inaccessible creatures.  At the event there were lots of signs telling us not to touch any of the dogs.  I felt very sad because it meant that I wouldn't be able to properly meet the last dog.  But then my person gave us permission to break the rules and Winefride and I sat on the dog and had a nice chat.  My person took lots and lots of photos that day and I'll be sharing them on my special Snowdogs blog, Blob and the Snowdogs.  But that won't be until February because I'm only sharing pictures of one dog a day.

On Saturday my person brought a new friend and he's now living with us in the house.  He's very lovely.  My creator named him Merghost on account of him being a Merghost.  He's got a tag with a name on it but I think Merghost suits him much better.  My person liberated him from a church fair at a very low ransom cost of twenty pence.

Today's blog, yes person.  [Keep it short, my finger is hurting a lot.]  I was telling you about my previous adventure in Morpeth, five whole months ago.  When I left you, which seems ever such a long time ago because it was ever such a long time ago, I had been walking in the park and had found my way back to the river after going up and down hills too many times.

I liked the river.  The water was extra specially pretty in the sunshine.  My person took a picture of the church and I like it so much that I've given her permission to include it here even though I'm not in it.

We continued along our route, past bridges, and then we got a view of Lord Collingwood's old house across the river.  There's only a very little bit of it there now but Lord Collingwood probably doesn't mind because he's dead.  Oh no, not recently.  A while ago.  My person says that we have seen a giant statue of Lord Collingwood at Tynemouth and a smaller statue of his head in the Anglican cathedral in Newcastle.  He's quite famous because he won a big sea battle.  Not only did he turn up first but he was the boss sailor at the end of the battle.  He won.  He took over leadership of the battle from a man called Horatio Nelson who died half way through.  Horatio is much more famous.  Even I've heard of him.

Then we found something very exciting indeed.  Stepping stones across the river.  I wanted to cross them, jumping from one stone to the next.  It was lots of fun.  A sign says that they're the seventh set of stones across the river out of seven and I want to make three points here.

Point One:  That means there are six more sets of stepping stones further up the river.  I want to cross all of them.  All of them.  And that means that my person will have to take me on some more adventures soon.  She got told that she would be able to walk along lots more of the river.  I want to do it.  Please person.  Take me back to Morpeth.  Let's walk and find stones.

Point Two:  The sign is lying.  I know it is.  Because I have crossed the stepping stones at a little village called Bothal.  That was an excellent adventure day.  I should blog about it.  We took Winefride on a walk that day from Stakeford to Morpeth and it was wonderful and Winefride made such happy and delighted sounds on the slide in a play area.  Yes.  More stepping stones.  An eighth set of stones.  The sign is most definitely lying and I have proof.

Point Three:  Sometimes the River Wansbeck floods at Morpeth.  The water gets high and covers up the stones.  Sometimes they are covered by feet of water.  My point is that crossing the stones was very exciting for a little toy but I wouldn't want to try crossing them in a flood.

That's enough points.  Here's a picture of me.  I am posing on the stepping stones.  What a thrill.

Here I am, sitting on a stone.  The river is behind me.  It's not the best picture but it's hard to take a picture of a toy on a stone like this so I'll forgive my person.

We walked along the river a bit more once I'd crossed the stones enough times.  I must have crossed them an even number of times because at the end I found myself back at the beginning.  We walked.  And we came to a footbridge over the river.  This is the view downstream.  When we were there last week a cormorant was on the river very near the bridge and it was playing and playing and having a lot of joyful time.  It's a very pretty place.

It's so pretty that we met a woman on the bridge who had come on holiday from a pretty and popular tourist place in the south of England.  She said that Morpeth was much nicer.  Here's the view upstream.  My person knows a woman who lives in one of the houses you can see.  It's a very nice house and the garden leads down to the river which is a brilliant thing.  The woman said she has seen otters and kingfishers from her garden.  And a terrapin.  I'd like to see otters and kingfishers.  I think my person would too.  Unfortunately a garden like that is a dangerous thing when floods happen because it might not just be the stepping stones getting covered with water.

We finally left the river behind.  But we're going back aren't we person?  To walk further upstream.  And you promised you would take Winefride and me on the walk from Stakeford to the sea too didn't you?  That walk was my first ever adventure but my person wasn't very good at adventuring with me then and only got me out of her bag once in order to show that I was having an adventure.  I've spent this year teaching my person how to have adventures with me.  She's getting much better at it.

On the way back to the bus stop we passed this entrance wall.  It's another pretty thing.  We walked through it and circled the churchyard beyond.  We felt tired even though we hadn't walked very far.

All that remained were chips.  Chips and a bus.

It had been an excellent day.  It's been an excellent year.  Everyone is complaining about how bad the year has been.  I've heard lots of sad and scary things.  But my year has been far better than I ever would have believed it could be.  The Angel of The North told me I'd have excellent surprises coming my way.  And I have.  I think there will be even more surprises next year.  For me.  For Winefride.  For my person.  And for my creator.  I am looking forward to next year even though there are so many challenging things in the world.

In April my person was sent out and told to find one thing of joy.  That's my challenge to you.  Today.  This week.  This month.  And throughout next year.  Find things of joy.  I promise you that they exist.  My person wrote about some of them last week.  There are plenty more.



[1420 words]

Blob Thing Goes Gardening With A Herbalist In Morpeth

Blob Thing speaks:  [Honest, he does.  People don't seem to believe me that he is the one writing all this and that I am just the one typing it for him.  He's very clever.  For a soft toy.]

I've asked my person what I should talk about next.  She didn't know.  She would probably prefer it if I didn't talk about anything for a while so she can write the things she wants to write.  My person has her 250th blog post to write which is quite a milestone.  She also wants to finish writing the draft of a Christmas story that my creator got her to write.  [No.  You know that isn't quite true Blob.  You know she only gave me a half sentence prompt and I did the rest.  And you know she only gave me the prompt because I asked her to.  So don't blame your creator.]  That doesn't matter.  The point is that you're writing a story and I think you would prefer to be doing that right now not typing my words.  [Well you're right there Blob.  So get on with it.]

Last night we had a look at some photos of my adventures and we made a list of some of the adventures that I haven't talked about yet.  I didn't sleep well last night and they don't make sleeping tablets for soft toys so at three o'clock I found myself thinking about it.  Should I write about the beach at Alnmouth?  Should I write about the Sunday Assembly?  How about the time Winefride and I did a fun dance in a cafe with one of my creator's friends?  There's even a video of that one.  Or maybe I should finish my description of Greenbelt because I want to do that.

No.  None of those things today.  I have decided to write about an adventure day I had five months ago.  Five months ago tomorrow to be exact.  That was the day my person took us to explore some of Morpeth.  The first of July.  The start of the second half of my first year of life.  Ooh. Wow.  That's exciting.  It's just a month until my birthday.  I wonder if I'll get any presents.  My Morpeth adventures seem good to write about because tomorrow I'm going to be going back to Morpeth and I think I'm going to be fed cake too.  This time Winefride will be there too.  I hope she likes it.

This has been a year in which we have walked to Morpeth - another adventure for me to write about and there's a video from that day too.  It's of me, Winefride and my person playing on a slide.  It was a wonderful day and we got to eat strawberries at the end of our walk.  Also this year we have walked from Morpeth.  That was one of my first ever adventures.  Just about.  My person took me out with her and then she forgot that I was there so I remained marooned in her bag until over half way through the walk.  Don't worry though - I've made her go back again so I could see the things I missed out on first time.  And this has been a year in which we have walked in Morpeth.  That was a very good day too and we discovered lots of pretty things.  I wanted to play on the swings in Morpeth but it was raining at that point and my person didn't let me.

We arrived in Morpeth on the bus and walked down the main street to the river.  On the way we passed the Bagpipes Museum.  Yes.  It's true.   Morpeth has a museum devoted to bagpipes.  We went in and had a quick look but I have to say it wasn't the most exciting part of the day for me.  Bagpipes are okay in their place, which isn't necessarily in the main shopping street of Newcastle.  I like some pipe music and we even own some CDs with pipes of different kinds.  My person is telling me that we should listen to her Kathryn Tickell and Davy Spillane albums again.  I hope she spelled those names correctly because I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Then we crossed over the river.  We didn't use the busy road bridge because behind the bagpipes we found a quiet footbridge.  My person took pictures from the bridge.  When she blogs about the day she can include them all.  I don't want to post them because none of them show my happy face.  I am happy to show some pictures that aren't of me.  But not all of them.

Here's one not of me.  Taken from near the bridge.  This shows the River Wansbeck.  It's a weir.  It's been at least two days since I last included a picture of a weir.

We followed a little lane from the bridge and entered a park.  This was Carlisle Park and I got a bit confused because we weren't in Carlisle.  I want to go and explore Carlisle one day.  It's a very long bus ride away but that's no excuse and my person should take Winefride and me to see it.  Next year.  When it's a bit warmer.  All we would have to do would be to get the bus to Hexagon and stay on the bus.  I want to go back to Hexagon too.  Maybe next time I'm there I can be very brave and go into the prison even though that's a very scary place.  Yes person, you must take us to Carlisle.  It won't cost you anything.  So don't make excuses.  I promise we'll behave on the bus and I'll help you look after Winefride if she gets bored.

We walked up a hill in the park and I started to feel good about being in Morpeth.  Already the park was proving to be a richly rewarding revelation, reaping righteous rewards.  [Er, Blob ... I think perhaps you're taking alliteration a bit too far there.]  Having walked up the hill we looked across to a big castle.  At least it looked like a castle.  But my person says that it isn't a castle at all.  She says it used to be the court house.  Not any more.  Now it's filled with apartments.  Expensive ones.  The kind of apartments where your towels are washed for you and someone makes your breakfast.  I think it should be a castle though.  A castle with a very strict court that makes you clean the roof and look after the park just for dropping one sweet wrapper on the pavement.  I dread to think what the penalties might be for dropping a takeaway wrapper.

We had just walked up a hill.

And we stood at the top of lots of steps.

But what was at the bottom of the steps did look interesting.  So we climbed down all the steps.  If we had known that we were going to end up at the bottom of the hill we might not have walked to the top of it.  We might.  People do that kind of thing.  Anyone climbing a big hill knows that in the end they will be back at the bottom of the hill.  They do it anyway.  For fun.  For the view.  For the satisfaction of having climbed to the top.  I want to go up some big hills one day but it's difficult to reach them from here on a bus.  My person should work out how to get to some bigger hills next year.  Perhaps she will go to a bigger hill one day when staying in the Manchester home.  There must be bigger hills near there that she can find using a bus.  Or even a train.  I like trains.  I don't think I'll ever climb Everest though.  But wouldn't it be amazing if I did?  Just think of all the photos I could bring back from the Himalayas.  I could be the first small pink soft toy to climb Everest and I would get in the record books.  I could be.  But I won't be.  We haven't even finished exploring Tyne and Wear.  It's a bit soon to think about exploring Nepal.

And we did find something very nice indeed at the bottom of the steps.  We found a pretty garden named after a man called William Turner.

The plants in the garden are mainly ones that William Turner put in his book.  Turner was born about 508 years ago in Morpeth.  He didn't stay in Morpeth as an adult but Morpeth is proud that he was born there.  He wrote "A New Herball" the first clear survey of English plants.

Turner also wrote a clear survey of wines.

Here are some pictures of me enjoying the garden named after him.  It was very nice.  I preferred being by the river later because I like rivers but this garden was pretty and I liked it.

Here are some more facts about William Turner:

He was famous for teaching his dog to steal hats from the heads of bishops.

He published the first printed book about birds.

He was imprisoned for preaching without a licence.  He later got a licence and became a priest.  And then he was thrown out of the priesthood for his views.

He died at a place called Crutched Friars.

After exploring Turner's garden I felt I needed a rest.  Especially as I knew my person was about to make me climb back up the hill.  There was a highly suitably place to sit and I basked in the sunshine, taking advantage of it because I didn't think I'd be seeing much more of it.

I was glad that my person had taken me to Morpeth.  It was proving to be a very surprising place.  The best was yet to come.  Stepping stones.  I like bridges.  And I like stepping stones.  I am glad that I'll be going back to Morpeth tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to it and I think I'll get to see the stepping stones again too.  I like stepping stones.

There.  Finished.  Now my person can get on and do some of her own writing.  If her fingers aren't too tired from doing all of my writing.  Okay my person.  We can stop now.



[1723 words]

Blob Thing Completes His River Irwell Expedition In The Rain

Ooh.  It's quite exciting.

I've just booked to go and see my creator.  She lives a long way away from me.  I could never hope to flap my dress and fly that far.  Not in one day.  I think if I did try I wouldn't go the way the coach goes to where she lives.  I would take a more direct route.  It's much prettier.  And it's much shorter too.  It would probably still take me three days to fly though.  At least.

This week is going to be very exciting too because on Friday Winefride and I are going to be taken to the Great North Snowdogs farewell event and we will see all our dog friends again.  I'm hoping that we get to see the dog called Patchwork who lived in Kielder which is also a long way away.  We want to have our picture taken with Patchwork.  We would also quite like to sit on the dog who lived at The Sage because he was on a big platform that made sitting on him impossible.  I wish the people at The Sage hadn't forced their dog to live on a platform where he couldn't go for a walk.

It's all quite exciting.

The day I've been telling you about in my blog was quite exciting too.  I'm not sure I want to repeat the excitement of nearly being eaten twice but there were plenty of other exciting things to smile and whoop about.

We had been walking along the banks of the River Irwell, a short river that starts in some hills that I want to go and see next year and ends in the middle of Manchester where it flows into a big canal.

As we walked we looked through a very long fence to our left and kept seeing graves.  Lots of graves.  My person likes graveyards.  She does and she doesn't care if you all think her strange.  She says graveyards can be very pretty, very peaceful and very calming.  This particular graveyard had ever so many graves.  We passed a section of very plain gravestones, all exactly the same size and shade of grey and then came to a section of much more ornate graves that had been decorated with all kinds of things, like shrines.  This was a Roman Catholic section of the graveyard.

My person said that she wanted to visit the graveyard.  Not that day because it was already raining quite hard.  But one day.  And we've done it too.  We've been to the graveyard.  On a much drier day.  We took Winefride with us and we all had a lot of fun except my person started crying at one point when reading some of the inscriptions to infants who had died.  I had to comfort her.  Winefride ran off and played and we thought that would be okay if we kept an eye on her.  But then she climbed up a tree stump and got stuck in a hole in it and I had to rescue her.  My person was useless.  She didn't help me at all.  She just stood back and made me do all the work to extricate my sister from her unfortunate situation.  She just stood back and took pictures of the scene.  I'll blog about it one day and show you just how unhelpful my person was.  The pictures are nice.  But I think I would have preferred some help and my person could have helped in an instant.  Sometimes I wonder about her priorities.

So that first day we just walked past the graveyard.  It was raining quite a bit and we knew that after the graves we would come to a road.  My person had looked on the map on her phone and spotted that there was a bus stop nearby.  She had decided it would be better to stop walking, catch a bus, and go and get dry.  No more adventuring for Blob Thing that day.  I agreed with this decision.  For once my person was being sensible.

We got to the road okay.  We got to the bus stop okay.

And then we encountered a problem.

There were no buses on a Sunday.  None.  Not even if we waited for three hours.  None.

What to do?  In the rain?  On a road with no buses?

The sensible thing would have been to walk up the road.  It would perhaps only have taken us ten minutes and we would have reached another road.  And another bus stop.  With regular buses.  Even on a Sunday.

That would have been the sensible thing.  We stood in the rain and my person pondered what to do.  Should she be sensible?  Twice in one day?

She decided to be not sensible.

She decided the best thing was to carry on walking along the river.  In the rain.  With no jacket.  Because that's just the kind of woman she is.

At the time I complained and asked her, "Why don't we just walk to another bus stop?  It's only just up that hill."  She said, "It's okay, if we go this way it's just another few miles and then we'll be somewhere I know we can find a bus stop."

So we carried on walking and in retrospect I am glad.  We saw lots of pretty things that day - things we took Winefride to see too after seeing the graveyard.  The rain didn't spoil the afternoon.  But I did hide away in the bag quite a lot.  My person didn't have a waterproof jacket.  But I haven't even got waterproof skin.

We crossed the Irwell at the road and found ourselves in Bury.  We're not in Salford anymore Dorothy.  A sign announced that we were at the edge of Drinkwater Park.  I didn't want to drink the water but I like parks.  So it was a thing of gladness to find that our route entered the park.  To be honest it wasn't in our route.  My person knew where we were going.  There was a signpost pointing to where we were going.  It wasn't through the park.  It wasn't even on the same side of the river.  But the park sounded more fun, even in the rain.

We saw pretty things like this.

It might have been pouring with rain but I still wanted to take time to pose for a photo.  I'm glad we've taken Winefride to the park too and she has seen what I saw.

We saw this plant.  Cow parsley.  I think, although it seems a funny name for a plant that doesn't look like a cow.  It's very pretty.  That's not to say that cows aren't pretty.  I like cows and met some near another lake we walked to.  But cows don't look like cow parsley.  Unfortunately we saw a lot of another plant too and took photos of that.  It was called giant hogweed.  There's a lot of it there.  The Wikipedia article about Drinkwater Park has a section about flora and fauna.  The only photo there is of giant hogweed.  Horrible stuff.  This plant was much prettier.  And much less evil.

We carried on walking and passed a wide flat area.  It was still very wet but we were happy.  I was surprised by how happy my person was being.  She was having fun and being very obvious about her enjoyment of being outside.

The rain kept getting worse.  I sat in the bag mostly and didn't even take time to have my photo taken.  Not even when we got to this part of the river.  My person had to jump from the river bank across a deep gap to the top of an old wall to take this photo.  She did it again when we went back with Winefride and she took some very nice pictures of us there.

We reached the second of those bridges.  It was time to cross the river again.  The bridge once carried a canal but the canal had gone.  The view was still there though.

We crossed and followed a tow path high about the river.  It was very muddy and we could hardly tell it was a tow path because there wasn't much evidence that there had ever been a canal.  Never mind.  And it was very wet.  The tow path seemed to go on for ever but I know that was just our imagination.  Eventually we reached the end and reached our destination too:  Clifton Park, back in Salford.

We didn't take time to explore the park, deserted because of the weather.  There was only one car in the entire car park.  We left the park quickly - it would still be there another day - and climbed up the hill back to a bus stop.  My person was right.  This bus stop had buses on a Sunday.  Lots of buses.

And so we returned to the house and got dry.

All that was left to do was to drink tea and smile at what had been a very lovely day indeed.



[1512 words]