Week 141, The Walkley crocodile

You can walk a long way in a pair of fancy shoes, but first it is essential that you are able to walk a long way regardless of the nature of the shoe.  My main mode of transport over longer distances has been the bicycle, not fancy shoes - and not that I couldn't walk a long way if I desired, that's not open to question, but mainly that if I was to go a long way then I'd prefer to do it via some means that allowed me to do it sitting down.

Having said that, Walkley, a gateway to Crookes, wasn't any significant distance away from wherever I had started on that particular day.  But I was on a bicycle, more specifically a mountain bike.  Being on a mountain bike is the important part.

While noodling around Walkley on two wheels, I was just about to pass from South Road to Howard Road, I was called to by an old acquaintance.

"Do you know anyone that wants to swap a mountain bike for a crocodile?"

This might appear an unusual request in the general run of things, however from this person it was well within the spectrum of general possibility.  One of their main topics of conversation was that of quantum mechanics, often counterpointed by the intricacies of bricklaying and the optimal trowel method for applying gobbo to headers and stretchers.

So I followed him in to take a look at the beast.

It was about 80cm long and kept in a tank that can't have been much more than a metre in length.  Other than the confinement it appeared to be in fine health, and it had a terrific set of teeth.

We chatted for a bit about stuff, I can't remember anything about where it came from or how he came by it, and I left saying I'd ask around.  I don't recall ever mentioning it to anyone - I wasn't really sure whether it was a crocodile or an alligator, the specifics would have made me reluctant in case a prospective mountain bike swapee was disappointed to discover it was the wrong type of reptile.

I have no idea what happened to this little bit of the Everglades transported to a Sheffield suburb.  Perhaps he gave up trying to swap it and had the poor, small creature turned into a tiny, single fancy shoe.  You wouldn't walk far in one of those.

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Week 140, Danger of death

"Do you know anyone interested in this?"

A mystery person offering items found at the end of a rainbow.  A rainbow that distributes bounty on a semi-regular basis to this one person.

I say mystery person, a local wide-boy known to one and all, the only mystery was the conveyor belt of 'things'.  Always with the stray goods, the odd items, always found in "a derelict house."  Of course they were, that's right, there's millions of derelict houses with stuff lying around waiting to enter the marketplace.

A Penny Black on an envelope, a fondue set, a collection of first edition Beatrix Potter books, a laminated badgers foot, a solid silver cocaine spoon, a gold disc commemorating over 200000 sales of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards version of Amazing Grace, you name it, he'd had it.  On this occasion it was an Eventide 2016 rack-mount digital reverb unit, brand new in 1983 and probably less than a year old at the time.*

I guess I was being asked if I knew anyone because I played the guitar.  Surely it wasn't being offered to me - I had a guitar bought off a mate for a tenner which was worth at least 8 quid less than I paid for, and played through an amplifier made out of a broken cassette deck I'd retrieved from a bin.  I wasn't in the market for anything that cost more than a loaf of bread or that wasn't edible.

I passed, but I guess someone, somewhere, stumped up the 25 quid he was after for the bit of professional kit worth a factor of a hundred more than all my other gear put together.

It must be a risky business going in all those derelict houses, or that one bountiful derelict house, as he ended up dead at an early age.  That's the sort of clunky cause and effect explanation that was offered to me in a pub, "Did you know x is dead?  He had a brain tumour, it must have been all those drugs."  I'd say it was just one of those things, there's always the danger of death, it had nothing to do with the derelict houses, or the consumption of a rainbow array of drugs which consisted of nothing more than a bit of hash and a few mushrooms.**  But who is interested in boring facts when you can populate and reinforce your belief with your prejudice.

* I have no idea what it was but this is the right era.
** Karma?  No, that suggests a punishment, it's random chance.  Plus that's a wooly belief system.

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Week 139, The Last Tuesday

A supposedly soggy day

Clammy

Yet, not humid enough to cause discomfort

Stuffy

Not without joy

A frown at the basket of flowers

Where none were requested

Take my work and burn the residual once consumed*

* Based on non-existent events and devoid of meaning

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Week 138, I want my cone tree back

Some not inconsiderable gusting has shaken and rattled through the branches.

As John Major might have put it.

The fruitful bounty of the trees has been denuded of that plenty by the arrogance of selfish, ignorant blowhards.

As someone else might have put it.

And the wheels turn, grinding our fruit to mulch.

etc.

There is no appetite for the type of exit that will damage us.

...

You get the picture.

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Week 137, British Electric

Let's go back in time.  Back to when homes had as many as two electrical appliances, both of them lightbulbs, to the decades before Tricity ovens drove an upsurge in demand for the supply of electricity.

In 1910 only 2% of British homes had electricity, by the start of the 1920's this was still under 10%.

In the early years of the last century The British Electric Transformer Co. were contracted to provide a quantity of these transformers in the South of England and another quantity of them for the North West.

Generally it was the more well-off that could afford to run electricity, although not all of these transformers are in prosperous areas.  Whether these area were prosperous a century ago is another matter.  The one pictured below however is in the Sheffield suburb of Ranmoor, one of the most affluent areas in the country, and almost directly next to the substantially sized Ranmoor Hall.  Ranmoor Hall having many rooms, and probably more than two lightbulbs, was almost certainly part of the reason why there is one of these transformers at the end of their road.

Standardisation of voltage and frequency, and the National Grid, did for these charming pillars what sticking your head in the oven did for town gas.

There are three of these boxes in Sheffield, one in Audenshaw, two in Surrey and one in Wimbledon.  All are Grade II listed.  There are possibly more lurking within the pages of the Historic England listings and out on the streets but I have yet to locate them.

Here are links to the Historic England listings. 

And here are some fusty old ceramic and copper relics inside.

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Week 136, Leg o' Lamb

I've no idea why this leg of lamb, wrapped up and all the way form New Zealand, ended up resting on the grass behind the office.  Apparently these things cost a lot of money, I have no idea, I haven't eaten lamb since before The Darling Buds of May* was on TV and don't recall ever having bought any.

It is no surprise that a meat thing should be so pricey, this one was the size of a small car.  And while it lay in the blazing sun it was picking up a few passengers keen to make use of a mass of free protein.

When I returned to dispose of it later it was gone.

Taken by a fox? - Surely too large for that.

Taken by one of the late night garden revellers who leave their detritus? - If they like their meat 'ripe' then perhaps, but surely not.

Taken by the carnivorous grass? - This is obviously what happened, the earth absorbed it and next week the bone will be regurgitated and wrapped in the shredded plastic like a land-based owl pellet.

* This is purely here as a navigational aid to indicate the year as roughly 1990/91.

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Week 135, The bees are all mine

Or they would be if they were a type of miner bee.

I'll go out on six tiny limbs and say that these are probably Bombus terrestris, a variety of bumble bee.

They certainly look like bumble bees rather than mining bees - mining bees are a much different beast.

The bees aren't mine, other than by default due to living in a cavity underground next to a wall in my garden.

They are welcome, and more power to their minuscule elbows.

Each time one comes out of the ground I cry - up the workers!

ISO 6400 shutter speed 1/1250th and the wings are still blurred, super fast bee.

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