2011 has been another stunning year for the Conroy-Openshaw’s, when yet again we failed to escape the drudgery of wage-slavery. Phil has still not made millions of pounds from selling either his non-commercial music or his interestingly weird photos (following the news that the most boring photo in the entire history of humanity sold for £2m, this is hardly a surprise; we just hope that whichever company bought it, enjoys looking at it in their board/bored room). I have failed equally spectacularly as a successful highly-paid writer despite having the wittiest blogs known to humans and ace story ideas (just a pity I can’t get round to actually writing).
During a freezing cold January and February, I stood around lots whilst Phil pursued his new hobby of making panoramas of everything in sight. Telly high spot was 2 of Phil’s workmates not winning £100k on ‘secret fortune’ thus having to give up the dream of leaving Leeds City College and opening up a cake shop. Well, if we can’t have our dream I don’t see why they should!
In March, we escaped the harsh winter of Yorkshire and spent an equally freezing but interesting week in Prague. We had a lovely time seeing all the main sights but were disappointed by how cheerful the locals were – not at all the glum Eastern European stereotypes we had hoped for! Maybe it’s because of the seemingly endless list of alcoholic beverages available from the ubiquitous pilsner, via the umpteen exotic liqueurs to the hot drinks selection (what do you mean hot G&T sounds gross? It’s winter you moron!). During this sojourn I came up with the ‘Moody in Prague’ photo series (available on Skydrive).
Spring and early summer were characterised by a series of delightful country walks, picnics and lashings of ginger beer (okay, it was just beer). The unusually dry conditions were remarked upon by several pub veterans who declared it had never been so mud-free in living memory and in fact this turned out to be true as the last time we had so little rain was apparently during the time of Hogarth so they should know! Mind you, this didn’t stop them having a roaring blaze in the fireplace on Easter Monday. After a day sat outside in premature shorts, the poor dears’ knees were a tad chilly. We were regaled by tales of how the drought-like conditions had necessitated the building of a dam in the river in order to launch the plastic ducks for the annual race- a ridiculous tradition made even more daft.
Unfortunately the weather took a wetter and chillier turn later in the spring and into early summer. A brief respite from the rain was experienced on the late May bank holiday whence we intrepidly set out for Foot fest in the lesser-visited hamlet of Luddenden Foot to support the world famous (well, in the Calder Valley anyway), local Ska combo. We also saw a couple of kids singing and playing guitar who were amazingly good (so they’ll probably end up on X factors and be totally ruined by the age of 16) and some bands that were a bit shit. I was quite relieved, however, to have successfully avoided the Blues Masters of the Calder Delta (sic) weekend.
During the only decent week in June, we decided to go camping in Cornwall and got worse weather than in Yorkshire! It was so windy that the tent broke when we were putting it up and so we had to bodge it, and it was so cold at night that we had to keep all our clothes on. But we had a good time of course in the great British stoical tradition 'shut up and enjoy yourself’, we told each other repeatedly ‘you’re on holiday’! (photos on skydrive)
On the return journey we stopped off in the delightful regency town of Cheltenham Spa and ended up in a nightclub full of footballers and chavs. An interesting interlude, which I am finding hard to be sarcastic about as the beer was cheap, the people friendly and the entertainment superb – courtesy of an indigenous urban dance crew. Mind you, there’s not much else to do as a tourist in Cheltenham – the high spot possibly being the Wishing Fish Clock which does some ridiculous performance every hour to the tune of ‘I’m for very blowing bubbles’, whereupon a stampede of toddlers threaten to trample everything in their path to witness the spectacle at close quarters, then promptly burst into tears when the thing stops about 10 seconds later.
A week after our trip ‘down south’ we sampled the delights of the Heptonstall festival - the smallest festival since Foot Fest and a bit shit. After about 5 minutes we’d seen it all so we went in the church to look at crap sculptures and had coffee and cake served by elderly local ladies who didn’t really want to make coffee for us or serve us any cake - v. Royston vasey! July was also the month of mysterious pub closures and rumours abounded about local landlords breaking into each other’s pubs and doing bunks. Interestingly, many of the pubs re-opened again quite shortly afterwards but were looking a bit squatty if you ask me – hmmm!
On the domestic front, August started well with the arrival of our new energysmarttm meter which taught me 3 things: 1. Telly good, 2. hoovering bad, 3. Stuff on standby does not use leccy. Things took a turn for the worse however, as I came down with a virus– thank god for the riots (or should I say looting sprees) to entertain me whilst I was bedridden. My favourite shot had to be the looting of crisps from Poundland – stylish! They inspired me to an uncharacteristic flurry of blog writing and collageing (Anatomy of a Riot) and even got me back on Twitters if only briefly. It was amusing to see the pundits and sociologists having a field day and the politicians forced to come back from their holidays ranting about Broken Britain (razed to the ground more like!).
At the end of the summer we had a pleasant holiday at my sister’s villa in Turkey where we enjoyed the hot sunny days and balmy nights, but not the whingeing ex-pats (I will never get my head round people moving to another country to sit in the pub and moan when you can do this here and have decent plumbing!). We came back mid-September to an autumnal scene and Phil discovered that not only had he been down-graded at work (‘brain the size of a planet and they want me to draw skeletons’!) but they’d also moved him to Park Lane campus – insult to injury! Shame he can’t make cupcakes!
October saw Mum’s 80th Birthday which was good as there were no arguments. We managed to get lost en route to Uppermill, but thought we had some time to spare and sampled the delights of the village – another Royston Vasey experience made doubly weird cos they all seem to think they’re in Yorkshire still. Anyway, turned out we got the restaurant wrong so had to find the right one and then got lost again getting home - on the moors in the dark this time– scary!
After saying we should go to London more often, we managed to fit it into our hectic schedule at the end of October. Highlights included the 99p shop on Eltham High street and the small shops of East Molesey (all cappuccinos and bricolage), against which competition the swanky art galleries and royal palaces had no chance! Culinary hotspots included the Forrester’s at Hampton Wick and Pizza Express on Wardour st – don’t laugh; it is the original one, dating from 1965 – historic!
In November a lovely local person died. Her funeral was a fantastically Hebden affair including the rickety camper vans in the crem car park, the whiff of cannabis smoke pervading the air, the lovely humanist ceremony and the wake at t’Trades. The loveliest send-off I’ve ever experienced.
December festivities have so far included a small Solstice Party up tops where we were amused by the Kids’ answers in the Xmas quiz including ‘who wrote Auld Lang Syne’? Charles Dickens (well, he is from the middle ages!) and Saving us all from Santa’s Power (not far of the truth to be honest – I had barely opened my pressies this year when I had e-mails off Amazon “‘you must be bored with your gifts by now; buy more shit!” In fact, there has been a pervading air of desperation around selling stuff this year – how many celebs can you get in a shopping mall advert?
This year’s Christmas Eve carol concert was undoubtedly the wettest and consequently funniest in the history of the village – totally soaked is misunderstatement of the decade. And why is it that every year there are more and more Guardian readers, this year with the added Must Have accessories of reindeer jumpers and lashings of mulled wine – hurrah! After a pleasant and peaceful Christmas it is once again time to contemplate the horror that is NYE and decide where to go to get completely slaughtered. Will it be the crusty techno disco or the Mullet Arms? On the other hand, it could just be a nice bottle of wine and a good film indoors – Attack the Block off Father Christmas – possibly best film of 2011; and I ain’t even lyin’!
