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[for non-hostel-related wordlings,
check out this blog: hazelhedge.wordpress.com]
Em's Blog... SEPTEMBER... Went out for a meal at Rim Nam Thai this evening... Some of the pubs and restaurants we reviewed earlier in the year have closed down, changed hands or changed chefs since we taste-tested them but Rim Nam was just the same and as lovely as ever. We'll be re-reviewing Hebden's eateries early in 2012 and until then, if changes are brought to my attention, I'll make notes on the web version of the Hebden Bridge Dining Guide. A rather vicious bout of early Autumn weather has knocked the hostel garden around a bit... I'll tidy it up next time the sun shows its face and have plans to improve both hostel and garden over the winter (watch this space). I've just updated the Events page of this website and - wow - there's so much going on this Autumn! Vintage fairs, historical tours, bicycle races, courses, a folk festival, a sponsored walking trail, gigs, feasting and a big bonfire... AUGUST... Well, the roadworks are almost done and the slalom required to reach us grows less challenging every day... there was a slight delay when the roadworkers severed a gas main causing us to be without hot water for a short while - thanks to the cheerfully stoical guests who braved cold showers without complaint! French beans were our best crop this month. My echinacea has flowered but sadly much of the garden wilted or was ravaged by slugs while I was on tour with Weirdigans Cafe and the LEDfantastic roadshow. We enjoyed The Green Gathering near Chepstow enormously and were lucky enough to have a wonderful few days holiday in the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean afterwards. What a fab area - if I didn't love Hebden Bridge so much I'd be moving down there like a shot! Enquiries for off-season whole-hostel bookings are trickling in fast now... if you want to book the hostel for a Winter retreat, get in touch soon! And if you'd like to come stay on an Indian Feast evening, the next one is 15 October. JULY... Very busy this month, not just with the hostel... also Transition Town events, LED installations and consultations, and festivals too. Phew! It feels a bit like being spun around in a washing machine then hung on a line on a very windy day. The garden suffered a bit in the early July heatwave... carrots, broad beans and strawberries have been our main crops of the month. On a practical note, there will be roadworks on Birchcliffe Road during late July and much of August but access to the hostel will be largely unaffected. If you see a diversion sign at the bottom of Birchcliffe Road, don't worry - you won't be able to go via us to Old Town, but you will be able to get to us and park in our carpark! JUNE... Heatwaves and galeforce winds, drought and drenchings... One weekend the hostel is practically bursting at the seams with Quaker wedding guests and Blues Festival musicians, then the next it's quiet-as-quiet with just a few long-distance walkers chatting over tea and buns before early nights. Coming up we've the Handmade Parade weekend and an Indian Feast night. Life is varied and unpredictable and that's the way I like it. We've been eating our greens, straight from the garden - spinach, kale, rocket, chives and lettuce are all doing well. Roots - carrots, onions and potatoes - and fruits - gooseberries, raspberries, loganberries, strawberries and rhubarb - are coming along nicely. French beans and broad beans are climbing their canes; comfrey, mint and lemon balm are fighting it out in the herb garden; overall our little garden is doing okay, although slugs ate all my beetroot seedlings while I was looking the other way. A New Site for The Green Gathering... TGG will be held at Piercefield Park near Chepstow, Monmouthshire. Apparently the site is surrounded by woodlands, standing stones, ancient earthworks, gorgoeous gorges and dingly dells. The dates are 28-31 July, so that's four nights of camping, sustainably-powered entertainment and ecological enlightenment... in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty overlooking the Wye Valley. Tickets are £90 for adults, free for kids under 12 (parking charges are extra - but they'll be laying on buses from the local train station). more info & tickets MAY... A Share in an Organic Farm!! ... We've become co-owners in a community-based food co-operative! 'Growing with Grace' is a wonderful project in North Yorkshire, a co-operative farm dedicated to sustainability and equality. Green waste from local residents is composted on site and tractors are run on biodiesel made on site by the village community co-op. The farm has one of the only forest gardens under glass in the country - two acres of glasshouse space, which in North York shire is gold dust! GwG
needs investment to continue and is offering shares at £1 each
(minimum
investment of £100). All the details and more about the project
can be
found at: www.growingwithgrace. In addition to Transition skill-sharing and presentations by renowned Green activists there will be classic festival bands (funk, folk, prog-rock, afro-beat, reggae and more); traditional craft workshops; kids' activities; permaculture and healing areas; and of course, Weirdigans Cafe and LEDfantastic... Renewables
could power 80% of world's needs by 2050...
Good
news for once: APRIL... Easter weekend: watched the ancient, arcane and very silly Pace Egg play in Heptonstall; did lots of walking and marvelling at the beauty of nature; planted and weeded in our expanding patio garden; played host to lots of happy sun-kissed guests... enjoyed being happy and sun-kissed ourselves We also took lots of photos and have been making new galleries and adding to old ones... Check out the Pics. We're open for Spring! There's cherry blossom, budding leaves, daffodils, forget-me-nots and seedlings sprouting. It's a good time to be here. The Dining Guide is complete... it's online and today we received the printed version - it looks lovely! We're also working on a Walking Guide (some of our favourite local walks) and detailed directions (with photos) explaining how to get to us from the Pennine Way. MARCH... A new cooker!... No longer will we be apologising for our tiny, cheap-as-chips, liable-to-cut-out-if-you-turn-all- the-rings-on-at-once oven! We now have a shiny, chunky, one-and-a-half-times-as-big-as-a-domestic-cooker, serious-looking beast of a machine. It's big enough to fit four large pans on the hob (which heats up almost instantly) and has a small oven with grill option as well as a decent sized main oven. Well, we're excited... The 2011 Green Gathering... It's not in Hebden but we're also very excited about this: A 4-day Green Festival to be held on a beautiful estate in West Berkshire. Family-friendly, sustainably-powered, networked with the Transition movement... slated to be entertaining, edifying and inspiring. In the fine tradition of the BGG: greengathering2011.com HB Hostel Dining Guide Watch out for the Restaurant Reviews appearing in the Dining Guide. Inspired by guests asking for recommendations we've been testing the fine eateries of Hebden Bridge... Oh how lucky are we?! When not fine-dining we've been Spring-cleaning, preparing the garden, improving our energy-efficiency by adding extra insulation, experimenting with pancake recipes and compiling a Walking Guide (gotta walk off those dinners)... We've also been having some interesting groups to stay, including Armenians and Azerbaijanis here for a 'PeaceJam' being run by Bradford University; a Youth Council and, coming soon, a 1930's tea party (that's the kind with fairy cakes and frilly dresses, not the rather unpleasant rabble-rousing American kind...). FEBRUARY... Wwoohing We seem to have unintentionally invented a new version of wwoofing (willing-workers-on-organic-farms): at HB Hostel we have 'wwoohers' (willing-workers-on-organic-hostels) !! Last year Imogen helped me sort out our patio garden. This year Paul from Portugal stayed for 3 weeks, plied us with Portuguese red wine and did a whole load of maintenance. Kate and Helena will probably be coming on board in the Summer and will no doubt offer up their own talents... Oh yes, how lucky we are! Transition Town Hebden Bridge Regular meetings and an email newsletter keep us informed and involved. Action groups for Transport, Food, Waste, Energy, Health, Education and the Local Economy are cooking up plans. An organic vegbox scheme has been filling us full of winter veg and clothes swaps have revitalised our wardrobes. Events scheduled for Spring will be open to all and will appear on the Events page once dates and venues are set. The return of a summer Green Gathering It's looking likely that a smaller, more streamlined and funkier version of the famous (and infamous) Big Green Gathering will be occurring this year. Pencil it into your diaries for the last weekend in July and watch this space! NEW YEAR 2011... Festivities A Permaculture group, the Silver Entrepreneurs, a staff party and our own Christmas celebrations kept us busy throughout December. Dave installed a bath (pure luxury on sub-zero evenings) while the garden succumbed to frost and ice. We had a lovely New Year's Eve. There was dancing in the dining room with Dave's ultra-low-energy LED lights and mini sound system while for the well-wrapped-up we built a cosy campfire on the patio. Sustainability New Year's Day a group of us went up onto the moors and planted 200 trees with Treesponsibility. Treesponsibility also arranged an Energy Audit for the Hostel. We'll be putting the simplest energy-saving ideas they suggested into practice this month - tin foil behind radiators, draught excluders around external doors - while more significant/expensive/extensive adaptations will be put to the building owners, the Pennine Heritage Trust, for consideration. Solar water heating, wood-pellet-burning boilers and double glazing will probably remain fantasies for the foreseeable future but we're moving in the right direction. The year ahead This month we're hosting a couple of arts/drama groups. Amazonails, No Hands Massage and the Write Out Loud poets have all shown interest in making 2011 bookings. There's a 50th birthday party in the offing and we're already taking reservations for Easter... We're hoping to produce a dining guide to Hebden and some maps of our favourite walks before the 2011 season gets going. I'm reading the 'kitchen gardening' book I was given for Christmas with a view to growing more of our own herbs and veggies. We've also got to re-grout the showers... it's not all fun and glamour here at Mama Weirdigans ;) NOVEMBER... A whirlwind trip to Scotland to fit LEDs at Marcassie Farm then down to the Lakes to upgrade the solar set-up powering Wierdstring Wal's barn, via Edinburgh and on to Ravenstonedale where Mad Monk Pete, Farmer Colin and aeronautical engineer Nick kindly fixed our van (she now flies!). Home again in time for Bonfire Night and Hebden's always awesome firework display. After the last Bang!-Crackle!-Whoosh!-Wowww! had echoed around the valley we entertained local friends and hostel guests with a campfire on the hostel patio - something that could become an annual ritual. Mulled wine, baked pototoes, home-made soup and Helen's divine sticky-apple cake sustained us as the temperature dropped. After a speckle of early evening drizzle the night was cold, still, clear. The following day we gathered a motley crew to walk up Colden Valley to the New Delight pub for lunch. Another dry day, sunshine glistening on gushing waterfalls, bright orange beech leaves thick and crunchy underfoot. And then we closed the hostel doors for our Winter break. We'll be closed to individual travellers until Spring. Groups who want to book the whole hostel can still do so and throughout the closed season we'll be answering phone calls and emails and taking bookings for 2011. See you then :) OCTOBER... Bits n bobs... Just spotted on Hebweb that Hebden Bridge has been voted sixth most individual/distinctive town in Britain in a New Economics Foundation report... I'd have put us a little higher than that, but it'll do :) We're currently awaiting the report from our eco-audit. Natja from Treesponsibility visited yesterday and asked lots of questions about our energy usage, recycling habits and so on. She's going to give us a list of suggestions for how we could save energy and reduce our costs... along with ideas for how we could raise funds for serious projects like putting in a solar water-heating system or air-source heat pump or... Oh, so many things we'd love to do. In the meantime, if you come to stay with us, please turn off the lights and heating in your room when you go out or go to sleep! Dave's helping to save the planet in conjunction with Ruby Shoesday; this week he's been busy fitting out the shop with lovely low-powered LED lights. Next week he'll be doing LED workshops in Carlisle, the week after in Inverness. I'll be assisting him and Fran will be looking after a hostel full of poets. SEPTEMBER... And suddenly it feels like Autumn... Kam and Drea looked after the hostel magnificently while Dave and I did three festivals in a row with the rest of the crew. At Solfest the sun shone, sea-sidey breezes blew and queues for our chai and cake stretched into the distance. Eden Festival was on a divine site but unfortunately had too few ticket-holders for the number of cafes and venues so it felt rather sparse. Macfest was a holiday for us Weirdigans - we helped with the set up and tat-down but otherwise were free to rest, relax, eat, drink, dance and be merry. We made the most of it. The day after we arrived back at the hostel the weather changed. Cold gusts of wind drove in rain clouds and the nights became decidedly nippy. For the first time since Spring we've had to turn the heating on in the hostel and we've now harvested what will probably be the last of the veg from the garden. Our gardener friend Mick is still holding out for an Indian Summer - and oh how I wish he might be right - but at the moment I'm more thinking of digging out the winter woollies and roasting chestnuts on braziers. Autumn in Hebden has a lot going for it. Technicolour landscapes, valleys filled with crunchy leaves, Halloween pumpkins on garden walls, tree-planting parties, bonfires and a huge firework display in the park. We'll have more time to enjoy the area ourselves and to put effort into improving the hostel now the festival season is over. We've a few groups coming to stay - Walking Women, Write Out Loud poets, the Silver Entrepreneurs again plus independent visitors, walkers, cyclists and gig-goers. See Events if you'd like to get involved in Autumn in Hebden with us. AUGUST... Festivals, weddings, workshops & bits squeezed inbetween Another gorgeous walk up a valley to a pub - this time the New Delight at Colden, via the swimming hole at Jack Bridge. We were accompanied by my recently rediscovered best-friend-from-school, her husband and their five year old who was very stoical considering his little legs had to do about six steps to every one of ours... My sister Naomi married her beloved Keith on a sultry August day - she looked like a real princess and made me cry. Dave lit the stage with a fabulous array of LEDs and I dressed up the 'ballroom' with balloons, ribbons and glitter - transferable skills learnt during years of doing festival decor :) We released 99 red balloons (biodegradable, of course) which drifted into the sky framed by a double rainbow. Magic. At Croissant Neuf Summer Party - a totally solar-powered, very friendly small festival in Wales - our LEDfantastic workshops were fantastically popular. A hundred kids learnt to solder and make electrical circuits. Kids and grown-ups made LED torches, head-dresses, necklaces, lanterns and fairy-lights. The woods on the old hill fort were lit with Dave's twinkly lights and we sorted out illumination for many of the lovely craft stalls there. Back at the Hostel we've had independent travellers from farflung places to stay, as well as a group in the process of creating an eco-village (they came here to practice living together). We're currently halfway through hosting a weekend of ecology and philosophy with deep-thinking pilgrim and lecturer Satish Kumar but are so busy getting ready to do the cafe at Solfest and Eden Festival that we're mostly missing out on his wisdom. Tomorrow we're going to harvest the courgettes and beans and peas. They are fat and green. JULY... Secret Garden Party & Home to Hebden Just back from chaos in Cambridgeshire - a bigger, bolder, brasher Garden Party than ever before where we provided THE most chilled-out safe haven of a carpeted comfort zone. Now we're home and between tackling a laundry backlog and doing bits of maintenance we're enjoying what Hebden has to offer. Things like lunch at the lovely Hare & Hounds pub on the edge of Old Town, a 20 minute walk up idyllic - but very steep - country lanes from the hostel. We definitely felt we'd earned our meal by the time we puffed through the door... and were amazed by the mid-week price of £3 per main meal, £1.50 for a starter or dessert! Good food and friendly owners, too. We also visited the Trades Club to see (and hear and dance to) the cosmopolitan Loonaloop: Australian, Dutch, French-Caribbean and Scottish musicians came together to produce a high-energy, very danceable sound... then they came back to ours for tea and cake and stayed overnight in the hostel bunkroom before continuing their European tour. What a recommendation!!! Our Thanks to Dyanne, who posted about us on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree forum. It's great to see the hostel and our home town from a visitor's perspective and she makes it all sound rather fine! Dyanne stayed with us for 5 days when we hadn't been open long and despite having a stinking cold she was life-and-soul... she even stumbled upon a worm-charming festival up ont' hills and was blown away when James Wierdstring turned up at the hostel and presented her with a copy of the Wierdstring Band's Worm-Charming Song as a memento :) Dyanne says: "I recently spent some time in the UK and would like to recommend a lovely place that I discovered in Yorkshire and, above all, a wonderful new hostel there. The name of the town is Hebden Bridge and it's about half way between Leeds and Manchester on the rail line. I discovered this place by accident while doing research for my trip. Hebden Bridge is a lovely old mill town, which today is a funky, kind of artistic place filled with old houses and quaint shops. There is very good public transportation to all the small villages in the area and absolutely lovely walking on the dales and in the forests of the area. I didn't see any other foreign tourists while I was there, but I know that there is quite a bit of domestic tourism, especially on the weekends. There are also all kinds of unique local festivals there and in the other villages throughout the year. I took Megabus for 1.50 pounds from London to Leeds and then the train for 4 pounds to Hebden Bridge. Up until recently, I understand that there was no real budget accommodation in the area, so anyone who couldn't afford B&B's had to look elsewhere. Well, in May, when I was there, a hostel opened in one of the renovated outbuildings of an old church and it's just lovely! The place is very clean and comfortable and Em and Dave, who run the hostel, and their friends made me feel like one of the family! I spent 5 days there and could have stayed even longer, if I'd had the time! For anyone looking for something different, off the regular London-Oxford-Stratford, etc.trail, I can definitely recommend staying here. You won't regret it, believe me!" Away & back again At Glastonbury Festival we watched a Solstice sunrise and ran LED workshops in the Green Crafts Field. After that we had a quick overnight at the Hostel then we were on the road again with Weirdigans Cafe, providing 24-hour brews and cake at the miniature Northern equivalent of Glastonbury: BeatHerder Festival in lovely Lancashire. What a whirlwind. Alasdair and Ayliffe looked after the home-base in our absence, leaving it not only intact but gleaming and thriving and filled with guests. Now Al and Ay are off to Belgium in their newly-converted van and we're back in Hebden tending the vegetables and smoothing the duvets ready for the next bunch of merry travellers. Imogen's beans have grown very tall. I'm tempted to start rattling the stems to see if I can wake a Fee-Fi-Fo giant in time for Weirdigans next gig - Secret Garden Party - where the fancy-dress theme is 'Fact or Fiction: an Imaginarium'. Kristen's going as a hobbit, Kate is sewing herself a fawn costume... it'd be great to take a real live giant along too. On a more prosaic note, today I've been lavishing attention on herbs, vegetables... and a mountain of laundry. The basil and rhubarb are still tiny and frail but thyme, mint, nasturtiums and lavender are going crazy like the beans. The laundry mountain is diminishing, slowly. JUNE... Bookings flood in We're starting to get booked up now... and what an interesting assortment of guests we seem to be attracting! Band members and members of orchestras, yogis and environmentalists, film makers, actors, djs and journalists, straw-bale-house-builders, massage students, spritely retired folk, long-distance walkers, round-Britain cyclists, philosophers, young families, Morris dancers, artists and poets... so far!!! Check out the Events page for hostel events and Hebden Bridge events that you can get involved in (Arts Festival, Handmade Parade, Satish Kumar lecture, Poetry residential... and more to be announced soon). Dave's birthday Our first hostel barbecue. A beautiful clear evening, friendly musicians, locally-produced charcoal, veggie kebabs and cheesecake. We decided outdoor cooking of local organic meat on special occasions was okay. Ruth Wierdstring, skilled in understanding the ins and outs of ethical farming, bought happy meat from a happy local butcher... and the non-veggies were very happy :) The barbecue is now in-situ and ready to be used on balmy eves... LEDfantastic Dave ran a well-attended LED workshop in our lounge... the first of many, I'm sure. This one was specifically for folk who want to use LEDs creatively - in artworks, costumes, designer lampshades etc. The place looked great all lit up with fairy lights and lanterns, with a horde of busy elves soldering away, making their own twinkly-sparkly-shiny-bright things while learning about 12-volt electrics and energy-efficient lighting. Settling in Gorgeous weather... n Inspired by our friend and co-worker Imogen we've been planting herbs and vegetables in tubs, pots and recycled drawers. No slug damage so far but my coriander has been attacked by greenfly. Cheers to Mick for letting us use your lovely rich compost to feed our veg and for building us a compost corner so that we can make our own. Imogen builds planters, Dave paints signs, I string up a washing line to take advantage of the weather (the less tumble-drying we have to do the better). Spending as much time outdoors as we can, enjoying our patio while the sun shines. Conjuring with ideas for the future - fruit bushes, solar panels, a terraced garden, a hot tub... MAY 2010... Knockengorroch's World Ceilidh Three weeks was just about enough time to get to grips with the reality of running a hostel... then we passed the reins to Drea. She looked after the hostel with brilliant, reassuring competence while we took the Weirdigans Cafe to Scotland. Music, dancing, merry-making and cake-baking ensued and a jolly time was had by all. Silver Entrepreneurs Two workshops - funded by the local council to help people set up their own businesses - were held in our lounge. Tutors and attendees all loved the venue (and the food, provided by our friend Kath who runs Peas & Love, a wholesome catering company). The Grand Opening! We cleaned, decorated, primped, arranged and polished... then flung open the doors and invited the curious in. Champagne corks popped as we welcomed a steady flow of guests and led tours around the hostel. n Amongst the visitors were a trio of ladies who shared their memories of the building from the 1940's and 50's. Back then it was an important social centre for the area, hosting theatre and choral performances, Sunday School sessions, tea dances, tennis tournaments and croquet matches. The ladies became a little teary when they realised their tennis lawn is now a carpark... and confirmed rumours that the building is supposed to be haunted! n On Saturday evening twenty-five people sat down to an Indian Banquet cooked by Dave Weirdigan with help from Woody and Kristen. Most of the bedrooms in the hostel were full overnight and the next morning no-one reported any ghostly encounters :) n Very Big Thanks to the friends who helped to make this a truly grand weekend and to Pennine Heritage Trustees for coming along to support us. |