Greetings from Reeth

It's nearly New Year in Reeth.

In Swaledale

In the Yorkshire Dale's

Where you can walk on water

In God's Own County! 

Happy New Year's Eve readers! 

Tractor Been

I used to own one of these beautiful tinplate tractors and trailers. 

Gorgeously made and with working gears, it really was a clockwork wonder.

This week I saw this set with a box online. The box is new to me, my toy was loose. I'm unsure if it's country of origin. You?

I bought mine in a lovely vintage toy shop in the 1990's in the back streets of Scarborough in the Yorkshire coast. I had my Father in Law with me at the time.

Alas, like most things, I sold it years ago to pay for more ..... Vintage toys! 

Skipton Bits

 A few things caught my eye on a recent mooch in the Charity shops of Skipton

This unusual picture could well have been a depiction of my fave song by Canadian rockers Rush, By Tor and The Snow Dog. It's an epic guitar battle between good and evil and even introduced me a new word as a young teenager, Tobes as in the Tobes of Hades. I still don't know what a tobe is! Ha ha.

Have you heard the song?

This implement took me back to my Mum's kitchen in the Sixties.  I showed it my older sister and she said it was a palette knife. So readers, myself being a useless cook, what do you do with it?

Another blast from my parents home, we had a group of these Masai paintings on the walls.  Very stylised and of their time, I'm not sure they'll fly now.

In Oxfam books I clocked the original novel, which I inspired a brilliant film I love, The Riddle of the Sands.

Starring the late Matthew McCorkindale and Michael York, it's the story of duck hunting in the Friesian Isles at the turn of the Century. Sounds boring but it isn't. Those ducks are packin'!

These caught my eye.

I've seen something odd-looking before like the Vaderesque troops on the Cataclysm cover, this little pot astronaut and helmeted spaceman in Kitaharia's fantastic Yesterday's Toys.

I was thinking of another duck-faced ceramic astronaut too, but which book is it in? To follow.

Another amazing Vargo Staten cover, that spaceship could almost be the Project SWORD Task Force 2!

Anything here you like readers?

Settle This!

 Taking a retirees country break, the Missus and me are enjoying time in the gorgeous Yorkshire Dales town of Settle to recharge our batteries.

On the way here I was lucky to bag three annuals at Thorpe Arch car boot: the neat Baby Boomer dolls, Topper Book 1970 for my Grandson and Toby Twirl Adventures - more on that later.

Settle is famous for it's massive Ribblehead railway viaduct, an engineering moorland marvel.

It's also a great place for hill rambles, which is what we did today and here are a few Autumnal snaps of the Victoria Cave circular walk.

The sheer length of the countless dry stone walls was staggering and they must in sum be, like the Pyramids or similar, one of the greatest building projects ever!

We had to look twice but the black shape is actually a cave!

Seeing the scree slopes below the crags reminded me of past daft antics: scree running as a young teenager, in the Lakes, running down the rock slides and feeling them shift as you ran. Crazy! Do you have scree?

This cast iron plate recalled the monolith in 2001! I very nearly started bashing it with a sheep bone! Have you got any strange features locally?

This hilltop reminded me of a frog's head!

After all that fresh air, drizzle, sheep and rocks, it's a well-earned fish supper tonight with a cup of Yorkshire tea.

Tomorrow, Settle's charity shops! 

Sausages and Supercar in South Yorkshire

 In my ongoing quest to find novelty Hong Kong plastic toys I visit a lot of emporiums.

My mate calls it junking.

One place we visit is Harrisons near Rotherham. A massive hangar if what seems like a million glass cabinets and an auction house to boot. They do a mean sausage butty too! 

Today's trip didn't garner anything I wanted but there's always interesting stuff. Here's a few tasty morsels I clocked. See what you think.

Glass bead ashtrays that were everywhere in my parents' home when I was a kid. Do you remember them?

An interesting BMW radio!

Fridge deodorisers! Really? Where do they hang?

A proper little Hoover, an exact copy of the one in my folks' house!

This Snow White house is new to me. You?

I'm sure this image is in Action Man packaging. Is that right?

A Give a Show Projector starring Thunderbirds!

A, I assume older, Super Show projector starring Supercar and Fireball XL5!

Pelham ventriloquist's puppet. I didn't know they made those too.

A quarter of the hangar from above.

Unknown ceramic figures. Anyone know what they are? French soldiers?

Classic soda vending machine.

Classic one arm bandits.

A lovely garage, maybe home made. Where's Amersham?

Palitoy's finest and Barbie steward.

One of a huge range of mint boxed Corgis.

All pristine, factory fresh and so cheap!

And then my mate said:

They're re-issues! 

Really? Have Corgi reissued everything?