Category: Notes from the sticks

WE have lived in Lancashire near the Ribble for about eight years (the move from London was an awful protracted business which I may recount some time if I can … Continue readingEgrets, I’ve had a few

THIS week’s column is a challenge to readers, and it’s a tough one – how do the Highways Department of Lancashire County Council decide on their road maintenance priorities? We … Continue readingRoad to ruin

THERE’S been some quiet excitement among the walking fraternity in the village recently because there are otters in the Ribble. They are thought to live under a pump house on … Continue readingOtter spotters

JUST along the road from us is a dairy farm which I have walked past hundreds of times, and have seen the cows feeding and the delightful calves (some of … Continue readingThe cows that milk themselves

IN one of my earliest Notes from the Sticks, nearly two years ago, I wrote about the Ribble flood of February 9, 2020. It turned out to be a record for the … Continue readingAfter the deluge

A COUPLE of winters ago I was driving through a nearby small town when I saw two or three men with binoculars looking up at a tree. Being nosy, I … Continue readingWaxwing lyrical

AN occasional sight in my childhood (in the suburbs of Manchester and London) was that of an owl in a tree being mobbed by furious small birds. It is yet … Continue readingOur neighbours, the owls

AS if he didn’t have enough call on his funds, a few weeks ago Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £20million award to refurbish Bury Market. Embarrassingly for Sunak, he was under … Continue readingA most uncommon market

AS anyone who has been to the Ribble Valley in Lancashire will know, we are lucky to live in a beautiful area of rolling hills, fields, woods, pretty villages, streams … Continue readingLitter rout

WE moved to Lancashire from a bigger house about eight years ago, and thanks to the machinations of our unscrupulous buyers it was done in a horrible rush, about which … Continue readingSour Charity