2017: into the new - a love song to Tod

very much still a rainy northern place but after some days of meditation what stays is not the chill and the wetness but the sharp clean brilliance provided by that rain, and also thankfulness at how individual and very much itself this little town I live in continues to be. every year seems to mark the beginnings of yet another new festival, which go on to win awards (Pulling Up Daisies), draw in relatives to visit (Lamplighter Festival), set a high standard for consciousness-raising through poetry evening and cartoon graffiti (The one-off how I wish it wasn't Climate Change Festival). The singing groups, the musicians, the folk festival, the one-off gigs... Yes, placed on the periphery, between two anciently warring counties, Tod has a history of going its own way that still sets a standard for the town, centre of Incredible Edibleness and yet without clinging on to it as IE threads its radial connections throughout the world, stuffed full of poets, potters, printers perhaps who knows, preachers(?), and other crafts or crafty men and women, builders, plumbers, wood-turners, small business runners, both an indoor market and an outdoor market, a traditional tourist information slap-bang up against a thriving willow weaving centre, a simple greasy or not so greasy spoon next to a state of the art truly ART hairdressers where I might get a lecture on how to take my glasses off and on so as not to spoil the cut, and in among the sheds and warehouses of one of its smaller industrial sites a totally unexpected climbing centre gleams its own promises and aspirations. and deep at its centre, opposite the lavish town hall is a huge gold bicycle - the tour de tod - as the Your de Torkshire /Tour de Yorkshire was fondly remembered - that it never even came through the town making not one wit of difference

                                                                                       love it