Sunnier days - Plough Monday

 "There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though not more than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon the fantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons rustled in their walk like autumn leaves. Their path was not over Rainbarrow now, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation a little to the east. The bottom of the vale was green to a width of ten yards or thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the blades of grass seemed to move on with the shadows of those they surrounded. The masses of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever; a mere half-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs."

The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy. 

The Goathland Plough Stot Ceremony of 1973;  For those who do not know Goathland of Yorkshire fame with its railway station and claim to fame through the old TV show 'Heartbeat', this was an annual ceremony performed in the village in 1973 in this small video.  You have to understand that it is pure and beautiful in its performance.  Giggle you may, but on that foggy morning everyone dressed up and put on a 'Mummer's' performance that even Thomas Hardy would be proud of.  The little pub shown near the end is still there, though doesn't receive many visitors because you have to walk from Goathland for a mile along the narrow lane for there is no place to park a car by the pub. It is a pleasant walk though and takes you to Beck Hole.

The Birch Hall Inn near Goathland.

We need the sunny days of summer and those little lanes that dive unexpectedly to valley bottoms and becks that cross the road in a watery splash as the car drives through.  Also the lanes will be full of that exotic creature, bred for killing, the pheasant and you must drive slowly unless you want one for a dinner, but I expect that would be called poaching!

The word 'Stot' rang a bell in my memory.  And on thinking back remembered I had to go and buy a 'stottie' for someone in the family.  It turned out to be a very large bap with a choice of fillings from Bothams the bakers. Looking up the word it says "a kind of coarse bread made from spare scraps of white dough".  Though it can also be called a stottie cake and measuring 30 centimetres in diameter but must have originated from the ploughing of the 'stot'.