Top secret

Decided to make the most of another fine day while it lasted and to stick with the stuff in full sun I seem to have been doing this week, so went down to one of my favourite spots by the river Wey near Newark Priory. I'm itching to get close up to the priory which is on private land with lots of "keep out" signs that only make it more intriguing. Its isolation, however, means that it has been taken over by rooks that add atmosphere to the ruin. Maybe I'll go one clear night with the tripod when there's a bomber's moon.

Further on, there were some nice tree reflections but I went for the orange and blue in an image which I'll admit is a bit chocolate box. But I'd buy them for my granny if I still had one. I'm just surprised I can find scenes like this just a short distance from where I live.

You know when you meet a friend and you're busting to tell them something - a story that has everything but because of its nature and the people involved you simply don't think you can? So you tell them you're busting to tell them something and that just makes it worse and then, because you can't help yourself, the story comes out in dribs and drabs. Well I feel like that just now. I hate secrets of any kind but something happened yesterday that has so much juice it's like a tomato bursting at the seams. It's not top secret but it's a top secret, if you know what I mean. It's a good one, well quite bad actually in many ways. In fact I'm seriously thinking it might be my next book. I so so want to tell you but I just can't and it's killing me - knuckles jammed in mouth, having said too much already. That's my problem. Honestly if it was just me and you down the pub, I'd tell you, but we just don't know who's looking in here, do we?

In fact this has just reminded me about a story of the Luddites. They were men who in the northern mill towns during the early part of the 19th century began wrecking some of the new textile machinery that threatened their jobs. In one attack at a Yorkshire mill one of them was shot and captured. A priest delivering the last rights (and on the side of the mill owners) asked the dying man if he would reveal his accomplices. The man pulled the priest closer and said: "Can you keep a secret?" The priest said: "Yes." And with his dying breath the Yorkshireman replied: "So can I." The story of the Luddites and a lot of other good stuff like that is told in my History of Work available at all good.........