Dunston Pillar

Today I went over to my parents' as normal. I always look to see if The Car is in the station car-park, meaning we are going shopping somewhere. Today it wasn't and I was glad, but as I walked into the car-park, it drove in from the queue of traffic caused by the railway gates being closed - damn!

Off we went to Sleaford Lidl. Mother decided she was coming in today. She made it half way round before I needed to escort her back to The Car, so she didn't do too bad! I bought one of Lidl' cheesy chilli ciabatta breads and a couple of the Portuguese custard tarts, and a bargain tin of Millicano coffee! 

I do like Lidl, you can get things nowhere else stocks (to my knowledge!) and some good deals too!

Back to theirs and plenty of jobs to do. Lunch first, washing up, emptying bins and arranging the flowers my mum chose. Normally I just bung them in the vase and fan them out a bit but today I thought "Sod it!" and took time to properly arrange them. I am not really a fan of cut flowers - I much prefer to see them in a garden or a park. But I enjoyed fannying around with the arrangement today, and my folks actually said they looked good too!

Brian fetched me and we needed to take a detour as the road was closed for the building of the bypass again. I asked to go via Dunston as I wanted to photograph Dunston Pillar. I had seen it a few times, and believed it to be a folly.

It isn't! It was actually a Land Lighthouse and in fact it has a very interesting HISTORY involving the infamous Hell Fire club (which I wouldn't be surprised to find out still exists in some guise today!) and Dick Turpin! I hadn't realised either of them had connections to this area! do check out the link if you are interested in such things!

Before I knew any of that I fell in love with the place for a different reason. As I took my shots I noticed a cute feline face looking at me from the heap of fallen down stones to the rear of the Pillar. Further investigation revealed not just one, but a family of four stunning cats (See extra for one of them!) They seem to be at least semi-feral, but they may have the best of both worlds and "belong" at one of the nearby homes.

Otherwise today I have watched lots of Rugby League - one very one-sided match, and another very close and dramatic one. Tomorrow we are going over to Salford to see Wigan play. We are a club in turmoil currently, and only not at the very bottom of the table thanks to tonight's close game's result being right for us. Hopefully things will turn around soon, but I'm not holding my breath. 

Much of it is due to our former star, Shaun Edwards, currently the defensive coach of Welsh national Union side. He was announced as our new coach for three years from next season. It was agreed with a handshake, but no contract signing. Now he is much in demand due to the success of Wales in the 6 nations, and is hedging his bets in the hope of a better offer from elsewhere! This has understandably caused chaos!