Bradwan's Blog

I suspect everything I’ve posted with my geriatric iPhone since 20th Jan, including the Chelsea game, have been posted on the wrong blog. Not sure what to do.

Now that’s a bit cold!

Dave Pendleton had the idea of a bus trip around the 8 lost sports grounds of Bradford year’s ago. I have been nagging and doing the spade work. It is now provisionally going to be on a weekend this May; but not a day City are playing.

Vintage buses cost at least £400 for the day. £450 for one in old Bradford bus colours. That makes the ticket price high, unless we get sponsors or funding. A modern minibus will be much less, but be less of a occasion.

The venues are:

1. Carlisle Rd. Manningham F.C’s first ground.
2. Scholemoor.
3. City Stadium, Princeville St. Dog track featured in ‘Room at the Top’.
4. Bradford Cricket Clubs first ground, Ashgrove.
5. Park Avenue.
6. Greenfield Stadium, School St, Dudley Hill. Athletics, Bradford Northern, speedway, and greyhounds.
7. Quarry Gap pub, Cutler Heights Lane. Lots from the very early days of mass spectator sports in Bradford.
8. Birch Lane, behind Bowling Old Lane Cricket Club. Northern. This is one of the very few dead with any remains. There should also be a Bradford Cricket League game going on.

Today I called my mate Bobby Singh, and by happy chance he agreed to drive round the route in exchange for me paying for petrol. The Quarry Gap pub is still open, the rest of the route is do-able, although Scholemoor could be a bit of a squeeze; and really slow traffic meant I told Bobby not to turn of Legrams Lane for the City Stadium.

I have a Chelsea ticket booked.

I went out to meet Dave Pendleton and the sound Heidi tonight/last night. The geography of my street means that the pavement was bones waiting to be broken. Snow part meted and refrozen at least twice.

I took small steps home to find my Finnish snow cleats. I could only find one.

I made an ice stick from the handle of my second best carpet sweeper, two screws, and the top of an insulin cartridge. It worked bloody well. A doubly impressive feat considering that once I had got the handle I was not going to move away from my front door.

Met Dave and Heidi at the Sparrow Then went to the Record cafe, where we met a very drunk other Dave. Afterwards Dave and Heidi both complimented me on how I coped, as their lightening rod for drunk Dave.

Then to Al’s Dime Bar. It seemed that I made people laugh with with I was saying.

Got a taxi home and had a bit of a philosophical/theological discussion with Hamser, the driver. He kept saying: “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” If you know me you’ll know what my answer was!

Good end to a nice night. We agreed he would not go down my stree (because of ice) but he wanted to escort me to my door.

I told him not to be daft. I had a stick with a screw at the bottom. He didn’t.

I still fell on me arse, but only once.

I paid off my Halifax mortgage in March 2013, I did it over a phone in the Kirkgate branch, Bradford. I owed £1.97, which the man waived.

I recently got a statement saying I owed over £100.

I have just spent 10 minutes, and £3, calling a 0845 number to be told they would close the account NOW and waive the fee. No apology, nothing, but a promise of a letter in 5 working days.

The imaginary non-payment does not appear on my credit rating, but neither does the fact that I have paid of my mortgage, if it had it would have improved my score. It might also explain the behaviour of a potential mortgage lender, owned by the Halifax.

I am wondering if it is worth writing to complain, and asking for compensation.

Yesterday I worked. I did not look at facebook, or my e-mails; and I ddid not go to the City v Millwall F.A. Cup replay, despite having bought a ticket. I was not depressed, and not unusually angry; but I felt I needed to get on with physical stuff.

I am feeling quite positive now. I have finally sorted out the hot water! It was a mix of problems that made the system keep switching off, but I worked through them slowly and methodically. It took longer than I thought (one reason I did not go to the game), but this morning I had my first bath for 5 days, and the first bath with enough hot water since I was last in Crawley!

What I do in the next few days is mote. I would like to go and see the City game in Yeovil, and would go on from there to carry on doing things that need doing regardless of wether I buy or sell the house; but there’s lots of other stuff to do here as well.

Both them’s cats were north of Moorside/Moorbottom Road, in west Cleckheaton. Both came running when I meoowed at them.

Coincidently  I discovered today that all ginger cats are male.

I’m going to try and post the best photo of this day, a day with a disappointment that should knot my bowels, but seems like nought in a life with one certain end.

. I talked to a neighbour today, for the first time in a year. She did not know my mum had died. I did not know her only brother had died on Eid. We do not know our end. 

Picture was was taken from the Cleckheaton to Brighouse bus.

I was going to blog a stream of photos and opinion from a celebratory kind of a walk to Brighouse, via Low Moor, Hartshead Moor Top, Heckmondwyke and Cleckheaton.

I may may still post photos, but I have been told I don’t have a mortgage. Fees refunded, but that’s no comfort.

After being knocked back for a mortgage before Christmas, because of unintended late payments to Yorkshire Water, I have now been accepted for one.

It is to buy my brother’s share of our late mother’s house, with the intention of making it fit to rent, and then renting it through an agency. It took my advisor a long time to find one that both fitted me, and would make me an offer, but the one he found turned out to be better than the one I was knocked back for.

I have some hard work ahead now. If all goes well I will be relatively well off before the end of the year; in relation to how poor I have been the last decade; and all work I have done on the house will be noted and sent against rental income; but I have a few months of watching every penny yet.