A Winters Tale

York City Centre on a mild winters day

Winter in England seems to have been a pretty dull affair the last few years, a serious lack of snow and very cold days.
If you suffer from S.A.D as I do dramatically, the day the clocks go back is the worse day of the year.
Officially as I write 28th November, I suppose we are not actually in Winter yet but for me once its pitch black at 4.30pm then Autumn is over.
So far this month its been a little bit of rain, a few cold nights and some genuinely mild days, nothing yet to suggest a harsh winter (not that anybodies predicting one).
After a crap summer, there is supposed to be a record number of S.A.D sufferers this year and although the symptoms are closely linked with depression, I believe more people suffer with it then actually know.
For me personally, if we had a lot of snow and the rivers froze over for a prolonged period of time, I think it would cheer me up a little bit, either that or move to within 30 degress of the equater where daylight hours are long, constant and extremley bright. Gate Helmsley, me and the dog, mild winters day
Some different views of my home village

Halloween in Gate Helmsley (no Micheal Myers)

Halloween in Gate Helmsley is great as most of the kids in the village are herded into two groups and go round the village each starting at different ends.

This means that you only have the one call at your door during the night, granted that might mean 20 or more kids, but at least you don`t have to keep getting up when your favourite T.V programme is on.

A lot of people make an effort with their Halloween decorations and most of the kids and some of the adults dress up appropriately.

The UK seems to be now making an effort to celebrate Allhallows Eve these days (I cant remember any effort at all been made when I was a child) and I for one think this is excellent.

We should make a serious effort on Halloween, kids love scary stories and dressing up as monsters, witches and ghosts and I think a lot of adults do too.

I tried to find a decent (but tame) horror movie on telly for my 9yr old son but the best I could come up with was The Creature From The Black Lagoon, He isn't really that keen on black and white horror/Sci Fi as he seems to think they don't have proper endings, hes citing Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and The Incredible Shrinking Man as references

The Phantom Car

Picking up on the story below, I was cycling home Thursday night ( 1st November) and was nearly home on the narrow country roads into Warthill where I then cross the farmers field to get back to Gate Helmsley. It was pitch black, a very dark night with a lot of cloud cover.

I was pedalling away happily when I noticed a cars headlights coming towards me, this is a road where you don't really get much traffic, the occasional tractor and the such.

Because it is such a narrow road, I usually park up at the side and let whatever is coming through but this time nothing did come through, I had watched the headlights pass the hedges on the side of the road then it simply disappeared. There are no roads for anything to pull off and it whatever it was couldn't have turned round in such a short time, again I was puzzled.

I have now 2 theory's

1) I am a fruitcake or

2) Gate Helmsley is a hotbed of paranormal activity.

Researching my experience I found this great website http://www.roadghosts.com/

We Come In Peace

I currently live in a small village, Gate Helmsley which has a population of around 250 and is between York and Stamford Bridge (home of the famous battle).

The village is in the countryside without been too rural (the A166, a fairly busy road runs smack bang through the middle of it). I usually cycle to work in Huntington which is about seven and a bit miles and the beginning of my journey is basically crossing a farmers field and then going on narrow country roads for about three and a bit miles.

About a couple of weeks ago, I was crossing the Farmers field (Known as the Whinny round here) at about 7.15 in the morning, it was fairly dark, this was just before the clocks went back.

As I just about got into the middle of the field, I noticed three very bright orange balls in the sky which seemed to be dancing about rather than moving in a straight line. I decided to try and get a little closer and take a picture with my mobile phone( big mistake). As I did and managed to get the phone in my hand, two of the balls seemed to burn themselves out and the picture I took looked like a speck of light in a very dark sky.

There was another guy on the Whinny at the same time walking his dogs but he seemed a little oblivious to what was going on (he was listing to his ipod or something).

Been a very rational guy, my first thought was and still is that these were possibly flares of some sort although who would be shooting flares in a farmers field at that time of a morning.

These were definitely UFOs, I keep explaining to my wife that a UFO is an Unidentified Flying Object and it doesn't necessarily mean it comes from Mars and I certainly couldn't identify what they were.

Interestingly enough after reading the Internet there were similar sightings over London and the South Coast this time last year.

People scoff at you when you tell them but I know what I saw, i`m not saying this was invasion of the Bodysnatchers but it certainly puzzled me.