Nick Hand

The Hudson Valley Seed Library

On my way up the Hudson Valley on my bicycle, I stopped off at Accord for a day or two. Accord is west of Poughkeepsie and just below the Catskills.

I'd heard a little about the Hudson Valley Seed Library, there had been an article a year or two back about the NY Times that I'd seen and it had a good feel about it.

The seed library save vegetable seeds from hardier North East vegatables from disappearing and reproduce them for sale. They also collect the stories behind the seeds, like the lady who was clearing out the house of her grandfather and found a jar of bean seeds that were at least 40 years old. The type of bean had long since disappeared and it turned out that the folk at the seed library were able to grow the bean and reproduce a small number of beans for sale last year. I'll leave Ken to tell his own story.

 

 

Pizza and wings

So far on my ride up the Hudson Valley from New York City to Hudson Falls, I've been looking at and following many of the excellent routes on the excellent  Roberts guide to cycling the Hudson. I combine them with the local Jimapco maps for each county, which are big enough to follow by bicycle easily. Yesterday though my luck ran out as I'm now beyond Roberts help and suddenly the garages don't have Jimapco maps anymore.

Yesterday, I left Ghent, where I've had a lovely week with our friends Richard and Mimi Beaven, and headed up the leafy lanes and huge green landscapes south east of Albany. Albany is an odd place, reminded me a little of Cardiff, a familiar town scatteried around the feet of huge grand government buildings. A nice river side ride north out of town towards Troy, a sprawling urban town.

Beyond Troy and I found the river again. The river at this point is of fairly normal river proportions rather than the vast gulf it has seemed so far. Today I'm headed up to Hudson falls, the most northerly part of my ride, then headed back down the river and back to Hudson tomorrow.

The river north of Albany, suddenly looking of domestic proportions

Accord and the Chatham Brewing

Thought it about time to put some images up. They are all from around Accord, NY except the one of Matt mashing the brew at Chatham Brewing. The bottom image is from the Hudson Valley Seed Library in Accord (more of which later)

The North West Passage and more adventures up the Hudson Valley by bicycle

I had slunk back to Brooklyn for the night, primarily to pick up a tent and card readers, but also because I didn't have to think about finding somewhere for the night.

I took the Poughkeepsie train back to Garrison (where I had left my journey the night before) from Grand Central, which is one of the finest buildings. The title above the entrance to platform 29 says 'North West Passage'. If anything smacks of of adventure, that does. I did though discover later that it means the north west passage of Grand Central itself and nothing to do with direction, or with adventure for that matter.

After struggling through twenty miles of wet grey peddalling after getting back to Garrison I found a motel in Marlboro, and watched National Lampoon's Vacation on TV which seemed a pretty good combo.

Back on the trail the following day I got to Poughkeepsie (pronounced P'kipsie) and crossed the beautiful Footbridge over the Hudson (the longest pedestrian footbridge in the world) and spent an hour or two on watching the beautiful Mystic Whaler gracefully sail under the bridge. The Mystic Whaler is a schooner hired for the summer by Clearwater, the environmental organisation started by Pete Seeger to highlight the campaign to clean up and stop polluting the Hudson.

Later that day after recrossing the bridge I encountered the  long and arduous climb up Mohonk Mountain Road (well at least for a 55 year old bloke at a heavily loaded touring bike). The decent was like a lovely fast affair with long sweeping bends, and as I stopped to check the map about twenty local club riders swept past.

I was headed for Accord and a combination of the man in the liquor store and a random man outside a gas station pointed me towards a B&B. The B&B turned out to be Tim and Beths place. I took a liking to Tim as soon as he emerged from his wooden house with big black dog and warm smile, he said I've got just the place and we walked over a field to his beautiful three bed yurt, with music on tap, kitchen, a great shower, big comfy bed. Everything you could imagine. He invited me over to the house for supper with his wife, Beth and told me of his life. Also about the deadly rattlers, black bears and mountain lions around. Suddenly the tent like yurt didn't seem like the heavenly place it was an hour before. Tim said 'just pay what you want for the yurt'. It was a pretty special place, I've never heard so much birdsong. And set me up for a couple of great days ahead.

Nyack, NY

 

The schooner, Mystic Whaler at Poughkeepsie from Walkway over the Hudson

 

Kinderhook farm, Ghent, NY

Ted the stone face carver

Day two
Piermont to Garrison

I took a route out of Nyack, a little town of painted houses, all very Hopper-esque into the State park and along a ten mile dirt track alongside the Hudson with woodland to my left, every now and then a little striped critter would run out and scamper back. Chipmunks I think they are (thanks Richard), about 10 inches long, stripey backs and long tail. I know that the woods are tick infested so I didn't fancy wandering far.

I met Ted, a great old boy, just after leaving the trail. Ted arrived in his car just as a spotted his painted wooden house surrounded by his amazing work. Ted tells his story much better than I ever could. He is one of those warm hearted people that you rarely meet, very modest about his work which he began nearly 30 years ago when he retired at 59.

I decided early on in the day, that I might make for Garrison on the east side of the river, crossing at Bear Mountain. I was missing my tent and reckon there is plenty of camping to be had. So decided to take a train back to New York and grab my stuff (inc the illusive card readers) and head back out to the trail in the morning. And ride back to Bear Mountain and up the west side of the river to Beacon.

As always, on the bike (well for me anyway) it never quite is possible to work out timing and I'm guessing it will be an afternoon and evening ride up to Newburgh and the walkway over to Beacon.

 

Untitled by nick_hand at Garmin Connect - Details.

Conversations on the Hudson: Day one

Day one 32 miles
DUMBO in Brooklyn to Pierpont.

Set off and got a bit lost coming off Manhattan Bridge trying to find the Joe Strummer wall. Asked directions from a nice old boy, a war veteran who  was stationed in a big town in the war (turned out it was Reading).

Some nice shouts from the many riders passed in the 32 miles from Brooklyn to Pierpont on the Hudson. Inc 'hard core' going up a big hill (from a rider going down, and I don't even think he was being sarcastic), which gave me a bit of a spur.

Turns out the ride out to Piermont where I was headed is 'the standard ride' for New Yorkers on a Sunday, and I can see why. The Greenway along the West side of Manhattan was rammed with riders and runners, aided by riders in green bibs who had completed the 5 boros tour of NYC, the biggest cycle event in America which allows 40,000 riders to cover a car free ride around the city, starting and finishing in Battery Park at the southern tip of the island.

Packing was the usual panic, what to pack, how heavy. The big dilemma was whether to go with camera gear (3-4 lenses) or camping gear (tent, sleeping bag, mat etc), I decided it was too much to go for both. I plumped for camera gear this time as it was a shorter ride and I couldn't see too much camping opportunity until Albany. 

I found a B&B first night not too far from Brooklyn in Piermont. It is run by a classic valleyite called Carolla. Who is a wellness and yoga teacher. Carolla kindly offered to run me into Piermont (2 miles away) to a nice Portuguese restaurant. Carolla joined me for supper and we got chatting to Karen and Dennis at the next table. Turned out Karen was also a 'Wellness' expert. And you can imagine that Carolla and Karen has lots to talk about with Dennis (a drummer) and I giving lots of nods at appropriate times. Then back to Riverview (probably not the last of those I'll stay in) for a quick catch up on the days footie and Giro results. The house, a beautiful slatted painted wood building, was once owned by Rex Harrison, who played Henry Higgins opposite Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.

I read a nice piece about fishing in the Palisades on the Hudson by a man called William O Allison, who was born in 1849 and wrote this in 1913.

'Looking up at the small dilapidated abiding places along the Palisades in 1913, one could hardly help smiling when told how an ancestor refused to live in an isolated old house at Manhattanville (today the neighbourhood around West 125th street), because it was so lonely there. There were probably few places in this or any other county, where so good a living could be obtained with so little effort. The River, until became polluted, teemed with fish of every sort, and the shad fishing during some six weeks in the Spring was profitable enough to support a family for the year. At low tide, the soft clams could be dug, and the oysters beds on the west side of the river could be raked and tonged. It was a common thing, any still summer day, to observe a shark swimming near the surface. Porpoises were plentiful, and the huge sturgeon would call attention to his frolic by jumping his full length out of the water, and falling back. The catching of Shad was by using poles sunk into the deep water and mud across the tide. The poles of oak or hickory would be 45-50ft long. On each pole was a strong hoop, made of hickory sapling, with a stone fastened to it weighing perhaps 25 pounds. The nets were lifted every six hours, at the slackening of each tide, called the ebb lift and the flood lift. The best fishing was on the flood tide, as the shad were going up to fresh water to spawn and the great catches were when they had a full moon, and big flood tides. It was no uncommon thing for a boat to bring in 500 shad from one lift, and often take 1000 in 24 hours. The fishermen made an arrangement with a merchant in New York, to sell their fish, usually ro 1 cent a piece, and in the 1860s as low as six cents per shad. Sturgeon were an annoyance as they were so big they broke the nets. Besides striped bass, smelts and eels from from the salt water, there would be goldfish, sunfish, pike, pickerel, suckers, catfish, etc from the freshwater'.

Well that's it, tomorrow and hoping to get over the river to Mt Kisco to take a look at Woody Guthries archives and to meet Anna (his granddaughter).

I realised that though I had packed the big heavy New York lock (for the bike) I had left the key. Ho hum.

Setting out from the Joe Strummer mural in the East Village. It was used in the video for Redemption Song, and seemed a good starting point.



Untitled by nick_hand at Garmin Connect - Details.

Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie

The power of music is often combined with the power of the message, and so when the two collide in a song of struggle, of freedom or of right over wrong there is nothing more powerful.

And so it is the music of the Clash, Christy Moore, Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan that has helped shape and inform my passion for music, politics and change.

And so when I found myself in New York in the year of both the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie's birth and of the 10th year since the death of the great Joe Strummer, it seemed appropriate somehow that I mark it in some way. New York is where Woody lived in his later years  and his family run a foundation in his name nearby at Mount Kisco. Joe also spent a lot of time here (inc the 17 consecutive performances which became the Clash on Broadway in 1981). Strummer called himself Woody in the days before the Clash and would sometimes introduce Clash songs with "this is a folk song from England".

Two days ago Pete Seeger celebrated his 93nd birthday. Pete is a New Yorker. A man of quiet dignity, a folk singer of sound and consistant political, social and environmental credentials. He has sung and written great American folk songs of protest and hard times all his long life. Was a friend and travelling companion of Guthrie's. He stood up for his beliefs through the crazy political turmoil of the McCarthy era. It was Seeger's song My Rainbow Race that tens of thousands of Norwegian's sang as a song of unity in Oslo a week or so ago.

And so it was an amazing thing to see Pete Seeger on stage at a Guthrie celebration a couple of Sundays ago, up in the Hudson Valley at Tarrytown. Pete talked about his time with Woody, and this is a little of what he said.

"on comes this little short fellow with a cowboy hat on, and he tells a few jokes and sings a song. He was on the stage for about 20 minutes and captured the crowd completely, when he came off, Alan Lomax went to see him and said, you have to come to Washington and record your songs. Well Woody went down there, and I tagged along . Well I must have seemed strange to him he said 'that guy Seeger is the youngest man I ever knew, he don't smoke, he don't drink, he don't chase girls'. However, I had a good ear and could accompany him in any song he played, I could hear a chord coming and I didn't play anything too fancy. So he let me tag along with him when he went out to Texas to visit his first wife. He wasn't a good family man. His first wife, Mary said 'we were just too young I was sixteen and he was nineteen' and he was always running away from home. But I learnt all sorts of things from him he told me 'Pete, if you want to make a living, you won't get rich, but you'll make a living, go into a bar and buy a nickel beer and drink it as slow as you can, have your banjo slung over your back, sooner or later someone will say, 'kid you gonna play that thing' don't be too eager say 'a little' sip your beer. Then someone will say 'kid, I gotta quarter for you if you play a tune' and you swing it around and play your best song'. He also told me how to ride freight trains. I didn't learn very well because the first one I jumped off I broke my banjo".

At the same show Woody's granddaughter Anna read some great lines that he wrote. I didn't record them, but I found some words that he wrote that sum up the power of words and song in the fight against injustice.

"The world is filled with people who are no longer needed. And who try to make slaves of all of us. And they have their music and we have ours. Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare. And without their music and ideological miscarriages to compare our songs of freedom to, we'd not have any opposite to compare music with – and like the drifting wind, hitting against no obstacle, we'd never know its speed, its power".

There is a great mural, a memorial to Joe Strummer in the East Village, and my plan is to start a bicycle ride from there on Sunday and then head up the Hudson Valley for a few weeks and see who I can meet. A kind of 'conversations on the river'. I'd like to make the first stop at Mt Kisco and take a look at some of Woody's writings and draw some inspiration before heading up the valley.

 

Why a book shop and a narrow boat is the perfect combination

When we published our little book Conversations on the Coast, we decided in about 2 seconds that we would banish Amazon from selling them. They tell you what they will sell it for and also what they will pay you (the publisher) A bit like the big supermarkets dictate price to the growers. They are big scary bullies who pinch stuff and sell them cheap in the playground.

The main reason I really can't stand them is because of the carnage they and other big internet retailers have caused to bookshops on our high street. Bookshops and record shops are one of the greatest pleasures of strolling down a high street , and the thought of these big bullies pushing them into history, is not worth thinking about, and I will indeed do all I can in my small way to not let them have their way.

You can find our book on our little website, it will be wrapped and sent with a nice little letterpress card, or you can also find it in about 20 little independent bookshops around the country, all at £14 (£1 goes to Parkinsons UK) including the Book Barge.

I have known of The Book Barge for some time. I missed the opportunity to visit Sarah and her lovely narrow boat when she visited Bristol last summer on her 6 month journey through Britain's waterways. At that time Harriet and I would regularly check Sarah's blog, detailing her encounters along the way.

Unfortunately, the Bristol 'encounter' involved a few run-ins with the harbourmaster who said that 'health and safety' meant that the public couldn't visit the Book Barge via the slipways in the harbour. Sarah had this announced to her by two bobbies who visited the boat and read aloud (slightly embarrassed by all accounts) some ancient bylaw which stated this fact.

Sarah ingeniously spotted a loophole in the small print which allowed friends to visit by request. Friends were quickly made by email who were then invited to board, a kind of internet book dating if you like. The harbourmaster sought to counter this and quickly closed the loophole of the friends invite. So, ever inventive, our bonny heroine then found that crew of a vessel could board at any time. So she then, in the time honoured tradition, recruited like billy-o. And of course if crew wanted to borrow a book and make a book sized donation to ship funds, then she would happily oblige. After all, a well-read crew is a happy crew.

Sarah wrote of these encounters in her blog in a much better and funnier way than I can recount here.

But to cut to the chase, I visited Sarah's lovely boat last Thursday and did a little Slowcoast presentation to some of the good local folk who braved the cold evening. The boat is moored in the wonderfully named village of Barton under Needwood near Lichfield.

The little boat is lined with books (no surprise there), but it's the kind of shop/boat that has old and new books of the sort that I'm sure I would choose (if I was a little more literary anyhow), beautifully bound old volumes sit alongside familiar new ones, children's books at one end. Lots of nice little stools and cushions to sit and browse.

A little plate of homemade cup cakes sits on Sarah's desk, a lovely old gym horse that has been carefully remade for its new purpose. A pot of tea is only ever 5 minutes brew time away.

Sarah made a little viewing screen from serviettes for my presentation which went a little wrong when I couldn't get the on-loan projector to behave, this went further adrift when the mp4s didn't work on the projector (I blame Apple for this as well). I felt a little like the bloke with the wobbly bottom lip in Masterchef last week, but remembered the bullying tactics of the chef bloke who comperes the show to see him through, and quickly adapted my laptop to be viewed by most of the audience.

After, we retired to the local pub and supped nice local ale (Marstons and Banks). Before a few of us made makeshift beds on the floor of the barge. I've got to say it was a cold enough to make me keep my head inside the sleeping bag for much of the night.

In the morning I took a few quick snaps of the marina and the lovely Book Barge before saying my goodbyes and heading back to Bristol. On the drive I was pondering what the difference is between a barge and a narrow boat, are they the same or is it a little like the horse and pony thing? What about a long boat? Is that a viking barge?

I would recommend a visit to Sarah's lovely little floating book shop. It is moored on the Barton Marina all winter open sometime after ten each day.

Sarah has exciting plans afoot for another journey, but I will leave her to tell you stories of adventures past and future. You can visit the Book Barge website here and Sarah's blog here where you can also read stories from last year's adventure.

So here's to doing something for the love of it. Something I suspect the good folk of Amazon and iTunes know very little about.

The little shop at 42 Carnaby Street

The little Carnaby Street shop that howies had for four years and one month has shut its doors for the last time.

What I remember most about the early days of the shop  is David (Hieatt) saying before it opened that he wanted it to be like no other shop, to make people think more and to do stuff that hadn't been done in a shop before. I remember staying up all night (at both shops) getting ready for openings.

It could never be said that selling clothes got in the way of ambition in those days at howies.

There were some mighty fine events in both the Bristol and Carnaby Street shops, notable amongst them the John McFaul organised Beautiful Machine event in Bristol and the evening talks that took place in London and Bristol. There was also a brilliant skateboard art show that Tim March organised. And many fine artists showed work in the gallery space at both shops.

I loved the fact that we got some great art straight onto the walls (a lot of it from David Sparshott and Nicholas Saunders). I even look back fondly at the things that we planned that never quite happened, like the machine that was going to spew out photo cards from a flickr feed for customers. Somehow the thinking and planning was as much fun as the doing, and so if it didn't quite happen it didn't matter too much.

Nowadays of course, the bean counters rule, everything has to have a reason to be there, and that reason is about making money (or I suppose, just surviving). It's a shame the Carnaby Street owners demanded more and more rent from howies, knowing that the likes of Nike, Puma and Adidas will always pay whatever is asked to get onto Carnaby Street. Pushing the little companies out won't make Carnaby Street unique or special.

I salute the great staff at both shops, never an easy thing running a shop, but the Carnaby and Bristol folk always did a lot more than asked and were always enthusiastic about running an evening event after a day in the shop.

I'm reminded of Jack Nicholson's JP McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. After McMurphy has tried with all his might to lift the sink block off the floor, he says "But I tried, didn't I? Goddamnit, at least I did that".

Things move on and we all use our experience to go on and do new and different things. Some of our friends are still at howies flying the flag for the crazy and good things.

It's exciting times in Cardigan right now. David and Clare Hieatt have a new business Hiut Denim that will be the only UK company making its own jeans. The factory has machines and great people ready to make the first jeans in January. We are producing the a yearbook and David said the other day "I want this yearbook to be like no other yearbook, to make people sit up and think and do stuff never done before".

I'm hoping that we will better our warm up act, but I also want us to look back with pride at what we achieved.

Road Bike Dave

One of the things I am sure about is that it's people that matter, more than anything. I've written and talked a lot now about riding around Britain and each time I've said that what I remember most are brilliant inspiring people.

One of the people I got to know through Twitter on my bike ride around the coast two years ago was David Hargrave, better known to many of us simply as @roadbikedave. We have followed his life via Twitter through his love of family, people and of course cycling. He wrote about eating, I know Dave and I shared the love of a simple cake after (or before) or during a ride. I loved to hear word from him. Some little tweets have stuck with me. His pride at seeing one of his boys ride for the first time. His first session this winter in the gym. His first ride on his winter bike. You just new this man was the real deal in terms of his love of riding, his love for his family and his love of life.

I met Dave on the road somewhere near Newcastle in August 2009, it was like meeting an old friend and he had invited me to stay at his house that night. So we rode on to Sunderland nattering all the way. I found out a lot about Dave and his life. It's odd but I remember a lot of what he had to say. He told me about his work (at John Lewis in Newcastle), about his brilliant family, about his past, and his sporting background. He told me he had gone to Africa on a charity walk, about how it had affected him seeing real poverty for the first time, and how on his return he had given many of his possessions away. He realised that they didn't have so much value and that it was people who mattered. 

On that ride, I remember laughing when he asked me about eating and quickly phoned his wife Hannah to tell her that I didn't eat meat and to put the steaks back in the fridge.

That night we talked late, and in the morning Dave and Hannah had to get off to work and I took some photos of them as before they left. It struck me how close they were, that  they were true soulmates, you can see that in the photo. I stayed awhile after they had gone with instructions about eating this and that, so that I had all I needed.  David gave me loads of bits and bobs that I 'had to have', he stuffed my pockets with energy bars etc. I just looked out this little bit from my blog that I wrote a day or so later and it says alot him.

'Monday last, I stayed with brilliant folk in Sunderland, Dave and Hannah. Dave is one of those rare folk who spends his life helping and doing things for other folk and giving stuff away (saying he's got two of this and that and I might as well have it, though I wasn't entirely convinced that was the case). Dave and Hannah have three boys who were spending the night at the grandparents, so I slept in a Power Rangers bed (thanks Will) and left with a bag of extra stuff (food, pens and a booster charger) from Dave.'

I have met many people who ride bicycles, but I know of nobody who was happier simply being on a bike than Dave.That much was clear to us all every day. You would get a report on Dave's ride into work, what the weather was doing, who he encountered. I'm sure he gave many a inconsiderate driver a pretty hard time (and told us about it). We knew and looked forward to reports of his rides to and from work. We knew about his friends, and got to know them a little too.

I'm so please I had the pleasure to have met Dave and that I got to keep in touch through the magic of his Twitter feed and messages since.

I'm also convinced that Dave's real passion was just people, he was one of life's total givers. Things of course didn't matter, it was time, effort, love and care that did, and he gave all without a thought. It's just what he did.

Dave died last Monday very suddenly on his bike (of course). It seems he died of a heart attack. All I can feel at the moment is complete sadness.

But I know that lots of people who will have met Dave briefly (like me) or over a longer time, will look back and feel that we are all better people for having met such a champion of a man.

Dave's wife Hannah is raising money for Cardiac Risk in the Young. You can donate here