Stone Clearing With Richard Herring - Chapter 129

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Chapter 129: Wet Fock. It's 5.25pm on 16th November 2022 which can mean only one thing - Night Clear. In the rain too. Which means you can learn the important technique of picking up wet stones to get the least mud on your finger. Plus a wellington emergency and memories of the night that stone clearing almost killed Richard and his wish for that danger to return.

Stone Clearing, with Richard Herring. Come here, come here, sit. Here's my good girl, alright, come on then. Well, hello my finest friends. Welcome to chapter 129, Stone Clearing. We're with Richard Herring and Wolfie the Dog. I think it's the 16th of November. It's 5.25pm, it's raining and it's dark. Yes my fine friends, what we have here is, alright, Stone Clearing.

The first one in a while. It's night time at 5.25pm in Hertfordshire. Don't know what it is for you in the rest of the world as we head up Duckett's Passage. You can probably hear the sound of leaves under my feet. You can probably hear the pit of paddle raindrops on my head. Stone Clearing waits for no man or woman and there's a big bit of branch in the road there. What's going on? Let's see how it's going to be. It's not particularly nice out here. But no one said Stone Clearing will be nice.

In fact, no one's really talked about it much. Not at all except for me. But I am bramble if you live in New Zealand and want to listen to the most popular world's broadcast rather than the best one. It's dark out here my friends. My torch feels like it's failing a bit. I thought I plugged it in quite recently. This could get scary. I can't see anyone around. Who would be stupid enough? Warby come here.

It's good. It might be the first intermediate night-time Stone Clearing. Probably not. Don't do that many here anyway. The water is getting in my boot somehow. A couple of pebbles cleared off the Alphanoma you can. There's a hole in this bloody boot. It's not my new boot. I've got better boots than this but that's annoying. The problem with the dark is it's difficult to see.

If you remember medieval times, there were no torches or any way to light anything. Not even a vented fire at that point. But even if they hadn't had a candle that would draw too much attention to them in those days. Now a torch is a normal thing. You can't go about your day pretending you're just walking a dog in the pissing rain. There's a good thing about the rain that cleans the stones. There's more mud around. The stones on the top are often clear of mud at least from the bottom part.

This is getting very technical now. There may still be some mud. As I just found out, I'm getting a bit of mud on my hand. I have to feel that's good. I'll be able to pick up these clean stones. But if you're careful and use a pin to grip, very technical today. So if this is going to bore some of you, you can pick up stones and only get a little bit of dirt that's on the ceiling of the clean stone. Yeah, look, I can see that hole. I can see the hole.

Another boot with a hole in it. Is this you, Wolfie Harris? Are you inviting my boots? That's another boot. Hopefully it will be the opposite boot to last time and I can reunite and make a new pair of boots. Come on. But sod's luring it. I'm going to end up with a hundred left boots. Do a film called My Left Boot.

That man has a lot of left boots. But I'll just have to look at that. That's a nice one. Sometimes weirdly, the wet stone in the lamp light can catch a stone that you might have missed. There are a lot of stones out today. I was talking to Jordan Gray, the Perrier Ordering Comedian. And she used to clear stones as part of her job on a farm somewhere. Might be an extra boot seat, I can't remember. And confirmed that stones do grow through the overnight, push that way up through the soil.

To freedom, if someone like me or Jordan's around, to pick them up and guide them on their merry way. No ghosts so far. I have all of you with me who should scare off most ghosts. Just ate a few. Just ate them three and five before we came out. And I have to tell you it's got caught in my throat a little bit. Let's see if I can get a nice view of my feet in the night sky. I think we've got one.

Don't worry, I'll carry on regardless. I'm just looking at my messages and I've got my phone out. Check it's still rolling. Still rolling my friends. Nothing can possibly go wrong. That's weird light in the corner of the field. It's just someone's garden. It's got some fairy lights up.

I think the stone stars is on their way, but it's quiet. Maybe a little bit too quiet. I'm going to kick that one off. If you kick, you don't get any dirt, but of course if you have a hole in your boot. Some water may get in that way and there's another stone. I'm taking that one up and just abusing the pinch. Throwing us a little bit of dirt from off the stone. Even when it looks clean, remember, it probably isn't.

Oh, if he's right out there, how'd you get out there? That was like a magic trick. She was right behind me and then suddenly she's in the middle of the field. I hope she would do a go out there. So she's eating bits of the crop. Wolfie, stop it. Stop eating the crop. You're a dog. So we're just going to do a quick circuit. I have the bottom part of the field.

Just give Wolfie a chance to poop. And just give you some, don't be scared to come out in the dark. And there are murderers out here. Stone stars, he will kill you and the cloak of the night. That's a lot easier. But you're basically safe. You have a dog with you, hopefully that's part of your cover. You need a dog, you need a torch, you need some hands or something that can pick up or legs to kick.

Or someone with you who's got hands, if you don't have hands, but that's not really used on clearing. No helpers allowed, this is health and safety gone mad. You've got to do this yourself. You've got a mouth, use your mouth. It's for everyone, no one's excluded. But you have to do it yourself. It's possible, you can do it.

So it's a little bit of a cogmire here. Just the kind of place you don't want to have a hole in your boot. I'll give you a little hole in this boot. It's that bloody dog. Might be the kittens, I don't think so, they don't really go in the kitchen at the moment. And it's quite a big hole, much to split, to be fair. It gets a lot of use out here, tramping a lot of miles. And here are the Fittipata raindrops.

I'm wet through. But on we go. No one yet offered to sponsor the stone clearing podcast, I've got an email through from a guy running a sporting collection of podcasts asking if me one versus me two snooker would join the stable. I'm pretty sure he'd never listened to it. Explained what it was. And it's also an aimless to lose listeners.

And suddenly he wasn't so keen. But hopefully someone out there, maybe someone working in stones or aggregates of some sort. We'll think, hey, we could sponsor this. And we can start making a pretty penny from the literally hundreds of downloads we get every year. It's incredibly popular. I don't do it for the money. But you know, just saying it'd be nice for me to be able to buy some new Wellington's.

Cost a lot of money, batteries for the torch. I'm doing all right. Don't think about the money. The payment comes from being remembered for all time. Can't really see any stones because there's leaves on top of the ground and the crop and also it's dark. So clearing very few stones. That's the leaf. I've just got a wet sock.

The rain has stopped. Be grateful for small meth days. Come on, Moves. Let's cross the field. Can't all be gold, can they? Can't all be gold. Number 129 of these. If we'd only just kept it up every week, imagine how many there'd be if we'd imagine it weekly.

We'd be well into the 4,300s by now. That's what you get. For being lazy, but somebody would say 129 additions of a man walking around the field, failing to clear many stones with a dog and getting wet. Is a lot. I say it's not enough. It may be a lot, but I don't think we're even a tenth of the way through. I hope you'll stick with us.

Through good and through bad. This reminds me of the day I crossed this field on this exact path during a thunderstorm and saw the lightning approaching me. I wasn't recording. Unfortunately, at that time, I'm out here more than once a week. It's only more than twice a month. And I thought I was about to die. It's only more than twice a month.

And I thought I was about to die. The hail stones were hitting me. Lightning was approaching me. They're straight lines towards me. I never felt more alive. Just wish that would happen again. Oh, there's a stone. There's a stone.

It's tiny. Wolfie's excited. She thinks I'm going to throw it. Fuck it. Let's throw it. Let's see if she can find it. We're still a long way from the shore. That's against all the rules of stone clearing, of course. Once you've picked up a stone,

you have to get it off the field. But it's not. You're allowed to throw it down the path a bit for next time. There are no rules for stone clearing. That's the first rule of stone clearing. Rule two. Ambiguous is ambiguous about whether throwing stones is over. Pick that up one more.

You've got it in your mouth. We just lost it. I've got a couple more. Wolfie can hear her breathing heavily. She loves stones more than I do. I'm weary, I have to say. I'm weary. I'm wet.

Wolfie's had a stone. Thank you, Wolf's, for pointing it with her nose. It's traditional. That's the stone retriever dog. That's her actual breed. Not a well-known dog. It's what they were bred for. When she's a stone,

she just stops right in point. Looks at it. Hope it's going to get thrown. So she can grab it. Another stone. They're going to have to let the one go for the moment. Of course, problem. We're nighttime stone clearing.

Can't see anything. That's one of the problems. And you have to have a torch in your hand, which, again, along with the dog lead, does a restricting movement so much. I did experiment with a head torch for a while. Couldn't really be doing with it. Didn't really work for me.

It was confusing. And gave up on it. It's still there. I don't know where the band is. I'm still on the torch bits, just on my windowsill. Still could bring it back if I can find the band.

Get the band back together. Just a little levity there. I know we shouldn't be joking. And the main can. Everything seems to be slipping downwards a little bit. It doesn't seem to be any bigger than before.

Some movement. Is that somebody coming? We're going to have rustling and approaching stones here. We're heading down the hill now. It's not been a great clear. We know, I think,

maybe seven or eight stones off. One boot down. You know, Wellington boot needs to be waterproof. You call me old fashioned. That's in water. To me, that's its whole

point of being is no longer justified. I will be throwing this. It's the right boot. I'll be throwing it in the right hole. justified, I will be throwing this beer, it's the right boot, I'll be throwing it in the bin, the left will be left. Not the first time I've thrown the right one of a pair away for the

last couple of years. Very symbolic. And you might think, oh this is disappointing, like a fisherman going out not catching any fish. You might think, oh this has been a disappointing stone clover, rich. Listen to me my friends, eight stones that would not have been cleared if I'd just stayed inside are clear. I'm clearing the dark no less, sort of like the Great Escape. We could get all of them out, you know, I could go out into the, into the station, see what I can find under the cover of night. Highly illegal that there are no rules to stone clover, that's number one rule of stone. Second rule, please respect the farmers' property and check your local laws to avoid arrest. And arrest in stone clearer is no use. Having said

that, I've just taken a few steps out to pick up some shrapnel for the ditch to stop breakfast, the ditch does not breakfast, I didn't have breakfast today, because the ditch that got Liz Trussat, the Tsunak dish, can't speak, might be having a stroke. This is my final will and testament, ah fucking, imagine this is it. I've just done this, that's the final, and then the police and everyone have to listen to this, gets played in court as they, don't need to be court, will they? Unless someone thinks I'm a murderer. Oh, anyway, never mind, I'm still here. I'm not far from them, I'll struggle. I'm just looking for another bit of shrapnel for the A and Z, A and O. There we go, that's a nice one.

Brain stopped, but the moisture still finds its way into my roots, and that was a nice clack. I don't know what the shadow's playing tricks on there, I thought another dog was coming there, it's just a shadow. Shadows of things that once were. I'm talking about shadows aren't we, you and I, about shadows. I think we might be ghost walks, maybe this is, maybe we know this is real, maybe we're just forever walking around this field, thinking we've got a job to do. Wolfie doesn't seem impressed with that idea. So we're heading down Duck It's Passage, let's have a quick look at your emails, there's a lot of emails coming in, given the, I haven't been that many podcasts.

Grass Wellington, that's been in touch. I'm my high-richard, it's me, Grass Wellington, and my great-great-great grandad was the duty to Wellington after whom Wellington Boots were named, and I just want to say, if you ever have a Wellington malfunction, do have some of my great-great-great-great-great-great grandad's Wellington Boots here in the house, happy to pop them over there, they kept me dry. These Nihon 200s on DS. Wolfie, sorry, Wolfie, another dog, just walked past the bottom of the path there, and Wolfie made a little grab for it, but luckily, he got caught with a lead, back at the house.

Yeah, it's sure sent one through, mate, I wear the Duke of Wellington's, if they have the right one, I hate to, for Wolfie to chew that up, it's probably worth a bit of cash, but it's nice, it's still in use, it's like my venture with dolls. Some people would put them in a museum, I say no, let them live, let them breathe, let them do what they're meant to do. I expect the Duke of Wellington, clear a few spoons, this is me talking there by the way, I'm just looking back at the email, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandad, the Duke of Wellington, did clear a few spoons, which if you're wondering, well, why isn't he at Wellington? That is what Nelson's column is made of, wow, does not know that.

Those are the ones in the same wall, isn't it? The back wolves. Well, thank you, Gras, I hope you're not caught, because you dobbled your mates into the pub, into the police, into the pub, because I did walk on the field there saying the local bylaws say that must not happen, so that was very unjust onto it. Anyway, we're back home, it's a quick one, we've learnt a lot though, it's been, you know, one of the quieter ones, do you want to hear me throw this boot in the bin before you go, just so you know it's definitely over with, I'll have to put on another, should I go that wet sock? I've got to put on one of my wife's, uh, cool those

sort of sandal things, and I'll throw away the offending, we'll just check if I've got the right one, yeah, a big crack in there, that's going straight in the outside, nobody's messing around, can't repair those, vulcanised rubber, my arse, not like spock at all, can't come back to life, can it? Put it on a Genesis planet, it's gone once it's gone, it's gone wolves, well, thanks for listening. Ah, I enjoyed it, now I've got one bouton and one sandalone, wolf is making a noise, from me and all the stone carers in the world, enjoy your stone caring with booties. Yeah, Mary dance, don't listen to the bird fan tree, don't listen to your underpants,

listen to the stone, listen to the stone, and they in turn, I'll listen to ye, my friend, my fine friend. Stone clearing with Richard Herring, starred me, Richard Herring and Wolfie the dog, plus a man with a dog that Wolfie went for, but hardly anyone else, and lots of rain, and a hole in my boot, the music is by Mike Coffgrave, the voice of the Vertones, is by Michael Verheed. Yeah, Mary dance, don't listen to the bird fan tree, don't listen to your underpants, listen to the stone, listen to the stone, and they in turn, I'll listen to ye, my friend, my fine friend. you