LIZ LOVES US

This short blog entry is to mark the occasion of the return of our passports from the faceless departments of the Home Office.

We can enter and leave the island of damp cold and rain any time we like as long as we keep paying taxes.
Gail and I, having worried since mid last year and waited on the reply since February are now just plain bloody relieved to know we don't have to sell the house and leave the country. 

Most happy.

Great Yorkshire Bike Ride - 2012

This is perhaps the worst review of the event, have a look at gybr on facebook if you want links and honest feedback.

The GYBR is an annual event from which over the past 20 odd years well  over £2,000,000.00 has been raised by the riders and sponsors.  There are a number of charity organisations that benefit from helping to organise and run the event, one of which since 1987 has been the Wetherby Lions.

So it was that Gail and I ended up on the cliff-side fields of Filey on the Yorkshire east coast, setting up and manning the finish line and handing each rider a certificate.  The following pics are just at the beginning of the day's proceedings.  Things got a bit frantic as the peloton started to arrive.  (that's French for a big group of cyclists...)

The finish and fields after a while turned to muddy slush under the wheels and feet of the vast number of riders and proud families.
There are 2000 entries 1,643 riders, the weather chilly, wet and windy. The ride is staged over76 miles of challenging back roads and hills between Wetherby Race course and the Filey cliffs.  It is a one way ride as at the finish we take them all back to their cars in Wetherby, the people on buses, the bikes following in trucks. 
Quite the logistic exercise.  All went smoothly, only three riding injuries in the whole event, nothing dire. Well, one broken collar bone, bruises and abrasions are not nice but.... 1,643 riders multiplied by 76 miles equals near enough to 125,000 miles of riding, on public roads with traffic, all covered within nine hours.... Months in planning and setting up but all in all I'd say a very well run event.

The mood was fantastic and as first timers at any such a thing Gail and I were amazed at - the high average age of the riders, quite a few 70+ folk, - the variety of bikes,  racing, mountain, shopping, tandem, dads or mums with kid's trailalongs,  - at how far some folk had come to attend (Cornwall, France and Scotland), and the low percentage of female riders. But mostly we were amazed that many of the early finishers had a cuppa, turned around and rode back.... in the rain, and the wind, another 70 some miles to their cars in Wetherby...... crazy people.

 

                           

a summer walk Wetherby to Spofforth

I often complain about it being relentlessly cold and wet in England.
 It is.
Every now and then though, a nice day leaks in through the clouds and if everything lines up we get to enjoy it. 

This was such a Sunday in early June and we strolled to Spofforth to post a letter, have a pint and return home.

 It only sounds boring if you live somewhere that such a thing as a long dry walk is frequently possible.

Spofforth is about a three mile walk along the old rail line embankments.  There used to be a railway station behind our home and the track leads from there all the way.

The Castle Pub serves a good pint and a reasonable house white and we have even eaten there on occasions in the past.

 This shot reminded me that one Tuesday when Gail wasn't working we also got a short burst of late afternoon sunshine which enticed a margarita onto the front yard.  We had to follow and as a result got to chat with most of our neighbours to catch up on all the latest.




But please understand, June 2012 is the wettest on record with towns and villages flooding, our downpipes overflowing and generally , its very cold and wet.

May June YORK and WETHERBY Jubilee

Missed doing the end of month update for May, been doing lots of stuff without a camera too so Just to say,  The Bramham Horse trials were on, We went looking at houses in Headingly, Yeadon, Harrogate and Wetherby .  Because that's what we are doing now, presuming Liz will let us stay.  We also went to a wine sale in a disused pub in Clifford a little village near here.  A good night out and far too much tasting with good friends Rob Angela Paul and Clare.

We also went to see an ELTON JOHN concert in Harrogate which was excellent but again we didn't take the camera.... the whole thing is on utoob if you want to look at another old queen putting on a grand show... seemed to be the thing this month.

 We also did a ghost tour of York and a dinner, all on a Groupon deal which went very wrong ... mustn't grumble tho.  Here are the pics we took of York Ghosts.

The tour guide was rather interesting as were the tourists, no I don't like to think what the green man is doing Liz was watching from a window and another gargoyle (grotesque) was also spotted doing the same thing as the green man...  must be a York tradition.....

And this was a house we looked at in Harrogate, for auction, guide £270k.... hmmmm.  We got all excited about a riverfront stone built money pit in Wetherby asking £550k we made an offer of 320 for a laff.

I have said that I joined the Wetherby Lions last year at the beer festival.  This year we were on the other side of the bar.  It was a great day,Gail enjoyed the sport of pouring a half pint, a couple of hundred times.  The event was during the Jubilee celebration weekend so I was a busy little Lion doing Marshaling and crowd control etc. as well as using my well honed skill behind the bar.

The beer festival raised near£4000 and a lot of good times, the money we gave to the Yorkshire Helicopter Ambulance, a critical service provision which has fallen out of the government funding pool due to cutbacks.  Anyway the Wetherby Lions raises about £30,000 a year which all goes to local people and causes.  So it was that I spent the Night of the Jubilee Proms herding 3000 odd Wetherby people into the Ings field.  Gail and eight of our friends were some of the herd.  These are shots of the crowd, the night and the joys of an english summer.

And because we took no furry animal shots at all , here are some of the flowers in our back yard now the calendar says it's summer.