August Bank Holiday in Yorkshire: Friday

We went away last weekend to the North Yorkshire Moors. We pitched the tent at a nice quiet campsite near Nawton and Beadlam called Wrens of Ryedale. Arriving at lunchtime on Friday gave us an afternoon to familiarise ourselves with the area. A drive up to Gillamoor took us to a small church with a short steeple and a view across the dale.

A short drive across the dale took us to Hutton-le-Hole, home of the Ryedale Folk Museum. We preferred to sit outside a small shop by the stream eating tubs of local ice cream. We then wandered into Kirkbymoorside to check out the local shops before heading back to the campsite. After cooking our tea, we wandered down the lane to the village pub on Friday evening. As we sat in the dry we watched the rain start pouring down and chatted about what we were going to do over the weekend. Once the rain stopped we headed back to see how the tent had coped. Everything was dry inside so we settled down for the night.

Full Flickr means delayed sunsets

I've filled up my Flickr allowance for August by the 24th. Normally not a problem but I've just produced 4 sunset photos from Monday evening.
I hope that people share my modest opinion that they are very good photos. So I've posted them here until I can get them into my Flickr account...or I might have to think about paying out $25 for a Pro account...

Countries I have visited

Just found a website that lets you create a map of the world showing the countries you have visited. I thought I would have a go and so here's my map:


create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands

A weekend in Dereham

Spent last weekend in Norfolk with Mum and Dad. Not that I need a reason to visit but it the weekend was a chance to celebrate two events - Mum's birthday on 15th and Gemma's A level results on 17th. I'll not say how old Mum is, but it's been a few years since she got her bus pass.

With an A at English, a B in Art, and a C in Maths Gemma's results were what she needed to go to College at Lincoln to read Fine Art so she's happy. On the academic front Edward also got "A"s in all his year end exams apart from RE, so we're all proud of him as well. He says he doesn't read blogs because they're either very good or full of mad people whining. I'll let you decide what label fits this blog.

We took the opportunity to visit Elaine and Ben's new house on Saturday morning, as we missed them last time we were over. It's a nice bungalow over in Toftwood and they have a good sized garden with a pear tree. They've just got a kitten from the local cat rescue centre and even I have to admit it's cute.



On Saturday afternoon we finally got round to putting some silver paint on the flat roof. It had been sitting in the garage since before Easter but every time Dad and I had a spare weekend when we could do it, it had been raining so it was too wet to apply the paint. We got about 3/4 of the roof painted before the rain swept in and stopped us working.

Saturday night was eating out night. Dad drove Mum, Sonia and I out to a pub by the County Showground where we were joined by Gemma, Edward and Gemma's boyfriend Chris (who got 4 As and 3 Bs for his A levels). Dad and I split the bill to treat the birthday and exam celebrants.


Sunday morning was fairly quiet. We spent a while preparing for a lunchtime barbeque, hoping that the rain would hold off. It didn't, so Dad had to cook under the car port. The main dish was a large Scottish salmon that he stuffed with cucumber and bay leaves before wrapping in tin foil and lobbing on the BBQ. It was so large that the nine of us couldn't finish it and we had a box full to take home with us.

So all in all, an enjoyable weekend with family.

Flickr Nottingham Group

I joined the Nottingham Flickr Group yesterday evening and posted a load of my photos from around Nottingham. Have already had several positive comments about the pictures I took back in March 2006 (that can be found in this blog at Sunny Sunday Morning in Nottingham and More Sunny Sunday Photos).

I also added a Flickr mozaic to this blog after I got back from Cambridge. If you can see a photo you like the look of, just click on it and you will be redirected to the photo on my Flickr pages. Hope you enjoy them.

Cambridge Folk Festival Day 4

Sunday morning was as fuzzy as Saturday...I had to wander down to the corner shop to get some cash and a paper. After a morning sitting around reading the paper and waiting for the world came back into focus for some of us, we headed into the arena for the final day's music where we met up with Helen and Phil plus a couple of their friends who had day tickets. It was a very international line up.

First up were Rodrigo Y Gabriela. My note says "mexican version of stairway to heaven"!
The traditional north English folk tradition was represented by John Tams and Barry Coope: "quirky humour and traditional folk songs"
Capercallie gave us the Scottish tradition: "chill out session for a Sunday afternoon"
The John Butler Trio from Australia: "OK- Mel big fan" - she was VERY excited to hear that they would be in the signing tent after their set and she headed off as soon as they finshed to get her CD signedEddi Reader finished the afternoon: "perfect" was my one word description of her set.
Mozaik kicked off the evening session but we only stayed for a couple of songs before heading back to the tent for a wash having been sat in the hot sun all afternoon, so "no comments".
We returned at the end of their set and heard an amazing set from Betty LaVette "growly voice and solid soul/blues and 60 years old"
Emmylou Harris was the big star for Sunday night: "crowd worships her, told joke - vegetarian is a native american word meaning bad hunter"
The closing act was Croft No.5. I was looking forward to them but "good but too tired to enjoy" was my pithy review.The end of the music found us all gathered around the gas lanterns back at the tents talking about the weekend, what we had enjoyed and what we had not. the consensus seemed to be that it was a good festival, very relaxed with nice toilets (and those who have been to Glastonbury and used the "back to back long drops" will know just how important the sanitary arrangements are for a festival). I enjoyed myself, Sonia says she did too, and maybe we'll do it again next year...

Cambridge Folk Festival Day 3

Saturday dawned with a fuzzy head. It may have been the heat as the sun rose higher in the clear skies but we didn't move much from in front of Stage 1 once we had settled into position at lunchtime.
I put it down to the wonderful music and the proximity of food and drink vendors. Some of us enjoyed them more than others...

While some people wandered back to the campsite for BBQs before setting out for the afternoon, we bought our food on site to save packing (and washing up).
First up - Julie Fowlis: "relaxing and charming"
Tom Russell followed her: "very funny"
Dervish (same as Thursday night)
Teddy Thompson: "OK, can hear that dad taught him to play"
Salsa Celtica (long time personal favourites): "into the groove"
The afternoon tea interval was spent eating and drinking before we settled down for the evening session which was kicked off by Cara Dillon: "better than expected" (I think this review is based on our previously having heard her at Tolpuddle Festival and not being impressed).
Nickell Creek: "rocking in the sun"
Cerys Matthews, formerly of Catatonia: "disappointing, not good"
I evidently enjoyed The Chieftans: "band as old as me and still going strong with skiddly diddly fun"
The evening closed with Los de Abajo, a Mexican skapunk agitpop band: "great dancing set as the crowd thinned out"On the way back to the tents, Bill bought their CD so we sat around finishing off the beer listening to music under the stars.

Cambridge Folk Festival Day 2 continued

There wasn't much chance to post any more over the weekend, given the access problems for the free internet - too many teenagers and too little time - so I'm doing a series of posts now I've got home and downloaded the photos. My "reviews" are based on the notes I scrawled in my programme after each set - the writing is clearer earlier in the evenings (I blame the bar staff for selling me Badger brewery beer in 4 pint containers and Pimms in large jugs with lots of ice, but not the nice woman on the spicy hot cider stall who served me warm alcohol to keep away the chill after the sun had gone down).

Friday was our second day at the festival and we settled down by stage 1 for the start of the evening.

First up were the Broken Family Band - "lively set - joined by Eddi Reader"They were followed by Marcia Ball - "damned good rocking RnB set"Richard Thompson closed stage 1 for us - "great, super, with Christine Collister"We then staggered over to stage 2 to watch Dervish play closing set of the night - "lively skiddly diddly" which saw Sonia and Mel dancing jigs under the trees.The evening finished with a hot drink from the Internet cafe and a chat round the gaz lanterns before we collapsed into our sleeping bags.