Football at Shibden

It seems that every Sunday we go out for a little trip in the surrounding area and I end up posting and piccing about it. Well today was no different.
The little girl wanted to try her new football out, so we went to Shibden Hall nr Halifax. Besides the hall and garden, there is a park with a boating lake and miniature train, plus plenty of space for kicking a ball about. The hall itself was built around 1425, and has had different families live in it over the years. It's set in some nice gardens and also has an ornamental pond, which at the moment is teeming with tadpoles. The kids caught some in a bottle and took them home with them to put in their wildlife ponds in the back garden. Click on the link if you want to know more about Shibdens history.
The walk up to the hall takes you through some woods and you know I like my woods. I took a picture of a sea of wild onion on the woodland floor. There was an oniony haze to the atmosphere as we walked past this patch. At the top of the hill you come across the ornamental pond, which was put there in the early 1800's. The water in the pond was crystal clear with only the aforementioned tadpoles swimming in the water.
There is a lot of colour in the planting of the marginals around the pond and the fragrance from them was divine. The wife was all for digging some up to take home with her. I think carrying an 8ft plant would have been a bit conspicuous and it would have been too big for our small wildlife pond.
It's some steep steps up to the hall, but it's worth it. I think Shibden is one of the most olde worldy looking places around here and has a certain quaintness all of it's own.
After a walk around the hall, you can see all around the park, and like I say, there is plenty of room to kick a ball about. We went down the hill to the kids playground were my two swung, slid and see-sawed to their hearts content. We weren't about to go on the boats on the boating lake with our two daft beggars, we'd have probably ended up fishing them out of the drink. Instead we took them on the miniature railway. It was Ivor the steam engine pulling the train today. With a loud toot of it's whistle and a lung busting cloud of smoke we pulled away from the station. Isn't it nice how everybody waves to you, when your on one of these sort of trains?

It was time to go home but not without the usual "99" before we parted. For those of you who don't know what a "99" is click here.

The Birds have flown the nest

The Great Tits that were nesting at the back of the garage have gone. The wife noticed a lot of activity yesterday in the back garden and thought she saw some young tits flapping their wings but couldn't be sure they were ours. But, all was silence in the box today. When they were in the nest, the chicks would make such a racket if you got anywhere near it, but today, all is quiet.

I'm going to miss those Great Tits, flying in and out of the nest with their worms in their gobs. The cheeping of the chicks as they realise lunch has arrived. The black cat from across the road sitting for hours watching them, keeping guard.

I'll finally be able to use the new decking now.

Great int'it.

Of Course

Gosh, where does the time go to. Here it is, Wednesday already and I havn't posted since Sunday. I'll be losing my blogging license if I keep this up. Mind you, it's been a nightmare this week. The installation of the new photo-printing machine due to go in tonight was brought forward 2 days and was installed on Monday evening, so wev'e been trying to get our heads around new technology whilst still keeping the photo service going.

Evenings, I've been cracking on with my internet IT course. Iv'e passed 4 out of 6 units and I'm currently on "Creating web-pages." The last assessment that went in, was a week overdue but I'm back on course again now.

And tonight, Iv'e been watching Liverpool win the champions League for the 5th time and thereby keeping the European Cup for good. ( I'm talking soccer here for the benefit of US readers.) There's going to be some drunken scousers around to-night. (Scousers are people who are born in Liverpool.)

So, all in all, it's been busy, busy, busy.

Ducks and Geese

We went to see the Ducks and the Geese at Cannon Hall today.
Cannon Hall at Cawthorne nr Barnsley is set in extensive grounds. They have a farm there were you can feed the goats and pigs but we didn't go in to that part today. We just had a wander around the gardens, looking at all the magnificent flowers and shrubs that are there.
This is a view of part of the garden to give you a flavour of what it was like. The scent coming of these bushes was very nice. The wife said they were Azelias, but, as I'm not up on names of flowers, I took her word for it. I know the photo doesn't do it justice. We had a sit down on the benches in front of the hall for a little while and the view was staggering.There's a bit of a grass slope just there and the kids were having a whale of a time rolling down it.
After we had sunned ourselves, we took a walk down to the pond. There are all sorts of wildfowl in residence down there. I took this pic of a coot nesting in the middle of the pond. All the Canada Geese get very close to you, looking for scraps of bread. As we were all licking ice-creams at the time, they were very interested in us, especially the little girl. Her Ice-cream being a bit lower to the ground than the rest of us.
There's a garden centre next door to the car-park, so the boot of the car was full of plants on the way home.

I don't know were the wife is going to plant them, there isn't a bare patch of soil left in the garden.

How to get rid of a nice juicy Worm

Daddy Great Tit looking after his chicks. 

Dewsbury Market

It's not often the wife and myself get time together without the kids hanging around, but as they had to go to school this morning, we were left to our own devices. So I decided to take her out for lunch.

Now don't think I'm getting soft or romantic, it was only fish & chips in Dewsbury. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, Dewsbury holds one of the best markets around these parts. You can get practically anything at the market, usually at a bargain price. My wife, of course, made a beeline for the plant stall. She needed some bedding plants for her hanging baskets.
Looking at the amount of plants she bought, I thought maybe that she was doing baskets for the whole street. Nevermind, anything to keep her happy. She loves her garden, the way it's all coming together. The pic on the left is of her small alpine garden which was planted last year. It's really taken off. The garden is split into 4 seperate areas by trellis. The traditional lawn with herbacious border,the patio area with planters,the greenhouse and veggy area and the pebbled, decked area.
She has put loads of Clematis and Honeysuckle in to climb up the trellis. This is one planted last year as well. There's already a mass of flowers on it. The patio is starting to fill up, what with an ornamental pond, arbour seat and picnic bench not to mention the numerous planters and tubs. If she keeps it up, there won't be room for the barbie soon. I got a couple of cucumber plants at the market, which have been potted up and put in the greenhouse. In the pebbled area, home of the great tit family, the tete'a'tete seats have been put on the decking. Once we got home from Dewsbury, the wife did all her hanging baskets and they are up now. So when they are in their full glory I'll post a pic of them.

The wife definately says that she has got all the plants she needs for this year. I do hope so, my wallet can't take the strain much longer.

The Tardis aka my Garage

I've been saying, " I must clean out the garage sometime," for months now, and promptly forgot about it. Well "sometime" happened today. And not before time too.

I'ts amazing the junk you can store in a garage. I'm a great hoarder of junk you know, only I don't think of it as junk. You might do, but I don't. The six, 5" pieces of wood decking left over from my recent project are bound to come in useful one day. All those plastic plant pots that you get from the garden centre, recycle them. Cardboard packaging- you never know when you might need a bit of cardboard.

Get the picture?

My garage was so full of this kind of stuff, that I hadn't seen the back wall for a couple of years. But not any more. I was ruthless. ( Well the wife was!) After a trip or two to the municipal tip and a quick purchase of some new shelving, we can finally reach the back wall.

It's a wonder we didn't find any new age travellers back there.

My poor old wallet

After a 2 day course down at Bedford, a 4 hr traffic jam on the M1, trying to get home Friday, then a rather busy day at work yesterday, I was in the mood for relaxing today.

My wife had other ideas.

She needed some John Innes no3 and some growbags to pot up some plants and a crab apple tree she had bought mid-week, so it was back down the garden centre yet again. Half an hour later I was struggling, pushing a trolley with 4 bags of compost, a bag of plum slate chippings, a lavetera, an aquatic plant (marginal), for the pond, a stake for the tree and the biggest planter she could find.

My poor old wallet was whimpering when I put it back in my pocket.

This afternoon was productive. I have bedded my tomato plants in the greenhouse and some more in the veg patch, whilst the wife has potted her crab apple tree in the planter. It was quite warm and pleasant in the garden this afternoon. The great tits that are nesting at the back of the garage, were in and out of the box feeding their young. The squirrel came and gave us the once over from the top of the trellis.

I think it was a more relaxing afternoon than crashing in front of the box.

Of Course

I'm not going to be around for a couple of days because I'm going on a course down at Fuji HQ in Bedford. I will be learning all about a new photo printer that will be installed in my lab shortly.

So to keep you going, heres a joke...

The Lone Ranger and Tonto ride into town and stop outside the saloon.

"You stay out here with the horses, Tonto," says the Lone Ranger. "I'm going in for a drink."

"But it's freezing out here, Kimosabe," replies Tonto. "How will I keep warm?"

"Try running on the spot." was the answer.

The Lone Ranger had only been in the saloon 5 minutes when a drifter walked in.

"Is that your white horse out there?" he says.

"Yes," replies the Lone Ranger. "Why, is there anything wrong?"

"Nope, not really," answers the drifter. "It's just that you left your injun running."

See you at the weekend.

Some more pictures

Tulips

Feeding the ducks 

VE Day at Red House

All over Britain people are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of the war against Hitlers Germany.
A local museum, The Red House, were holding a VE day special so that's where we headed off to. Red House, so called, because it's made out of red bricks, is on the list of our regular haunts because there is usually some event going off there. The volunteers and staff were dressed in wartime costume and had done the place out in bunting and Union Jacks, and were trying to convey a feeling of street party to the place.
There was singing around the piano. All the old singalong favourites like, "We'll meet again," and "The White cliffs of Dover." was being belted out in gusto, until the heavens opened up. The piano player never missed a note as he was wheeled indoors, whereupon the singing continued. There were kids activities in the "barn." They had to make paper bunting and Union Jack flags. Kept them quiet until the rain stopped.
When we got back outside, we found that the Vicar never got wet from the rain. He stayed in his wartime Ford Prefect. Inside Red House, which is dressed out as 19th century, they had put an exhibition entitled "War on the home front," in a couple of the rooms, including a mock-up of an Anderson shelter, with full sound effects of an air raid. The kids loved this.
In the town hall, adjoining Red House, they had laid on wartime food. Carrot and turnip cake, spam sandwiches and various dishes made from potatoes, washed down with weak tea.

We gave it a miss!

My lads first poem

Lisa's Garden.

In Lisa's garden
Were mum says parden
She plants a lot of trees
So many she can't pay her fees

She has lots of flowers that are old
When it comes to winter they are bold
In summer butterflies flap their wings
And water is collected in springs

My lad(age 8)

Oh Dear

I was down at the local church hall tonight casting my vote for the general election.

As I was walking down from the carpark, a little old lady pranged her silver Peugot into the wall at the exit. She caved her driver side headlight in. I went to see if she was alright, but before I got there she drove off.

I mentioned this to the woman doing the exit poll at the door to the church hall.

"Oh dear," she said. " She was just telling me that she had an accident last week, and this was her first trip out after getting the car back from the garage."

Oh dear!

May flowers

I thought you might want to see some bluebells.


A trip to Wilton Park in the sunshine resulted in some nice flowers to look at.

The floor of the wood we walked through, were carpeted with bluebells and the scent coming from them was heavenly. The birds were in full song in the trees, busily making nests or feeding young. This is what I like about Britain at this time of year.
I wish you could have been there.

A Picnic in the Fog on Ilkley Moor

We went for a drive out to Ilkley today, thinking that the weather would be fine. The plan was to climb up onto the moor and have a picnic but when we got there, it was a bit foggy.
As we started up the hill, the spa bath-house was shrouded in mist. In the Victorian age, people used to come to this spa to 'take the water.' They probably needed a drink after climbing up to it and it wouldn't have been the spa water either.
We certainly needed a sit down when we got there. Normally, on a clear day, you get a good view of the town and surrounding countryside, but today, we could just about make out the car-park! The little lass at this stage wanted an ice-cream, as if an ice-cream van was halfway up a mountain.
As we were preparing to set off further up the hill, a great big bank of mist started rolling up towards us. It was moving pretty fast and we were in two minds wether to carry on, but we were brave and set off. We were glad we did, because after 20 minutes it started to lift and the sun was shining quite hot through the mist.
We started to see some stunning scenery as the fog lifted. This picture is a rock outcrop millions of years old. The actual Ilkley Moors start just over the top of it. Just a bit further on is were we sat down on some rocks, next to a stream, to eat our egg & cress sandwiches. It was nice and peaceful up there listening to the birds twittering and the sound of the stream.
After lunch was over, we made our way down and into the small town of Ilkley. There's not a lot to Ilkley but it is a nice friendly place and the shops are interesting. There are plenty of tea-rooms and upmarket cafe's, (not my cup of tea I'm afraid.)There also, for some strange reason, seems to be a lot of charity shops.
The most famous of all the tea-rooms and the most expensive, happens to be Betty's. They have the main one in York, but there is one in Ilkley. I took a picture of the nice display of bread and buns in the window. The wife wanted to go in but the wallet said no, so we carried on. The sun was shining by this time and it was quite warm. The kids were tired, so we set off home a happy band.