Picnic in the Park

Rowan still has one Final exam left, but has had time to relax a bit as well. This is a picnic in Green Park she went to last week.

Yearly Meeting

Britain Yearly Meeting is the main annual event for Quakers in Britain. I have never wanted to go, but Danielle felt it was time we both experienced it. It is held at Friends House on the Euston Road in London, and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Over a 1000 Friends including visitors from around the world gathered in the impressive meeting hall for the plenary sessions. Danielle felt moved to speak in one session, and spoke well. I could even imagine going again.

Here is my friend Debbie are husband Roberto who I caught up with on the South Bank a couple of weeks ago.

Gig

Straight after Mike's funeral I caught a train up to Newcastle to see Kamasi Washington playing at the Sage. It was a brilliant gig, one of the best musical experiences for a long time. Two drummers, stand up bass supreme, great funky jazz. We stayed in a hotel on the waterfront by the Millennium bridge at Gateshead.

As usual the Newcastle urban industrial landscape proved irresistible.

Funeral

Tuesday I went down to Mike's funeral at West Ham cemetery. It was a strangely positive event. There was family (his mother Bridget and brother Gerald), and friends from long ago (Sally from Major Matt Mason and Elizabeth from Westworld) as well as people who knew (and loved) him from Dalston, including a young couple who I was talking to who brought their 1 year old with them: it gave a lovely positive feel to the service, to have a child babbling away. The chapel was full for the service.

Photography

The varied life of a photographer. In the morning I was photographing a client on his motorbike in the Wolds. We had already scoped out some good locations and now just needed to get everything together. Pretty pleased with the results.
In the evening I was one of three judges of an annual art competition at York University. This year the theme was Censorship and the standard to entries was incredibly high. The overall winner was a piece of performance art. A really uplifting event.

New Leeds

The river and the canal in Leeds continue to be regenerated. In the background are flats that have a great colour scheme. In the foreground a new bridge being built across the Aire.

Water Taxi

Goosanders are common in these parts nowadays. There was one of the pond a couple of years ago. This mother and her offspring were on the canal in Leeds last week. The two ducklings in the foreground were running across the water to catch the water bus with their siblings.

Warwick Economics

Rowan is featured in the Economics prospectus for Warwick. Here she is.

In Flower

This broom is on the Triangle, a part of Hob Moor. This time of year it is in full flower and a great harbinger of spring and summer.

Bollocks to Brexit

This bench of Hob Moor has been redecorated with Bollocks to Brexit stickers. A fine piece of decoration that enabled me to get talking to other people on the moor about who they were going to vote for. Here's hoping.

In Season

The salad is rolling in from the garden, tastes great.

Cottam Chapel

This is the chapel on the cover of The High Wolds. When people see it in real life (and not a black and white photograph) they are sometimes disappointed to find it is made of brick. It is still pretty dramatic though; in this shot Milo rests and Eddy seems to be going all Don Quixote with the poor building.

Wolds Walk

Went a walk with Sue and Eddy in the Wolds, to Cottam Chapel and Philips Slack which is one of my favourite walks. A perfect May day.

TPT 3

The great weather of the first two and half days was countered by a windy wet Wednesday afternoon as we crossed the Pennines on the old Woodhead rail route. This was a line that was the first main line to be electrified in the UK. Typically it was scrapped; a ludicrous waste. Now it is great for us on bikes, but the freight that the line would be ideal to transport forms a solid queue across the Pennines. Trans Pennine Regress.

TPT 2

Day 2 took us around Liverpool through Halewood and Speke to the village of Hale, where this sub-urban scene of horses, shelduck and marsh greeted us.

TPT 1

Dave and I cycled the Trans Pennine Trail for three days last week. We cycled from Preston to Southport where the trail starts. Through the lovely red-squirrel woods of Formby to Crosby where we stayed. The route is nearly all on old railway lines, canal towpaths or other off-road by-ways. A brilliant route. This shot is of the wind farm off Crosby where the Mersey meets the sea. If you look to the left of the post you can see some of the Antony Gormley figures that populate the tidal hinterland.

Baildon 2

A new mispelling of Palmour is a rareity these days, email and word processing have put an end to the plethora that I have collected over the years. One turned up today Palmlur which I rather liked. It is number 120 on the list.

Baildon Cliff

Baildon Moor

I drove Danielle to her meeting at Baildon, then walked on Baildon Moor and Shipley Glen. I have never been here before, but wanted to visit as it is a key part of one of my favourite novels Bright Day by JB Priestley. I listened to a dramatisation of the book as I walked through the beautiful land. Quite a day, and on top of that I discovered a brilliant new cafe atop Shipley Glen as well.

Salts Mill Saltaire from Baildon

Springtime York

York on a spring Sunday morning. Serene

Althea

When Rowan and I went to Chicago in 2015 to look at UChicago we met Danielle's college friend Althea, who looked after us well. So it was great to be able to put her up for the night in York. Really enjoyed having her to stay.

Tour de Yorkshire. Encore.

It was the fifth Tour de Yorkshire this weekend. I have managed to get to see the race each year. It is always a marvel; getting normal people from every town and village to celebrate the race is a fantastic achievement. This shot is on the bridge at Cawood. As you can tell by the sky it was a wet old day. Dave and I cycled back on the old railway line and were glad to keep just about warm enough. That figure in white at the left of the shot is Mark Cavendish who is making a comeback of sorts in this race.

Barnsley 2

My first job when I lived in Leeds in 1975 was selling Daily Mirror subscriptions in pit villages around Barnsley. The pit would loom over everything, and was central to existence. Now the pits are gone, the villages are there, the jobs are not. To cope with such a huge change is a massive ask for any community, let alone one where family income was so massively cut. That they somehow managed to hold on is great testament to some very determined people. Frickley pit has long gone, to be replaced by a country park where the slag heap used to be. You can see the Frickley Athletic football ground in the middle distance - home of famous FA Cup runs in the 80s (1980s that is)

Don Valley & The Broken Promises - Way Down In The Hole

Well we played at some friends' Ruby Wedding party. We had no sound-check which was tricky, and it was not the easiest of venues. But we went down well, and we enjoyed it. Danielle filmed us, and here we are. Rough and ready.

Barnsley 1

There is some great woodland spread around what was the Yorkshire coalfield. This is near Barnsley, I walked there last week.

Local Elections

Three years ago I was proud that our City of York voted Remain.

Today the results of the first Council elections since the Referendum came in.

Here is the result. Makes me even prouder. Obviously it is pyrrhic as far as victories go, but it does ease the pain of the post-referendum dystopia.

To summarise:

Brexit Parties (Conservatives) 2

Anti Brexit Parties (Lib Dems and Greens) 25

Others (Independents) 3

"Not really sure where they stand on Brexit at all" Parties (Labour) 17.

LDM: 21 (+9) LAB: 17 (+2) GRN: 4 (=) IND: 3 (+1) CON: 2 (-12) NOC - No Change.

Return of the Cattle

It is always a great day when the cattle return to the Moor. As usual they are hyper-frisky to start with; they will soon settle down.

Oxford

On the Tuesday we dropped Rowan off at Bicester station where she got the train back up to Leam. Danielle had a work meeting in Oxford, so I took here there then walked through old stomping grounds in the city. It really is a beautiful place.

Mike RIP

The news I feared came through on Sunday. Old friend Mike Gregovic died after a year of lung cancer. He had plenty of people who loved him spread around Dalston and across the world. He will be truly missed.

This photo is from when Mike lived in Great Windmill Street in Soho. It was a great place to watch the world go by in the streets below.