Bobbie’s Birthday Day Out

The pride, the absolute pure pride that when given the choice of what to do on a day out for her Birthday my daughter chose going to a heritage railway and riding on a heritage bus. She’s 5…what an absolute star.

We went to the railway where her name comes from “Roberta” from the Railway Children which is based on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway .

Here are some lovely pictures of the day and Len and Lynda (the inlwas) came too and we had a picnic at the park. Why is there no photos of that I hear you gasp…try having a picnic in a park with a 5 year old and 1 1/2 year old and you’ll understand why.

The ball is a ball of 2ps made to look like the Death Star…random. It had a bike inside it…art.

Salisbury and “Aunty Olive”

When ever possible we try and visit “Aunty Olive”. I’m only doing speech marks around Aunty Olive as I’m sure there is a degree of separation from that title and Mairi (so she’s Mairi’s mum’s Aunty) but she’s awesome so we just say she’s Aunty and live with it.

This time during my Nan’s 80th trip we spent one day driving to and enjoying Salisbury. We met up with Olive and Ian. At the time Salisbury Cathedral were exhibiting Sophie Ryder’s Giant Rabbits, and as you well know I love some good sculpture being from Castleford home of Henry Moore.

We also went round the outside of Salisbury Cathedral which architecturally is stunning mixing many different techniques and styles. I hopefully captured some of it’s awe and wonder.

A family visit to Goddard’s house

Some times the greatest treasures can be on your backdoor. Living in or around York you become numb to the history all around you. Bobbie has been around old things (Roman walls, ancient buildings, Victorian landscapes, me etc) for as long as she can remember and although some things fill her with wonder,  history doesn’t quite do it for her and I suspect that’s because she lives in a city surrounded by Roman walls and enough history for a county let alone a city.

Be that as it may, the wife and I attempt to take our kids to historic places all over the UK. That means not forgetting to do so in our own city of York. Goddard’s House is the newly opened home of the famous Terry’s family of chocolate factory fame.

The bellow images are of our visit, they had games available to play on tables which was of great fun to Bobbie, Amelie and National Trust properties don’t get on just yet but she’s mellowing slowly.

Highlights picture wise

• The Terry’s mixed drops with 1930s decor behind looks awesome
• The fact that, not only did they make chocolate oranges…they made chocolate APPLES!
• finally the Terry’s ash tray.

Anyway click below and enjoy…Sorry for the lack of activity on this blog.  I’ll work my way through the back log now I’ve taken loads of pictures but had no editing time, I’ll catch up. 

Illuminate York 2015

Hello people,

As a demonstration of my lack of time to write this blog here are the photos from illuminate York 2015 (taken October 2015). The main things I looked at where the light boxes at the Guildhall, NRM train lights and disco balls down the Shambles. Not much else to say about them but to click and take a look.

I do truly love Illuminate York it’s my favourite arts event York puts on and does separate it from other cities in the UK and indeed the world. Long may it continue.

Illuminate York 2015 photos:

Wales Holiday – the rest of it

Well it took me until now to collect all my welsh holiday photos for the next post, we went to a slate mine, bronze age mine, narrow gauge railway, visiting the amazing Mr B’s bistro in Llandudno, visiting various castles, visiting a tropical world come wildlife centre adventure playground and awesome pancakes.

Still rocking my Nikon D3000 🙂

 

Commonwealth Flame and first meal – Wales Holiday Part 1

Day 1 Commonwealth flame (in Congleton, Cheshire and our first family meal in Wales)

Sorry this has taken so long, I went to Wales ages ago…here are the photos of our first day watching the commonwealth flame in Congleton and us getting to Wales and doing something.

That something was going to Llandudno and up the Great Orme tramway – it was ace, we also got two vintage Porsches climbing up the hill which made for an excellent photo.

Enjoy

BTCC at Oulton Park

For the penultimate day of our Holiday we left Bobbie with her Grandma and Grandad and went to see the racing cars, not the F1 in Canada but the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park.

BTCC meetings also include other races from Ginetta, Renault Clios and on this meet classic super tourers!

So here are the photos from the day, featured are Ebay Motors, STP racing, Dunlop tyres, Honda Yuasa Racing, Ginetta, an Ice cream van and loads more. just click a thumbnail to see more details.

Bike Show at Squires Cafe, UK

The only place where walking round with a mug of coffee is the coolest thing in the world.

September 29th Bobbie put her shoes on her head and we set off for Squires cafe…

This strange place is located near Sherburn in Elmet and on this day they had a bike show. We met up with my parents and had a little day out in the summer sunshine (despite it being the back end of September). Because it was so sunny it didn’t make for the best light for taking photos but think I did alright.

All taken on my D3000 with a 18-55mm lens and edited in Raw format only.

Enjoy

Lakes Holiday 2013: Day 6

The weather on this day was not brilliant but still warm and we went to Bowness and while there went to the Beatrix Potter Experience and then later to the AWESOME Wray Castle.

So in Bowness the Beatrix Potter Experience can be found, a fairly large building housing all sorts of scenes from Beatrix Potter’s books. This was better than it sounds really, it did include a working veg garden that then feeds the cafe downstairs (genius idea).

The funniest thing was the huge number of Chinese and Japanese tourists that were also in attendance, now we thought “oh we will get Bobbie a book, from the store..” £6 I think, but it was nicely presented and we will give it to her later. The Chinese tourists in front of us in the queue had their shop assistant reply “…ok that’s £116 please” £116 on Beatrix potter things!!!! Long live the Chinese economy!

Anyway moving on, we then visited the little known National Trust property Wray Castle, this was our find of the holiday. I feel I should first explain what exploring properties with a little child is like.

The child will want to run about, no matter how good the Property management, the little child will find something to grab, tug, pull, knock, ruin or otherwise destroy items. This becomes an issue when visiting properties that are preserved for the nation.

Now we were expecting the very same experience here, Bobbie would enjoy it for a bit but after 15-20 “No don’t touch that”‘s she will get annoyed and then it’s tears and paddy time. Wray Castle couldn’t be further from this experience.

From the off they said to us “just let her run free, just watch her on the stairs but she can’t do much damage” we were confused but went into the first room which had massive building blocks and we spent 30 minutes making towers and having so much fun. We then went around the rest of the castle with fun and toys in most of the other rooms. It was so refreshing to have an National Trust property with kids truly at it’s heart and I thank the NT for making it that way but also plead for them to market it more!

And thus ends the Holiday blogs… coming up, how to play the drums and what a difference a manager makes.

To see the rest of the pages in this blog click on the links below:
Day 1&2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5

Lakes Holiday 2013: Day 5

Day 5

Another picture perfect day arrived and we went to the small railway on the lake and then the Lakeland Motor Museum.

The train was great and Bobbie is now old enough to get excited about a train and she seemed to really enjoy it. The Lakeland Motor Museum was small but a great way to spend a few hours (even with a screaming child). My favorite picture is Bobbie next to the Pet cars used in Top Gear, it gives a real sense of scale.

At the Lakeland Motor Museum we also got the chance to see some of the Bluebird road and water record holders, it was stunning to see them in real life, the Bluebird car was the stuff of legends for me growing up so seeing my toy in true scale was very special.

We once again went swimming on this day.

If you want to see the other days see the links below

Day 1&2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 6

Enjoy.