Just How Clever Is A Muslim Man ?

Two BBC headlines caught my attention today and I've decided that they go together.

The first one was the result of a study into how being single in middle age can double your chances of suffering from Alzheimers in later life. At least I think it was.

It's bad enough that I'm a social pariah and never get invited to couples parties. I take up 3 seats wherever I go as the ones on each side of a single person are always left free. I have to pay a single supplement for my hotel room or cruise ship cabin. I have to buy my own clothes and fix my own meals. I have no one to blame for wearing black socks and sandals on the beach.

So now I'm told I can expect to start going downhill mentally just because I'm not married or have a partner. Wonderful. I'll put my chess set on eBay tomorrow and if you see me out and about with no pants on, be kind.

The other headline reported that a Saudi man had been accused of having six wives at the same time. Greedy bastard.

Actually he claimed he'd divorced two of them and this left four, which is allowed under Islamic law. Still a greedy bastard.

So if we combine both these headlines and make the big assumption that all Muslims take advantage of this law, then they MUST be a brainy lot right into old age !

But wait. Four wives ?

Four mothers-in-law ! Eight potential back seat drivers nagging you on every trip ! I don't care if you ARE on a camel, it's still a frightening thought. I'd be praying for a spot of memory loss.

No, I'd rather be single and I'll take my chances with 'the alzheimers'.

However, if any single women out there would like to help me decrease those chances, please feel free to drop me a comment. But be quick about it as I'm already starting to forget what to do !!

Canal Trip - The Slightly Improved Movie !!

I put an edited video of our canal boat trip up onto blogger yesterday and, lets face it, it was a bit pathetic. Size wise I mean !!

But thanks to reading Bun's blog, I found out about Vimeo and have used that site to upload the video again. So if you haven't seen the video yet, go to the next post down and have a look.

If you HAVE seen it already, oh go on and look at it again ! It's BIGGER and that always has to be good !!

Yes ?

Well no actually. Try as I might, I can't get the aspect ratio right and although it should be widescreen, it's not quite. So everyone and everything, including me, looks a bit squished up - although in my case, this is a definite improvement !!

Another plus point, maybe, is that you can watch the video full screen by clicking on the little icon to the left of the word vimeo - the icon shows 4 tiny arrows going off to the 4 corners. It'll all become clear when you look at the video.

Of course going fullscreen WILL make for a very grainy video so you may not like that unless you watch it from about half a mile away. But it's an option.

If anyone out there can tell me how to get the video to display in true widescreen, I'd be very pleased to get a comment from you. Right now, it's up there as 480 x 270 which should give the widescreen aspect of 16:9. But clearly it's not.

Anyway, I think it's still better than the original blogger video from yesterday so I'll leave it there.

Enjoy.

Leeds To Liverpool Canal Trip - The Movie

Last month, Daphne, Stephen and myself went on a narrow boat weekend on the Leeds to Liverpool canal and had a jolly hockey sticks time. In case you want to read about it and see some photos, the June archive contains the 3 posts about it that will keep you busy, and hopefully entertained, when you have some time to spare on some wet and windy afternoon.

For the Brits who read my blog, this could be pretty much any afternoon in the next few weeks of this crappy summer. I think my cunning plan to spend Oct-March in Florida and April-Sept in England to ensure sunshine all year round has come up against a little problemette.

Namely that the April-Sept period has to be spent in England !!

Like the aroma of onions, Gauloises cigarettes and sweaty berets, Global warming seems incapable of crossing the channel and continues to stop annoyingly at the French border. Every country East of Calais enjoys summer weather like we oldies remember from our youth while we in the UK continue to suffer the effects of some sort of localised Ice Age.

Anyway, this is all the more reason to read my narrow boat posts and forget about chilblains and frostbite for a while.

As well as photos, I took an hour of video footage which I edited and then burned to a dvd which you can buy at the concession stand in the foyer after this presentation. It's well worth the Z$100bn price tag (that's Zimbabwe dollars to you and me) which apparently will now buy you a loaf of bread. And we think WE have financial problems ??!!

But in an effort to get some of the footage to a wider audience (and no, I'm not having a pop at you Americans), I've edited the already edited video so it now runs for less than 15 minutes which I believe is the attention span of a modern teenager.

Yes this blog version is not great quality. Yes it's jerky. But hey, it's history !!

I now present this Directors Cut to you and hope that you enjoy our nautical journey along 13 miles of the Leeds to Liverpool canal. Apologies to those without a fast connection as it's a relatively large file but it should begin playing as soon as the buffering gets enough data to make a start. And crank up your speakers.

Sorry but you'll have to provide your own popcorn.


Narrow Boat Trip from Silverback on Vimeo.

Can Ya Diggit ?

Many titles came to mind when I started this post as I just needed to get the word 'dig' in there somewhere. After losing 20 seconds of my life, I settled on the above.

So what's it all about then ? What can, or can't, you dig ?

First, the lead in story. I admit to watching a lot of tv but not a lot of tv adverts. They mostly annoy me and as you may know, the ones on during the day have driven me to write the odd email from time to time.

Yes I'm THAT sad.

Anyhoo a few minutes ago I was quietly having my supper-on-a-lap meal and half watching Corrie when it went to an ad break. I immediately gave full attention to my supper and so it came as some surprise when words on an advert got through to me.

Come to "The Ultimate Adventure Park Experience"

That got my attention. See it's finally school holiday time here in the UK and many evening adverts are trying to lure us out of our cozy homes at weekends and into theme parks that, due to building more and more record busting rides, attempt to empty our stomachs and wallets at roughly the same time.

So what was this one all about ? One of the big established parks ? Alton Towers ? Thorpe Park ? Maybe even Legoland ?

I looked up and saw diggers ? Y'know. Building site diggers. Dumper Trucks. Diggers scooping dirt out of the ground. Diggers carrying people in their buckets. Dancing syncronised diggers. What the f*** ?????

Holy backhoe, Batman, this was a digger theme park !!

The bright bods at the planning stage had pulled straws and come up with a natty name for this park - Diggerland ! You have to love that simplicity of thought.

Happy (and slightly pissed) mums and dads have to fork out £15 per person to enter this 'world of adventure' where you can watch the experts......ah.........digging holes. It appears that the visitors can also drive these diggers, under supervision as they say on their website. Oh what spoilsports.

We want NO supervision ! We want 15 yr olds wrecking the concession stands, picking up old age pensioners and dumping them in pre dug pits and generally having loads of jolly adventures.

We want digger buckets full of hoodies chanting footy songs and spitting on family groups from a great height. 6 feet maybe.

I think the excitement of being up close to a mechanical digger would run out after about 15 seconds and so that would be £1 a second by my calculations. A great day out indeed.

Oh but get this - under 3's are free. Well whoop-di-do. Little Billy can plunk his nappy covered botty onto the seat of a dumper truck and quite reasonably ask, why can't my feet reach the pedals then ? The web site says they have mini diggers so they could be for Billy and his age challenged pals. For some reason I've just had a sudden vision of Stewie.

However, of all the information on the Diggerland web site, the most impressive and to be honest, the hardest to believe, is that there are now 4, yes 4 Diggerlands in the UK.

And we have one here in Yorkshire. We've been chosen. God's own county. Hurrah.

It's in Castleford mind you so that is reason enough never to darken it's metalic doorstep.

To save you googling for this frankly astonishing theme park, I'll give you the link. Usually I'd have given it out when the name was first mentioned at the top of the post. But quite honestly I was doing you a favour as it comes with music piped straight from the lobotomy ward - so be warned.

I also feared that if you went to it early on, you'd be so taken with it's content, that you'd totally forget to return to my post. I just couldn't risk it.

So here it is. Fill your boots. Or your buckets. And after 2 mins, check that your mouth is closed.

Hotter Than A Match Head

Thought I'd create a post title using a line from one of my favourite 60's songs, "Summer In The City" by The Lovin' Spoonful as it's such a happy positive song that goes so well with a hot summer day.

Ah the summer of '66. A time when haircuts looked like badly fitting crash helmets and songs lasted 2 minutes. MP3's ? Nah you strapped your Dansette to your back and set off with a stash of albums under your arm. Bit of a bugger when jogging but with the needle (yes a needle) jumping in and out of the vinyl tracks, it was the birth of rap and hip hop.

Bet you never knew that.

But I've digressed already. Back to hot summer days.

And amazingly in Leeds, we've just had a couple of hot summer days. I know. Hard to believe !
No doubt autumn will arrive next Wednesday and we'll be into winter by Friday. Ah well.

So while it lasted, I headed out for some much needed exercise and took my trusty camera with me.

I quite enjoy watching Ray Mears and his Bushcraft shows even though I know I've never be in a situation where I'll need to skin a snake for cooking purposes or chop the stumpy bits of certain trees as they make the best firewood.

I tend to zone out the important stuff and just enjoy it as an entertainment show.

So even if I was dying of hunger in the Leeds suburbs on a Sunday afternoon, as you do, I'd still not know if these pretty little red things were ok to eat or not.

I suppose if you're dying, it hardly matters and I'd pig out on them. Today, knowing I had a Chinese meal to go home to, I was happy to just photograph them.

And yes, before you ask, I've no idea about these little guys either.

Apart from thinking I once saw them on the earlobes of Bet Lynch, they could be Venus Fly Traps for all I know.

As there were no flies in the area, I gave them a wide berth just in case.

My walk was becoming a full blown botany expedition and as it was hot, I welcomed the numerous stops I had to make to take these photos.

I'd also like to save time and typing by stating here and now that I don't know what ANY of the flowers are on this post. I suspect there is a rose coming along later but that's just a guess.

This is obviously a singing plant of some sort as the flower is a definite copy of a gramophone horn.

I listened, but apart from a bee mistaking my ear for a flower and my ear hairs for stemen, I heard no music.

There were lots of bees about today but I only had my 75-200 zoom lens on the camera so I couldn't get all that close to any of them.

I really need a good marco lens but that's for another day.

Here is a little fella working away in the hot sunny weather. Go on my son !

I may be proving myself a liar now as I'm pretty sure these were lavender plants....or lilacs !

I donno. Why do I even try ?

But it was certainly a bee. I'm pretty much sure it was a bee. Yes it was a bee.

I think.

The next two photos are of roses. There, I've said it. I've also said it with a little more confidence than I have earned in this field.

Just about every garden I passed on my short walk today contained roses of one variety or another. Some were small and delicate, some were huge and just as delicate. Red, white, orange, yellow, they all made for a very colourful spectacle.


































By now I was at the furthest point of my walk, a good 25 minutes from home ! Well I never claimed to be training for Bejing y'know !! No this was just a gentle walk with my camera on a lovely sunny day and what could be better ?

Eating an ice cream actually but that wasn't going to happen.

This was the final out and out flower shot I took.

I just liked the red against the green lawn as I knew that using the zoom lens with a large aperture would ensure the lawn would be totally out of focus and make it seem like the flower was in front of a green screen.

There was colour everywhere today and not just on my cheeks. We Brits do like our gardens and although you don't see vegitables being grown like you did in years gone by, front gardens in my part of Leeds are a joy to behold.

I just have to include one more photo of a bee ! I was at the corner of my street and thought I'd finished taking photos when I saw movement on this flower.

I got the camera ready and watched through the lens as this little fella made his way up the flower like it was his own spiral staircase.

He came around and went behind and came around again.

I focused on the top, knowing he'd get there eventually and sure enough, up he popped like a little buzzing sherpa.

I've left the other bulby thing in the photo as I like the look of it. It's like a little helicopter pad for bees !!

So that was it......my Sunday afternoon walk. Was out for just over an hour and only took one photo that wasn't of a flower or plant or some sort.

And here it is.......this one's just for you Dennis.

I Went To Cambridge, Y'know !!

As Daphne told us in her blog post today, we were in Cambridge on Tuesday and Wednesday to see "The Taming Of The Shrew" which was put on for my benefit, of course. Yes it is true. I wield such power in this country.

It was my first trip to this historic University city, a city of dreaming spires and classy 'Big Issue' sellers. Well actually not all that classy as we'll see a little later.

So early on Tuesday afternoon, after dumping our belongings at the B&B, we set off walking to see as much of the city as we could before 7:30pm when we had to be at the Robinson College Gardens for the start of the play.

There is one famous view in Cambridge and if I only got one photo, I wanted my own photo of that view.

And this IS that view.

It's the west facade of King's College Chapel and even on a cloudy day, it was pretty damn impressive.

I'd hoped to get across to where those people are walking but that's when I first found out that a lot of things in Cambridge can only be achieved when money changes hands, and as anyone who knows me will tell you, my hands are pretty tight.

You see, to cross the river to get to most of the colleges involves a walkway and a bridge. You have to pay to get across even if you don't want to go into the colleges concerned. We didn't and so we didn't. I got my picture from a little further away but that's what zoom lenses are for !!

Thankfully not all the walkways and bridges led into colleges and so the ones that led to the city, had free access.

Here are some views from a couple of these bridges looking down onto the river which, at the time, was swarming with silly punts.

All cock-a-knee rhyming slang aside, the number of punts out on the river was frankly astonishing.

My semi romantic notion of loving couples being punted downstream past these wonderfully historic colleges and beautiful scenery was completely shattered when I saw the chaos unfolding before my eyes.

It was like Venice at rush hour. Tourists were being encouraged to take their turn at a bit of punting and the result was like an RNIB Boat Race.

I think this photo shows it best.

Maybe some local can tell me if it's like this all summer long or did we just visit during some sort of punting madness week ?

Yes it was all good clean fun but it did sort of spoil the atmosphere a bit.

As you can see from this photo and even better in the next one, the normal rules of the water were being broken at every opportunity.

It's very difficult to pass on the left or the right when approaching a punt which is coming at you sideways !!

This was the view looking the other way, north in fact.

I loved the way the trees formed a natural tunnel for the river to flow through and this view of people on the bridge neatly brings me to the only form of transportation more numerous than the punts.

Bikes.

Cambridge, in line with it's University rival Oxford, has more bikes per head of population than anywhere apart from the Raleigh factory in Chipping Sudbury.

These silent killers are everywhere and you take one step off the pavement at your peril. Two things struck me as particularly ironic on this first stroll around the city.

First, given the many thousands of bikes that fill the streets of Cambridge, we never passed a single bike shop.

Second, the only passengers we ever saw in the numerous bike rickshaws that passed us were as oriental as the bike origins.

I don't know why this would be. Maybe Brits don't like being taken for a ride in this way and prefer the more traditional mini cab !

I loved the numerous narrow passageways and alleys of Cambridge and I was reminded many times of York. These two photos show when I mean.















































In most modern cities, such 'streets' would be dark, dank and frankly dangerous to walk along. The ones in Cambridge were clean, safe and with the lovely buildings on both sides, were interesting as well.

Many of the main streets were just as narrow.

I don't know if it was the absence of the usual fast food outlets but I found Cambridge impressively free of the litter we find in most other UK cities.

By the time we left on Wednesday, we'd walked around a large part of the place and I never saw a Burger King or a McDonalds or a KFC.

I'm sure they are there, maybe in one of the modern city malls that we never went into. But it was refreshing to see that the city was very well 'stocked' with eating places that provided food that didn't fit into a polystyrene box and a small paper bag.

Speaking of which, we decided to have an early supper on the walk back to the B&B. Daffy spotted a likely candidate and what a winner it was.

I had a huge wedge of steak and ale pie, mashed potatoes and peas with rich gravy and was very thankful that we'd not had to resort to fast food. It was delicious and filling and perfect for sustaining me during the 2 hour play later that evening.

Next morning, after a monster breakfast at the B&B. we drove off to explore more of the city.

After parking on a road near King's College, we again crossed a bridge to get into the city proper.

The tops of both sides of the bridge were decorated with several very large stone balls and they just begged to be photographed like this.

It doesn't come across in the photo but each solid orb was about 3 times the size of a bowling ball.

After crossing the bridge, we picked up our tour from yesterday as we'd left it at the lovely outdoor market.

Everywhere you looked, it seemed like you saw the towers and turrets of some college building or other.

It's just that sort of place.

Here you can see some of the market stalls on the left and if you look closely, you can see 4 old style red phone boxes that are only kept now for tourists to photograph.

Oh they work and have modern phones inside them but sadly they've been replaced in most UK cities.

Remember the comment I made back at the start about classy 'Big Issue' sellers ? Well for those who don't know about it, the 'Big Issue' is a magazine sold on the streets by homeless people so that they can earn a bit of money for themselves. I know it's not just a UK entity but just in case you've never heard of it in your country, take the link.

In the UK the homeless people buy each magazine for 70p ($1.35) and sell it for £1.50 ($2.95) and the 80p ($1.55) 'profit' is theirs to keep. Given that incentive, the sellers have a well earned reputation for high pressure selling and in Leeds at any rate, they practically challenge you to pass them without buying a magazine.

This seller didn't really need to jump in front of people to get their attention.

He was also the sort of person you tend to remember long after you pass him by.

I thought we'd entered a black hole and popped up in Tibet but no, we were still in sunny England and had managed to find the only 'Big Issue' seller in the country who didn't say a word.

He just stood there and people went up to him.

Well except me. I told you my hands were tight.

He was a classic example of why I love people watching. And here is another reason for it.

I mean these 3 girls could've been anywhere but as well as admitting that I like taking photos of pretty girls, I took this one specifically so that someone could tell me what on earth the two on the right are eating ?

I kinda hoped I was going to witness a replay of the scene from 'Lady And The Tramp' which would've been a damn sight more titilating than the original, but sadly it was not to be.

Before we reached the car, I was able to get a photo of yet another bridge.

Although it was a fairly plain, basic and simple bridge, I liked both its reflection in the still waters and the fact that those same waters were punt free.

It just remains for me to show and explain one more photo. The final college we visited was Trinity College (founded by Henry VIII in 1546) and although there was an admission charge as always, we found a small open door which led to a locked gate which in turn gave a great view of the college quadrangle - also known as The Great Court.

If you enlarge the photo (just click on it) you will see the water fountain a bit better but it's not easy as it's somewhat swallowed up by the buildings behind it.

In the middle is the Clock Tower, or King's Gate and it has a movie claim to fame.

In the 1981 movie, Chariots Of Fire, 2 track athletes hoping to qualify for the 1924 Olympics test each other by racing around The Grand Court hoping to complete the course by the time the clock has finished striking noon.

It helped that for some bizarre reason, the clock strikes each hour twice and so the total time taken is 43 seconds. The distance is 341 metres.

But as always, all things Hollywood are not as they seem, although this time, the inaccuracy wasn't their fault.

The Dean of Trinity would not cooperate with the movie makers and so the race was actually filmed at Eton College near London. There was a recreation of the race for charity in 1988 with the two best UK runners of the day, Seb Coe and Steve Cram taking part. The runners restricted themselves to a course dictated by the flagstones between the cobbles, and hence had to turn very sharply at each corner. Coe won, getting round in 45.52 seconds and it seems that over lunch after the race, the Dean admitted that it had been a great mistake not to have cooperated with the making of the movie.

See, who says my posts aren't educational ???

We had a lovely time in Cambridge. The play was good; the actor we went to see in it was good; the food was good; the weather was good. But the overall winner was - the city itself.

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

A Heartfelt Anniversary

Today, 3 years ago, I had a heart attack.

I'd had one before so I wasn't quite as excited about this one.

That 1st one had been 12 years earlier and I'll be happy enough if the same time period passes before the next one. Obviously I'd be even happier if I didn't have a 3rd, but what can you do ?

Initially I was more upset than anything else. I was due to leave for 6 months in America only a few days later and that had to be postponed. It also meant I'd missed a wedding over there and that WASN'T postponed. I'd have thought that being a friend of a friend of the ex boyfriend of the bridesmaid's sister would've given me a bit more status.

I mean how hard would it have been to have simply waited 3 months for me to get there ? Selfish lot.

Surviving a heart attack can make you take stock of your life. Surviving two ? Well it CAN make you want take up sky diving or base jumping as you start to think you are living a charmed life. But for me, things went along pretty much as usual.

I'm a worrier by nature and so, for a while, every little twinge and pain anywhere near my heart made me think I was on the way out. Hell, even a pain in my big toe made me think that. It's one of those 'toe bone connected to your....heart bone' sort of things.

I think I felt less worried after the 1st one as something had actually been done about it at the time. I'd had a quintuple bypass and felt like a kid again in many ways. The old body had gone into the garage, had the fuel lines replaced and I was good for another 100,000 miles or 12 years - whichever came sooner.

As it turned out, it was the 12 years.

Yes the attack scared me and made me feel very vulnerable and alone at the time. I wasn't covered privately anymore and was in an awful ward in a big impersonal NHS hospital which only increased my feelings that I'd not get over this one. Once again I was the youngest person there but being in a ward was a nightmare compared to the private room with all mod cons that I'd had first time round. Being 'happy' in hospital is such a boost to the recovery process and I firmly believe that if I'd not 'gone private' in 1993, I'd not be here now.

But after the 2nd attack, no surgery was done. They just altered my medication. The much older body had gone back into the garage but they'd just given me some engine flush and cleaned my hub caps.

At first I wasn't too happy but when I learned of the dangers of having my chest opened up again, then I took the pills and ran. Well I walked quite slowly out of the hospital actually.

Anyway that's all in the past and hopefully I'll have many more anniversaries to celebrate on July 20th.

Yes that's the ticket. I'm positive. I'm optimistic. I'm starving.

I'm off to have fish and chips with a curry chaser. I'll pop another pill and have them supersized.

Not In MY Living Room !!!

I sent a photo of a naked woman to my female friend last night and she deleted it right away.

Yes I know, bizarre !

Now before you call the internet boys in blue and have me carted off in cuffs (and tight leg bindings and fishnet tights and a basque.....oh stop, I'm getting my thoughts mixed up here), let me explain that I'm not the new Yorkshire Porn King. Long way to go yet but I'm trying.

Anyway if you're sitting comfortably, I'll begin with the story :

Yesterday was Daffys 23rd birthday (that HAS to get me extra jaffa cakes) and I popped over to her place as I thought we were getting a Chinese takeaway to celebrate the occasion. I dressed accordingly. I just threw on a few items from my wardrobe from the Tang Dynasty, nothing too ostentacious you know.

Anyway when I got to her house, I was told we were going to a restaurant in central Leeds at 6:45pm but not to worry as it was a casual clothing type of place. So my flip flops would be just fine. Soon the time came and off we went.

There were 7 in our party and once seated, I noted from the menu that I could actually order pretty much anything - which doesn't happen very often, if at all. Shut it, Debby !

After MUCH deliberation, I picked a 28 day aged rib-eye steak and asked for it a little bit pink in the middle as phrases like "medium to medium rare" can often be meaningless as that can vary from chef to chef.

This was what came.

My photo actually improves the look of the steak !

It didn't exactly look like any rib-eye I'd ever seen and it looked more like the cow had coughed up a kidney.

Maybe it had been aged a few days too long or something and had started to morph into what we usually associate with coming from a cow.

I cut into it and noticed that it was a few grilled minutes short of being 'pink in the middle' and was more at the 'autopsy red' stage.

But being that I was now in the UK, I just tutted my displeasure and tucked in. It was tender enough, with lots of flavour and so it wasn't all that bad. Just not what I'd asked for.

The conversation flowed and everyone enjoyed their entrees. Then it was time for dessert and once again, everything on the menu sounded yummy. Being an adventurous eater (oh stop that Debby) I went for the banoffee-in-a-bag with ginger snaps and farmhouse vanilla ice cream.

I only picked this because as well as liking all the ingredients, I'd no idea what to expect.

And this is it.....or them.

I looked at my bag with a mix of interest and bewilderment. A mixed bag in fact. Sorry.

The waitress had helpfully told me to slice the top open with diagonal cuts and peel back the paper.

Thinking I might stab the banana or damage the toffee (!!) I chose to ignore her advice and simply cut along the sealed edge of the bag closest to the ice cream. Big mistake.

This was fine to start with and I was then able to tear back the paper and get at the goodies within - 3 sliced bananas swimming in a lovely hot toffee sauce. I said 'to start with' as with a whole end of the bag now opened up, the sauce made a dash for freedom and most of it poured out onto the wooden serving board. With the melting ice cream dripping out onto the board as well, it wasn't long before the attentive waitress was asking if sir needed a bib.

"No actually, my mouth is pretty much mess free but the board is a disaster area."

And so after a round of cappuccinos, the meal was over and we left, full of stomach and, in Stephens case, empty of wallet. Thank you so much for my invitation, guys. I had a great evening.

But hey, Ian. What about the naked woman photo ? Ahhhh glad you reminded me.

The restaurant was on the 2nd floor of this 4 floor building. This meant climbing some stairs and at the top, the area opened out with a view of inviting dark wood dining tables and very comfortable deep backed chairs. As we settled down in those very chairs and looked for the menus, I glanced back at the stairs which, as I was at the end of the table, were just to my left.

On the wall was a painting that you couldn't see until you had climbed the stairs and looked back.
It was huge. She was huge.

So what do you think ?

Tasteful in a restaurant ?

Filthy smut that would upset small family members and if nothing else, cause them to ask questions best left to the privacy of the home ?

Well this is where the title of this post comes in.

I'd not want this painting in MY living room. I'm no prude and enjoy the naked female form as much as the next female tennis player BUT, not where I eat.

Yes I eat mostly in my living room. I'm single, what can I say.

And the name of the restaurant where we dined last night ?

The Living Room.

As I've said before, I just don't throw these posts together, y'know !

What A Gay Day !

I read a BBC news report this morning about a Sicilian court ordering the Italian government to pay one of it's citizens 100,000 Euros compensation, or £3.67, because he had to retake his driving test when the authorities discovered he was gay.

It seems the 26 yr old had told doctors he was homosexual during a medical exam for military service. This information was passed to the defence and transport ministries and Mr. Guiffrida, for that was he, was told he would need to retake his driving test or he would have his licence suspended because of his 'sexual identity disturbance'.

Even that wasn't the end of it as when he DID retake his test and passed it, he was only given a one year licence rather than the normal 10 year one, due to his homosexuality.

Now in this day and age, several things about this story are frankly hard to believe and the main one has to be :

Has the Euro/Sterling exchange rate really sunk so low ? Frightening.

Then there is the bizarre fact that this story has come out of Italy, a country where waving your hands about, speaking fast in high pitched voices, wearing lots of leather and other stereotypical gay mannerisms are part of the culture. Just go to a Milan v Roma game and have a look at the crowd !!

And military service ? Italian military service ? Wouldn't waving your hands about, assuming they are over your head, be almost compulsary for a life in the Italian military ?

Of course, to be serious for a moment, all sensible, educated people would agree that Mr. Guiffrida should never be allowed to drive a car at all. I mean, a gay man behind the wheel of a car ? Come on. It's just unnatural. It's immoral. And I'm sure it's not mentioned anywhere in the bible and so it has to be wrong.

Actually we DO read about St.Paul being 'on the road' to Damascus and having a blinding vision that changed his life completely. Who is to say he didn't get passed by a gay driver and the shock of it all was what he later wrote about ? A sort of biblical blog post rather like this one ?

Makes you think.

I mean there are young impressionable people out there who might be swayed by seeing a gay driver. Where will it all end ? What will be next ? Women drivers ? Surely not !

Naturally the two words dreaded by all good people in authority everywhere have come to the fore once again - civil liberty. Mr. Guiffrida had his civil liberties mucked about with and so he deserved lots of dosh to help him overcome the pain and suffering that ensued.

But what about the civil liberties of other road users ? I mean innocent, perfectly healthy, perfectly normal, heterosexual drivers and their families could be stuck in a line of traffic in Turin and never realise that the driver right behind them was gay. It's a shocking idea. Surely there is no room for this abhoration in a modern civilised society ?

These people need to wise up and just stop being gay. If you want a 10 year licence, pack in this gay nonsence. It's just a silly fad anyway. Snap out of it.

No, take gays off our roads, I say. Take away their car keys and let them walk. With sandwich boards proclaiming their identity disturbances.

Just don't take a leaflet off them. Homosexuality might be contagious.

A Short Post

Wasn't it just ?

A Golden Sunshine Day

I know I've mentioned a few times that I feel very fortunate to live only a few minutes drive from beautiful countryside. But I don't even have to travel that far to enjoy wonderful parks and lakes as Leeds has plenty of both.

Today I revisited Golden Acre Park, my first visit since April last year - a visit I wrote about at the time. I promise you no more close ups of flowers but there will be photos of wildlife as the park is a dream if you like wildlife. Nothing spectacular you understand. No wildebeest being dragged by their throats into the water, no giraffes stretching up to eat the leaves from the tallest trees, no leopards resting on the...well you get the point.

GAP may not have anything to offer in the way of Attenborough style wildlife but what it does have, comes to you begging to be photographed. But more of the critters later.

As it was a lovely sunny afternoon, I went into the forest area at the top of the park to try and get some shots of the light filtering down through the trees.

This photo represents the views I came across. I was hoping for a few shafts of sunlight but I guess you need a bit of mist or dry ice for that. Maybe I need to visit the park early one morning.

Yeah that's likely !!

Anyway I was happy enough to settle for the light and shade I found today.
I was also happy that I seemed to have the entire place to myself.

Ok so I did occasionally hear some rustling in the undergrowth but after Florida, it was comforting to know that any critters in there wouldn't be likely to bite me, poison me or carry me off to be devoured at a later date. Not even a slightly larger than usual squirrel.

Still on the lookout for light and shade, I made it down from the depths of the forest and onto the main path that runs around the lake.

I sat on a bench to have the ham sandwich I'd brought from home and watched the other park visitors going by.

Then, for a fleeting moment, the sun picked out this couple like a spotlight picking out the main characters in a play.

Of course being a sci-fi fan and a lover of the movie Cocoon, I could also have been a witness to an alien abduction. Abductees always seem to be transported by beams of light after all.

"Stay away from the light" I shouted. Everyone knows that.

But to put all our minds at rest, the couple continued on their way and passed me and my ham sandwich a few seconds later.

I think I was the only person in the park today who wasn't part of a family, in a group or one half of a couple. Grandparents and their grandkids made up a large proportion of the visitors and it was so nice to see so many of them them pass me on my bench.

I'd just finished my sandwich and taken a swig of my can of Pepsi Max (Pepsico, please send me a 12 pack for this gratuitous product plug) when a couple of oldies came along with their granddaughter.

Maybe she wanted a drink or something but I was a bit unnerved when she stood right in front of me.

Still, emboldened by the fact that gramps and gramma were a few feet away, I asked them if it would be ok to take her picture ?

Well she wasn't getting any of my drink, that was for sure !!

This is exactly how she was standing in front of me so you can see why I was unnerved. Sadly in this day and age, you have to be very careful what you say and do.

Thankfully she was happy enough with the photo, which I showed her, and she danced off to meet up with a little girl who was coming the other way with HER grandparents.

This was my cue to skedaddle before I was added to some sort of registry and I headed off towards the lake. This was waterfowl central and the cute little things were everywhere. You had to be careful not to stand on one as they were all over the grass banks.

There was a stream leading to the lake and to add to the scene, there was a small wooden bridge leading across it.

It was while taking this photo that I saw that the path in the distance was bathed in sunlight when the passing clouds allowed this to happen.

From the comparative 'safety' of my location, I watched as walkers, joggers, families, couples, dogs and every combination of them all walked along and hit the areas of sunshine on the path.

A large family group came along, preceded by a little boy and girl. These kids ran up onto the steep grass bank beyond the path screaming and laughing and generally having a fun time. As they came down, the boy stooped to pluck a flower and I watched him give it to the girl.

Awwwwww. They held hands for a few seconds and just then they entered the small area of sunlight that I'd already spotted between two trees.

This was the shot I got and I don't care if I'm hauled up before the narrow minded people who may frown on taking such candid photos - it was a moment totally missed by every member of that family who were too busy chatting amongst themselves to notice it.

I'll never know if they were brother and sister or just good friends but wouldn't it be wonderful if this was the moment, THE moment that they'll say their lifelong friendship, or more, actually started.

Yes I'm an old romantic. They're probably brother and sister and he ripped the flower from her hand a few minutes later and made her cry !

Boys !!

I moved on to the edge of the lake where there is a very nice paved area where you can sit at picnic tables and watch the incredible variety of life on the water. And on the land. Yes these critters have worked out that people at picnic tables means food for all and very little chance of getting hurt in the process - as long as they watch out for toddlers who run around like headless chickens lashing out at anything smaller than they are.

There were loads of silly little coots - no I'm not talking about the toddlers - and they really are the most ridiculous looking creatures.

I suspect God was in playful mood when He created them as not only did he give them stupid looking white beaks on jet black heads but he decided to go totally of His cloud by adding the bird version of clown feet.

I had to wait for the right coot to come near me as I was far more interested in getting a good photo of its feet than its head.

This was the best I got and so, sorry about the head. But get a butchers at those feet. They don't need to swim across the lake - they could walk across it !! And as you might imagine, their gait is hilarious as they have to raise those silly big feet up quite a way to avoid bending parts of them under with every step.

It was like watching Krusty The Clown walk onto the stage in Springfield. Hilarious.

I sat and watched while families came and went. The kids fed the ducks. The men nibbled the women. The mallards bullied the coots. It was all good stuff. Not exactly Attenborough worthy, but it worked for me.

This little fella had suicidal tendencies and right before my camera lens, he decided to end it all and chucked himself off the ledge and into the water.

But it was all fruitless as the drop was only 18 inches AND he could float.

Time for a rethink, ducky.

Even though I'd no food to offer them, this didn't stop dozens of them approaching me on the off chance that I'd held back some of my ham sandwich. By now it was after 5pm and most people had left the area, and the park, to head home for supper.

I was actually the only person left at the picnic area and so, like some sort of cross between Dr. Doolittle and The Pied Piper, everywhere I went, a plethora of wildlife went with me. Even the clown-like coots tried to keep up.

This handsome little fella (or fellette) went as far as to peck my jean bottoms and so I rewarded his attention by crouching down and taking his photo.

I think you can see a definite mischievous smile. Cheeky chappie.

It was time to head home myself but as I looked back over the huge grass area that led to the bottom exit at the lower end of the park, I saw a family having a bit of a late afternoon picnic in the waning sunshine.

Once again a standard image was improved photogenically by the presence of a small child. Kids and critters. Always a good combination.

Like I said earlier, there weren't many people left in the park and so the birds and ducks had made their way to this family and the little girl was enjoying every moment. Just as I framed the image, she held her arms out to the nearest ducks and turned a good photo into a very good photo. IMHO of course.

This time I didn't ask permission. After looking at the dad, I decided if he came at me, I'd be able to take him !

I could out stroll him any day of the week.

Just then my camera battery gave up the ghost as I'd not recharged it since my canal trip weekend. This trip to the park was a spur of the moment thing and I just grabbed the camera and went.

So I started to walk up the steep path to the top of the park when I'd parked the car. As I went through the forest again, I heard movement in the bushes and a cheeky squirrel ran over my foot. I knew I could get a few more photos out of the 'dead' battery as that's how it goes.

It tells me it needs replacing and I say not yet. It tells me yes. Really.

But I know that if I turn the camera off, I'll get a few more photos out of the battery later.

And so here is cheeky squirrel. The one that didn't get away.

As they often do, he'd scampered up a nearby tree and then, in relative safety, had posed for photos.

My battery allowed me 2 more shots and this was the better one.

And that was it. A nice little trip to a local park on a sunny July afternoon.
I got fresh air, good exercise and about 120 photos.

I was nibbled by a duck, run over by a squirrel and best of all, I wasn't arrested for taking a few photos of kids. Always a bonus.

Yes it was a good day. Tomorrow we're due to get thunder, lightning and plenty of rain.
You really have to make the most of the sunshine here as, unlike with the ducks in Golden Acre Park, you just never know when the next one is coming along.

Narrow Minded - Day 3

We woke up on Sunday morning to our last full day on 't canal. It was another glorious blue sky day and once again, Daffy had been up hours earlier to take atmospheric misty photos of the canal.

Stephen and I were only too happy to let her get on with it and I found it hard enough to get up at a much more reasonable 8am.

For someone who is more used to getting up at 10am or later, 8am was quite early enough, thank you very much. Once we'd had breakfast and got on our way, it was more like 9am and, being Sunday on the canal system, we quickly came to a traffic jam.

Thankfully a traffic jam on a canal is slightly different to one on the roads.

For a start you're slowing DOWN from 4mph and not going along at that speed. You can get off and chat with the others who are stuck with you. You can boil the kettle and even have a bacon butty (or buttie) while you discuss advanced narrow boat technology and the ever changing British weather. New friends are made, email addresses exchanged and promises made to meet same time next year.

Yes all very different from the M62 at rush hour.

In our case, we were one of 5 boats waiting to go through the next set of locks.

As you go through two at a time, we knew we had a bit of a wait and so we tied up and chatted with ourselves and our fellow boatees.

Here you can see Stephen on the tow path discussing the political situation in Zimbabwe with Captain Birdseye while the next boat in turn is untied in preparation for it's trip through the lock.

The 3rd boat in line was a wide barge and those on board decided to take the opportunity to have some breakfast and this allowed us to pair up with boat 4 and go though the lock early. This took me by surprise and as I unhitched the rope at the back of the boat and pushed us away from the canal bank, I totally forgot to remove the large (expensive) iron peg that we'd hammered into the banking and tied the rope to. Opps.

We went through the lock, settled into a stretch of open water and Stephen took the opportunity to tidy away the pegs and the lock gate handle and said......one peg is missing. I thought about blaming Daffy. I thought about saying a rogue swam nicked it. But I owned up and even said I'd go back on the tow path and get it......if it was still there of course.

But we sailed on and the pin was never mentioned again - even to the rental people who probably realised the price they'd charged covered the loss of a poxy metal pin. And the radio aerial. But that's another story !!

This was the view from one of the many lock gates looking down on the next one.

Glorious scenery, relatively good weather and the water was so calm.
It was all quite relaxing - apart from having to leap off the boat to pass though the locks.

It was all enough to give us an appetite and by lunch time, we were ready to find a pub, pull over and have something to eat.

We DID find a lovely pub, right beside the busy main A65 at Gargrave, and due to it's location plus the fact that it was Fathers Day, it was packed and we had quite a wait before we got our meals. If memory serves me well (ha !), we each had a different roast meal, lamb, beef and turkey and jolly nice they were too.

It was strange to see other patrons heading to the car park to get in their cars and 'enjoy' the delights of the A65 on a busy Sunday, while we headed down the steep hill to the water to board our boat and continue at leisure along the Leeds/Liverpool canal.

The afternoon continued much as before with lovely long stretches of lock free canal to enjoy and we all took turns steering or taking photos or just relaxing by taking in the beautiful Dales countryside.

Then we'd come to more locks and it would be time for a bit of activity.

In this case we were joined by another boat and we went through this series of locks together.

Here we have come from the higher level of water as seen in the picturesque circle behind the gates and we're being lowered down in the lock to get us to the next level.

The other boater felt the urge to burst into a short operatic aria for which the rest of us were very grateful - that it was short I mean !

The idea on Sunday was to get fairly close to the rental location by nightfall as we had to return the boat and be off it by about 9am the next morning so we didn't want to have to travel far. Just as well because at a max of 4mph and with going through a lock taking anything from 30 mins to an hour, we weren't going anywhere fast.

This is one of the last locks we passed through on the way to an evening mooring not far from Skipton.

I've included it simply because it was indicative of the scenery we found everywhere on our weekend on the canal.

You don't mind doing a bit of manual labour when you have scenery like this to look at though your sweat.

And thankfully for me, neither did Stephen. By this time on the 3rd day, I'd decided to pretend it was the 7th - and I rested. Well it was a Sunday too. I just couldn't fight tradition and I spent most of the day taking photos, mostly of Stephen opening and closing lock gates ! I didn't feel too bad though as the very fact that the lock areas were busier than we'd experienced before, meant that there were plenty of lovely, friendly boating people around to work one side while he worked the other.

My conscience was clear.

By about 5pm we were gliding smoothly along the canal which was meandering across the Dales countryside like a random streak of mayonaise on a plate of lettuce. The sky was mostly blue and there wasn't a breath of wind. I was steering and it was such a pleasure to guide the boat around gentle bends and under picturesque bridges and all was well with the world.

Then I glanced behind me and saw the storm clouds approaching. No worries as we were heading away from them. Then they appeared from both sides as well and in a moment straight out of 'Close Encounters', the evil black rain clouds converged around us and for a few, sadly brief, moments, we were in a small pocket of sunshine that was rapidly growing smaller.

For some bizarre reason we were looking at all this as if it simply wouldn't affect us. Then the realisation, and the rain, hit us hard. We needed to find somewhere to moor the boat and do it fast. This wasn't as easy as it sounds as in many places, you dare not approach the bank because the water is very shallow there and you end up beaching the boat.

I beached the boat.

We were stuck fast and the combined pushing efforts of Stephen and myself achieved nothing. We tried going backwards but we didn't move. Forwards, nothing. We both got off and tried pushing from the bank - nothing.

Finally, with all of us drenched, we managed to set the boat free and moved further along the canal until we found a better, safer mooring and tied up. The rain continued to fall for a few hours and we decided we might as well stay there for the night.

By 10pm the rain had stopped and silence once again descended on the canal.

I went outside and noticed a swan with her cygnets keeping close to us in the hopes that they would get some food.

Daffy duly obliged and although it was almost pitch black and hard for the camera to focus, I got some good flash shots.

And that was it for Day 3.

There is no point in creating a new post for Day 4 as it only lasted a few hours.

Because of the rain, we'd not exactly been interested in our location when we moored the previous evening.

So it was quite a pleasant surprise to get up on the Monday and see where we had ended up.

It was another glorious morning and with the weekend over, we seemed to have the whole canal to ourselves again.

Stephen showed enough faith in my steering ability to allow me to get us through Skipton which as previous posts have shown, can be a busy place to pass though with a narrow boat. No sweat.

Due to mooring a bit further away from the rental location than we'd planned to, we were a bit late arriving there - but nothing was said. We tied up, removed our belongings and loaded up the car for the short drive back to Leeds.

It was a wonderful weekend and I'd like to thank my hosts, Daphne and Stephen, for their very generous offer of inviting me to join them. I heartily recommend spending time on a canal to anyone and I'll never forget my first time.

Of course if you've read my previous post or know me at all, that means very little. I'll have forgotten all about it by tomorrow week.

On This Day In History..........

June 25th, 1952. A date that will live in infamy.

I was born.

Time to have a review, I think, and where better to start than with my memory.

I'd like to be able to tell you what I weighed, my length, even my time of birth. But I've no idea and those who would know these things, my parents, are not around to ask.

My dad died in 1986 and my mom in 2003.

I never thought to ask them these things when they were alive, or more likely, I did ask them at some time and now I've forgotten.

My memory is like a proverbial sieve and it seems like more and more, the ratio of data retained to data input has been falling alarmingly.

I'm not too worried about it being down to the onset of old age or even early alzheimers as I've had a bad memory for as long as I can remember. Yes I can see the obvious problem with that statement so don't bother commenting on it.

I can recall very few moments from my childhood and not many more from the last few decades either, so basically my long term AND short term memories are shot. Tell me your name and 5 minutes later I'll have forgotten it. Tell me another name in that time and the loss of the first name will be almost immediate.

My brain is in serious need of a defrag. It contains lots of data but it's all over the place and most of the links have been broken. It's also very slow now and I'm in serious need of a memory upgrade. I used to think I was quite the expert on the music of the 60's - play me a tune from back then and I could tell you the name and artist most times. But put me on a quiz show and make that the quick fire round and you might as well be asking me questions about quantum physics. Yes the answers would be in my head somewhere but the time taken to get the data out of there and past my lips would mean I'd be shouting out "The New Vaudeville Band" during the commercial break.

I've long suspected that the neurons in my brain have not been releasing their neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft causing a depolarisation of the membrane and adversely affecting the functionality of my hippocampus.

Then again, I might just be old and stupid.

Then there is my personality. As any regular reader of this blog will know, I'm the embodiment of Victor Meldrew. I spend a ridiculous amount of time chuntering at my tv or laptop when they show me news articles or reports that wind me up. I'm in perpetual email mode, ready in an instant to fire off a complaint to those companies stupid enough to leave a customer service address on their web sites. Of course they're not THAT stupid and these emails simply go into a junk folder at Head Office but usually composing and sending the email has managed to lower my blood pressure and returned me to normality. Until the next time.

The thing is, the number of silly trigger items is growing exponentially. Everything from reality shows to the spelling and grammatical errors in every forum and comment section on the internet, from people not pushing mail and flyers all the way through my letter box to people who complain about things I don't think need to be complained about ! And don't get me going about InjuryLawyers 4U !!

See, all silly minor things. I need to remember to stop sweating the small stuff. Yes, yes, back to item one. I know.

Next up, my health. Well actually it's not a great day to be reviewing that. I must've rolled out of bed the wrong way on Monday morning and have been walking like a man with a broom handle up his ass ever since. The lower back ache seems to get better each day but then I go to bed and it all takes a step backwards again. Last night I couldn't sleep at all so I got up at 5am and came downstairs to start the 'healing' process early. Maybe if I get 20 or so hours of chair rest, I'll get it sorted. Not the best way to spend a birthday.

Apart from that, I can't complain. If I knew what was going on inside me, I might have cause to complain, but as I don't, then I can't. What you don't know about can only make you stronger. I think that's the phrase !

My cardiologist told me that, just as they wheeled me into the OR. While puzzling over that, I noticed "Tinkering With Your Heart - Bypass Surgery For Dummies" on the table. I swear I heard laughter just as the anesthesia kicked in.

I think you should be given a dvd of your surgery. I mean how do you know what they did ? It's like having your car serviced. You just never know.

But I need to stop reviewing. What's done is done. Regrets ? I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention - or remember of course. This memory thing can be a blessing at times.

Time for the classic question then : if I had my time over again, would I do anything different ?

How the hell do I know ? I don't remember what I did the first time !!

Narrow Minded - Day 2

Dear reader, you'll remember we left our intrepid narrow boaters sleeping blissfully on't water next to a lock gate just past Gargrave in the Yorkshire Dales. You don't ? Well read the previous post then !!

There, everyone is up to speed now. Not us, of course, as we were doing zero mph with the knowledge that we could only get to a hair removing 4mph if someone opened the lock gates behind us and give us a watery shove along. Not likely to happen. Mostly as the lock gate in question was in front of us and we had to get through it - but after breakfast of course.

Daffy had rescued a few slices of bread from the swans and so, after our cereal, we feasted on slightly soggy toast that had a strange after taste of canal water which we overcame with lashings of marmalade, all washed down with hot warming tea. Nummy. We were ready for those locks.

6 of them in fact.

But first, lets remind ourselves where we spent the night.

It may not have been The Hilton and I DID miss having a trouser press in my room (in fact I kinda missed having a room !) but we couldn't complain about the views we woke to or how fast it took us to get from our respective beds to become a part of those views.

This shot was actually taken from the narrow walk way at the top of the lock gates so you can see how close we had been to it overnight.

The mooring ropes had been detached and we're just about to set off - which is partly why I was up on the lock gate, with Stephen somewhere nearby. He to open the gates and me to let him do it. Actually by now I had decided I just couldn't stand doing little or nothing every time we came to a set of locks and so, giving scant regard to medical advice, I mucked in and ate 2, yes 2, jaffa cakes.

No seriously I did help a bit and pushed one side while Stephen pushed on the other and this did speed things along - a little.

While waiting for the lock to fill up and so allow us to open the gates. I took this photo of the area. Daffy really liked the lockkeepers house and I liked the 'large sky' that they always say you get in Montana.

Never really understood what that meant but I tried to recreate it in this photo and if nothing else, it shows we had a lovely morning in a lovely location and even though it was 9:30am (a time unknown to me when at home in Leeds), I felt at one with nature and a strange calmness had settled in my stomach.

I suspect it was the soggy canal flavoured toast.

I'll just clump the next 4 photos together as they show various images as we passed through this set of locks.

I hope they show how the narrow boats move up and down the canal system by either lowering or raising themselves up depending on the lie of the land.

If only it was all flat, then we wouldn't need locks at all !
Someone should really have thought of that when designing England.

Sloppy work I feel.

In an effort to save water (don't want it all running downhill and flooding Leeds you know - who said why not ??), boaters were very friendly and would always check ahead to see if a boat was coming the other way as, if a lock was full of water, it was much more sensible to let whichever boat was at that level to slip in and be raised or lowered accordingly.

This might have meant us waiting a bit longer to get into the lock ourselves but it was sensible in a water conservation sense and we were in no rush after all.



Here we are next to another narrow boat as, whenever possible, you always tried to go into a lock in pairs to save time, and water again.

We're on the right. We had no flowers.

You can see 2 yellow poles on top of our boat to be used to push the boat away from the bank and the yellow board between the poles was if one of us wanted to have a surf when we were going at full steam. I passed on that idea as I'd only brought one pair of pants.

In this next phot the water has drained out some more and the boats are lower in the lock.

Once the water is at the same level as it is on the other side of the gates in front, those gates can be opened and off we'd go.

It's all just a way to go up and down hills when you're on the water - which by another awful piece of shortsightedness, was not designed to flow upwards.



This isn't us but a shot of another narrow boat leaving a lock which we could then enter as the water IN the lock was now at the same level as we were.

The gates we see here would then be closed behind us and the ones at the far end would be opened, allowing water from a higher level to flood in and raise us up.

Simple but clever as well.

Having 6 locks so close together first thing in the morning was a bit of a pain but it certainly worked off our breakfast and was fun in a sort of masochistic way.

Fresh air, good company, exercise, stunning scenery. Worked for me.

After these locks, we were on a nice long stretch of open water and Daffy and I took the opportunity to climb onto the roof of the narrow boat and enjoy a slightly different view of the passing countryside. It was a warm day, the sun was blazing from a mostly clear blue sky and all was well with our world.

Then the trees on both sides suddenly closed in and the canal banks narrowed and we were in a different world completely.

I felt like we were in the Florida Everglades or going up the Amazon or even on a ride at Cyprus Gardens as it was just so different from anything we'd experienced before.

Sitting on top of the boat, the feeling was wonderful. Tootling along so slowly helped us to appreciate and enjoy this strange new world all the more.

Then we went around a bend and came upon a picturesque bridge which added to the effect.

We'd gone under several bridges already but having them out in the open was very different from this one which was in our own little stretch of Yorkshire Rain Forest !

I searched for human movement high up on the steep banks and was prepared for a shower of poison tipped arrows to start bouncing off boat roof.

I think I've watched way too many adventure movies.

By now it was just after noon and we were ready to find a pub, stop and have lunch.

As if to answer our 'prayers', we passed under another little bridge and found ourselves in a watery version of a truck stop.

Just to the left in this photo you can see a much wider barge style canal boat and as you might imagine, they need locks all to themselves.

There were probably a dozen or so standard narrow boats moored along this stretch of the canal as it was a good place to rest up for a while and it did have an excellent pub nearby.

We weren't the only ones who needed feeding and the local swans would come right up and be fed by hand - if you wanted to risk losing a few fingers.

If you enlarge this photo, you'll see the rows of tiny sharp 'teeth' that line the beak and they will give you a nasty scratch, made worse because as the swan is pulling away with the bread, you are pulling your hand the other way.

I did get a photo of a lump of bread just about to disappear into it's mouth but I prefer this one as I've never before managed to get one to extend its neck in a 'begging' fashion like this. Thanks to Daffy for risking her fingers to let me take this shot.

After a lovely lunch, we set off again and the next milestone was to be the famous 'double arch' bridge at East Marton that features in many canal publications.

This curious structure carries the busy A59 over the canal and after the original bridge was built, the road was raised to eliminate a severe dip and so 'another bridge' had to be built on top of the first one.

Must've been one hell of a dip.

Quite why this top bridge needed to have an arch at all has to be down to using less bricks and so it was simply a cost cutting exercise.

In any case it makes for one odd bridge and I took this photo from a very specific spot as it was where the professional photographer had to have stood to take the one that appears in official canal publications. Gives me a cheap thrill to do things like that.

I know, very sad. My dream is to stand where Neil Armstrong stood to take his famous shot of Buzz Aldrin back in July '69.

I'm working on that but I may have left it a bit late.

After I'd taken that photo, I turned around and this was the view behind me.

I know it's a bit dark and I could lighten it but then I think I'd lose the 'window' effect I wanted to capture.

I waited until the narrow boat had cleared the shadow and was rounding the bend and I just liked the way the overhanging trees framed the scene.

Au naturelle, as the Germans would say. I'd say eau naturelle but I'm just a witty bastard.

After we'd negotiated the last of the 3 Greenberfield Locks - which was officially lock No.44 (and our 15th), we decided we'd gone as far as we could go , time wise, and we had to turn around and start the trip back.

It was a difficult decision to make as you can't be precise about how long it will take you to go any distance on a canal given that the locks might be going 'for' or 'against' you.

But if nothing else, we'd picked a lovely spot to end at and we moored up for an hour to rest and get ready to face those 3 locks right away on the return leg.

We walked around and stretched our legs and finally got some excellent ice cream to enjoy beside the narrow boat. Not counting our overnight stop, we'd been on the water for a total of 12 and a half hours and had travelled a staggering 13.47 miles. Wow !! You don't need a speed camera on a canal, just a sketch artist.

We were just on the outskirts of the village of Barnoldswick and at this point the canal widened enough for us to turn the boat around quite easily - although I'd have had no idea how to do it. Stephen was The Master and guided the front of the boat right up to the concrete bank and while I held it in position, he used minute pulses of the engine to swing the rear around like the Space Shuttle docking with the ISS. Somewhat like.

Once the back end started to face the other way, I pushed the front away from the bank and the turn around process was completed.

It was 5pm on Day 2 and we were on the long return back to base.

After we'd cleared the 3 Greenberfield Locks again and were on the open water, I took this photo to show what it was like when there were no locks, bridges, trees or tunnels to hinder our views of the Dales countryside.

I suppose it would've been nice not to have had the 2 phone poles but what the heck.

When I saw this image on the little display screen on the back of the camera, I got the idea again to use the camera lowering technique I'd used a long time ago in Roundhay Park in Leeds.

I'd not tried it with this camera and being a digital SLR with a heavy lens meant it always drooped down when held by the strap and so I had to create a sort of strap cradle to go below the lens before lowering the camera as close to the water as I dared. Thankfully on a canal the water normally flat - although you'd not think so from the above photo. Even a gentle wind would produce ripples and I didn't want to risk getting water on the lens.

After a few attempts I realised it would just be a hit and miss situation and if I got one decent shot, I'd be lucky. Then we rounded a curve and I saw a swan coming our way. I set the timer and lowered the camera to almost water level and prayed that as it glided towards the boat, it would pass on my side.

It did and this is the one off shot I got.

It's not as sharp as I'd have liked but the gap between us was decreasing by the second and with the camera set to timer mode, there was nothing I could do to alter the focus once I'd lowered it to water level.

Apart from it looking like one of the Windows XP backgrounds, I like it.

Soon after this the weather took a turn for the worse, the rain came and we had to stop. As it was about 7pm, and the rain showed no signs of stopping, we made it our overnight mooring and so endeth Day 2.

Just as it did for us, Day 3 will follow shortly.............