Vultures Circling

Back into the autumn sunshine, at the country fair and sheep dog trials

I was sat on a wall waiting for the boys to return from buying me a bacon buttie, (I rather like this idea of them being old enough to do such things on their own, that and the fact if I can’t actually see them it doesn’t mean I need to go into a blind panic thinking they have been abducted by aliens or snatched by a passing vulture.) idly watching the ‘falconry’ display at the show, regular readers might remember we saw a display  a few weeks ago at Chatsworth country fair, this was by a different company and they didn’t quite capture our interest like the previous one, somehow the birds didn’t look quite so bright eyed and bushy tailed.

In my last post Kathy mentioned an incident at a show she had seen,with a vulture going AWOL  and true to form this vulture took a trip around the show ground

 

Seriously ugly or beautiful, what’s your vote?

 

It flew up the show ground

stopping for a rest just behind me, maybe it was just  as well my buttie hadn’t arrived, not sure I would have wanted it landing on my wrist.

After a brief pause, it took off again

With a fly past for a photo opportunities.

Past the plant stall, back in to the show ring

My vote is that it’s beautiful in an ugly sort of way, especially in flight; just as well it didn’t get a sniff of a dead sheep up on the moor, or it might have taken off for good, destined to a life off frightening  passing ramblers, just like the

‘big cats’ that allegedly roams the moors of the UK .

One man and his dog

A trip to a country fair and sheep dog trial last weekend has resulted in a cache of photos for posting, first up one man and his dog

Sheepdogs, or as presented here with their Sunday best name of Border Collie are highly intelligent dogs and they are desperate to ‘work’ the sheep (a bored Border Collie is a volatile creature,  I once saw one being walked in Central Park in New York, I wondered what sort of life it might lead living in a city, not one like this I suspect.)

It was a perfect autumn day, the show ground is picturesque, if a bit steep (we are a bit short on flat ground, but we manage with what we’ve got.)

all kinds of dogs with all kinds of folk

Some even had their very own pack with them.

Coming up later ferrets, archery, sheep, the odd vulture (not native to the area I hasten to add) and even a local or two, but first I really must get some work done, see ya later.

Making Hay in the Moon Light

At last a glorious weekend, very pleasant  weather indeed, not only that but the hay is off the field at last, it was late mind, by the time the contractors had bailed and wrapped it.

The whirring clunking noise of these mighty machines as they  lumber up the field is exactly like the mechanical drone of the monsters in the War of The World’s remake

 

 

They were off the field by about 10pm, but in previous years they have worked on till two or three in the morning.

 

And here is some hay they made earlier

It’s not like summer hay though, it doesn’t have that sweet, honeyed smell.

On the subject of honey, it wasn’t just the farmers who were busy at the weekend

Down Town

Time for my annual pilgrimage to Manchester, the fact that my appointment is in the UMIST building no more than a ‘cock stride’ * from Manchester Piccadilly station means that I can get in and out of town with out being seduced by a bit of retail therapy, although I could have been led astray by the beautiful teal green jumper in a branch of Monsoon on the station concourse, but the fact I couldn’t read the price tag served as a sharp reminder that I’d just been told I need a new prescription lens and so it’s a case of no new jumper, especially not from Monsoon.

I took the camera in with me thinking I might have a bit of a play around with some architectural shots, but true to it’s stereo- type the sky above Manchester was grey and the light lack luster, so instead I killed time waiting for my train with a cup of tea and a book

 

*Cock stride, definition here (before I start getting  all sort of weird search terms)

Crystal Ball

The sun is shining, hooray, how long it will last who can say

.

Let me gaze into my crystal ball; I don’t imagine this instrument is called a crystal ball, but a quick poke about on the ‘tinternet’ didn’t find me it’s scientific name, its a device for measuring the number of hours of sunshine, I found it in the grounds of Chatsworth house, next to the Stevenson screen.

As an indicator of how damp the atmosphere has been around here of late, and I can’t ever recall it happening before, our bedroom and bathroom doors wont close properly  (the wood has swollen) and the  jug of dried poppy heads at the top of the stairs has started to go moldy. We resist the temptation to put the heating on to dry the place out a bit,( it’s not cold just damp) the fact that the last delivery of heating oil was at a rate of 60p a litre (the lowest we have ever paid was .08p a litre) is incentive enough to leave it switched off.

The field has been cut today

Wet Wet Wet

Well at least the fish are happy; we had 48mm of rain yesterday and a further 33mm since midnight, granted most of that was tattooed upon the roof around three am, it woke me, but it’s  been dry most of the day.

The drive into the yard continues to crumble under the force of the water, great deltas of silt and gravel and neatly stacked piles of leaves are all that left in the yard this morning.

The outdoor tomatoes look like they would like to book a week away in Spain or Greece.

Mr Uhdd is staying in a tent in Scotland with Tom,(fortunately it isn’t raining up there) he ran the Ben Nevis fell race today, up and down in 2:06, not quite the time he wanted, but there was no more to give; Mr and Mrs Laid back runner are with them and he met  up with my fellow blogger Sarah from Aberdeen, her man was running too.  Usually we all go to Fort William for a few days, however this year the race has fallen so that the boys are already back at school and Joe declared, (he is not as keen a traveler as Tom) that he did not want to spend 16 hr of a weekend in a car so we have stayed at home, the last I heard they were going for an Indian meal, *sigh* I’ll go and look what we have in the fridge.

Born to Run

Lurcher racing at the country show, you can read the musings of a lurcher here

I know little about this sport, save to tell you it was a lure they were chasing and not a hare; but it would seem from this photo that it important to propel your dog off the start line, (take the dogs out of the shot and you could be forgiven for thinking they are playing crown green bowls.)

There was such a lot to see we couldn’t cover it all, but I could kick myself though, for missing out on the ferret racing and I only got to see a little of ‘Cyril the Squirrel and his Racing Terriers’. I think it is time to show you the photograph that I didn’t get, it’s supposed to be of one the fearless terriers jumping through a hoop of fire, the dog was fast and I was a bit slow with the shutter finger, I missed it and the dog didn’t do an encore.

Cyril invited children to bring their dogs into the arena, for a race, it was pandemonium and impossible to do justice to in a photograph first he had the dogs chasing a lure in one direction

Then he would change direction, mayhem ensued, people and dogs in every direction

Everyone seemed to get their dog and child back in the end.

Public convenience

I am sorry, I’m back on my soap box,  public conveniences, a contradiction, locally at any rate toilets are not in any way shape or form convenient. They are neglected dark dingy unpleasant places, it may seem rather unpatriotic at the moment to say such a thing, but can we take the 2012 Olympic budget and rebuild all the public toilets in the UK? (ok if that thought is a bit too radical, the opening ceremony fire work budget, would suffice.)

Yesterday found me out on the road, something that is extremely rare on a bank holiday weekend, I usually avoid the congested roads and ice cream queues and stay at home: I wasn’t a million miles away, but I found myself sat in a car park in a very pretty and popular tourist orientated village, six thirty in the evening, the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend the nice new toilets adjoining the tourist information office were locked, gated, shut. The car park was busy, with foot weary folk coming down off the hills, families with toddlers returning from gentler strolls along the river, muddied mountain bikers returning to their cars*, no toilets, no baby changing facilities, no disabled facilities, no where to wash your hands.

We had the local knowledge to know that there are some public toilets at the other end of the village, not that we would have wanted to recommended they to the visitors, they are not pleasant, but they were open, we know. There is obviously and issue with public toilets in the UK, if you make then pleasant to use (or fit for purpose even), and leave them unlocked, do you make them attractive to people you don’t want there, such as vandals or drug dealers or something? Certainly if I was a trader in this village I would stamping my foot at the local council meetings; because your guests deserve better and more convenient facilities than they are being offered.

*We watched a family, mum, dad, a son and a daughter, with mountain bikes; they had been on a pleasant, healthy family day out, they returned to a pick up truck, putting the bikes in the back truck, my companion and I were doing the sums, we both knew that you only get three seats in the cab of Transit  pick up, ‘Which of them do you think they are going to sacrifice?’  he asked; It was the daughter, aged about 11, she got a seat belt, but it was her mums: the girl sat on her mums lap and the mum fastened the seat belt around the two of them. We did some more sums, the weight of the mum crushing the daughter, should they be unfortunate enough to be in an accident, maybe going on a bike ride isn’t such a healthy option after all.

Today I’m staying in the garden.

Micro Climate

A summer storm, thunder that ricocheted between the hills, rain whose quantity and  force, lifted drain covers, split tarmac and left delta’s of debris across the lane. As the storm rolled away, wisps of cloud remained  amongst the trees, or so I thought.

This feature of our weather is something  I have been hoping to catch on the camera for quite some time now, today it came good, me, the camera and the weather in the same place at the same time, but in the time it took me to get out of the car and get the camera out of the bag, the mist was gone; bum, I’d missed it. But I stood and watched some more and to my surprise new mist formed, it  seemed to be  oozing  out of the trees.

I can only think that rather than this being the remains of the storm clouds, that it might be that the warm air that preceded the storm, was trapped amongst the trees and that the warm air was now rising up from the woods, condensing in the cool fresh air that was sweeping up the valley after the storm, forming it’s own  wee clouds .

Am I right? please, are there any meteorologists out there? I’d love to know.

Wet Weekend

It’s over two decades since I last went camping, I’m not sure how this came about, I used to go a lot, it just sort of happened; my first observation is that the ground has got a lot harder that it used to be, I am going to have to upgrade from my ancient graffiti covered carry mat, if I want a decent nights sleep. UK readers will know that the weather has been the pits this weekend, but somehow we seemed to have our own protective force field and whilst great swathes of the country had appalling weather, it only rained on us during the night, granted it hammered it down then (ear defender’s would have been handy) but the tent held up against the onslaught

Shedding water like the preverbal ducks back

Joe Tom and I had expertly pitched  it at the top of of a bank, not the bottom ( the girl guide is still in me somewhere and I’m glad we had a ‘practice pitch’ in the privacy of our own garden the day before)   this was a shrewd move. But it was still  wet with or without the rain, it  was billed as a ‘Water Weekend’ and it seemed the boys were never out of the water unless it was to eat sausages from a seemingly endless BBQ.

When I poked my head out of the tent on Saturday I thought the lake had a pod of porpoises leaping through the water, it turned out to be a couple of dozen wet suited triathlon athletes doing a few laps of the lake before breakfast, each to their own I say. (note to self, get  my eyes tested again very soon)

We had fun, I  don’t think it will be long before we go camping again.