Last day in Crete

Here it is at last, we are picked up by the coach at 4:50 AM! for the flight home: I have mixed feelings about Crete: the place is rather backwards for an EU country, the road manners of the drivers are APPALLING, motorcycles and scooter often have Three passengers (all without crash helmets!) Speed limits are regarded as joke, and parking is anywhere you fancy!
On the credit side the scenery is good, and the Minoan ruins are not to be missed.
It was worth coming, but we will definitely not be coming back, once is enough!

Heraklion Museum of Antiquities

We visited today, after a rather hairy drive through the traffic, and got parked close by. The Museum is almost exclusively devoted to Minoan history, and there are many rooms and thousands of exhibits: it is really well worth going to see: especially impressive are the carved bull heads and the pottery with designs of Octopi on them also the large room devoted to the murals recovered from the palaces, which are of excellent quality. If you are in Crete, don't miss this!

Heraklion Museum of Antiquities

We visited today, after a rather hairy drive through the traffic, and got parked close by. The Museum is almost exclusively devoted to Minoan history, and there are many rooms and thousands of exhibits: it is really well worth going to see: especially impressive are the carved bull heads and the pottery with designs of Octopi on them also the large room devoted to the murals recovered from the palaces, which are of excellent quality. If you are in Crete, don't miss this!

Wednesday 27th Sept Visit to a Minoan town

Today we drove along the old national to visit a complete Minoan Town at Gournes: this was on top of a hill overlooking the sea and very scenic indeed. We have been amazed at the size of the ruins of these ancient monuments, it's a great pity that so little is known about them.
We continued along the lower coast where we found the beaches were rather stony before coming back through the mountains and the village of Kastelli.
Travel is slow in these parts and it was quarter to three before we got back to the hotel

Tuesday 26th Sept visit to Phaistos

We drove across Crete to visit the second largest Minoan Palace at Phaistos today, and it was well worth the considerable journey to get there.
It was obvious that a great deal of the site is still undiscovered and buried in the hillside, I shouldn't be surprised if it isn't at least as big as Knossos once it has all been revealed.
We had lunch in the museum cafe with splendid views out over the valley and the distant misty mountains.
The big problem with Crete (apart from other drivers) is the sheer scale of the place, and the narrow winding roads, not to mention the fact that we were on a new motorway section that suddenly turned into a very rough track as the road wasn't finished over the top of the local hill!
Still we had a good day out and arrived back mid afternoon ready for a rest.

Sunday in crete

We had a good day visiting the Malia minoan palace, followed by a drive over the mountains to Agios Nikolis and along the coast to Spinolonga island, followed by a rainy trip over winding mountain pas roads back home

Drving in Crete

Yeasterday was our first day of driving in Crete. It was an experience!
Driving on the "wrong side of the road" isn't too bad, but dealing with lunatics at the same time makes it very interesting! If the British Traffic police were drafted in to improve the local driving, most people would end up in jail, the Taxi drivers would end up being either hung or jailed for life!
(Joking of course) but boy, I have never seen worse and more dangerous driving, nor drivers that are more impatient!
Knossos was an absolute wonder, we were so impressed, and today we drove across to the other side of the island, this wasn't easy as the maps are unhelpful, and most road signs are in Greek!
Nevertheless we ha d a great day out. The scenery wa beautiful up in the mountains.

Our Crete Holiday

first day in crete and a new experience, we hired a Quad bike and explored the seafront at Gouves, it stretches for miles in all directions, and ends on a beach in both directions.
Naturally it rained aty one point, but it was a new experience and we enjoyed it

Northumberland and Scottish Borders Holiday

We just got back from a glorious week up North: here's a couple of the 500 plus photo's I took!(Click the images for a larger picture.)

Panorama of the Humber Bridge

This is composite of five separate photos, please click on the image for a full size view

More photos

Out on my scooter today and in between showers (including hailstones!) I spotted this view looking back towards the city.
Simple, but I thought it very appealing.









Here's our cat about to consume the grass stalk in front of him: he's 14 years old now, but still quite a kitten at heart.
Garfield by name and Garfield by nature!

Had a great ride out on the scooter

At last we have better weather, and today I took advantage and rode out to the coast, along empty roads. The oilseed rape fields were giving off in enough pollen to block the intakes on a jumbo jet, otherwise it was great.













Back Home I have been experimenting with composite photos in GIMP, here's the latest example

Still awful weather

After a bad weekend we had hoped the weather would be better today, but no, it rained,rained, rained and rained!
The only time it stopped was mid evening, and I was able at last to get out for a short walk.
Still, it gave me the chance to take some bad weather photos of the wet flowers, etc., the rain had been hard enough to bring complete florets off the cherry trees, not just the usual petals, so that means less cherries later on in the year!
At least it's mild now, not freezing, and the fallen blossom is at least scenic!

Crazy weekend weather!

Aftr a glorious almost summer week, as usual the weather kept a surprise up it's sleeve for the weekend, and we had a eturn to winter temperatures and driving rain, helped along by a srong east wind.







thankfully thisdidn't stop us having a good weekend away with the caravan and I was out snappinf away with the new camera.
Sunday morning the dawn came up rather black and sombre, but at least it stopped raining and we were able to get the caravan packed up in the dry.

After the long winter, spring is rocketing away at high speed: here in the East riding of yorkshire the fields of rape seed colour the landscape bright yellow, and the huge amount of pollen is so thick in the air you can taste it!
This is a hard time for hay fever sufferers, even in the city, out in the country the air smells perfumed.


The city council are mad keen on gras cutting, but in the few areas that they've missed, the dandelions have completed one full growing season already, and started a second! this will be a record year for them, as you can see.






These are heading for the sun in the local graveyard!

A quiet moment in the mall

I couldn't resist this candid shot in the Prospect Centre Shopping Mall in central Hull.
a mother and daughter had just bought a "girls Vanity set" in the pound shop, and couldn't wait to try the rings and bangles.
There in the middle of a busy mall, they found a clear space and time stood still for them, I just loved the way they both mirrored each other, admiring the plastic rings they were trying on.
Truly a timeless moment, surrounded by crowds of shoppers, peace in the middle of chaos.

Its the local council elections today

And I won't be voting: what diffence does it make to me which bunch of rogues are elected?
I won't vote as I have no wish to legitimise the phoney "Democracy" that we have.
When the day comes when politicians have to respond to YES/NO buttons on consoles in our houses after the public have decided what they want doing on the political issues currently being discussed, then I'll vote again.
Till then forget it: don't expect me to endorse the status quo, it's phoney!

Mayday Weekend

We spent a few lovely days caravanning near Harrogate, Yorkshire

At a place called Pannal, in some lovely scenery. Despite it being the Bank holiday, the country roads were surprisingly free of traffic, so touring was a pleasure









There may be a water shortage in the South East of England, up here in the North we have flooded fields!





Not far from our campsite was High Almscliffe Crag, a popular spot for an evening stroll, or even for something more energetic





This chap ot himself into some trouble, but after a long struggle he made it to the top, to the relief of all concerned, especially his girlfriend watching from below!

This is a real dead end!

Here in Yorkshire when the road sign is "dead end" they aren't kidding! coastal erosion is terrible and as you can see from these pictures, quite a lot of land slides into the sea every winter.
This is as far as I can go on my scooter.







This is the end of the road and when I was young you could cycle a further mile and a half further out to sea, there was a church, several houses and even an amusement arcade, and of course the process continues.
The amount lost since last Christmas is the distance between the front and rear barriers, this is by no means an exceptional amount, some winters are far more destructive.

In at the Deep end

I went to "The Deep" yesterday, Hull's premier attraction, a superb aquarium, where you can easily imaging you are under a tropical sea.
This is one of the reef sharks, not something you would like to encounter while out for a paddle!
As usual the place was very busy, it attracts coach loads of Schoolchildren, and other groups from all over the region and beyond.

My wife and I have a season pass, and spend many a dull wet winter afternoon in there, ending the visit with a coffee in the cafe that overlooks the River Humber

This is the shallow pool that introduces you to the main aquarium, a junior school class are totally absorbed with the new experience, the looks on their faces and the general excitement makes us smile very time we visit.






As well as the enormous main tank there are set piece smaller aquariums set into the walls, they are absolutely superb!









Finally a view of one of the main windows to give you an idea of the scale of the main tank, it's abosolutely huge, about 20 metres deep!

Been a while, but..

After quite some time I remembered to blog, just got a new camera, so now taking lots of photos, trying the various settings.
First a closeup of my watch to show the image quality on the macro setting




Heres a composite of the kid next door:







Over the next few weeks I expect to add more photo's

In the budget

Listening to the chancellor this afternoon I was very alarmed at the notion that in the next couple of years there will be millions more high tech jobs, and millions less low tech ones.
Not to worry! says the chancellor, they will be re-trained! we are pouring huge reserves into education and training!
What utter rot!
There exists in this country, as in all others, a huge number of people who will never be trainable through no fault of their own, and therefore will become scrap, victims of a profit making machine.
This is criminally insane: all citizens regardless of their intellect deserve the opportunity to contribute to society and achieve self respect and happiness, otherwise why bother having a society at all? we may as well go back to being vikings!
The government should institute a program to provide an extension of provided social services to generate jobs for these people. The expense would be little different than having them live on handouts, and they would at least feel self respect as functional members of society.

Completed installing Suse 10.0

Today I managed to finish the addition of drivers to the software to permit the playing of DVD's and mp3 files, also additional updates to the internet browsers and Java.
The result is that Suse 10 can now cover more tasks than windows XP .

Nearly spring this weekend

We went for a pleasant drive through the countryside today, avoiding the main roads where possible, and saw the first daffodils out, and large numbers of spring lambs in the fields.
With the wind dropping, the temperature (7 Degrees Centigrade) felt very mild and springlike.
This is the last weekend before the caravanning season starts, so we've been round to check out the van in storage, and found it was all OK.
Roll on next weekend!

More on OpenSUSESLICK

"Strange name, 'innit" but excellent software for all that. This morning I succeeded at last in gettting the scroll wheel on the mouse to work, now all that remains is to get the system to recognize a USB floppy drive, then all operations are nominal.

Can spring start now please?

Went for a drive in the car through Holderness and ate lunch on the crumbling clay cliff top at Barmston, then during the afternoon went out on the Honda Dylan scooter, and for the second day running, ran into a blizzard (slight exaggeration as despite seeming to be heavy, it didn't lay.)
Still, it was bl***y cold!

Got the car back, and...

everything seems to be OK, so I shall be keeping an eye on it for the next few days!

OpenSUSE SLICK Linux is the Give-away on the front cover of the April issue of LINUX FORMAT

I installed it as an upgrade over Suse Linux 9.2, and apart from having no mouse when first installed (soon fixed) it is running very nice and very fast!
There is a new package manager called "SUPERAPT" and it is really first rate, in about three hours I had built a first rate system up will all the apps you could want.
What a freebie! it does everything that windows will do (with one exception, for legal reasons it won't play video DVD's)
It really is first rate, give it a try!

Call this service? I dont!

I took the car in for it's 90,000 miles service on March 9th 2006 at 8:30 A.M.at the Main dealer.
A telephone call from The main dealer at approximately 10:30 informed me it was ready for collection.
I arrived about 11:30 AM. paid and received the key.
On entering the car the engine started normally, first turn of the key, but I found to my surprise that I could not shift into any gear.
The clutch pedal felt normal under foot, and there was no sound involved, but the gear lever could not be moved forward or back into any gear position.
I stopped the engine, then attempted to restart it, but there was just a light spinning noise, as if the starter motor was spinning without engaging the flywheel (no grinding noises.)
At this point I went back into the showroom and reported that I had a problem.
A gentleman named Paul went out, and returned saying that the engine had started without a problem.
When I asked if he had tried the gears he replied that he hadn't, at which point we went out and Paul got into the car and started the engine without trouble, and selected the gears, again without trouble.
At this point I said thank you for your efforts, perhaps it was my imagination?
Paul went back inside and I started the engine and pulled out, but had to stop as there was a small lorry in the way.
At this point I shifted into neutral, and found I couldn't get back into gear again.
I spotted that Paul had come out and waved him over. He got into the car and at first was able to shift into gear, the stopped the engine and it wouldn't restart, just made the spinning noise as before.
On the next attempt the engine started, but then Paul had problem selecting gears, this did eventually clear, at this Point Paul said that he couldn't risk me driving the car in this state as it may break down, I would have to leave it.
Late afternoon I received a telephone call from the young lady in the office saying that the diagnostics had revealed that the A.G.R. valve had failed and this was why the engine wouldn't start: (This is a gas feedback valve from the exhaust to the Turbocharger.)I asked how could this have affected the gear change, and was told that the mechanics could find no fault with the clutch or gearbox.
I was informed that the part would have to be ordered and would cost about £195 including fitting, which I had no option but to agree to, and that they would ring me tomorrow when the work is completed.
I repeated that while I was perfectly happy to pay for replacement of the A.G.R valve I could not see how this would affect the gear change, and asked that the mechanics be requested to ensure that this was tested and rectified before the car is returned to me.
I find it very odd that it had never failed to either start or select gear until it was brought in for servicing this morning, and while I accept that things can go wrong without prior warning, the odds that two such unrelated things can fail between me handing it over and collecting it three hours later, and the gear selection fault being beyond the capability of the diagnostics or the mechanics to trace is very hard to accept as a reasonable explanation.
The odds against this happening must be astronomical!
I have been put to a great deal of inconvenience, not to mention expense over this matter, if the car is not correct when returned then I shall clearly have to seek a different source of servicing and or future vehicles.
Needless to say I shall create one hell of a fuss if it isn't fixed tomorrow!

First day of spring!

And what an odd combination! We drove through to visit my sister,who lives in the village of Strensall, just above York, and had sunshine all the way, even seeing the first open daffodils this year, yet a few miles to the north at Malton, and a few miles to the east at Scarborough (Whitby too) they had thick snow!
Admittedly the temperature where we were never rose to more than 2 Degrees centigrade, but at least it was sunny.

Am I alienated from Politics?

Yesterday BBC News online had an opinion poll (sort of) with how people relate to Politics.
Here's my posted comment:
"We don't have democratic political system, we have party politics instead.
Give us a pair of buttons on a voting terminal in each home, and a daily program reporting and debating outstanding matters in Parliament to vote on, again on a daily basis.
Our votes to be the ones that count!
Then we shall have democracy.
Till then we have infrequent elections followed by a one party state.
Why should we support it?"
Of course it was a moderated forum, I shall be interested to see how it fared (if at all.)

Winter is back!

Looking outside this morning, there's a thin layer of snow, and tomorrow is the first offical day of Spring!
Ah well, we have got off lightly ths year despite the long range weather forecast being for a long hard winter!

Dog end days

This week has been "half term" for the local schools, but for once the kids have been surprisingly quiet: normally it's pandemonium in the street (and why not!) but whether it's the cold wind, or just end of winter depression that has quieted them down, I'm not sure, but the kid next door actually said the local youth are actually looking forward to going back to school!
And I thought only greybeards like me got cheesed off towards the end of winter..
We went out for a drive today,as it started off sunny, naturally it wasn't long before the clouds appeared and it started with light snow and hail.
Ah well! it was still nice to get out of the house and into the country for a little while.
The countryside is very wet at the moment, with many flooded fields, which rather makes us surprised to see the headlines of a "Hosepipe Ban" in the South East of the country due to a water shortage..
We could sure spare them some!

Here we go again

The news today is that Ken Livingstone has been suspended for four weeks for telling an annoying reporter (who happened to be Jewish) that he was acting like a concentration camp guard.
Somehow this ends up being a "racist" comment that according to the chief Rabbi "Has upset Holocaust Survivors."
Why? how on earth does telling a Jewish report that his actions are not typically Jewish, but rather those of the despised enemy of the Jews (and ourselves!) affect in any way Holocaust Survivors?
Why should it bother them one bit?
Where for goodness sake is the connection?
Are we to assume that if you upset one man you upset an entire nation?
This is clearly a case of the press manufacturing a mountain out of a molehill.

Ken, old fruit, next time he annoys you,please just take a leaf out of my local politician's book
(No names given, so you'll have to guess.)and smack him in the mouth.

A nice clear message, not racist, Politically Correct and equal opportunity,it made our local MP into a sort of anti hero, really....

We now call him Thumper.

Another sketch of Whitby

Here is the second image from the sketchbook, this time looking north from the Abbey steps.
Once again this sketch if from 1987, and the image can be zoomed by clicking it

From an old sketchbook

I found one of my old sketchbooks today, dating back to the summer of 1987.
So here's the first of the sketches, it is drawn from the north side of the river Esk, looking across the harbour (to the south)
As I recall the beached boat in the foreground was being painted, a sight not often seen in those days, as usually this was done on trestles further down the river.
With fishing quota restrictions, profits are limited,so it's likely that we will see more Do it Yourself ship maintenance like this is the future, (and in fact since this was painted that's what has happened.)
Digital cameras have come in since then, I've gotten lazy and tend not to sketch as much as I used to, finding this old sketchbook sarted me thinking that perhaps I ought to make an effort this year.
Roll on the summer days when I can get out sketching again!
By the way, clicking on the picture will show it full size

Spring is on the way

Sunday at lunchtime and the mild weather has tempted the local fishing addicts to the shore of the Humber at Paull.
Despite the chill wind a small knot of cars are parked near the old gun battery,as we stop to eat our packed lunch.
As usual the Humber is empty of shipping, only a lonely curlew wheels by on the westerly wind.
A thin mist hides distant Goole and the Immingham oil terminals on the Lincolnshire side of the river in this photo,and a weak winter sun gleams through the overcast.
At this time of year we inhabit an almost monochrome world!

What, another Muslim protest?

I see with dismay that there has been another protest meeting in Trafalgar Square over the Muhammad cartoons controversy.
For crying out loud, it's time to put an end to this farce!
Is this going to continue until there is a violent reaction from hotheads?
For goodness sake no more of these ridiculous displays please, the risk of a counter-reaction grows greater every time, people are getting sick of it, for the sake of peace stop it now before things get violent.
The Muslims have pushed this well past any reasonable level. They have had their chance to protest, let that be the end of the matter.

Lovely weather for February!

In the garden this afternoon I was amazed to find 9 ladybirds clustered together in our little pine tree.
This is about six weeks earlier than ever before, I was astonished!
Earlier today we had driven to Scarborough (A seaside resort 48 miles north of our home) and found it extremely busy for the time of year, despite the temperature being 6 degrees centigrade there were still the usual nutty surfers in the sea.

What they get out of it is hard to say, as the waves were only about a foot high!
No doubt they were living out a dream....

We often go there to eat a packed lunch on the Marine Drive that joins the North and South Bays below the Norman Castle, until Easter, as parking is free during the winter, but after Easter you have to pay.

Still it goes on!

The news today is that demonstrations against the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed are going o for a fourth day in Pakistan.
The thought occurs: have these people actually SEEN the cartoons?
Surely they can't have done so, as most of them will certainly not have seen them in newspapers, and do they really have internet access?
Clearly they will riot to order when instructed, acting on hearsay, so why are we not putting an embargo "for the sake of sensitivity"
(in this case that of intelligent people who have regarded the whole episode as trivial.)
on reporting the antics of these poor people, who are not in a position ignore the promptings of fanatics who want to stir up hatred for the west?
This will be put to rest only when the western media call it a day on reporting the obiviously contrived riots.
After all, it's nothing to do with us anyway!

I counted them out..........................

Here it is again, the second Tuesday of the month, and the Retirement Fellowship meeting, where all the old codgers from the company I worked for for so long get together once a month and chew the fat.
The atmosphere at the start of the proceedings is a little like an RAF fighter drome after a raid during the Battle of Britain, as we count survivors and look sadly at the ones that stagger in trailing smoke, but it soon warms up and a good time is had by all.
The Fellowship even organises Day trips and holidays, concessionary tickets to shows etc., and provides a good social cover for it's members.
Social contact is vital for the elderly, in some cases the members are in their 90's and still turn up!
(The other advantage of going is that for the moment, we are the youngest there!)

That's Better!

A collective sigh of relief was breathed here in the UK when yesterday's rally of Muslims complaining about the Muhammad cartoons took place in London.
Well done everyone;LET THAT BE THE END OF THE MATTER!
Hopefully a return to peaceful relations between the various communities of our nation is possible once again!

Time to stop!

It seems that the so offensive cartoons were published in an Egptian Newspaper last year: (see link below from a blog in cairo.)
Apparently there was no public reaction whatsoever at the time!
Mr Blair, please cancel permission for the "demonstration" due on Saturday, it has no reason to take place and will not help community relations.In fact it is obviously only going to increase tension where none is wanted.
The fact that the cartoons were published in Egypt last year completely undermines the legitimacy of the argument.
We are being treated with disprespect and made fools of.

Strange times !

The news is still filled with this sad business of the cartoons so offensive to muslims: What next, one wonders, words of apology have been offered, yet still the foolishness continues,people are being killed!?!
Perhaps there needs to be a boycott on reporting the unrest, otherwise how is it ever going to die down?
Surely it's time for someone to say, that's it, NO MORE!

February, brrrrr!

The sky is grey, the temperature zero degrees centigrade, it's low tide and there's no shipping on the river.
The usual thin winter mist obscures Lincolnshire on the other side
It's a strange thing, the River Humber, it's absolutely huge, yet has so little traffic that often you only see two to three ships moving over a period of an hour, even on the high tide, despite the fact that there are three ports, Hull, Grimsby, and Goole, and major continental ferries: I don't know of a single river anywhere that's so near to being a "desert" with regard to shipping, it seems a terrible waste to have put what was the world's longest suspension bridge (when it was built) over it!
Perhaps we should just have filled most of it in, and only had a little bridge in the middle?
Even the bridge carries very little vehicular traffic, despite exhorbitant fees to use it, the enormous cost of building the bridge will NEVER be recouped!

Here's a boat pictured earlier (Yesterday)

This is a petrol barge, returning empty from the River Trent, back to the hull Docks,
As you can see it is high in the water: when full the barge looks like a submarine, on a breezy day waves wash across the deck.
Believe it or not both pictures are colour photo's!

Puppy love (sort of!)

It's freezing cold outside, so I've been passing the time playing with a pretty neat small linux distribution call "Puppy Linux" which has the novel feature of being able to save your files back to the live CD, so you can literally keep all documents and settings, Very clever!
It's only about 60 K in size, and has a clever "puppy loader" that allows you to add programs to it from the net, they automatically install when downloaded, and display any extra needed libraries (these are obtainable in the same way.) The good news is these newly installed programs are saved back to the CD as you log out as well.
The speed is quite amazing.
Just one problem: Can I get it to speak to the printer? NO WAY!
I have tried three different prnters so far, so it's definitely something I shall persevere with!

Democracy? what's that?

The "shock result" of the Palestinian election shouldn't really have surprised anybody, as the group that got into power had a clear mandate from the people.
For the life of me I can't see what Mr Bush imagined was going to happen: just because a system had been set up to collect votes, how was this going to change the beliefs of the voters round to support his point of view?
It's not as if voting helped prevent Adolf Hitler coming to power,in fact it had the opposite effect, he was voted in.
Time we stopped pretending that democracy was simply the act of voting, which would somehow magically make everyone peacefully inclined, no matter how badly they felt themselves to have been wronged!
Democracy will only really exist when the voters can actually vote on a daily basis for the immediate issues of the time, we do not have democracy now, we have Party Politics, where you are asked to endorse one set of rogues or the other, then put up with them for a period of years, no matter what a foul up they make.
I doubt whether there would have been any British participation in the invasion of Iraq had we had a couple of Yes/NO buttons on our TV sets to permit us to vote for or against it!






























i

Another brick in the wall

I note sadly that Google have fallen into the trap of going along with the great firewall of China.
When will everyone learn?

My Scooter

I went out on the scooter again today, pleasant as the weather was dry and sunny,though cold.
The bike is a Honda Dylan 125cc, pictured last April.
In the background you can see oilseed rape in full bloom. This extends for miles almost to the coast.

Google World on BBC2

The Money program did a documentary, made me wonder what made me start using Google: I guess it was simply because it was new at the time, more importantly it wasn't from Microsoft!
Once the habit had started, it just continues!
I went off Microsoft a long time ago, to the extent that I have been using Linux for some years now,
The only time I bother with windows is when,like this week, a friend brings round a sick computer for me to resurrect.
This week one appeared that had the slowest hard drive I've ever come across, it was little faster that a floppy!
With a new hard drive and system it certainly perked up, would have preferred to give them Linux, but they struggled with windows and wee too timid to change for the better.
Went out for a short ride on my Honda Dylan 125cc scooter, pleasant, apart from the stiff side wind, the local roads are a mud bath at this time of year.

January 18 2006

The winter has been mild so far, more wet than anything, today was mild at 8 degrees C, and with little wind, it felt as though spring is on the way.
My wife and I drove the fifty miles to Scarborough ( the original english seaside resort) and found it fairly busy, with people walking their dogs on the beach, and the local council busy dredging the lake in Peasholm Park.
Last weekend when we were there we watched the surfers (about twenty of them!) in the North Bay, though what excitement they can get from waves less than a metre high and temperatures around freezing is hard for us to understand!
At the weekend there were literally hundreds of cars parked on the seafront and all the cafes and amusements were open and doing a roaring trade.
The reason for the huge gap in dates on this blog is simple.
I lost it!