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09 Mar 2012

Mushrooms and Motorway Service Stations

This seems to have been a week for driving up and down the M1. Not something to recommend frankly. The service stations are appalling and expensive beyond belief. They ask for diesel around 10-12 p per litre more than mere mortal garages. For my car that takes around 60 litres when almost empty, thats a differential of around £7 /tank. When allied to the appalling range of substances they sell masquerading as “food”, and the equally extortionate prices, they are a place of last resort.

One of my trips was up north to Wentbridge near Pontefract. Dr Hiram Wildgust was giving the monthly lecture to the local nature wildlife group on Funghi in Brockadale. Brockadale is a local nature reserve there where one can apparently freely wander. The local pub there The Bluebell Inn hosted the talk and kindly gave the group free use of a large upstairs room. Dinner before was excellent and good value. Chicken with Wensleydale was a good dinner. The talk was fascinating. One final thing I learned was that one can do painting on the Ipad using an App. The example below was done by a well known artist Ann Wildgust.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged bluebell inn, brockadale, chicken, funghi, mushrooms, pontefract, service stations, wentbridge | Leave a comment

03 Mar 2012

Yoevil 2 Brentford 1

There are always defining moments in the season and today was one of those. Brentford are no better than they were last season at this time, and arguably worse. At that stage the crowd and team were solidly behind Nicky Forster. Today made me realise what a waste of time and money it is currently to watch Brentford. The perspective around this is that I used to go to all away games and often to work my work around where they were playing. Now I do not plan any more driving away games this season. Why? Well a consistent facet of Brentford this season has been that they have been beaten by every team with a greater work ethic, even when that team is technically inferior. Exampled by today. Yoevil are no Brazil but will probably survive relegation this season and seem to function well as a small club with crowds around 4000. Brentford took the lead early in the first half with a deflected free kick from Sam Saunders, Yoevil came out fast from the traps in the second half, scored a wonderful goal and then got the winner with a scrappy own goal 5 minutes from time. Unlucky? Maybe? got what they deserved ? Probably.

Team selection was wrong. Donaldson should not be playing. He has had a miserable season and looks out of sorts. McGinn did some running but his quality was very poor today. The midfield lacked the bite that maybe Bean might have given. Tactics were awful , hoof the ball and then hoof it again. Tactics never changed even when Yoevil clearly changed theirs. Uwe Rosler needs to depart. He is not and will not be the answer. Sure, it can wait till end of season but he seems unable to put together a consistent team, motivate them to play out of their skin and seems to have fallen out with players who could have played a part today. No sign of Bean or Weston. Why? Crowds are poor at Griffin Park for a reason. Results are awful and home peformances mostly dire.

I cannot help but think that Martin Allen would do a better job.

So in summary a waste of 4 hrs 30 mins driving, about 260 miles, costing £35 plus £19 to get in plus £3 programme plus 10£ food. Total waste = £67 and a day of my life. But I have decided that Uwe Rosler must depart Brentford.

Sam Saunders free kick on its way in

Standing and Watching

weather extremes before the game

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged brentford, football, league 1, uwe rosler, yoevil | Leave a comment

02 Mar 2012

seniorbushe

So yesterday this big fish made my day!!! A beautiful manta ray came along the wall dropoff, and happilly swam really close to me and my divers. What a special sight!! Majestic, beautiful creatures. They really do ‘fly’ along in the water, with small waves of their massive wings. Stunning!!

The day before had been an exhausting one. It started at 6am, and I was not home until 9.30pm. This was as I guided my first night dive. Pretty scary stuff, 8 divers, have to lead, find fish, keep an eye on everyone, and find your way back to the boat in pitch black!! It was beautiful though. At one point in the dive I stopped to do a bio-luminescent part. You kneel on the sand, turn all your lights off and wave your arms like a mad man. This creates tiny sparks of marine plankton who when moved emit a…

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02 Mar 2012

The Pigs of Preston Tower and Chathill

Northumberland is a fine county and places emerge that are wondrous and enchanting. One such place is a small hamlet about 3 miles inland from Seahouses called Chathill, not so far from the A1. Here there is a small manor house that has a tower built in its grounds. The tower hosts amongst other things a huge bell and a prison cell. Entry is on a trust basis and costs maybe £2 placed into a wooden box. The tower is well worth entering and up on the third floor one finds that you are on the roof and above the bell. Be warned, the bell is loud and midday when 12 chimes emanate it is an experience for sure. The views over the countryside are splendid.

As you can see below photography can be great here. The views over the fields can be like a Turner painting , the weathervane became an inspirational slide for one of the talks I give on Atomoxetine for ADHD and the flying Cello photograph should not be here as has nothing to do with Preston Tower, but my current favourite slide.

The grounds also host some nice walks through the forest and one can take a number of routes. a decent 2 hour walk can be had. On the last occasion there were some odd noises coming from a field that turned out to be piglets in very playful mood that follow you as you walk along the path. Most occasions we have been there we were the only souls so it cannot be described as busy. This place is a real find. Visit and enjoy.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged A1, ADHD, atomoxetine, cello, chathill, northumberland, preston tower, turner paintings | Leave a comment

26 Feb 2012

Museum of Flight Scotland and Concorde

On a recent trip to Scotland I was fortunate enough to have a little time to look around the museum, which is just outside North Berwick. an impressive place that really mandates a whole days visit. There are too many things to describe but seeing Concorde was an amazing experience. A number of other great exhibitions of various planes and a renovation hangar where planes being “mended” could be viewed. A specific mention for the Bi-Plane that is being created. A group of enthusiasts are building from scratch a Sopwith Bi-plane and will fly it probably in 2014. We were shown around by a real gentleman called /Trevor Frost who gave us an hour of his time to show us and explain the labour of love that they are undertaking.

The Concorde exhibition was quite moving reading about the events surrounding the final crash.

Concorde

The item causing the Concorde Paris crash

Cockpit Concorde

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged cockpit, concorde, concorde crash, hangar, impressive place, labour of love, museum of flight, north berwick, paris crash, planes, scotland | Leave a comment

25 Feb 2012

Met Police 4 Horsham 1

Brentford were too far away at Scunthorpe today after 2000 miles driving in the last 2 weeks, so a local game was needed. Met Police V Horsham. decent enough game. A mere 9£ to get in and 1.50 for programme. Burger and choc bar only 3£. Bargain made even better by winning the golden goal competition and coming home with 20£. Very friendly to watch football here. Recommend to neutrals. Car parking onsite too. The game was mostly one-sided but Horsham did take the lead but could not defend and it is was clear why they had a negative goal difference of 45 before today. They will be relegated. for some of the photos here a sort of ” what happened next” might be needed. Enjoy.

Back Header

Met Police score first goal

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged chocolate, football, golden goal, horsham, Met Police, photos, ryman league, ryman premier | Leave a comment

23 Feb 2012

Cayman Islands

I cannot wait to get out there in the summer where my middle daughter is teaching folks how to dive. There is little chance of success with a dinosaur like me but she has threatened to try. Anyway a photo of her diving taken this week sadly not by me.

Diving in Grand Cayman

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged cayman islands, diving | Leave a comment

22 Feb 2012

Mansfield 5 Darlington 2

As was in the area on a work trip I decided to drop in and watch the game. Mansfield is always a friendly place to watch a game and usally half way decent football too. £16 to get in at the away end. Pastie and Mars Bar for tea. The game was frenetic. Darington looked like scoring whenever they went forward and conceding whenever the ball was in their box. The Mansfield striker Matt Green got a hat trick, a typical centre forward who has scored over 20 goals this season and one can see why. Turns out that the darlington team in the main are just youngsters and they did exceptionally well. Great goal from Macready. Keeper did well.

Photos below to give a flavour of the game. Not really up to usual standard as floodlights not strong and had to use ISO speed 6400 with only 1/250th speed. Anyway enjoy. Have a look at the penalty. Mansfield must have been super confident he would score as none of their players enter the box at all! In fact where are they?

My claim to fame is that I had breakfast in a small hotel near the Millenium Stadium with the grandparents of Marc Bridge-Wilkinson, when Brentford were playing Port Vale there. Of course he scored and always did against Brentford. in case anyone interested my footbal grounds website, which is going to have a a massive overhaul soon is at http://www.footballgroundz.co.uk

Good luck to Darlington. I shall buy some shares tomorrow.

The ground

What is he doing? Jordan Pickford

Goal for Mansfield

The closed down stand with maybe a hole in its roof??Penalty first photo

Penalty second photo

Penalty third photo

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged cold, conference, darlington, food, football, mansfield, mars bar, pastie | Leave a comment

19 Feb 2012

Brighton Half Marathon Few more photos

Do indulge me! Lastly who thought it a good idea to send out the street cleaning unit in the middle of the race?

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged brighton, half marathon, odd, running | Leave a comment

19 Feb 2012

Brighton Half Marathon Photos and Comment

Athletics and running generally are not things that run in our family. Indeed one might argue that we run away from such things. Hence some sort of surprise when eldest daughter announced that she was entering the Brighton half-marathon. We travelled down last night not really knowing what to expect. Stayed in the Holiday inn , which is not be recommended for reasons that are too multiple to mention, other than that the room was cold, with a kind of fashion that would not be out of place in a a medieval castle, and the bathroom was miniscule and looked like it retained all the charm of the 1950,s and much of the grime too.

Anyway, up bright and early. Stood by the beach along the promenade for 2 hours and it was an amazing experience. Very proud of said daughter who finished well within her time anticipated and was running just in front of Katie Price. Many of the runners just on with it but a certain amount of cabaret was there. Runners with strange expressions, reading maps as they ran along, but the most curious events came from folks who wanted to cross over sides. Now, let me paint the picture. The road was closed to stop cars for around 3 hours, thousands of runners and yet folks were crossing over the running “track”. Bizarre. This included multiple parents with buggys and a wheelchair. But to beat all this lot was a woman who pressed the pelican crossing button, not once but twice! What did she think was going to happen? 10,000 runners would career into each other to stop so that she might cross?

In terms of the runners, there were so many that it was difficult to see in detail in real time but on browsing through the photos, things that caught my eye, other than a range of strange expressions, were those runners wearing gloves, with sunglasses on head, in a kilt, a man running parallel to the running lane, running with eyes closed ,

We loved the event and will return next year for more cabaret. The only surprising thing was that there not more collectors for charity out with buckets, surely this is the optimal time and event to do it?

enjoy some of the photos below