Ribby

I bought some beef rib and pork ribs from the farm shops.  I have decided that ribs are too ribby, by that I mean bony.

Bin Diving

My neighbour has got a skip outside, then someone was very excited about the prospect of bin diving, which I am not usually a big fan of.  There were some MDFs, some old composts, sad plants and pots.  I will pass, thanks.

Barton Marina

I was going home on A38, so I thought Barton Marina would be a good place for a break.

 

It was a very nice marina, a lot of nice shops, it seems popular as a family outing. I would certainly stop by again when I near it.

Local Farmshops

Enroute home, I finally decided to explore my local farm shops.  

Rhubarb Triangle Farm Shop does some nice sausage rolls and free farm animal viewing.

Swithens Farm ShopSwithens Farm Shop has two access roads, I took the bumpier road in.  It has a working cafe, child play area, farm visit, etc.  The butcher was very chatty.

Overpriced Farm Shop at Chipping Norton

Fan of a certain show would know which farm shop I am talking about.  One of the bikers is a fan of the show and lead a run down that direction.  I have already expected it would be horrible, and it exceeded my expectations, in a bad way.

The farm is on a 8' road, and everyone just park up as soon as possible, which means parking on the verge, making the narrow road extra muddy.  The overflow carpark is only single car width and has a massive potholes at the entrance.  There is no warden sorting out the junctions.

The queue to anything is long.  There is no entertainment on site, apart from the queueing and fellow punters' company.  Apparently the queue for food, as well as queue to farm shop were two hours.  Some punters implied their burger would worth the wait, of which Gwilim and I concurred that no food is worth 2 hours wait!

There's no demarcation of the queue, so you have to ask your way around to find the back of the queue.  And some punters were walking and queueing what appears to be a lawn and occasionally a lady will shout, "please get off the spring barley".

Queuing, warm beer, overpriced burger, the holy trinity of British culture.

Lake Vyrnwy Bird Feeder

We rode to Lake Vyrnwy and stopped for coffee.  I announced I would be spending a few minutes at the RSPB bird hide.  The bird hide is actually a viewing platform for their bird feeders. 

There were a lot of different birds there, at least double the numbers of the one in RHS Harlow Carr.  There were the usual great tot, blue tit, coal tit and chaffinch.  Then there were nuthatch, woodpecker, which I saw at RHS before, in additional to a load of gold finch, green finch, and some other finch, some type of warblers, and a tree sparrow.

Scenic Route

Friday rush hour major routes are all congested, so I had to stick with the scenic route, except since I set off late, I had to power through the scenic route with minimum stoppage...

Although there was day light all the way down, but the overcast condition made the ride rather cold!

Second Sail

You know Summer is here now the second sail is up.  We may reserve the last sail for "heat wave"?

UKREiiF

I met up with a friend at UKREiif.  The event took over the whole Leeds Docks area!!

PV Planning

As it turns out, Steve's array is only on a 3.68kw inverter.  The system was mostly free from ECO4, so Steve didn't ask too many questions at the beginning, now he is furious....

Moral of the story, always get another pair of eyes on the proposal.

Underground Bakery II

We picked up a loaf from Underground Bakery at the Otley Show.  Last time I was in Otley, they already sold out their bread 

After trying them twice, I could rank them at top 5...

Holme Moss

I took the opportunity to ride to Holme Moss.  All the cyclists and walkers were also out, so the road was busy.  At Holme Moss, even the paragliders are out.

The Otley Show

The forecast kept changing, so we decided to go to Otley Show last minute.  A lot of fancy pigeons and hamsters, but no chicken or ducks this year. 

It turned out to be a very hot day, and we all ended with a bit of heat stroke.   All the stalls took the opportunity to the their soda pop prices up ...

The Tetley

So the Tetley restaurant is back open, but the short cut is closed, I guess I won't be parking on Sheaf for a while. 

Ice-cream on the Beach

 

Partial heat stroke stops me from the great Yorkshire war cry!  Three quid that!

Local Blue Tit

We now have a local blue tit that frequent out bird feeder on a regular basis.  Only if it would stay still for a second for a picture.

Coastal Trip - Day 4

The weather has finally turned, we did not take the bike out.  We walked around Flamborough Head, saw a bunch of sea birds we already saw and seals.

We went home via Wetwang, which is now branded Deep Blue, and the fish cake is still nice, just more expensive, smaller and a little underseasoned. And we went back to Sand Hutton for yet more asparagus!

Coastal Cycle Trip - Day 3

We took the bikes to edge of Cleveland Way, pushed down the hill, across the beach and cycled all the way to the Scalby Mills, all the way up to the castle and all the way back.  Apparently that is only 8 miles in total.

We did all that within the 3 hours free parking limit! We went onto Cayton Bay enroute home. We saw some sand martins at the beach.

Coastal Cycle Trip - Day 2

We cycled to Bempton Cliffs, which was only 7 miles but it was general uphill and we were cycling against the seabreeze.

We did manage to see three puffins... My trusted old camera manages take their pictures. As well as a lot of guillemot, kittiwakes, razorbills, tree sparrows and a few fulmars.

Coastal Cycle Trip - Day 1

After a long drive, via Sand Hutton picking up some asparagus, we parked up and cycled around Filey.

All the way to the edge of Filey Briggs and down the promenade. 

We spotted some seabirds on Filey Briggs' cliffs, namely guillemot, kittiwakes, and we saw some oystercatchers on land.

After the first trip, one of the plastic clips on the panniers already broke...

Another Folding Bike

In less than a year, I bought another folding bike.

Unlike the B Fold 3 bike with single gear, this Apollo Contour bike has 7 gears, also came with panniers, bike light, spanner and pump. Except that is too big to fit in my cupboard...

Hong Kongers in the UK: A Journey of Hope and Resilience

My friend from Birmingham told me about the exhibition.  I paid a visit, it was nice.

https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/events/leeds-city-museum/hong-kong-freedom-fighters/

We were pushed towards STEM.  STEM is where money is, but Arts is where culture is...  I am very grateful for the artists.

Coptic Wedding

We went to a wedding in a Coptic church.  It was different...

30kWh Day

This year my system hit a 30kWh Day on 30th April, which is earlier than last year.  Fingers crossed!

Glowworm

I only just realised glowworms meant firefly!  Let see if we can see some of them I. Our neighbourhood woods!

Leicester City Jam

We made a few mistake coming into the Leicester City Foxes celebration.  We should have avoided it.  Then the jam were not clearing off as we hoped, so we should have just pushed through rather then waiting.

ER

I have been binging on the old TV show ER.  Dr Corday commented on NHS and old boys' club still rings true today, some 25 years from ER.

Tyres Shopping

We still don't understand why sometimes car tyres wear down unevenly, even after all the wheel balancing, air pressure checking.  The worst part is finding replacement, even the branded offerings, they often change model, making matching difficult.

Early Radishes

After much struggle, the first crop of radishes were ready.  When I said crop, there were only 5 of them...

Plant Outdoor Acclimatisation

I have been wanting to put the seedlings outside, but it has been met with failures because of the cold and the slugs.  Now May has come along, the weather is looking up, I took a bunch of the plants out this week.  They definitely need some toughening up!

GreenTech

I went GreenTech Gathering. Apparently most people went because of the "tech" element of the title.  Some lost souls like myself went because of "green" element.  I should have read the detail description...