It’s a Blog ! Not a Log !

076, originally uploaded by BagRat.

As usual headed across to Weighton for Christmas day with my mum and my 2 sisters, though this time rather than Christmas dinner at my mum’s, we headed across to my sister Glynis’s new gaf, where she and her partner Dave put on a rather tasty dinner for me and my mum, also got a guided tour of the place, looks quite nice and she and Dave have put alot of work into making it a home.

Also popped in on Jackie my other sister and her family, dropped off a bottle of wine and picked up presents from her for me and mel, after seeing Jackie decided to head up to Londesborough to go see my oldest friend in Market Weighton Gary Duggleby, been a while since I’ve seen Gary so it was nice to catch up with him, also gave me the chance to take some photos in and around the place where the old hall stood at Londesborough, all that remains of the place above ground it the entrance door stairs and a few ornamental vases, Gary was telling me that the halls cellars are still intact underground and that he’d actually been down there once, looking at the size of the entrance stairs of the hall, it must have been a pretty grand place in its day.

After seeing a few more friends I helped my mum with a few computer issues she had and then decided to head back to Manchester where I’m sat now typing up this record of the Christmas events.

Anyway check the pictures out and feel free to leave a comment or two if you like them.

Now I’m just chilling waiting for tomorrow night to come so I head off into Manchester for Electrik Chairs End of Year Riot

I’ll be leaving the lovely city of Manchester and making my way across the Pennines to my old hometown of Market Weighton for a christmas day with my mum, then round to my sisters for lunch, just hoping the weather holds off until I get there.

Will post again when I arrive or sometime tomorrow . .  wish me luck

Drove across to Market Weighton on Friday night and thought I’d set up the time-lapse camera on the car and do a night time-lapse of the journey along the M62 Motorway from Manchester and heres the result

Quite liking how the rain hitting the camera at the end of the trip makes it sort of trippy, got a few more to add over the next few days of our holiday in Dorset and Cornwall, so keep checking back for some more timelapse trips

Not had much chance to post as had Paul from Bristol staying for the week . . . he’s been up here on work sorting out some council offices Exchange Server installation, so been out most nights enjoying meals and beer all on his expense account

So far we’ve had a nice Chinese meal at the Pond Quay in Urmston, where the staff complimented me on my chop-stick skills, then there was Corn on the Cob drenched in Welsh butter and followed up by a 7oz Home made Burger at the Horse & Jockey in Chorlton and tonight was Banger and Mash courtesy of Electrik Bar also in Chorlton, we didn’t have to pay for the this one as we went there on Tuesday night and came 2nd in the Quiz night and won the food as a prize (getinnnn !).

It’s been quite a gastronomical journey this week and I can recommend all of the above as good places to eat, especially the Pond Quay, very good Chinese indeed, shall most definitely be visiting there again.

We’ll be sad to see Paul go, well my stomach will anyways . . seriously though its been good to see Paul, don’t get to see him enough to be honest, but when mates live far apart that happens I suppose, just gotta try and make a better effort next year to get down to Bristol more . .

Also must try and get to the Quiz night at Electriks more as well, as we had a real good night down there and hey we came 2nd, so definatly got to go back and try and come 1st  . .

Getting late now so best be saying good night to you all and for anyone who reads this from my hometown of Market Weighton, I might see you at the weekend as popping across hopefully for a 40th . .

Thought I’d set up the Time-lapse camera for my journey to Market Weighton over the Christmas holidays and heres the result

The footage was filmed using a Canon ISUX 80 IS attached to the top left of my windscreen

And it’ll be Christmas Day . .

Have I bought any presents yet ? Nope not a single one, mainly due to being very broke, but hopefully get paid tomorrow, so shall be using the money to fund Christmas and the New Year, some it will also be spent on an evening out with the boy’s, who I probably won’t be seeing at all over Christmas, mainly due to being at my mothers in Market Weighton.

It’s nice heading back to Weighton over Christmas, gives me chance to catch up on all the gossip and see friends for a couple of day’s, worst thing is deciding which friends I’m going to see and which friends I’ll let down, but when your only back for 2-3 days you have to make these sort of choices, you can’t see everyone and hopefully people will understand that, anyway there’s always the New Year when I can catch up with them.

It’ll be good to see my mum, not seen her for about 6-7 months now and I know Christmas can be quite hard when you know dad’s not around any more and having the rest of the family togeather at this time of year helps us all I think and we can remember him togeather, as I’m typing this I feel as if I want to cry, I do miss my dad, we may not have always been the best of friends at times, but he was always there when I really needed him and he did his best to guide me on the road we call life, so its good that I cry when I remember him.

Market Weighton was on TV last night and I missed it

Only found out this morning when one of my colleagues came up to me and asked me where I was from again, so I said Market Weighton and he then told me that there’d been some footage of Market Weighton Fair on “The Way We Were”, a programme that uses archive footage to show how life was in previous decades, they had one of my old school friends dad’s on last night talking about his farm apparently, just a shame I missed it, will have to see if I can download a copy from somewhere, as it would be nice to see if I can recognise anyone from it.

From what my colleague was saying it was a very good snapshot of what he expected country life was like around then and he really enjoyed watching it.

So if anyone has a copy of this they want to burn to disc for me, I’d be grateful

Well as I informed ou all in m last post or 2 I’m back in Market Weighton for Giant Bradley day and we’ve just finished entering Blue in the Pet/Dog Show there were 6 catagories and we entered Blue in 2 of them, these were :

Dog that Most Resembles there Owners : She Placed 2nd

Best in Show : She Placed 1st

Heres the photo of her looking proud with her 2 Rosettes

Best in Show 1st Place

She won 2 goodies bags full of extra special treats and a rather large bag of doggy food, she’s also going to be in the local paper the Pocklington Post, so I’ve told my mum to bu at least 4 copies for momentos

A YouTube Video to follow soon

Just for the Hull City fans who read my blog, congratulations and I must say very well deserved . .  does this mean that the players are all gonna rush out and buy themselves new cars and things to celebrate, if thats the case I reckon the local Ford dealers going to run out of Ford Focus’s pretty damn quick.

Well while I’ve been back I managed to pop in and see Mr Hogarth, he seems to be doing ok for himself, got a house now so somewhere for him to store all his musical paraphernalia . ., I’m now home with my mum just getting ready to go out and brave the night that is saturday in Market Weighton

For alot of former residents Giant Bradley Day is like some sort of inbreed signal that turns itself on in the weeks leading up to it, its like the spawning signal in young salmon, you sort of get an urge to get on the motorway and point your car North East, the urge getting stronger the nearer the great day gets.

Last night I met some of my fellow Salmon from around the UK, who like me had been drawn home for the great day, no doubt more will follow over the coming days and there will be some faces I haven’t seen in a long long time, i now Headey’s heading back from Leeds on Sunday, so that’s one I can shoot the breeze with for a couple of hours.

So what events have the got planned for th big day you say and what should make me want to visit Market Weighton, well for a start they have both of the UK’s tallest men here, those being :

Neil Fingleton : 7ft 7.5ins
Chris Greener : 7ft 6.1/4ins

Then there’s always the 4 arena’s of entertainment the have lined up, there’s the Yorkshire Pudding Throwing world record attempt, there’s donkey rides, the craft show, a climbing wall, there’s the crowning of the Bradley Day King and Queen, there’s a display of Polo by the Vale of York Polo Club, there will no doubt be the usual group of teenage bands playing in the music arena, but the thing I’m looking forward to is the Pet Show as were intending of entering our dog Blue in and hoping she wins some sort of rosette.

So roll on Sunday and heres to another weekend of madness that is Giant Bradley Day 2008

Giant Bradley : 7ft 9ins