Ten lads a leaping, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

10 lads a leaping – and why not… it’s Leap year day today.

We have just experienced an earthquake in Harrogate North Yorkshire UK. At about 1 am I felt it and woke my wife up just as the biggest part shook. There were several smaller shakes that felt very strange, like the earth had gone all rubbery, then one big shove followed be around 5 smaller shakes. Our kids woke up and ironically the globe in their room fell off its stand. Our cat jasper went crazy. Birds woke up outside. Now wide awake after the scare but have hopefully got all the kids back to sleep.

So I’ve chucked up a bunch of photos from our short visit to Barcelona. Stripped down to 42 in total out of, as I mentioned earlier, zillions.

Click here to visit the photo set>>

What an incredible place it is. The archetecture and design blew me away the most. Loved the city so much. We were so lucky with our digs (a superb Attico flat), the weather (which according to one temperature gauge at around 5.30 pm was 22C, and the food – two doors down from our flat we had a reasonably priced, very nice, very friendly tapas bar that we spent both evenings leasurly picking at the delights on offer. Highlights would definatly be seeing the Sagrada Familia – one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in my life and Park Guell, where we heard a guy playing the Santur, which is a really enchanting instrument -perfect for the setting of the park. We eneded up down by the marina at the end of the day as a wierd fog bank rolled in, and listend to an outdoor gig by an 8 piece accoustic, doing (amongst other things) Buena Vista Social Club covers (another highlight for me!). Great place.

Also – I’ve added the obligatory Adventure T-Shirts shot to the gallery

Our lunchtime view – Park Guell, Barcelona

Two days ago I was in minus 5 degree Yorkshire. Now basking in the sun. It’s (DragonDrop) T-Shirt weather. Clear blue skies above us as we sit in a little cafe at the foot of Park Guell, Barcelona. Green parrots chirping overhead, mixed with the sound of a jazz band floating from the near distance. Sophie is asleep in her buggy and we’re blissed. A spectacular setting, google it and see! We’ve been right up the mountain this morning, up to Temple del Sagrat for some breathtaking scenery. This afternoon I think we’re going to have a look round the city and the Gothic Quarter. Such and incredible day so far. Zillions of photos.

So yea – it’s Adventure eve. All sorted (well, cameras on charge, clothes nearly dried) and conceptually packed. Theoretically, almost ready to go.

A good few days since last bloggage. I’ve experienced proper job satisfaction for the first time in ages. I’ve been really getting into and enjoying work. I’ve had a good man leave my work about a week ago. He was a really handy bloke to have around. A misunderstood genius. Anyhoo, I’ve taken a few of his jobs on. Hands on development type stuff. It seems like ages since I’ve done any real waz it up the web stuff. I’ve got Mr Tofu starting as my wingman again in a week or so. Looking forward to that. Always a safe pair of hands. La.

Been presented with one of them ‘big decisions’ relating to work. One of the path splits of life. One path – the risk, the unknown, the great blue yonder, the who knows where I’ll be in 6 months route, the other, a steady but good, challenging and rewarding ‘nice little earner’ do I go for the freelance swashbuckler approach, or the craftsman in his workshop option… ? hoping the decision makes itself. It may already of done that.

As mentioned earlier.. some pics I took when we were at Whitby last weekend. A lovely afternoon was had by all.

Day 365 project: Days 109 – 144., originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

So I’m 145 days into taking at least one photo per day for a year project. I’m quite pleased that I’ve not missed a day yet. Here’s the latest installment: Days 109 – 144. See the full set here.

1. Day 109 – garden of many things, 2. Day 110 – Peepo Toes, 3. Day 111 – Giant Jaygo builds a chair tower, 4. Day 112 – Dried flowers, 5. Day 113 – in a few years time, we’ll look back at this and go "oh yea, I remember when they looked like that", 6. Day 114 – Handy plastic, 7. Day 115 – Felix’s lego bomber, 8. Day 116 – sky’s wet brolly, 9. Day 117 – a corner of our front room, 10. Day 118 – The Tempest Arms, 11. Day 119 – HARROGATE CRICKET CLUB, 12. Day 120 – The pig with no name, 13. Day 121 – Earby clouds, 14. Day 122 – Palm path, 15. Day 123 – Bock!, 16. Day 124 – Three monkeys, 17. Day 125 – Screwball Scramble, 18. Day 126 – !, 19. day 127 – Puppy, 20. Day 128 – Hail to the.., 21. Day 129 – Woolsley, 22. Day 130 – Bath, 23. Day 131 – Fish Supper, 24. Day 132 – Bee tea, 25. Day 133 – Pancake day, 26. Day 134 – The White Lion, 27. Day 135 – Gung hai fat choi!, 28. Day 136 – moment, 29. Day 137 – Geoff (the dalmatian) watches the bovines practice for their "Cow Mountain" act., 30. Day 138 – Burning the heather, 31. Day 139 – Evening jack, 32. Day 140 – Morning jack, 33. Day 141 – Disko-Operative, 34. Day 142 – What I got for valentines, 35. day 143 – Ali. Baa Baa., 36. Day 144 – Eirene

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Day 144 – Eirene, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Here’s a piccy of Eirene speaking at the Optibus event. What a fantastic night that was. (more pics here) Doors opened at 7, by 8 the place had filled up nicely. Great atmosphere. Early doors Leonie blew me away with her fantastic bag of songs. Then Eirene did some ace poems to music which I didged / tabla played on. They were ace. Mark n Vicky who have called themselves “Dead Man’s Shoes” played a lovely lovely set of really original stuff.
A few more spoken word pieces from various quarters then Dharma got up to play on’t decks. I forgot to accompany him for most of it, as was originally planned… got chatting… oops. All in all though it was a fantastic success. Eirene’s head shaving sponsorship along with the gig (with raffle ticket sales) turned into (unofficial total) about £1,700+. That’s marvelous. Well done everybody.
After the gig, we had an after party at ours which was absolutely grand.
Sunday, we went to Whitby – that was ace. Photos to follow. This weekend ticked all the boxes.

Big one tonight: the OPTIBUS gig.
So It’s one of those non stop weekends. I’m indulging myself on a little blog time.

Yesterday, my wife Eirene shaved her head. I’d mentioned in an earlier blog that I’d hated the idea. Now the deed is done, It doesn’t look too bad. I’ve decided to stop being so pig headed about the whole thing. It looks good. (whoa, that wasn’t easy to say) It’s raised a stink load of cash for the fund through sponsorship and it’s been great PR for the cause. Yesterday was also Eirene’s 30th birthday. She’d got a bottle of 30 year old port that was saved for last night. The build up was epic. A bunch of close friends were invited to celebrate with us at home. We did cheese, by jimmeny, we did cheese. A selection of The Cheeseboard’s finest. We did wine. We’re lucky enough to have a resident expert in training in the form of Tinanana, who along with her brothers help and the stock of his shop (Harrogate Fine Wines Company) we had a case of some spot on wines. We all rather sensibly kept an eye on the time – all are guest / crew at tonights’ Optibus gig. Eirene and I had a cheeky game of scrabble, post rabble.

Uh oh, what’s that -tis that “I’m sitting in bed blogging, Eirene is doing all the kid related activity downstairs” slightly guilty feeling. TTFN!

:::update::: She’s just brought me pate on toast in bed! What have I done so right I wonder.. It may have something to do with the trip to Barcelona next weekend birthday prezzy.

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones.

I’m very fond of a book that takes you to a different place. The book itself is set in Bougainville (map) in the North Solomons (pics) a lush tropical island on the other side of the world from the cold coat of winter in the UK. A magnificent thing about this book is it’s use of another book – Great Expectation by Charles Dickens (no secret if you’ve read it – hence the Mr Pip title). A whole new world is opened up in front of a class of island kids who’s only book is the affor mentioned. Imagine finding out about things like ‘frosty morning’ and ‘The Metropolis’ with its cold stone streets and ‘the soaring ambition buildings’ when you’re 13 years of life so far had never encountered anything remotely comparable.
A book about how characters migrate and adapt. A book about possessions, material and personal. I very clever and engaging read.

I’ve had a really lucky run on books recently – the last load that I’ve read have inspired me. I really hope my good book luck continues!

Big Nothing indeed. I’ve been a big fan of the Simon Pegg’s work for years now. It’s the first thing I’ve seen with him in that I’ve not liked. It seems that he’s got a natural gravitation to all things good (or perhaps it’s the other way round). In the late 90′s he was in the cult classics, ‘Spaced’ and ‘Big Train’. Later, he was involved with ‘Brass Eye’ and ‘Look Around You’. All 4 of the above titles – inventive comedy genius.

His opening blockbuster gambit into the large screen, Shaun of the Dead will go down in film history as iconographic film comedy. So with all that, and the other film I’ve seen him in that I loved; ‘Hot Fuzz’ under his belt, I was quietly confident with my DVD selection for last nights entertainment and perusal.

The first things I disliked was Pegg, in an American accent. The second things I disliked was Pegg, in an American accent. Some really dumbed down and obvious office humour at the start of the film got me thinking.. when are the really funny bits going to start?

It seems a very.. American mainstream styled film. Perhaps that’s the big difference – Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, had a very British feel to them. They seemed to have people with a passion for comedy working on them. ‘Big Nothing’ seemed all together more commercial (as is an American commercial film’s lot in life) I didn’t pick up on a vast amount of passion for comedy. Is it perhaps the case that like in the music industry, an artists who’s trying to ‘break’ America has to appeal a bit more the American mainstream sentiments and sensibilities? (ie, mainstream it up a bit, tone down the black comedy side of it a bit – oh and perhaps try for an American accent.. they understand you that way ).. wheel in x 1 David Schwimmer from Friends fame and I think you’re onto something.

All in all this film had an OK plot, nothing special about it.. it was definitely more ‘Friends’ tries to go dark than a classic Pegg film. the best bit of the DVD was in the extra’s when Pegg explained why the remastered StarWars is inferior to the original. Brilliant, and I agree with his every word on that point.

I’m really hoping, it’s a blip as He’s currently filming in the new Star Trek film – he’s going to play non other than Montgomery Scott.

Burning the Heather
Burning the heather, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

So this was a lovely moment at the end of a walk we did on Sunday, over Kexgill Moor near Blubberhouses, Yorkshire – a fantastic expanse of old moorland. They were burning the heather – always a fascinating sight when you’re up on’t moors.

We went on this walk, which I’m going to name “Kexgill Moor Short Walk” for the sake of reference, where I wanted to investigate a swimming pond someone had told me about. The joy of walking to me, is the exploring, the adventure, the seeing of new things. The pre-amble to this is an activity I love – scouring the O.S. Map, which I did. Initially, it looked like quite a bland walk from the map. I was a bit wrong.

So post map scourage, where I’d thought thought “ahh ha, that must be it” (Grid ref: SE 129 552 GB Grid) we set out. After a warning to the kids of the perrils of straying from paths in the past, I now had to tell them we’re going proper off road, through open moorland to get to it. We parked next to Kex Gill road, and walked back down the Roman road to the gap in the wall on the right. Headed in a NW direction for about half a mile over lumpy mooland, we came to the pond (Foulcauseway Slack pond?) An ‘un touched by human hand’ pond on the top of a hill. It turned out not to be the same pond my friend was refering to, but never mind.

Quite an odd place. Northing disturbed the natural barron landscape bar a collection of grouse shooting hides. We hung out a this pond for a bit – it’s about 100m long so didn’t take long to see it all. Took a few snaps, moved on again in a NE direction to pick the path up at Ramsgill Head.

From here we followed the path leading SE. – quite a weak and untrodden path. Lovely scenery, going through everything from screen to grazing land, through reed to heather and goarse. Near the Old Intake Beck, wall I saw this carved stone sign saying ‘to skipton’. Quite suprised that anyone would go to the trouble of making a sign on such a remote path. My strongest guess is that it was carved pre 1960′s when the path may of been more trodden – it is on what would of been the main path between the now flooded West End village and Skipton.

We plodded on, the path took us through a sheep station and round to Kexgill Farm. From here, we picked up the (now closed to trafic) old Roman Road which would have been a main road, from Aldborough to Ilkley (according to this map). Because a lot of the moorland hasn’t changed in a good long while, it’s possible to pick out bits of the road quite clearly (as per this photo, I took ages ago – another classic roman road and you can see, in the background the road going on over what is now moorland).

After a half mile or so we were back a the car. A nice walk, away from civilisation is one of my favorite things to do.. and slowly but surely, I’m convincing the boys it’s cool as well. Sophie, at the moment still has no choice, as she’s strapped to my back! Anyway – lunctime blog windown is now closing.

Lovely weekend – Friday, we had friends round for dinner. (always makes me laugh that phrase) To clarify, we ate a Spanish pork casserole that I cooked with Saffron rice, in the company of some friends. This turned into quite a late one, so by Saturday, after a bimble through town with the kids, we were fighting fit for nowt but chilling. Eirene popped out to a birthday bash for a bit on the Evening. I plugged into BBC’s fantastic iPlayer and watched some telly. How decadent of me. (We’ve not had a proper telly feed into the house now for about a year).
Sunday – I cleaned out the fish tank (even though ‘dirty’ is a more natural habitat for carp descendants I, perhaps incorrectly muse) followed by a cracking round of disk golf. The weather was near perfection, I got round in 36, my partner equalled the course record of 23 with a series of incredible back to back to back birdies (Tiger Woods ’07 reference there, just in case you were wondering). So that brings us up to Sunday afternoon where we went for an ace walk over Kexgill Moors. More on this in a subsequent blog.

Now it’s Monday and again, I feel I’ve not had quite enough weekend. Still – got a few great things to look forward to in the not to distant future!

So Eirene is spearheading a new campaign to raise money for kids in Bangladesh, suffering with cataracts. It’s only started coming together in the last couple of weeks. There are two main activities. #1, she’s shaving her head. She’s looking for sponsors, please optibus[at]dragondrop.org with pledges. She’s doing that on the 15th (her birthday) I have to say, I hate the idea of her doing that, but, it’s for a good cause and there’s no talking her out of it!
The second idea I’m really into. It’s a gig, innit! Me and Dharma will be doing choons, along with Mark n Vicki (Dead Man’s Shoes) & Leonie. Poetry from Eirene and friends will also feature. The Raffle (tickets available from Wednesday, contact optibus[at]dragondrop.org to find out how to get hold of them) has some incredible prizes (see poster). It’ll be £2 on the door, and before you ask… No Guestlist! Even I’m going to pay to get in! (£2 and it includes a free raffle ticket)

So yea. There we have it.

Adam Siemiatkowski (Right) 1982 – 2008

A friend died this week. Only 25 years old. I don’t know the full ins and outs, which ever way – he’s gone. I just found out about it tonight. When we knew him, he lived next door. He was once of the lovely polish people. We spent many a happy, often vodka fuelled evenings sitting out in our back yards during the hot hot summer of 2006. Loads of fond memories of the chap. He was such a top guy. Salt of the earth. I remember when I decided to throw a big back yard party that summer and Adam volunteered to help – he worked his back off for the day, helping me sort out the back yards and doing tip runs with me. I remember his humour and miss it. Always guaranteed fun and laughter when Adam was around. I remember one blisteringly hot day, he was sprawled out in their back yard, in the heavy lull of a quiet Saturday summer afternoon, (nursing a hangover from a night before) and blasting him with a pump action water pistol through the fence – huge water fight ensued… It lasted several days. I’d opened the practical joke side of Adam and there was no escape from the bucket of water that eventually caught up with me.
I guess I only saw the fun loving side of Adam, but one other thing that stands out for me was his innocent fascination with the world; If I was to tell a story, his eyes and expression were genuinely transfixed on every word.
Funny thing is, last Tuesday on my way to work, Skipton Road was blocked. Snippets of Stray FM told me the body of a young man had been found. I’d got up early especially to get in a bit early that day. I had to divert round Jennyfields then Killinghall to get back on track. I was still late. (I guess he had the last laugh there)
I am truly saddened by his loss. He will be missed. I believe his funeral is in Poland next Wednesday.