We have just said goodbye to our boys as they are away on cub / scout camp this week at Kielder. Just the 3 of us, which will be nice to spend some Q time with Sophie.
Just made us all yummy lunch of home made French onion soup with Italian cheese croutons with Brussels pate on toast. Feels like we should eat something Dutch next then German, and perhaps some Danish pastry for afters.

5000th photo, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

This is my 5000th photo on flickr. A fairly random selection but I quite like.

"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." – Henri Cartier-Bresson.

I’m half way to becoming a phographer or something. I’ve taken loads more than 5000 (I have been known to take 1000+ in a week) but the significance of this being the halfway point to 10k on flickr seems poignant.

Glorious weather weekend. The attire of flip flops, shorts and t shirt was donned on the morning after a night of going to pubclubland on Friday.
Jaygo at the spec savers was our first port of call on Saturday where he gained a pair of super cool glasses.
After a week of testing out a scheme of 10p for a good deed the boys had gained enough to go to frootique, a rather splendid smoothie and milkshake bar in Harrogate.
Saturday night we went to a 100th bday (a 40th and a 60th combined) where they had a ceilaigh and we learned how to party like they used to do in the Celt belt. Lots of lovely people. Everyone was asked to bring a bit of food which turned into an epic spread. The setting was beautiful – Kettlesing village hall, where they have a terrace garden which was a perfect setting for sundown drinks and smiles.
We camped over there in Clover (a van) and slept in total tranquility until jay accidentally put his foot on the horn which happens to be a klaxon at 5.45! We all drifted back off to sleep for a few hours after that though and woke at 8.30 to an already red hot day.
After a bit of chill and salad back home we went round to the lovely Fat Moon Cottage for a reunion BBQ with some of the souls from the night before. Sirloin and champagne, summer music and paddling pool, chinwagging and chilling. Lovely end to a lovely weekend. I say ‘end’ although I’m now sat in my hammock with a beer as I type this blog and were contemplating a film. Happy days.

Sophie meets Erin, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Yesterday we went to see our friends who breed trakehner horse.This week and a bit old called Erin is adorable. Made Sophie squeak. Some more photos over here>>

30th May : FIRE, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

A poster design for the next FIRE party at Rehab, Harrogate on the 30th May. It’s a Bank Holiday Sunday. Pop in for details.

Last week we attended the launch of the Harrogate Fringe Festival. After a general intro from the Harrogate Internation Festival (proper) Director, Graham Chalmers of Gig Scene was introduced. He gushed the passion, like only he can,  about how good this thing could really be. There’s so much creativity in this town and so much creative appreciation of off mainstream stuff that – the feeling seems to be – it really could be the start of something quite special.

There’ll be the widest of sub spectrum acts ‘flown in’ , playing at a host of some old – some new Harrogate venues. A secret venue for instance and “The Harrogate Club” which I’d never heard of but someone told me it’s a lovely Victorian chamber down Victoria Avenue.

There’s a day of more home grown acts – mainly Harrogate and Leeds based bands (including an after party by us lot (FIRE) ‘v’ Bottom of the Bottle. whilst the North Yorkshire Hardcode Punk lot make some noise in Crabtrees ) This is billed as “Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day” but I much prefer the title “Harrogate Fringe Fringe”.

As it’s the first year, its a bit ‘suck it and see’ but the organisers don’t seem to have used that as an excuse in any way for falling short.   The Fringe highlight for me would probably be Robin Williamson (Incredible String Band) and local boy Karl Culley – both geniuses in their own right. A brilliant pairing who ever came up with that idea. Field Music (they don’t sound like they’re from Sunderland but they are) who this time last week I’d never heard of, who since have featured heavily on my spotify playlist – quite refreshing stuff. The Rothko v Stockhausen guy Mark Stubbs will be doing some kind of lecture by the look of things – could be interesting. As a  package, it’s not  (I’m glad to report) billable as  ’something for everyone’ as that often means ‘something quite mainstream’  - which this seems proudly not, I’m glad to report.

The thing about a good fringe festivals is, it’s not necessarily the acts you ear mark to see before hand that leave the lasting memories but the magical unexpected moments you stumble across that make them special. This fringe looks like it’s got stacks of ammo in the unexpected department.

Harrogate Fringe line up (or ‘highlights’ )

An evening with Bob Harris, Jackson-Webber & Special guest
July 14 Harrogate Theatre

Robin Williamson (ex Incredible String Band) plus Karl Culley
July 15 St Peter’s Church

Poems, Prose & Pints, Creative Writing Workshop & Guest Writer
July 17 & 21 - The Harrogate Club

Haiku Workshop
(Run by Eirene! contact us for details)  - July 17th –  Hornbeam Park

Codebreakers The Story of Enigma
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

Showstopper! The improvised Musical
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

RedHouse presents Music To My Eyes: A Rock n Roll exhibition
July 23 – 25 108 Fine Art Gallery, Crown Place

Kamaca’s Tribute to Gershwin
July 23 Harrogate Theatre

Alex Wilson Salsa Con Soul
July 23 Royal Hall

Fear of Music with David Stubbs of The Wire/Uncut magazines.
July 24 The Harrogate Club

John Otway: Making Success Out of Failure & Chris Simpson of Magna Carta reads Fields of Eden
July 25 The Harrogate Club

Alrnias: Anthropology/art music with Phil Legard.
July 25 Secret Harrogate Location

Esoteric Electronica with Primate Engineer.
July 28 The Harrogate Club

An Evening with Field Music
July 29 Harrogate Theatre

Ralph McTell
July 31 Harrogate Theatre

Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day
July 31 Monteys / Blues Bar / Rehab / Crabtrees / St Peter‘s Church

Bookings

As soon as I know about booking info, I’ll post it up here – at the moment, unless someone cares to correct me in the comments, there’s no news. Stay tuned!

I played my first ever game of golf last night on a proper golf course. Well – a 9 hole course if you can class that as proper, a very nice course called Ghyll Golf Club near Skipton – for the sake of this blog, I’m calling it proper. I’ve been playing screen based golf – most recently Tiger Woods on the wii (fantastic – especially via an 8′ projected image) and Disk Golf for years so know the rules of real golf quite intimately, as well as most of the etiquette and lingo, but this was the first time I’d hit it in the real world – woods n all.

The cynic in me has (and probably still does) thought “It’s an expensive walk in a fake countryside”. But having played it now, I can see some of the appeal. Not so much the walking side (I’d much rather be ‘out there’ in some official wilderside / countryness if it was a walk I was after), but the pure joy of it’s sporting aspect. The few times I managed to connect with the ball properly and tonk it ‘miles’ felt – really satisfying. A couple of nice chips onto the green also felt extremely satisfying, along with a near average putt or two made the whole thing, as a sport goes, very feelgood.

It does seem to capture the hearts and minds of millions of people. I’ve now seen first hand the way it hooks you (pardon the pun). “if I went back, I’d be better next time”. You really do play against yourself. Now I’ve got my head round some of the basics, I can start to think about how to improve.

Nagging thoughts are that I’ve always been a bit threatened by the clichés of golf, I don’t think I’d ever want to bracket myself as ‘a golfer’ as to me it seems to conjure up a certain type of person. In my mind he’s a narrow minded sexist who drive a Porsche 928 and enjoys wearing slacks. I’m sure that’s far from the actual real golfer. I know a fair few of them who are very lovely, and far removed from my pre conception. They probably do enjoy wearing slacks though as a rule of thumb.

What a carry on. Police at 1 in the morning. Having a bit of a sleep (something I do from time to time as a bit of a treat) when trouble kicks off in the flat next door to our bedroom. Shouty fighty angry trouble. (Not for the first time I hasten to add.) Shouting outside the window is fairly commonplace for the company they keep but this time was bad. A fight had spilled out ont street. I was asked to phone the police, which I did after getting the requesters name.
Something about a ‘robbed mobile’ accompanied the general barrage of shouting.
Once the police turned up, I settled down with a cig and a brew on the wall next to our front door and watched the drama unfold (we’ve not got a telly you see). A lot of posturing and abuse, threatening and accusing deftly diffused by the boys and girls in blue attending the scene. Thought the dog van was a nice touch. A quick and perfectly timed single loud and powerful shout from the police dog within soon reminded the yoofs who the real hard cases were.
A quick natter with the police woman and back to bed. Bit of a pain having such a character living next door though. Police woman gave me some good advice though.

Right. I’m off to read for a bit me thinks.

I don’t like the sound of a hung parliament. So, what do we do now? Ask the two bigger boys to share? I know from experience (with my 11 year old and 8 year old boys) that such a plan can end in a disaster. What typically happens is a lot of energy goes into appealing who should have the right to it, who deserves it and who really should have it as a first round. Then, when a compromise is brokered through an independent (ie, myself or my wife) a further round of appeals breaks out which involves digging the dirty on the Shadow party, back stabbing, appealing and generally doing anything possible to gain power. Meanwhile the brother in power will be proffering analysis of this being an example of why, given the way the other party is behaving, it is best for everyone that he should be ‘the toy keeper’.

Meanwhile, their little sister is is playing quite happily in a quiet corner with the toy.

After a while, all creative energy is burned and the toy is discarded.

I really hope it’s not a case of “for brother and sister, read parliamentary candidates, for toy, read country.”

Alison just sent me a link to a slide show she’s made of shots featuring a DragonDrop Adventure shirt. I’ll add some into the main shirt shot gallery soon – but for now..

Click here to view ‘em>>

FIRE, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

I’ve uploaded the photos from last Sunday’s FIRE party.

Click here to see the set>>
Click here for a slide show of them>>

The superbosity of VOTE FIRE was champion-o-rama. It was busy from the outset – a few things were happening in town but not as much competition as there has been recently – before too long our spies were reporting that FIRE was the best atmosphere / party / vibe. The stickers were rather amusing. 3 cars, 2 vans, several hundred people and I believe some other bits and bobs – REHAB (the super doper venue) will be finding stickers for weeks on end I’m sure.

The music was tip top – only let down was a no show from Immy from Leeds. Hmm. Non the less, Dharma stepped into the breach and doubled his set which was great. He played on after cloudbass’s daftpunk vibed set, who played on after my down tempo/breaks/jazz/funk/brazil/groove type set – based around some of these tunes). I did a lot of conga bashing during Dharmas set – sounded fair good and we got the party whipped up like a good un ready for Karl Chaos n Johnny Kendal to step up and do an awesome back-to-back min / tech / deep collection.

We’d been lucky enough to have all of our little people staying at friends for the night so we had a bit of an after party at Chez DragonDrop. Lit a fire bin with the noisiest, smokiest wood in the northern hemisphere (er, sorry neighbours!). And finished off a bottle or three of varying beverages.

Next day, chilling, reading, watched Avatar (blummin good) and then went a de rigged I felt the pain then but it was worth it! Thanks all for coming. See you next time! (Prob end of this month – next BH – stand by for further intel!)