David Morris – brassedoff.net

Daniel and I went out to Millhouses with the yacht again this morning. This time it didn’t rain, but I still didn’t get any photos. On the way back through the maze of roadworks around Shalesmoor, I spotted something which made me think there was something interesting to do this afternoon, and I was right.

You can’t beat a bit of stock car racing on a Sunday afternoon!

In Sheffield, the stock car meets (promoted by Startrax) are held at Owlerton, aka “t’Dog Track”.

The cars are always wonderfully turned out – especially the ones with lots of sponsorship.

Of course, as soon as the racing starts, things get a little muddier because the circuit is a shale one and it’s damped before every race to keep the dust down.

Something we’d not seen on previous visits to the stocks were the heritage cars which bear more than a passing resemblance to old American cars, so I’ve included a couple of pictures for one of my work colleagues who’s in to that sort of thing…

In some of the races, I don’t know how the starter works out who is where…

Everything was going really well until the predictable happened for our Summer. Yes, it started raining. The track surface became extremely muddy and slippery and some of the drivers seemed to be having a problem telling which way they should have been going…

I predicted that a brown car would will the race…

…Daniel didn’t believe me, but he had to concede I was right :-)

It cost £24 to get Daniel and me in to the stadium. Food was reasonably priced and portion control was generous. All in all, a great afternoon.

More photos and some higher resolution versions of these in my gallery under Owlerton July.

I should perhaps add that all the photos were taken with the Tamrom telephoto zoom lens I wrote about a few weeks ago. in fact, they wouldn’t have been possible without it. I really like this lens!

Today was supposed to be a visit with the Band (yes, I know I don’t officially play any more) to Ivan and Barbara’s Stockholes Farm Miniature Railway, but the recent heavy rains have caused a flooding problem so it had to be called off. To save all out sanities, Mrs Woolforbrains suggested a trip to Hebden Bridge to Flying Saucers. We came across Flying Saucers at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest recently and decided we’d pay their main place a visit some time. It was originally planned as a Summer Holiday activity, but in view of te weather, we made it today instead.

I dropped the tribe off at the cafe and spent 30 minutes or so driving around Hebden Bridge looking for somewhere to park the car. They had a World Music festival on today. If the weather had been good, parking would have been completely impossible. As it was, it was only mildly horrendous.

However, pottery painting was done, very enjoyable it was too. When we get the fired and glazed pots back (Mrs Woolforbrains and Daniel are going to pick them up in a few days) , we’ll have a joint blog vote on who wins the best painted pottery contest :-)

Hebden Bridge looks a lovely market town though and I’d like chance to explore further. If it would ever stop raining. And if there was anywhere to park.

I believe I also forgot to mention that it’s got a canal. How silly of me to forget something basic like that :-)

Finally for today, a bit of good news. You may remember I dipped out on finishing my Masters degree due to pressures of work? Well, I got my final award through in the post yesterday. I now am the proud holder of a Postgraduate Diploma in Networking Technologies and Management, so I can now call myself David Morris BSc PgDip. I can’t see me using it very much though ;)

No pictures after todays trip. I never took the camera out of its bag. It rained.

I’ve got some of my photos on the news page of the Canal Trust. These were all taken at the Boats and Boots Rotherham Walking Festival. There may also be some in the firthcoming issue the Trust’s magazine. Wow!

Yes, I’ve been shopping. Yes, I’ve bought a new gadget and I’ve been playing with it all afternoon.

Unusually for me though, this gadget doesn’t have any batteries. It doesn’t plug in. In fact, the only power of any description it uses is a bit of finger power. It’s also a throwback to my childhood.

I bet you can’t guess what it is?

I’m actually not going to tell you yet. Instead, I’m going to tell you about a fun time in Sheffield today. Because it was raining, we spent a happy hour in the Winter Gardens watching some street theatre. This was part of a Sheffield Events production – Streetlife – 10 days of live street theatre. We watched an Australian chap called Shep (?) do an act with a bed of nails, two plates, an apple, a couple of whips and a bowling ball. All three of us were thoroughly engrossed and felt obliged to contribute in an appropriate manner when the hat came around at the end of the show. The festival finishes next Sunday, so if you do get chance, try and catch some of it over the next few days. It’s worth it.

Finally, back to the gadget…

Twigged yet? A spirograph. It’s not the same as it used to be “when I were a lad”, but it still draws the same distinctive patterns and it’s still great fun. Gone are the sharp pins,  corrugated card and wobbly paper in favour of a metal-covered drawing area and magnets.  I don’t think Daniel is that impressed, but I’ve enjoyed myself!

Seeing as it was chucking down today, I decided to try out my new cycling jacket. It’s waterproof, so I feel ready for anything nature can throw at me tomorrow!

After another soaking last night on my way home, I’ve decided I really need a new waterproof cycling jacket.

I’ve got a collection of light ’shower-proof’ jackets, but generally within about 2 minutes of initially getting wet, the wet is all the way through to me. Last night was particularly uncomfortable as I’d only got a t-short on under my jacket so once wet, it was stick to my arms… cold and clammy. Typical July eh?

I’ve still got my Berghaus gore-tex jacket that I wear through the winter and I’ve had to wear it a couple of times lately – not what I really expect for a British Summer… speaking of which, today was supposed to be Harthill Gala and I was supposed to be helping out on the Trust stand. It was called off on Wednesday due to a waterlogged field which is a great pity for this excellent event. I also note that Beighton Gala has been called off for similar reasons and last week, Ridgeway Show was cancelled. I can only hope that the organisers don’t lose too much money on these events and have the courage to continue with them next year.

Anyway, back to jackets, I’m going to call in at JE James at Chesterfield later today to see what they’ve got on offer, and if there’s anything that fits the bill, I’m going to splash out and have a cull of the older ones.

I saw something in The Star this morning (last night’s paper) about potential road closures at Handsworth, so decided to check Sheffield Council’s planning applications web site to see if I could get any more details. They use the same horrible software that NE Derbyshire use, and I’ve had that site generate the same error. Really. Having software throw back Oracle database errors to the user is just plain diabolical. If it was my system, I’d be ashamed of this, especially on a public access web site.

It gets better though. I  thought I’d try and get in with IE, shortcutting the process and jumping straight to the site host http://planning.sheffield.gov.uk

Come on. Really. How much effort does it take to put a default redirect page in to send someone to the right place? An ‘under construction’ page? Rank amateurism. The only saving grace from my point of view is that I don’t pay my rates to Sheffield. Having said that, I doubt NE Derbyshire are any better – I just don’t have the will to check their portal.

Yesterday cycling home from work I had two near misses. The first one was a trio of dippy teenage girls who decided to amble across the road near the Norfolk Arms at Handsworth. They hesitated in the middle of the road (there was no other traffic at the time) so I naturally assumed they’d seen me and I kept going. Unfortunately, they must have been between tracks on their iPods because started walking again and had it not been for me bellowing something at them, there would have have been a bit of a mess on the road. All I get for my troubles is a tirade of abuse. Ah well.

Number two was on the approach to the traffic lights on Handsworth Road / Retford Road / Orgreave Lane. This junction has just been remodelled and it’s not now possible to go straight on from the left lane. Most traffic wants to go straight on so has to use the right lane. There’s also a cycle lane at the traffic lights, so to avoid being held up in the traffic, I go down the left lane and turn into the cycle lane. Unfortunately a women in a 4×4 truck decided that she didn’t like standing in the traffic queue and pulled across into the left lane right in front of me. As we both stopped at the lights, I asked if she’d actually seen me to which she confessed she hadn’t. Thanks, love. At least she apologised.

Finally for today, one of my colleagues passed me this cartoon which being sheep related, bridges the gap between brassedoff.net and woolforbrains.net.

Well, last week, they weren’t for working!

Yes, I know it’s been a while since my last post. Post flood, we’ve had a long weekend up at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest (the resort formerly known as Oasis) which took up last Friday and Monday. Unlike the Sherwood resort which is only forty minutes from our front door, Whinfell is a good three hour drive via the A1 and A66. Different scenery, (alleged) red squirrels rather than grey ones, badgers, more hills… different but nice. The pool complex is certainly fun. The last time we went to Center Parcs, Daniel still needed armbands, but not this time, and didn’t we have fun in the pool?

The lodge we had was bigger than the equivalent in Sherwood with a very nice picture window that lent itself to this shot, metering for the outside light.

That was last weekend.

As I write now, this weekend is drawing to a close, and it’s been another busy one.

On Friday, I booked another day off work to indulge in a bit of boating. It was Rotherham Walking Festival. In conjunction with Rotherham Council who were organising the event, we (the Canal Trust) brought the Seth Ellis up from Retford to Kiveton to partake in the festival, giving one-way trips to walkers. The trip from Retford takes two days and something like 50 locks and the same back. I had the easy job on the Friday, crewing for the walkers. No locks!

The top ‘pound’ (bit between locks) stretches from the disused Norwood tunnel eastern entrance to the top of Thorpe Lock (pictured). You start locking with a vengeance then. The first lock is a treble staircase (four gates where the lower gate of the first lock forms the top gate of the second and so on). It must be a nightmare for inexperiences boaters. So much so that British Waterways feel it necessary to put instructions at the top for how to navigate the staircase. Get the wrong locks full of water and you get to see a waterfall. There’s the opposite plate at the bottom of the flight telling you how to get up. Most boaters will do the ‘up’ bit first because there’s nowhere to start from at the top.

Think it’s all easy going after this? Think again. This flight of locks consists of two treble like this and two doubles as well as a handful of single locks. No wonder the old boatmen knew this as the ‘Giants Staircase’. Something else to bear in mind. At a maximum speed on inland waterways of 4 mph, a lock typically takes 15 minutes, so you do 4 miles in an hour, four locks in an hour or a combination of the two. Not exactly fast moving, is it? It is however, a beautiful stretch of the canal, a view endorsed by the Tuesday Night Club when Earnest ventured up here in 2003.

This is the end of the line for most boaters, and the winding hole at Kiveton where the feeder from Harthill reservoir keeps the canal supplied with water is the last point you could turn. The tunnel mouth is probably another mile west of here and that means a long reverse to get back. BW feel it appropriate to warn boaters.

Apparently, the feeder is normally just a trickle this time of year, but the recent heavy rains have necessitated the raising of the sluices at Harthill to let some of the excess water out. The guy fishing opposite the feeder didn’t seem to be worried though and had, by my reckoning, a pretty successful day, apart from those inconsiderate boaters who kept turning a blue boat around and stirring up the silt!

The last ‘run’ of the day was probably the nicest. The low setting sun reflecting on the canal with the midges rising above the water made for an absolutely lovely shot which I don’t think I managed to capture fully with this shot, despite several tries.

We wrapped up a long day around 9pm with this group of walkers. One of the council walk leaders took this picture with my camera of the final party of walkers and crew (myself, Pete Ramsell and Steve Thompson) and walk organiser and trust member, David Blackburn.

Before anyone asks, yes, we did position ourselves to make sure the crest was visible on the side of the Seth Ellis.

A final postscript: I’ve added a ’subscribe via bloglines’ on the right because Mrs Woolforbrains reckoned it was difficult to find the RSS feeds. Although I don’t use bloglines, she swears by it.