Handicrafts and produce

It's such fun exploring the handicrafts and produce marquees at Bingley Show (though I was melting in the heat under the canvas!) My friend's mum, who has won prizes several times in the past for her knitted toys, is now selling them through her daughter's craft shop, so she's no longer eligible to compete as an amateur. Somebody equally talented appears to have taken up the vacant place; her doll and teddy were really cute.

The muffs below are called Fidget or Twiddle Muffs and are made for people with dementia, whose restless hands appreciate something to stroke and play with. 

There was a category for multi-coloured jelly! (Whatever next?) It made a nice picture. 

The home-made wines and liqueurs also made a nice picture - and, no doubt, a tasty drink.

Who knew there were so many sizes and colours of eggs? 

People watching

The lady was watching the dog-show. Her dog was watching the people-show.

Limousin cattle

My other favourite bit at Bingley Show is the cattle section. I love to watch the judging of these huge beasts. They are as polished and primped as cattle can be, though they don't always do as the handlers want them to. A little tickle under the belly with a sharp stick usually makes them behave. I don't know why like them so much. I hardly ever eat meat and I certainly don't like walking through fields with cattle in, but there is something amazing about being so close (safely) to such magnificent animals.

The bulls in my photos are Limousin cattle, bred for beef. They originated in France.

Bird watching

The Wise Owl birds of prey display is possibly one of my favourite bits of Bingley Show. They are such beautiful birds and it is a privilege to get up close to them. Wise Owl rescue and rehabilitate birds (for example, after accidents) and then release them into the wild again. They also have a mobile display team, which was doing demonstrations at the show.

One of the stars is the gorgeous Barn Owl, Bubbles (above, bottom right and also in the photo below). He was happily flying through tunnels made by children's linked hands, stopping every so often to have a good look at things. You can hire him to fly up the aisle to deliver your wedding rings at your wedding. That must be quite a sight!

The other birds pictured are:
Top left -  a pretty kestrel, whose name I don't know
Top right - Ghost, a Gyr x Saker falcon
Bottom left - Gizmo, a White-faced owl

Bingley Show day 2017

It doesn't seem long since last year's Bingley Show but it came round again, the 136th show. The day started off very wet and I was wondering whether I should brave it. The lower field in Myrtle Park can become a mud bath in inclement weather. When it stopped raining, I set off. By the afternoon, the sun had come out and it was really quite warm. I should have taken a sunhat!

There's a nice view from the upper park down into the lower field, where the classic cars and vintage tractors were parading in the show ring. In the foreground are displays of the most modern vehicles, including a Yaris Hybrid very like mine. It was like bumping into a relative! I didn't actually bump into any relatives, but I did bump into a lot of people I know - camera club colleagues, friends from church, former workmates. All part of the fun of the Show, which is still a big event in the local calendar.

The full Half-Moon

It is very good to see the Half-Moon Café in Saltaire's Roberts Park open again this summer. It was badly damaged in the massive floods on Boxing Day 2015. Leased from Bradford Council by Saltaire Cricket Club, it took ages to be dried out and repaired. Other local facilities were up and running after a few months and no-one seems sure why it took nearly 18 months to refit and re-open the café. Anyway, it is now open, from Wednesdays to Sundays. It is a well-used facility for the many visitors to the park.

A braver man than I...

Photo © Dr John Rhodes, used with permission

One of my good friends, Dr John Rhodes, also a keen photographer, recently took the opportunity to climb the tower of St. Peter's Church, Shipley (see here) with his camera. He has kindly agreed to let me show some of the photos he took. They give an interesting view of the area that can't be seen from any other vantage point. 

Photo © Dr John Rhodes, used with permission

Despite having been church warden at St. Peter's for a number of years, I was never brave enough to venture up the steep staircase (see left) which is topped by a 20ft ladder to reach the parapet of the tower. Not for the faint-hearted - and I get vertigo even on a step ladder!

But the views from up there are wonderful.  Photo one (above) shows Moorhead Lane, the road leading down past the church to the junction where Saltaire roundabout used to be (now traffic lights). To the left (beside the orange truck) is Saltaire tram-sheds, where the old trams used to be garaged. It's now a bar/restaurant called The Hop. In the middle distance you can see the western end of Saltaire village on the right and also Salts Upper School, the modern white building. Beyond that, the wonderfully named Hope Hill rises up to Baildon Moor.

Photo © Dr John Rhodes, used with permission

The photo above is a telephoto view of Salts Mill, with Saltaire village in the foreground and the Victoria Hall on the right, with its tower visible.  Behind the Mill, at the foot of the escarpment, is the hamlet known as Baildon Green, with Baildon itself on the hill top. 

Photo © Dr John Rhodes, used with permission

No prizes for identifying the iconic domed tower of Saltaire's famous Victorian United Reformed Church, nestled among trees.

Allotment

As well as visiting lots of open gardens recently, I also went to my friend's allotment Open Day. These are the plots beside the River Aire in Bingley that were devastated by the Boxing Day floods in 2015. After much hard work, fundraising, new fences and topsoil, you'd hardly know now that there had been a problem.

We've been enjoying some wonderfully bright, sunny days this spring/summer but really it's too contrasty for good photos. It makes me appreciate all the more the wonderful photos I see from my blog friends in sunny places like Australia and Florida. How do you do it?

Cherry picking

'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness....'  (Galatians 5: 22-23)

Beauty close up

This is a passion flower. 

Open Gardens Shipley

A recent weekend saw many private gardens opened locally in Shipley, to raise money for The Children's Society. This is an annual event, though rarely do we see such good weather for it! It is always a delight to see what people can do with 'ordinary' gardens, the modest-sized plots that many of our suburban houses are blessed with.

The garden in my first photo above had a pretty rose-covered arch, a pond and plenty of areas to sit, lots of fruit trees and bushes, a greenhouse and a very desirable shed-cum-art-studio at the top of the garden.

The one below is a very steep plot, rising up vertiginous steps to woodland. It boasts a water feature, with a small waterfall cascading into a pool full of fish. There was masses of colour and some cute creatures hiding (spot the owls?). All could be enjoyed from a large terrace at the bottom, with some comfortable seating (and refreshments).

The plot below was a long garden, separated cleverly into 'rooms' to break up the view. The fence had a passion flower vine spilling over it. I remember being amazed the first time I ever saw one. The flowers have such an intricate structure, which earned the plant its name when Spanish Christian missionaries in the 15th century used the flower as a symbol of Christ's crucifixion. I didn't think they were hardy enough to grow as far north as this, but this one looked extremely healthy and was full of buds.

Welcome to Saltaire

This colourful sign, welcoming people to Saltaire, has been outside the rail station for some time now. I've taken a few photos of it but never got one I was pleased with. This isn't brilliant either but it'll have to do! There are obstructions to photographing it square on, so the only possibility is this rather oblique angle - but you get the idea...

The sign has been designed by students, Massimiliano Belli and Giada Dambra, from Bradford School of Art, taking inspiration from the Italianate architecture and layout of the village to show the key points of interest. Formerly there was just a blank, black screen, the reverse of a station signboard belonging to the rail operators. It looks much, much better now.

Fields of green

A few weeks ago, when the hawthorn blossom was abundant, I took my favourite walk along the canalside and back along the river bank. Cows were grazing peacefully on the fields of the Milner Field estate, which formerly belonged to Titus Salt Jnr. The may-blossom always reminds me of my childhood. It is lovely to be transported, even for a few moments, away from the hustle of today's world into something timeless.

The Flying Scotsman

During the summer there are sometimes steam-hauled train excursions that pass through Saltaire and I've tried, without much success, to photograph them before. When a neighbour tipped me off that the most famous steam locomotive of all - The Flying Scotsman - was coming, I was determined to capture it as best I could. So here you are!

After many adventures, including being the first steam engine officially to reach 100mph (in 1934), this lovely old locomotive, originally built in 1923, retired from regular service in 1963. It passed into private ownership and travelled in the USA, Canada and Australia, before being bought by the National Railway Museum in York in 2004. It has been thoroughly overhauled and rebuilt over the last ten years and is now allowed to run on our main rail lines. 

It is pulling excursions all over the country this year. This particular trip is billed as 'The Waverley Excursion', a day's journey from York to Carlisle and back. 

I got the shutter speed right... zoomed in, you can clearly read the name on the side. It is, however, really difficult to know where to stand for a good view locally, especially in summer when there's lots of vegetation along the lineside. I elected to wait in the one spot beside a bridge where I knew I could see down the line and have recognisably 'Saltaire' things (like the church tower) in the background. The overhead cables and gantrys for the usual electric trains rather spoil the view though.

Tales of the riverbank

Returning from my walk, I left the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Dowley Gap and cut down Wagon Lane, to join the River Aire. The river meanders through the playing fields belonging to Bradford and Bingley rugby club, and then through an area called Ryeloaf Meadows, a wet woodland managed for conservation by Bradford Council's Countryside Service. It was staked out by 'eco-warriors' at one time, seeking to prevent the building of the Bingley relief road, which now passes through on stilts. Some years later, despite the faint hum of traffic from above, the area seems to me to have recovered well. Growth is lush. In parts, trying to follow the footpath is like trekking through a jungle!

This pretty plant is Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria). It's a plant that I overlooked for years, assuming it was a variety of lady lace, but it is a different genus. It grows profusely in wet places. It's an interesting plant with many traditional uses; it was once used as a strewing herb, thrown on floors in homes and churches to scent them. 

There were quite a few of these brown butterflies too. They had brown velvety upperwings with a few spots underneath. I'm not skilled at butterfly identification but I think it is a Ringlet. 

Along the canal

Keen to get some exercise on a mild but breezy summery day, I decided a walk out along the canal towpath towards Bingley with a return along the riverbank would be just the thing. There was lots to see. The boat traffic along the canal is at a high level, as conditions this spring and early summer have been ideal. Cruising along in the sunshine must tempt both the hire boats and those who are lucky enough to own their own narrowboat. The trees are all in full leaf and there are flowers in profusion. I don't remember seeing either the bright yellow shrub (Hypericum Hidcote?) or the small name plaque at Dowley Gap Locks before, though I'm sure they've been there for a long time. It's funny how I keep seeing 'new' things even in familiar places.   

Red poppies

Another impressionistic photo. This was some poppies I spotted hiding behind some tall grasses. I was practising differential focus with my telephoto lens. The effect was quite different depending where I aimed the focus point. I quite liked this one, where the foreground grasses are blurred, the poppies are sharper and the splashes of sunlight in the background give a bokeh effect.

Blue poppies

Apparently, Himalayan blue poppies (Meconopsis betonicifolia) can be tricky to grow but they seem to do well at Harlow Carr Gardens, grown in the damp soil around the stream side. When I visited, they were past their best, looking a bit ragged and faded but still an attractive colour. The blue was fading to a pretty pinky mauve.

I tried softening and lightening one of my photos, just for fun:

Impressions

I'm going through a bit of a phase where my 'normal' photography seems to me to be not quite hitting the mark. I keep going out walking with my camera but when I get home and look at my pictures, I am often underwhelmed and dissatisfied with them. It seems that lately I am more drawn to experiment and try close-up shots and more abstract impressions. 

Here's a selection I took at RHS Harlow Carr Gardens. I guess you either like this kind of thing or hate it.

Pinks on trial

Another shot taken at RHS Harlow Carr Gardens. As well running four (soon to be five) beautiful and inspirational gardens across England, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) offers advice for gardeners and conducts experiments and trials with plants, both edible and ornamental. My eye was drawn to these pots full of pinks (dianthus). This was a trial to find the best varieties for container growing.

Pond dipping

As I wandered around at RHS Harlow Carr Gardens near Harrogate recently, I noticed a school group busily engaged in exploring a pond. The children, about seven or eight years old, were enthusiastically dipping nets and seeing what weird and wonderful aquatic life was lurking among the water lilies. Mind you, listening to their excited squealing, it was amazing that all the creatures hadn't heard them and hidden themselves away!

Saltaire's saltire

Looking up on a bright sunny day I noticed aircraft contrails making a saltire, St Andrew's cross, in the sky. The flag of Scotland, I am hoping it is a herald of Andy Murray's triumph at Wimbledon 2017... If not, it's not for lack of me cheering him on. Come on Andy!!

Enthusiasts

There seemed to be quite a few 'classic bus' enthusiasts enjoying the sunshine and the 3rd Saltaire Historic Bus Running Day in Roberts Park. I'm not sure what Sir Titus was making of it. It was all horse-drawn carriages in his day, of course.

I hadn't realised that spotting buses is an alternative to train spotting and comes with all its own memorabilia - photos for sale, old timetables, models of buses...

Numberplates and signs:

Vintage ticket machines (oh! another wave of nostalgia! Remember the sounds they used to make?) and rolls of tickets to put in them, should you wish to role-play being a bus conductor. (As children, we used to be thrilled when we got tickets with red lines on them that indicated the roll was running out!) 

And books with such fascinating titles ... (When Buses Were Worth Spotting!)