Festival

It’s been a few days . . .

/ Tony / 6 Comments

After the last ‘rant’ I thought I would leave this alone for a few days to calm down a little.

So, work was a little easier this week. The main chef was off, so the owner stepped in for the full week. He usually only cooks on Friday and Saturday, with the main chef (I shall call him “A”) doing Monday to Thursday. ‘A’, is a bit of a perfectionist, who doesn’t take kindly to being, as he calls it “messed around.” What he seems to hate is people who will take a look at the menu and then ask for something that is not on it, usually with the phrase ‘… if that is possible?’ Or ask for something that is on the menu, but would like it cooked a little differently. We had one customer, that asked for a BLT (Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato sandwich) off the menu but they wanted it without the tomato! And when the checks mount up he gets even more stressed and we all feel the pain.

The owner on the other hand (call him ‘P’) is more laid back. He seems to have the attitude that says “… if you want it cooked fresh, then you have to wait!” This makes for a happier day. The volume of work stays the same but feels easier.

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On Thursday, we forgo our usual trip to Wetherby for a visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. For those that are unaware, this is the leading international centre for modern and contemporary sculpture, set within the 500-acre, 18th-century Bretton Hall estate in West Yorkshire. It houses within the grounds, many sculptures from renowned artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Damien Hirst. I’m not a fan of the latter as I just don’t like his work. It was a good day, and the weather was not too hot. I managed to get a few photos.

  • Barbara Hepworth
  • Crystal Sculpture
  • Random Cow

The “Random Cow” was not a sculpture. We think that the gate to the nearest field may have been left open and it just wandered in. It wasn’t harming anyone but was just a funny thing to see.

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This weekend sees the return of the Leeds Festival to Bramham Park. It runs in conjunction with the Reading Festival and has been coming to Bramham for more than ten years now. The main issue with it is the disruption to traffic. Some roads are closed and those that are open are very busy and slow on the few days before the Festival opens and the day it closes. On Friday I drove back from Wetherby to home, in the village, and it took me nearly 40 minutes for a 4½ mile journey. Although we know this will happen, it does get a little frustrating. This road is usually a 50mph road, but for the duration, the limit is reduced to 30mph. However, this does not seem to apply to a number of drivers, who think they can just ignore the limit. The police were out in large numbers, but they never seem to catch these idiots.

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Some of you may (or may not) notice a slight change to the blog theme.

I am now using the Independent Publisher 2 theme. Prior to this week, I was using the original Independent Publisher theme, which I understand has been withdrawn. This does look a little different in some ways, the header image is larger and the widgets have moved to the right hand side, but I’m quite happy with it (for the present)

Just weekend things …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

About six months ago, I was preparing our Sunday meal when I had an idea. We were having tray bake (we don’t do traditional IMAG0817Sunday lunch type food) which was basically roughly chopped IMAG0816peppers, courgettes, onions with new potatoes and chicken thighs all mixed with olive oil and crushed garlic. I’ve got a picture somewhere but not sure where. Anyway, to the point. I was just about to throw the bit of the pepper that you don’t use, in the bin when I wondered if the seeds would grow. I’ve never had much luck with growing stuff from seed, but I thought I had nothing to lose. Within a week, the seeds had started to grow, and within a month I had nine small plants. Now six months on I have nine larger plants, with flowers and the first showing of some peppers. This has totally amazed me as I never even thought he seeds would grow. We shall see what we will get.

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Today is the first day of the 2018 “Leeds Festival” or as it is known locally “Leeds Fest”. It is one of the large music festivals that happen over the year and it runs at the same time as the “Reading Festival”. Both have the leeds_festivalsame acts over three days. Leeds is held at Bramham Park, which is extremely close to where we live. I have been back in 2011 and 2012 as local residents are allowed to purchase concessionary for the whole three days as part of a compensation pack. What happens is that the organisers donate a number of tickets to the parish council of Bramham, Clifford and Thorner (who are the most affected) and they sell them to the residents at a vastly discounted price. I think this year, the tickets were in the region of £40.00 for the three days in what is called the Guest Area, which is a much better camp-site then the general public get. So we get a few days of traffic disruption, a bit of disturbance during the night from the music and the local area gets some extra funding. As mentioned, I did got to the 2011 festival, and have great memories of dancing to Madness and seeing Ed Sheeran as an up and coming newcomer. There is a YouTube video of a band called “Bring Me The BMTH 2011Horizon” or BMTH, finishing their set with a massive ‘circle pit’. The sound is pretty bad but, I can say that I was in the midst of it and it was as scary as it looks. From what I can remember, I was towards the bottom right when you look at the video. The guy next to me, at the time said I was in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ and advised me that the safest thing to do was to run !! K*** says that it would kill me if I did it now … it nearly killed me then!

I had a ticket for 2012, but the weather was very wet, and I was not that desperate to see many of the bands so I gave most of them a miss. Although I did get to see Foo Fighters, The Cure and Florence And The Machine, so not all that bad.

And now, in time honoured fashion for ‘Leeds Fest’ … it’s raining !

It’s the August Bank Holiday and Leeds Festival …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

This is that time of the year, when the Leeds and Reading Festival takes place. These are two of the largest music festivals in the UK, and take place simultaneous over Friday to Sunday. There are usually the same acts appearing at both sites over the Image result for leeds festival 2017three days. I was going to link to festival, but know of old that these links often simply disappear, so I’m going to make do with a couple of images. We live quite close to the site, so we get all the traffic and noise issues. Happily, Image result for leeds festival 2017the organisers seem to have got the traffic problems under control this year, as there has not (yet) been a repeat of the 5 hour tail-backs on some of the approach roads. The noise? Well it all depend on the wind direction. If the wind is in a certain direction, we do get the continuous hum from the motorway so when  that happens we do get some of the festival noise, but it’s not been loud enough to notice.

I have been before, back in 2011. The Parish Council of Bramham and Thorner are allocated a number of free ‘Guest’ tickets. From BBC NewsThese ‘sweetener tickets’ are then sold to genuine residents at an extremely discounted rate, with the funds going to local projects. Every year since 2011, I’ve thought about going again, but at the last minute, I back down. I don’t think K*** would enjoy it and I wouldn’t want to go on my own. But who knows how I will feel next year? I have to admit, even though the weather was bad that year with some rain on each of the 3 days, it is quite an experience. The weather has been sort of kind this year, except for the 23rd this month, when we experienced 3 weeks rain in one hour! Now that was a wet day!

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I’ve come to a decision! Crochet is not my thing and I’m dumping my hooks (except a 3.5mm and 6mm). I can knit. I do knit. I will have a go at any knitting pattern or stitch that you care to through at me, but I totally fail at crochet. I just cannot get my head/hands around it. I’ve watched all the tutorials and even had a ‘one-to-one’ with a work colleague and I still cannot do it. It looks like the old ‘Granny knots’ we used to do when I was a kid. So I’m calling it a day. I’ll keep the two hooks I mention, as they can be very useful to pick up dropped stitches and the like, but the rest …gone!