The Great Ripon Raft Race

I enjoyed myself so much at the St Wilfrids Day Parade at Ripon the other week that I decided to have a return trip for the Great Ripon Raft Race.  The event takes place in the canal basin where local teams compete against each other on home made rafts, or as in the picture, baths.  The event is organised by Scuba Diving For All, a charity which enables people with physical difficulties to dive and swim.  The picture shows two of the teams at the turning back point, as you can see one of the baths is taking on water, and went down like the Titanic shortly afterwards, the crew did survive though.

Rosie And Jim - Skipton Waterway Festival 2012

Brightly coloured boats converged on the town of Skipton at the weekend for the Skipton Waterway Festival.  Many of the boats were decorated with Union Flags as this year is the Queen's diamond jubilee and the Olympic Games are also taking place.  I went along fairly early in the morning, before the crowds arrived and managed to take some quite nice pictures. I liked this one, Rosie & Jim, the other two boats are Bill & Ben, but Ben unfortunately drifted across to the right so you can't see his name.

From The Old Iron Bridge

This is the view from an old iron bridge which crosses the Leeds-Liverpool canal just a short distance from Apperley Bridge. I walk in this area quite often and always stop on the bridge for a minute or two. It doesn't seem long since the trees were sprouting green leaves and we had the summer to look forward to, now the leaves are turning brown and we have the winter to look forward to, I don't know what happened to the summer, we just didn't seem to get one!

Swans - Leeds/Liverpool Canal

     A pair of swans and their three cygnets were on the canal at Thackley the other day.  I was on my bike and only had my small compact camera with me, but I managed a few quick shots before the parents decided I might be a threat and began hissing at me, I made a hasty retreat.

Bradford Butcher Bikers in Bingley

     I came across these two cyclists at the five rise locks in Bingley this morning. They are both butchers who took up cycling on retirement.  Phillip (on the left) had a shop in Thackley, which is on the outskirts of Bradford, and Paul had a shop in nearby Idle Village. They had ridden along the canal to Silsden, done a circuit of some of the green lanes around there before stopping off for pork pies on the return journey.  At a guess I'd say that's a round trip of maybe twenty five miles, and that's probably more than my son or daughter could manage!