A Day of Two Halves

Woke up to find it had stopped raining at last. Had breakfast and decided to have a ride to York as the forecast was for heavy showers and we figured there are a lot of shops to hide in if it did come on to rain hard and lots to do outside if it didn’t.

We also decided to go via the Park-and-Ride as last time we went to York the traffic was horrendous (and that wasn’t a Saturday or a Bank Holiday). It turned out to be quite easy to find and was relatively cheap at £2.30 each return. Hard to imagine finding parking in York for less than £4.60 for the 4.5 hours we were there.

The morning was dry and in parts quite sunny and warm although there was always a threatening cloud not too far away. We had a walk to the record shop that was just outside the city walls - last time we came it was a Sunday and it was closed. Today it was open but to be honest the prices they want for second hand Cd's is just too much. When you consider that it's probably about £3-4 for  CD from Amazon (including postage & Packing), paying £6.50 isn't on. I appreciate the overheads and the 'supporting local business' but I figured that in this case the 'local business just wasn't local enough for me and besides there wasn't really anything I wanted enough. I did hear another guy in the shop ask if they had any 'Jethro Tull on vinyl" to which I was tempted to say I had a box full in the loft but decided not to get into that conversation as he would probably want to cherry-pick the collection as I would in the same situation.

Had another Italian lunch in a lovely place in Low Petersgate but when we went out, with the intention of walking around the City walls it had come on to heavy rain so we headed back to the cottage.

The guy who sits on a bicycle covered in purple paint is still plying his trade in the town centre. He sits motionless on the bike and looks like a statue. He gets money by posing with people for photographs. Must be good money as he was there when we went last year.

The rain on the way back was torrential again, there has to be local flooding about with the amount we’ve seen in the past two days.

Rang Andy to find out how Belper were getting on, another defeat ! This time at the hands of Romulus (who had previously not won in their first 4 attempts). A 1-2 defeat leaves us with a record of P 5 W 1 D 2 L 2. Early days but definitely not the start we had wanted – or hoped for.

A bad day all round for local football as Derby lost their 100% record with a 1-2 home defeat to Burnley, Alfreton lost 1-4 at home to Wrexham and Burton lost at Altrincham.

Tomorrow the weather looks like being slightly better so we’re off to Whitby.