Fun weekend again.

 Carefully walking on the joists.

 Me with my new Yankee screwdriver, can't be doing with battery tools.

Muck magnet.

Hay making.

 We have just had a fortnight of dry weather.

Jacobs Ladder.

 Over the worst of it, the top is in view.

 Made it! Easy.

Having a breather before going back down.

 Lee Farm, on the way back to the car.

This is what I have been waiting for, nice weather and a chance to try out my new knees. We have just had four sunny days Saturday through to Tuesday. Saturday and Sunday I was in our Steven's loft laying floorboards. I just happened to mention that it was too nice to be indoors on a day like this, but the job had to be done! Monday he popped round to see if I wanted to go to Edale.

We bypassed Edale and went straight to Barber Booth, parked the car and walked to the packhorse bridge at the foot of Jacob's Ladder.

Jacob's Ladder is the start of the Pennine way, a path that goes all the way to Scotland. My intention was to walk up to the top and on to Kinder Scout. It is a steep climb but a good trial for my knees. If I could not have done it it would have marked the end of my hill walking days. I did it with no problem at all, when I reached the top I was over the moon and so was our Steven. He has his walking mate back, me!

Coming down was just as good, no pain at all. When you have bad knees, walking down hills is murder. That has all gone. Walking is a pleasure again!

The day looked promising.

 7.15am 12th July looks like it's going to be a nice day for a change, that dream ended at 9am. It clouded over but remained dry.

 Later on the same day we went for a walk down the fields, it's the first time I've been down since we lost our Blue.

 To my surprise all the horses and cattle have gone, there is no livestock in any of the fields!

It looks like the man that has bought the land is just letting it go dormant, it's a puzzle. There will be plenty of hay if he cuts the grass, we'll see what happens later.

My tomato crop so far.

 My tomatoes are about 4ft high doing well, flowering and some fruit showing.

 Here I have trimmed some of the leaves off to concentrate the food to the fruit.

 This plant has stopped itself, this is the top of the plant very strange!

More flowers coming, I don't know how the fruit will react with the weather we are having, it's atrocious. March was dry but I don't mean sunny, April, May and June have been record breaking months for rain. June was the wettest and coldest for 100 years, July is heading the same way.
What I want is some sunshine in my life, I'm growing webbed feet. 

Yesterday at Wakefield.

If we let the weather keep us in we would never go out.

This is the bridge over to The Hepworth Wakefield it's an art gallery, not my kind of thing, I like things to look like what they are, not rubbish pretending to be art. I will not go in again.

I liked this someone had made in the boatyard out of scrap, at least it made me smile!

This is The Flying Scotsman, it must be the most famous name of any train in the world. It's the first time I have seen it in my life, and it was just by chance. It was standing in the station when we were going home, had I have been 14 I would have thought all my birthdays had come at once. Train spotting was something we all did as kids and to cop a namer we were over the moon. Must stop reminiscing it's a sign of old age. 

The Olympic flame visits Barnsley.

Never expected to see the flame as we were on the last push, we took the bottom road into Barnsley past the old Barnsley Bitter Brewery as we turn the corner the road was cram full of Police and spectators. I parked the car and we joined the throng, we were possibly one of the last people to turn up and finished up in a prime position, right where they relit the flame to start the run through Barnsley.

That afternoon 1 o'clock Una had given blood, we had no thought of going to Barnsley then our Stuart text his mum and said the flame had been delayed by 1 hour. Never expecting to see the start of the run we set off to see the end, but as it happened it was delayed by more than 1 hour and we got there for the start. I felt really sorry for all the children that had been sat waiting for over 2 hours to see something that didn't last a minute.

Bless em, they were as good as gold, sat with the patience of Job.

The man in white in the centre of the photo is the torchbearer waiting for the show to start.

Una's arm after giving blood, makes me wonder all the nurses do day in day out is take blood surely they should do a better job than this, it would put me off.

Weeds and seeds.

My allotment, over grown and gone to seed. The yellow flowers are parsnips they are 7ft tall, last years leeks have all gone to seed, the poppies are all self sets all in all it doesn't look two bad. There is a saying "one years seeding seven years weeding" we will see!

My First Ever.

Today I went to church to my very first ever Sunday church service, I went to give thanks.
The medical profession have done there bit to help me and have done well, but I do believe you also need someone else looking over you and I have someone looking over me I am very pleased to say,
Thank you to God and to Jesus.

Pinching out side shoots.

 Pinching out the side shoots is a necessary job when growing tomatoes, it is also a repetitive job as they grow back very quick. They are pinched out to ensure that there is only one main stem to the plant for the tomato trusses to grow on, and that all the goodness goes to the fruit and not wasted on the greenery. Patio tomatoes are a different thing altogether they tend to be a bush type of plant and need less messing with.