I didn't like today at all

Well, or rather not well, I awoke this morning about 4:30.
"Why?" you ask,
"To put it bluntly, the trots." I reply.
Spent most of the day in the bathroom.

Snuck out long enough to buy cat food & check out the roses in the Canch rosegarden.

At Morse Nb Little Lucy was going through:

bloke on his own with a little dog.

---

bought cat food & went on to the Canch. Roses really are beautiful flowers, Flickr pics here:

Walked back via Canal Road. A narrowboat I'd noticed twice before, once in the Marina and again at Worksop car park, was moored up & two guys were working on it. They'd bought it in the Broads, sailed it here and were doing it up.

That's it: all I've done today.

Flaming Wednesday

The Skateboard park opened today.

Copied from Bassetlaw's website

There were considerably more bikes than Skateboards though. The main attraction was a young man who had been on "Britain's Got Talent" earlier in the week:

Joe Oakley

Now, I'm no cyclist but some of the things he could do were amazing:


Thee above pics were taken before the opening when he was performing for his tame video man

The opening was performed by "The Chairman of the Council"

Councillor David Challinor

The actual ribbon cutting was done by a young lad, no idea who or why.

Once Joe had done a few laps the massed hordes were let on. Chaos ensued, but none of the eagerly anticipated broken bones and blood!

Joe among the crowd

Of course there's one trouble with an all white skatepark at midday: no contrast so the camera won't pick out the shapes.

One thing Joe hadn't got that every other cyclist had: a saddle, in fact there wasn't even anything to put one on! I didn't notice that until a photog (Wop Guardian?) pointed it out.

In contrast the one thing he did have that no-one else did: a helmet.

There were several other things going on:

• "Street dance" acts, which seemed to be bunches of young girls doing aerobics to music. Might have been more to it.

  Keeps 'em fit and out of mischief, I suppose

• A (small) bouncy castle
• Laserquest, wherein you go into a dark inflatable and shoot everyone else with lasers
• Andy, our young^{(tee hee)} park ranger, was involved in something football related on the five aside court

  This is the guy who referred to me as "elderly" in a press release!

• Pogo the clown.

  Really, who likes clowns?

There was a lady with a rather nice Nikon. With the display team, I think.

Looking like a dictator flanked by security!

Plenty of coppers there but no need for them apart from holding back the eager riders.

A good day!

Tuesday: the Canch (second post today)

First: what's a "canch"?
Apparently it's a mining term:

1.  A part of a bed of stone worked by quarrying. 
2. Eng. Roof or floor removed to make height and side removed to make width. If above the seam, it is called a top canch; if below the seam, a bottom canch. A canch on a roadway close to the face is called a face canch; a canch on a roadway outbye is called a back canch. Also called brushing; ripping. SMRB 
3. The face of the roof ripping in a roadway. It follows that the canch is continually being excavated and advanced. 

I assume it means the cut made for the canalised section of the river which later, below Kilton lock, feeds the canal. Was it a fish supply for the priory before that?

It now apparently applies to the whole area from the River Ryton (N side), Priorswell Road (E side), and Memorial Avenue (S side), tailing off to the west behind the new library. I've shown it here. There's tennis courts, kids play area, paddling pool, exercise area and they're putting in a skateboard thing.

They've put a new bridge across it: rather nice:

If they could just get all the litter permanently out too! I suppose it all comes down the river from god knows where.

---

---

Now for the roses!!


They really are individually beautiful, I don't think the rose garden as a whole's very nice, but that's as much down to vandalism as anything.

The pics are below the fold 'cos they fill the page to bustin'