People who follow this blog, or our Facebook page, will have noticed we've been a bit quiet lately; entirely due to a massive, but happy, upheaval in our real-life situation. Still, we've managed a bit of photography here and there, so time to update the blog....
People may have noticed, amongst all the national focus on football and tennis, that a little sporting event happened in Yorkshire at the weekend. The largest (by audience) regular annual sporting fixture on the planet, in fact. Yes, the Tour de France came to Yorkshire; and it was fantastic. We've followed the Tour for years, Amy has seen it in France itself, I've been wanting to see it for years, and here it was, coming literally to our doorstep (well, along the main road by our house).
Saturday saw us on a jolly up to Skipton, where we were slightly taken-aback by the sizes of the crowds. Largely thanks to a delayed breakfast at a café and a lack of trains to get to the town (Northern prioritising getting more trains to Leeds for the start of the race when we were travelling), and with three kids in tow, the best we could manage was to stand a bit near the back, and basically see the heads of the cyclists after we'd seen the Caravan pass by.
Good old Yorkshire; an amazing job of promoting the county.
Biggest cheer of the day for the Yorkshire Tea float, amusingly.
We might not have managed to see much, but the atmosphere was brilliant, and we watched a lot of the rest of the race on the big screen in the main town car park.
Sunday saw us on the Halifax road, not far from the house, where the (still quite large) crowds were more spread out, allowing us to set up chairs on the pavements for a front-row view.
Playing about a bit with the camera settings, trying for some more experimental images whilst we waited for the caravan.
The slightly insane Caravan, with the floats from the various sponsors chucking freebies to the crowds...
...and this amusing mobile stereotype, which got nearly as big a cheer as the Team Sky support car, below.
With a good spot for taking pictures, it was natural that someone selfish would ruin it. And, true to form, five minutes before the riders were coming, this person in red appeared. Not content with standing right there, he actually strolled out into the very middle of the road to take a picture on his camera phone; nearly a very nasty accident, and amazing a steward or copper didn't sort him out.
The leading group hammered past, quickly followed by the main body of the race, starting the climb towards Haworth.
Given that the TV coverage cut to adverts whilst the tour went through the Worth Valley, its a shame the rest of the country didn't get to see our little patch of Yorkshire, but as fans of the tour we were very happy we got to take some pics as it went past. And it was properly amazing just how many people turned out to cheer the tour on.
Finally, a shot of the yellow bike at work. Hundreds of yellow bikes have appeared all over the area, and we even had one on our shed roof; the one at East Riddlesden though is much nicer, so here is a pic.
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