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We had a much better night’s sleep and the river level had actually fallen overnight. However, we still couldn’t get anyone to hire us a canoe for a downstream trip, on safety grounds. So after making breakfast we got a walking guide from the Tourist Information and drove to Goodrich for a walk which took us south along the banks of the Wye. Symonds Yat towered on the other side of the river, with birds of prey circling and screeching above us.
We were rather frustrated to see parties of canoeists – school trips I imagine – safely enjoying the stretch of river denied to us.
The walk took us
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By the morning it had stopped raining, and there was even a bit of sunshine breaking through the clouds. We took the opportunity to lay out some clothes to dry off a bit while we made coffee and ate some cereals, a little bleary eyed. Then Ady rang and gave us the bad news. The river had risen still further overnight and he wouldn’t let us continue.
So we packed everything away and waited to be collected, a bit despondent. Back at Lucksall where we had left the cars, Ady didn’t want to charge us anything, although we insisted.
We picked up a walking leaflet from Lucksall Caravan Park reception and set off on a 9 km walk. At Fownhope we didn’t fancy
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A three day canoe trip down the Wye River, Herefordshire. What could be more idyllic? Dave and I met at Lucksall Caravan Park, Mordiford where a nice bloke called Ady runs Hereford Canoe Hire.
It was pouring with rain which – if that weren’t bad enough – meant that the river Wye was full and fast, and getting worse. Our original plan had been to canoe down to Monmouth over three days, but Ady felt that would be too risky. We could do a day’s canoeing to Ross on Wye and, weather permitting, carry on the following day but the campsite at Ross was full.
We debated giving up altogether but
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I visited this centre near Southport for the first time yesterday. It’s divided into two parts; beautifully landscaped waterfowl gardens where they have over a hundred species of ducks, geese, swans and flamingos (and beavers!), and a 150 hectare mere.
At dusk, lines and lines of noisy geese return from the day’s foraging. After wheeling around in great circles a few times, they land on the water for the night. It’s a spectacular sight and despite the noise and apparent chaos it felt quite peaceful too.
I had mixed feelings about the landscaped gardens, however.
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Purists deride the new-fangled Twenty20 cricket format. Me? Well I don’t know the first thing about the game, so it may well be an ersatz imitation of proper cricket. But I know what I like, and that’s a few hours on a balmy June evening sipping beer and watching a fast-paced game in a family atmosphere.
As you walk up the steps to choose a seat, there is something quite thrilling about the wide green vista which opens before you. It is almost unreal. This is Old Trafford – the Old Trafford!
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 Went to see Hobson’s Choice at the Lyric Theatre in The Lowry Art & Entertainment Centre, Salford yesterday.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable production by Chichester Festival Theatre with pace and brilliant timing and wonderdful performances by Dylan Charles, John Savident and the rest of the talented cast.
The Lowry is a striking, modern imaginative building in the gentrified Salford Quays. I imagine it would be difficult to get around inside if you used a wheelchair, as some of the floors are built on a slope. I also worry about the seating layout in the auditorium because
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 What do you do when the domain name you really want is already taken? Well, if you are Boots the Chemist, you choose ‘wellbeing’ instead. Or if you are British Gas, why not settle for house.co.uk? Both of these companies actually thought these were good choices in the early years of the dotcom boom!
They have since seen sense, and have done what it takes to wrest the appropriate domain names from whoever was cheeky enough to register them originally.
But what if you build the UK’s biggest real snow ski slope and call it ‘The Chill Factory’, only to find that someone else has already acquired that domain name?
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The surviving members of Led Zeppelin are playing the O2 arena tonight with Jason Bonham playing drums in place of his late father John.
I saw Led Zeppelin perform twice; on 29 November 1971 at the Liverpool Stadium and on 14 January 1973 at the Liverpool Empire.
Queued patiently all day for the Stadium tickets. (I remember the distinctive smell from the grain storage warehouses which surrounded the old 1930′s boxing stadium, now demolished). On the evening of the concert, the band kept the audience waiting for what seemed like hours before deigning to come onstage.
The gig at the Empire was much more comfortable. I remember Robert Plant asking for quiet during “Stairway to Heaven”. Alas his plea was in vain; we hadn’t paid to hear acoustic songs!
… with the sound of music. Actually it’s the cellar but anyway, the Big Brave now has chimes! It was easy to bolt the three new coils into the chime unit and add a strip of beerseal underneath them to cushion the strikers as they drop down to rest.
Then I had to add a short length of wire between one solder lug on each coil and attach the four wires from the loom to the coils (one per coil plus one common return connected to the interlinked lugs).
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 The parts I need to complete the chime unit arrived yesterday – all the way from Poughkeepsie in the USA. Strangely, they were wrapped in recent pages from the London Financial Times! Paid the $34.84 invoice by sending cash – which cost £17.76.
As you can see, the coils have removable sleeves in which the armature slides, so in the days when these machines were sited in arcades, cafes and pubs it would have been cheap and simple to replace them as they wore out. A home pinball machine has such light usage that these coil sleeves are never going to need replacing!
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