Never a dull moment

There have been record crowds passing below our apartment in York this week as they head to the National Rail Museum. We had a look past yesterday but deferred our visit when we heard that the queue would last 30 minutes in the extreme heat.

The traffic jams were also caused by visitors to the York (horse) races and those visitors were hitting the town last night - and a lot seem to pass our place through the night.

I've had my best run of the week this morning by reverting to my usual "getting up" time - managed an hour on the riverside paths before the sun got too hot.

This morning there is Dragon Boat Races on the River Ouse - a bit like our Long Boat Races in Peel. The photo was taken a few minutes ago from our balcony. There is a very loud PA - that's not Dot I hear is it?

We are going out of York for the day before the traffic builds up.

Doctor, doctor

Wonderful day at Ben's (and Jenny's) graduation in York today. The Hull York Medical School (one from each site) has produced 1/6th of the intake of new doctors to the Isle of Man this month.

Hull of a day

Sight seeing in Hull. Its more interesting than you think. Especially with adverts like this! Hope that Marie didn't see it!

Too many tourists

I left the comfort of my settee a short time ago (where Ben photographed me this time last night) to pop into the York shops to get a few vital supplies (well really it was an excuse to get a bottle of red!). Its so much faster to walk through the streets in the evening than it the day when the streets are full of tourists!

I know, if it wasn't a popular place to visit we wouldn't be here either. And if I didn't update my websites regularly nobody would bother to visit them. But I am having a "should I make the effort" day today particularly when I spend time of my holiday to try and deal with emails too and I receive one from someone complaining about the very poor quality of the images published for the Parish Walk - more than two weeks after I took the trouble to upload the full resolution version of the files (the complainant had downloaded the small file that was published whilst he was still in the race), the photographers do not get paid or receive expenses and all but the marginal costs charged by the host site go to charity.

Nightlife

Ben and his girlfriend Jenny, who has a flat in York, arrived back from their holiday in the early morning and called to see us. It was close to 3 by the time we "hit the sack" today.

When describing the places we had eaten during our stay here, they were surprised that we had been to the Revolution Bar ("revs"). We are hardly known for trendsetting.

Maybe I should have gone for my daily run at that time as it sure is hot now and I'm about to run along the banks of the Ouse again.

The Island Games are getting very close and I have brought David Griffiths's statistics about past performances back to the front page.

Hot

On Saturday morning I caught sight of a group of race walkers passing our cottage and I went out to give them "a shout". To my surprise, four times Parish Walk winner Jock Waddington, joint record holders Richard Gerrard and Vinny Lynch, and Dave Walker turned around and stopped to chat.

With the exception of Dave, who will be on a family holiday at the time, they are all racing on the Tower Insurance 100 miles four weeks later and with the Manx Telecom Parish Walk only two weeks earlier, they could not achieve much on their training walk other than ticking over.

I published a photo of John Cannell on the home page this morning. He is one of the walkers I am sure could have gone a lot faster in the Parish Walk had he placed as much emphasis on it as he did on his 100 mile and 50km events in the UK. I raise the question, how good are the the current stars compared to JC's 17 hours 10 minutes? But its almost a case of role reversal as it will be very hard for the fastest of the PW entrants, Richard Gerrard, to reproduce his form six weeks later.

One way or another, it will be a hot pace at the NSC and the guys I spoke to did not seem worried about the multi lap course.

Hot is a very short description of my day. We're chilling out in York and not even moved the car from the basement car park yet. The sixth floor flat where we are staying went on the market last week and its a hot price of £649k!

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/homes/property_news/10512277.Penthouse_at_Westgate_Apartments_in_York_city_centre/

View as I write - time to fill that glass!

Murray's day

Looking forward to watching Andy Murray from our rooftop apartment in York. Before a wonderful breakfast in Betty's, I published Stan Hall's photos of the Laxey Fell Race. Going to catch up my sleep a little in the next couple of weeks. Its a day for writing a load of balls and to avoid hitting the net too much.