September Evening, by Andrew Clark

OK, I know it's not a September evening (though, frankly, the weather this morning could have me fooled that it's late November), but things have been so peaceful on the Stray recently that it's starting to feel as though we need a change.

The grass has been cut (leaving areas for the bulbs to flourish), litter collected, fairground closed dutifully at 8.30, people out walking and running and playing football and throwing balls for their dogs. The road closure on York Place is a pain, but presumably necessary. Who knows?

Here's one of Andrew's beautiful pictures:

Fun Fair on the Stray

How's this for a random selection of very average photographs? The top one is yesterday evening, with the sun shining through the leaves of, I think, a copper beech. The next two are of flowers in the uncut parts of the Stray, looking very wild and very pretty.

Picture number 4 is of the Fun Fair, due to open tomorrow and run until the 31st. I promise you we're not killjoys - we really don't want to kill anyone's joy - but the posters advertise free parking, and I just wonder where that parking is going to be, and how much of the Stray it will use up. In case you're interested, I've quoted the relevant section of the Byelaws, below. If you're not, just ignore it.

10(a) "No persons shall drive or ride any motor vehicle over or across any part of the Stray other than a part laid out as carriageway always provided that in connection with any special event or occasion taking place upon the Stray the Council may upon not more than five weeks in any year set apart a portion or portions of the Stray for the use of any class or class of motor vehicle or permit more than 3.5 hectares of the Stray to be set apart at any time".
10(b)(iii) makes similar provisions in relation to bicycles or tricycles.

Here's another one!

I couldn't resist it ...

Photograph by Andrew Clark, Harrogate Photographic Society

Look at this beautiful photo!

Andrew Clark, Harrogate Photographic Society, has generously allowed us to use some of his photographs on this blog. They're wonderful, and there are more to come!

Problem is, of course, they make my efforts look complete rubbish.

A Yorkshire native

It's a bird cherry (Prunus padus) in full bloom on the Stray, looking beautiful against a horse chestnut tree, also in full bloom. Actually, it's not really a Yorkshire native - it flourishes in Yorkshire and the Scottish Highlands, is rarely found in the south of England. There are two kinds of wild cherry. The other is the Gean (what a weird name), Prunus avium.

Let's hope this year the horse chestnuts escape the depredations of the leaf miner moth. They seemed to get off pretty lightly last year. In parts of the south, chestnut leaves were turning brown in June - really sad.

Here are some more pictures:

Swifts over the Stray

The picture's a cheat, as usual. I copied it from the internet because I wouldn't have a hope of catching one in flight.

But there were two yesterday and two this morning. It's lovely to see them back again.

If you're interested, this is a good web site: http://www.swift-conservation.org/news.htm

Look on the bright side of life!

This is a misquotation from "The Life of Brian", used inappropriately.

But if things are looking a bit grey, this will brighten them up - a fantastic picture from Peter, via Streetlife.

Water water everywhere ....

OK, not the most original title, but appropriate.

This morning the Stray was awash. The Park Runners splashed through mud and puddles, and I assume the Military Fitness group got thoroughly soaked doing their fitness stuff. The West Park area was massively flooded, as was the grass around the Empress on the Stray. Oddly, the area around St. Aidan's was flooded but not much worse than usual.  And the floods didn't seem to put anyone off.

Nothing special

Just a couple of pictures of the Stray looking really lovely on a sunny day.

The weather's too nice to embark on anything controversial, but it's worth making the point that the Parks Department does an amazing job keeping Harrogate beautiful.

Not just floods

This is a picture of Christchurch looking beautiful yesterday evening, after the weather had settled.

But here are some slightly less lovely pictures of the area near St. Aidan's School this morning, after a night of rain. The whole of that part of the Stray was water-logged, and Slingsby Walk where it joins Stray Rein (in the two top pictures), is almost always like this. Not too bad at this time of year, very difficult when there's ice, especially for those of us not in the first flush of youth.

These aren't just puddles ...

Yorkshire Water have asked us to monitor flooding on the Stray so that they have more, and better, information about what's going on. Of course we're more than happy to do this for them.

However, I'm not sure how to distinguish between and small flood and a big puddle. This is what it was like this morning:

Small floods?

The top two are on the road round the back of Christchurch. The third is the town end of Oatlands Drive.

Big puddles?

The top one is near St. Aidan's School, the bottom one near the Empress on the Stray. I don't think they count as floods, though there are a lot like this and they probably would be floods if they joined together.

 Anyone like to join in? It's good fun.

It's like this every Saturday!

It's a brilliant event and it happens every Saturday morning, a 5k run on the part of the Stray between Oatlands Drive and the Wetherby Road. Anyone of any standard can join in, so there are dogs, small children, older people, much older people, all having fun. And the marshals are amazing, consistently cheerful and encouraging.

If you're interested, there's all the information you need on this website:

http://www.parkrun.org.uk/harrogate/

Back in the day ...

...when the Stray was used as a race course!

I wonder when horses were banned. And come to that, why?