Solitary splendour?

Or maybe not so spendid? Nice little red Audi parked illegally on the verge of Oatlands Drive. From the Wetherby Road the land rises gently towards Oatlands Drive, and then drops away, also gently, toward the West Stray. It's an amazing view. Cars mess it up. There are cars on Stray Rein, but (a) it's legal for them to park there, and (b) Stray Rein is slightly lower, and though the parked cards don't look great, they don't totally destroy the view.

I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to quote this, but the Harrogate Borough Council website is unequivocal:

"Please note that parking is not allowed on any part of the Stray grassland or verges (unless in conjunction with an organised event, where parking areas will be clearly identified). On-street disc zone car parking is available around the town centre and on nearby roads". So there you go.

Apart from this, the Stray was looking like something painted by a French Impressionist this afternoon.

Lovely summer evening yesterday ...

But there are an awful lot of trees on the Stray, and an AWFUL lot of avenues of trees, which effectively slice the Stray up like a pizza and make it impossible to get a long view of anything. I think a lot of the tree planting shows something of a lack of imagination. Would it be better to plant trees in clumps or coppices? The area around Christchurch looks very pretty. Or would it be better to have fewer trees?

Oh, big surprise - a car parked on Oatlands Drive this afternoon, without even the excuse of a big sporting event.

Incidentally, I meant to save this picture as "Oatlands Drive 1", but it came out as Oatlands Drivel. I think my computer is trying to tell me something.

Something's not right!

There was very little rain overnight so this is a bit unexpected. I'm told that houses on the town side of the Stray could only get a trickle of water from their taps this morning, and this flooding appeared within about an hour. But it looks as though Yorkshire Water is on to it - the vans were out, with men in high viz jackets looking official and purposeful. The seagulls were out as well, clearly thinking it was designed entirely for their benefit and having a really good time.

Oatlands Drive - a long thin car park?

This morning on Oatlands Drive: in the picture below you can see clearly the effect on the grass of cars being parked on a more or less daily basis.

Does it matter? I'm not sure, but what's certain is that it's contrary to the 1985 Stray Act and Byelaws (look on the Local Authority website if you don't believe me:
https://www.harrogate.gov.uk/pos/Pages/TheStray.aspx - scroll down to the bottom of this page, Visitor Information). It seems crazy to have rules and not enforce them, and it makes it very very difficult for anyone to enforce them in the future if circumstances change.

Yesterday afternoon on Oatlands Drive: same old same old. There will be more today and tomorrow.

Clouds

Weird and lovely over the Stray this evening.

Sorry, everyone, for not posting anything for a week. I've been laid very low by a kind of flu thing. Has anyone else had it? Not nice.

I'd meant to do a sunset shot late on the longest day, but  the skies were just a bit too grey to be interesting and so was I.

Big Bike Bash? Passed me by totally. Any views?

The Big Bike Bash

It should be fun, and hopefully non-cycling people trying to move around the town won't have too much of a struggle. This is the website showing which roads are closed or have parking restrictions.

http://www.visitharrogate.co.uk/events/harrogate-big-bike-bash/event-information-for-locals

And here's the link to the letter which went out to residents (though not to all of us ... ):

http://www.visitharrogate.co.uk/dbimgs/HBB15%20-%20Notification%20Letter%20-%20Resident.pdf


We'll keep an eye on the Stray and what's going on there. It will almost certainly be fine - as I've said before, we're not killjoys, and the Tour de France was a triumph - but if things don't go perfectly we'd like to know. A comment on this blog or on Streetlife or Twitter or Facebook will ALWAYS get a response.



And here's a picture of Mark Cavendish's bike:

An accidental rabbit

I took a couple of pictures this morning to show the Stray looking very pretty and summery, and caught (photographically, not literally) a rabbit. I had no idea it was there until I downloaded the picture. It's a bit faint and distant, but definitely a rabbit.

Also some lovely laburnum blossom again the dark foliage of a pine tree.

I was also thinking about grey squirrels. There seem to be an inordinate number of them on the Stray, but it looks as though the battle against them is lost and we might as well learn to live with them. Though not necessarily to like them. Take away their fur coats and they're not half so appealing.

The day the Stray went pink

Today was the Race for Life on the Stray, with its trademark pink everything. Actually, a sort of mixture of pink and grey, because the weather wasn't completely glorious. A covering of cloud and an intermittent fine drizzle might have drained away some of the colour, but still it looked as though everyone was having a good time; and the event certainly will have raised a whole lot of money for cancer research.

On a completely different topic - and not strictly about the Stray - the Friends of the Valley Gardens' Fabulous 40s Day is coming up on the 28th June. It promises to be a great event. Some of us will be attempting to look like something from the 1940s. Some of us might not find this too difficult ...

http://www.harrogate1940s.com/

The tree bumblebee ...

....looks  like this:

And there are an awful lot of them in the gardens around the Stray. They arrived from continental Europe about fourteen years ago and have spread as far north as Glasgow. They like to nest in bird boxes, and at this time of year the males make a huge commotion around potential nest sites, clearly on the assumption that females will find them attractive.

They may be useful pollinators at a time when other pollinators are in decline. Or they might be an invasive species that competes with out native bumblebees. The jury's out.

Very interesting letter ...

... from Andrew Hart. Definitely worth a read. Views?

" It is quite amazing, last week I saw a mother walking her daughter and pony around the Granby Stray, last night I saw the same people but now with 2 ponies! I actually thought it nice to see this happening on a piece of the Stray that is under utilised. The problem being of course is that it is against the law as set out under the Stray Act 1985. 

 Some how we need to get the message over that we are not at all against people enjoying the Stray or making the most of it. We are just highlighting two aspects: 

1.The Stray needs greatly improved protection and reinvestment if it is going to be used more and more for Council backed commercial ventures. 

2.That by turning a blind eye to the Stray Act 1985 just because much of it is not fit for purpose is encouraging abuse of the Stray. By that I do not mean children on ponies, adults on horses, the flying of drones, playing cricket etc, I mean cars mounting grass verges, parking on the Stray, littering, dog fouling, tree snapping, cyclists on footpaths and the grass. 

One of the biggest problems the Stray has is that very few people know that the Stray Act 1985 exists (this I blame squarely on Harrogate Borough Council and the so called Stray Defence Association). Therefore most people have no idea they are breaking the law. In most cases if they knew they would not do it. However, HBC recognise that the Act is not fit for purpose but instead of tackling that and getting it changed to reflect the present and future needs of the town, they just ignore it to the greater part. Why, you wonder do they choose to do it this way, with, might I add, the almost total blessing of the SDA? The answer is easy, it saves the Council a large amount of money and suits their political and financial agenda. The SDA, lead by Judith d'Arcy Thompson and who claims to have 400/500 members, instead of acting as the self proclaimed "Common Conscience" just goes along with it all as far as the "basic day to day" protection of the Stray is concerned. 
The Stewardship of the Stray lies with HBC but why can't they Chair a group of volunteers/representatives that truly reflect the "common people" of Harrogate - the runners, the footballers, the historians, the picnickers, the dog walkers, the immediate neighbours, the riders, the cyclists and not just the Oligarchy of Harrogate? 

I am all for the increased use of the Stray at every level so EVERYONE can enjoy it but first the HBC must start to fulfil their legal obligations and fully protect it for its owners, the Duchy of Lancaster, for the Crown and for us, the "common people" of Harrogate. Then they need to publicly accept that the Stray Act 1985 is not fit for purpose and use our MP to lobby Greg Clark MP and Communities Secretary to amend the Act to reflect the needs of us all and not just the Council " . 

A Stray flasher

Today North Yorkshire police have been handing out leaflets appealing for witnesses and information about a man who has committed several offences in the Stray Rein and Tewit Well areas of the Stray since 2007.

Anyone with information is asked to contact them by:

• Dialling 101, pressing option 2 and asking for Sergeant Lee Patridge
• e-mailing lee.patridge@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk

- or passing on information anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

On the leaflet it says: "Anyone who has seen suspicious activity in the area such as anybody acting furtively behind trees, in the undergrowth or near the footbridge and the railway line is urged to pass on information to the police".

So let's see what we can do to help!

Chestnut trees and their enemies

Early summer and the Stray is awash with flowers. The chestnut trees are spectacular.

But I worry about a parasite that lurks and starts to emerge surprisingly early in the year -- the horse chestnut leaf-miner is a small moth with caterpillars that feed inside the leaves, causing brown or white blotch mines to develop between the leaf veins.

It is usually easy to spot trees affected by the leaf-mining moth, especially as the season progresses.

• Horse chestnuts produce normal foliage and flowers in the spring and the first signs of leaf-mining usually appear during June in the UK
• Elongate blotches, at first white but later turning brown, develop on the foliage from June onwards
• Caterpillars, or circular pupal cocoons, can be seen within the mined areas if the leaf is held up to the light
• By August, most of the leaf area may be occupied by leaf mines, giving the impression that the tree is dying, although it will survive
• Heavily infested trees will drop their leaves early, however research has shown that this has almost no effect on the growth rate or health of trees

(This is copied from the Royal Horticultural Society website: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=533)

In some parts of the south of England trees might be looking sad already. In Harrogate we mostly seemed to get away with it last year. Too cold? Too windy? Too stubbornly Yorkshire?

But I'm interested to see what's going to happen this year, and particularly interested to see if the trees with pink flowers and those with white flowers are affected in the same way.

But leaving the potential doom and gloom aside, there are some beautiful flowering trees on the Stray, like these elder trees by the railway line near the Tewit Well.

Another Andrew Clark

I don't mean another Andrew Clark, I mean another beautiful photograph by Andrew Clark (Harrogate Photographic Society). His pictures are amazing, and they help concentrate on the really important things, like how fantastic the Stray is.

His photographs are getting a LOT of page views and lots of "likes" in Facebook. It would be good to have comments as well.