Pictures from festival

Fiona Katie Roberts and harp



























The Conedancers
















The Peace Artistes

Picture quality not wonderful - taken with mobile phone.

Bradford's International Market Festival

Friday saw the start of the 4 day International Market Festival in Bradford city centre. We got down there for the launch yesterday evening and saw two two pieces of outdoor theatre, featuring aerial artistes: the first, 'the diamond', was a giant inflatable 11 metres high with an aerialist inside; the second, 'the heliosphere', was a huge helium-filled balloon with an aerial artist suspended below it. The balloon moved above the crowd, rising and falling as the artist tumbled and turned in time to the music.

Today saw the start of the market, with stalls lining the streets throughout the city centre. I saw the tail-end of another piece of street theatre, 'the Conedancers' which was another aerial show with a man and a woman dancing and tumbling around the sides of an 8 metre high, air-filled cone. Other street performers included the Peace Artistes - famous Bradford street band (I was on the same coach as them down to the peace march in London in 2003, which was very handy as it meant that we got to march alongside them and enjoy the music) and Fiona Katie Roberts, who builds her own harps.

We saw a bit of Fuego Latino (two Salsa dancers) performing with Cubania in Centenary Square as we were returning to the car at the end of the afternooon. Omar Puente (Cuban electric violinist) didn't appear to be with Cubania. Paul and I attended a workshop run by him and members of Cubania at the University last year, then went to their evening performance. Brilliant!

Mighty Zulu nation and the Cajun Aces are performing in Centenary Square tomorrow, but we are setting off to do the Yorkshire Dales cycleway - postponed from last week because I had a stomach bug. Did I mention our intention of doing the C2C in an earlier post? It was too complicated. The railways are not cycle friendly, so getting to Whitehaven to start the ride and then back from Tynemouth at the finish proved too complicated.

C2C

Sustrans C2C

We are planning to cycle the Coast to Coast next week.

I'm back!

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 'Bidet toilets, they're the future - I've sat on one'
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1850911,00.html

Very interesting article from the Guardian ;-)

Yes, I'm back from pedalling the Basque territories. Only came across two internet cafes in the whole two weeks. One in Zarautz on the Basque coast - it was just about to close when we came across it. The other was in another coastal town - the small town of Leteiko - we didn't have time to stop at this one.

So, as to when I'm going to write about it, I don't know. I have only the barest of notes to go on, made during bike-free intervals.

I've been busy catching up on emails since I got back. I've now had at least 80 replies to my 130 emails sent out before the holiday - actually it is probably more than this, thinking about it. But even 80 out of 130 is a very good response rate. I've had several offers of work. Whoopee!