The month of March...and a little bit of April edit:most of April!

"So, I said to him 65 bananas!!"....Oh hi! Welcome...come in, get sat down if you like, this may take a while.

I normally try and do this blog per day, not per month but it's been like a whirl wind of activity in Pixie parlour over the last few weeks.

I think the best way to tackle this update is paragraphs of interest...well, I say interest - just things that have happened really. Here goes.

Job Success

I started a new permanent job last month, much to my excitement. I've heard soooo many horror stories about people in this area being out of work for ages (the girl that they hired at the same time as me was looking for six months!) and not finding anything, especially if you listen to what the agencies say. But I applied directly, got an interview and subsequently got hired.

It's doing conveyancing which I'm mega happy about because it's what I do and I was expecting to have to carry on doing secretarial stuff for a while.

I'm really enjoying working in the thick of it all, in the city. It's really exciting seeing loads of officey type people walking around with their power suits and taking "buy buy!! sell sell!!" calls. The area I work in is really buzzy because it's all up and coming and full of new development. Nice to look at, but not so nice when you get a mouth full of dust from the bulldozer across the street. Nevertheless, I am enjoying all aspects so far.

The Strid

During March we visited The Strid, which is near Ilkley. It's a notorious stretch of the river Wharfe that runs through the woods near Bolton Abbey...I know it's confusing but it's not actually in Bolton. So the water runs very very quickly at a particular point - (The Strid) but it's actually very narrow so a lot of silly people in the past have tried to jump across it from rock to rock.

Unfortunately The Strid is very dangerous and it sucks people into underground caves and very quickly...they die. In fact there are no recorded incidences of anyone surviving falling in...so be very careful not to fall in, even if you drop your handbag or something.

So, we had a lovely walk up the river, see photos below:




(I just added a random picture of a carved tree at the end because I liked it).

Bibis



So, at the beginning of March M and I celebrated a year of courtship by attending Bibis italian restaurant in town. It was most lovely. I had a gorgeous Mojito cocktail from the bar and then we moved to the seated area to have a three course meal.

I've not been there before but I've heard good things about it. M spoilt my experience a little quite early on though when I was saying "wow, imagine what this would have been like back in the day" - it's very art decco ish and I could just imagine some very chic ladies drinking my cocktail, at which point he subtley told me it's purpose built and actually has only been there for a few years.

I s'pose I should have really noticed the fact that it was beneath a very new car park. Ermm yeah anyway, I tried to put that out of my mind and set up my own scene from the 50s instead.

A very fine evening was had by us. I can't quite believe it's been a year since we met. So much has happened. I'm very glad we did though, can't imagine what it would be like without him now.

Holmforth and Sid's Cafe



A few weekends ago (quite a few) we visited Holmforth. I didn't initially know what was there at first but we parked up and turned a corner and were confronted by the cafe that was in Last of the summer wine! I know that M has told me about it before but I'd forgotten. So in and around Holmforth is where they filmed the series and all those hilarious scenes with Compo and Norman racing down a hill in an out of control wheel barrow.

The cafe is the same from the outside but inside was filmed in a studio. Despite this, we went in for a cup of tea and a cake which was cool. I wanted to buy a tea towel and other such souvenirs but M said they were silly and on reflection they were. On the whole, Holmforth doesn't really contain much except all those memories of Nora's wrinkly tights but it is quite a nice little Yorkshire town.

We did see a good few freaky looking people walking about though which indicated to me that things have moved downhill since filming ended. Or maybe it was always a freaky place. Whatever the answer, we hotfooted it out of there.

I've decided to do this mammoth post in two chunks so tune in again. I would say tomorrow but I always say that and something crops up.

Back as soon as you turn around...

Pixie