Moles

I would love to able to post a photo of a mole on here but this picture is the nearest I seem to get to them.

I passed a large garden a couple of days back and it was just about covered in mole hills. I just took a sample photo, rather than the whole lawn.

I have loved the story of The Wind in the Willows, since I was a small boy and I guess I am quite influenced by the characters. Much as I love a nice lawn I like moles too and toads, badgers indeed all of our native wildlife.

Herding Geese

Picture of border collie sheepdog herding geese in Yorkshire.

This dog is a border collie called Eve, her beautiful coat colouring is described as red.

I met Eve and her owner Eric whilst walking on the towpath of the Leeds - Liverpool canal some miles from where I live. When I saw this dog I just had to say hello and how much I loved her colouring.

Eve is part pet and part working dog, working as she does with a small herd of sheep. Eve is now two years old and loves the exercise, she like most of her breed is pretty smart.

Herding sheep is no challenge for a dog like Eve, but geese are as she discovered something else. The one quirk in Eve's temperament is that she is not too keen on water, so the geese were beyond her scope.

I hope to catch up with Eve sometime in the not too distant future and watch her at work in the fields with the sheep.

By an odd chance there is a great story about another red collie in the paper today.

Headingley Stadium

Picture of Headingley Stadium in Leeds.

This photo shows a view of Headingley Stadium, a sporting complex in Headingley, Leeds.

The stadium is the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, the Leeds Rhinos (rugby league) and also Leeds Carnegie (rugby union).

The two grounds rugby and cricket are separate but share joint facilities. Headingley is perhaps best known as the home of Yorkshire cricket, with first class cricket played here since 1891 and test matches since 1899.

Swan

A week or so back I saw a pair of swans on the Leeds - Liverpool canal at rodley. One of them came over, think perhaps it thought I might feed it and I liked the back-lit view.

Headingley Dusk

Picture of Headingley Leeds as dusk falls.

The above photo was taken a few days back on a late winters afternoon at dusk at the end of a rather wet day.

This is the Headingley war memorial and in the background on the right is the Original Oak public house.

Big Brother Leeds

Picture of ANPR Cameras in Headingley Leeds.

These ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras are on a tall post outside the the building that was the Elinor Lupton Centre on Headingley Lane the A660.

Between the council and the police there are now I believe a ring of these cameras monitoring vehicles across Leeds. There are another pair just outside Wilkinsons at the Arndale centre in Headingley. Two more are just up from the former Lounge Cinema on North Lane a short walk from the previous cameras.

These ANPR cameras and system are supplied by a company called CitySync and they describe this sector as Homeland Security. Now whilst I generally would class myself as a supporter of the police and understand the need to keep up with criminals I suspect that the STASI in the former East Germany would have loved this system. Yes I do think the police introduced these to help catch criminals but the potential to use this technology for mass surveillance of ordinary people just going about their daily lives is too great and also I think too tempting for the politicians.

If you think I exaggerate the possible use of this system I suggest you read The Dying Light by novelist Henry Porter. I read this book a couple of weeks back having borrowed it from the public library.

I think that these ANPR cameras could also have the facility for monitoring the average speed of a vehicle too.

Lounge Cinema 2

Picture of Lounge Cinema Leeds after demolition leaving only frontage standing.

This photo is the one that in my view says it all about the current state of the Lounge Cinema.

The company that owned the cinema became and is now a property development firm and as you can see that is what the Lounge is, a development building site.

I saved the best news till last there will apparently be a Sainsbury's supermarket on the ground floor. OK I admit that is just my warped sense of humour, the arrival of any supermarket here in this part of Headingley is not something I would welcome. By chance yesterday our PM David Cameron was here in Leeds visiting ASDA UK head office in the city heaping praise on the company for announcing the creation of 5,000 new jobs. I am no economist but I really cannot see a supermarket building new stores creates "new jobs". Initially perhaps this is true but what about the small local shops that can not compete. Eventually our towns will be nothing but charity shops, estate agents and fast food places, that is not somewhere I would like to live.

The plan with the Lounge Cinema re development is that they leave the frontage in place and build around it. Local Pudsey construction company Jack Lunn are doing the work. Years back I lived on the same road as old Jack, used to see him about did not know who he was until the day he came into the office at the place where I worked.