Parklife

 We have some lovely parks here in Sheffield - which is officially the greenest city in Great Britain. More trees per head of population here than any other place.

A ten minute walk down the valley from our house brings you to our much-loved Endcliffe Park. Every June, a travelling fair sets up in the park with rides and colours and lights and stalls. I guess it's about two things - bringing fun to local residents and bringing money to the fairground people. A week from now, they'll be gone - off to some other northern city.

Today, Frances and Stew took our darling granddaughters down to the fair. At two years old, it was the first proper fair that wee Margot had ever attended. See her at the top with her big sister in a red aeroplane (American: airplane) and below she's driving a bus which is apparently heading to Manchester. Her favourite children's song is "The Wheels on the Bus" so to be actually driving a bus must have been close to ecstasy for the girl.

Last Sunday afternoon, I made a point of visiting another local park - Whirlowbrook Park. For the last three summers, regular "folk" concerts have been held there to raise money for the volunteers who created a community group called "The Friends of Whirlowbrook Park". These good people have done a lot of great work to maintain and improve the park. I guess that if I were a "joining" kind of guy, I might have signed up  as a new "Friend".

As it happens I was there to see a real friend - my quizzing mate Mike who was performing under the gazebo with his two accomplices - Kiri the fiddle player and Jan the lead singer. They called themselves "Reclaimed" for the purposes of this concert. The circumstances made it difficult to snap a really good picture of Mike and this was the best that I could do:-

Fortunately, he really likes that image.