Thursday 28th Feb 2013
I've been very lazy and not posted recently, mainly because it has been a boring, routine time.
As with most of the UK the weather hasn't been up to much, so getting things done outside hasn't been at the top of my list as I hate the cold.
I did make a start on cleaning the roof though. A broom, some hot water with a bit of caustic in it, and a hose pipe to rinse it off and I was away. The first bowl full got the back half done a treat, so now I don't feel quite so lazy, but I haven't done any more yet.
One of the zips on our cratch cover failed the other day, and with it looking like it needs other repairs through wear and tear we decided to get it looked at. Luckily, one of our neighbours had given me a business card a couple of weeks ago and I remembered that it had mentioned cratch covers so I dug it out gave the chap a ring. Hopefully he's coming to look at the job this weekend.
Yesterday I took myself off to the pictures to see Django Unchained. Cath didn't fancy it as Tarantino is usually a bit on the gory side. I loved it, yes lots of gore, but it's very well done, and you love the hero
Today we finally decided to take a ride on the new Leeds Wheel, here are a few of the pics. Unfortunately, due to a careless oversight by the builders you can't see the river from the wheel!

Friday 15th February 2013
On Wednesday we had planned to go and see the film Hitchcock, but the snow put paid to that. I wandered up town myself to get MCN and while there decided to get one of those Waitrose Valentines Day meals deals. £20 for a meal for two including a bottle of bubbly. It was a good deal too! You get a choice of any 6 items from the range, when I got to the till the individual parts came to over £32, not bad.
So, Thursday we decided to go to the flicks, but Hitch wasn't showing during the day so we chose the new film 'A Good Day to die Hard'. It lives up to the great tradition of the series, a roller coaster ride of car chases and explosions, wonderful entertainment.
Returning home we settled down to our Valentine's meal. It was excellent, and we consumed 2 bottles of wine. What a pair!

Tuesday 12th February

Quite a productive day. we took a wander up to the West Yorkshire Playhouse this morning and booked seats to see Dr. Faustus. I was fairly surprised that we didn't have any trouble getting good seats. We took a matinee performance on the 7th March. Should be good.

Cath called in at Boots to pick up her new glasses. This is her first pair of varifocals so she's having to get used to them.

On the way into town I got another picture of the Leeds Wheel being erected, it's coming along quite quickly.

Later on we walked up to Leeds Art Gallery. There's an interesting exhibition on at present by Nike Savvas, who seems to do 3D art. We couldn't get in to see some of it because some painting had been done in the exhibit area in preparation for the artist to lecture tonight, but the bit we did see was a very interesting walk through a huge work comprising of floor to ceiling vertical tapes that create a moire effect as you look through several panels giving interference patterns, which could be disorientating if you allowed it.

I also took this picture of a kingfisher. With my record so far of trying to get a decent picture of one, this is probably the best I'm going to get

Monday 11th Feb 2013
There hasn't been much going on recently to make it worth blogging about. Our weather hasn't been all that good, but at least it isn't bad enough to comment to much on. We were threatened with snow by the Met Office, but around here it came to nothing. I get the impression that it's 'What hurricane?' syndrome, if it doesn't happen well and good, but if it does at least we told you so.
They've started to build a big wheel in the market car park here in Leeds. I don't know how long it will stay up for, but I'll bet there are a few unhappy car drivers out there.

 A worker clings on

Looks like complicated hydraulics up there on the hub

 It didn't take long to get to this stage

 An impression of its size

Despite the fact that it rained all day yesterday the river is still not too high and our gates remain open so visitor mooring at The Armouries here in Leeds is still available, if you haven't tried it come on, it's a great place.

2nd February 2013
We've now had a week of quiet heating, and to add a cherry to that I received confirmation that the new compressor was fitted under guarantee despite the heater being over 2 years old, because it was a faulty design.
The water level in the dock is still going down slowly although the gates remain shut. One blot on the landscape though was that the local elsan and toilet block was out of action. Finally today the repairs were carried out. It seems that at some recent repair a wire had been put in incorrectly, causing the pump to revolve in the wrong direction. Being centrifugal it would still work but be very inefficient.
On Wednesday we went up to town to watch the film Lincoln. Not bad, and it gives some insight into why Obama can't get a lot done.
Thursday I caught the bus up to visit Damon in order to pick up a couple of parcels. One of them was the new vacuum cassette for our toilet that I'd won on ebay. As I feared it was a slightly different model, but it could be modified easily to be used on our unit.
I called round to Bendigo this afternoon where Mike showed me the secondary double glazing system they have. I've not seen anything like this one before. He has portholes, but this could be made to fit windows as well. Acrylic sheet, cut to shape, then trimmed with a special shape of rubber seal so that it just pushes into the window frame, making a tight seal. I'm seriously considering it for Lyra.