Tony Minikin R.I.P.

Tony Minikin, honorary president of Keighley and Craven AC, passed away last night after suffering a heart attack while running with friends. RIP Tony

Family

Sam is with us for a few days; mainly for his open-day intro at college yesterday, but also to see if we can all fit in the house. I picked him up in the West Country on Tuesday evening from his dad's, and we did well getting home an hour or so before midnight after a better than expected drive up the M5 and M6

Yesterday I took Sam to college and asked him on arrival if he wanted me to come into reception with him. "No, it'll be fine" he said, and he was right; it was fine

Last night we had a BBQ. It was fun manning the charcoal and tongs, plus sorting out drinks. The fact Stef and Sam finished their food sitting under golf umbrellas didn't put too much of a dampener on things

I've never felt part of a family (I know only seven people with my surname and two of them are a couple who will be divorced soon), and it's a very long time since I've felt as content as I do this morning. I think we'll be okay

Phillip Frazer

Watch the sunrise

Racing time by Adele Myers

Racing Time from Adele Myers on Vimeo.

Steve Birkinshaw's Wainwright challenge

Like many of my friends I've been following Steve Birkinshaw's attempt to firstly do all the Wainwrights in as short a time as possible this week, but also ideally to break Joss Naylor's long standing record of 7days 1 hour 25 minutes. Steve's tracker has made crucial viewing and his blog has been kept up to date superbly by members of his support team

Steve is on his last dozen or so tops now and should finish tonight, before midnight, in Keswick. There'll be a lively atmosphere in town (its the Dark Peak group BG tonight and probably the most popular weekend of the year for that challenge), and I'm highly tempted to go along to see this epic run come to its conclusion

Anyone wanting to donate to Steve's chosen charities, the MS Society and the Sampson Centre can do so here and here

Keep on keeping on

Summertime

Pork pie wedding cake

Early in our plans last autumn we decided we wanted a pork pie wedding cake. Various local butchers either didn't seem interested or capable and as we were about to wonder if we could get what we wanted Stef found reference to Tony Woods the self-styled home of the Guiseley Growler on the internet

I gave Tony a call and he was immediately delighted to help. The day I went in to discuss what we wanted a batch of still warm Growlers had just been taken into the shop and they were superb (I had a brace iirc). The photo above taken by Michael is of Tony's son Ben, who cooked a belting pie for his own wedding Ben and Tony are smashing guys and our cake was superb (it didn't last long after the race!)

Eternal peace

The Oh Hello's

Yes, yes, yes

Alex Miller

I'm planning a series of posts thanking people who helped us with our wedding. Alex Miller was recommended by some friends of his when I approached them to take wedding photos. We didn't meet up before the day but Alex was very keen to chat on the phone, by email and text, and on Skype to understand what our wedding would be like and what we wanted. He was excited by the rural setting and the idea of our fell race the moment they were mentioned to him. On the day he worked quietly but consistently hard, and produced some amazing images I'd be more than happy to recommend Alex to anyone, especially if they want genuine raw emotion capturing rather than boring, staged images. The above picture of Alex at work was taken by my brother David

Roo Panes