The blogger as a young boozer, this must have been taken at some kind of Spanish banquet when we were on a family holiday. I got a taste for paella as a kid and I'd pester Mum and Dad to go for paella until they eventually gave in. My little sister seemed to exist on white bread, chips and ice cream when we were abroad, yet she's anything but a fussy eater now.

My little sister Elizabeth (aka Squirt) and myself, isn't she pretty, and her daughter Ellie is the spitting image of Liz at this age. I don't have a date for this one, it's the early 70's though.

"Michael - 5 1/2 Weeks"

This is Dad and me in the garden at Holme Grove where my parents had a home before they moved to the Red Lion in 1969. My Mum used to write notes on the back of all the family photo's, this reads - "Easter Sunday 1968, Michael has just woken up."

Teenage Rock Star My Dad has been going through all his old photos and he's given me a box of memories, I've been sat going through them this afternoon, laughing at many, one or two bringing a tear to the eye. I'll put a few of the more comic ones up on the blog, but here's a teaser, Yorkshire Soul the teenage rock star. Note the Nike t-shirt, I wouldn't be seen dead in that now, the bandana's quite fetching though.

Cycling In The Dark = Suicide Last week as I was taking some of the staff home we saw a rather astonishing, or a rather incredibly stupid sight on Denton Road. At past ten o'clock in the evening a group of cyclists were meandering along the road. A car driver in front of me had pulled over and was having a word with them, there was a frank exchange of views and I agreed totally with the car driver. The reason for the argument wasn't the usual corner cutting or ignoring of red lights that many cyclists around Ilkley do, but these guys were two abreast, in the dark, with no lights at all. I'd seen the brake lights of the car that had stopped them before I realised that there was a group of cyclists behind him. They were not kids either, these were all adult men and really should have known better. I really don't understand some people, living on Nesfield Road I often see cars careering along at speeds which are far in excess of what is safe on a very narrow road. Looking at how some folk drive, why on earth would you think that cycling with no lights in the dark is a good or safe (or legal ?) idea ? While I am having a moan, the red light issue, why do cylists think that traffic lights don't apply to them ? And those white lines on the road at junctions ? You're not supposed to cross them when turning in to a road, so the cyclist that gave me the finger two weeks ago because he had to make a sharp adjustment in his course as I approached the junction should note that..... a) I was indicating and you were not. b) I remained inside the lines whilst approaching the junction whereas you came over the central white line onto my side of the road so you didn't have to slow down. c) If we do collide, it's not me who is going to be picking my teeth out of my radiator grill.

Written Off So the car has been declared a write off after last week's accident. My Vauxhall had just passed its MOT at a fairly small cost, and was running really well. So now I have no car, and I'm going to get a cheque for around two and a half grand for my Astra, for absolutely no fault of my own I'm going to have to dig deep into my bank account to get a car of similar quality to the one I had. It just doesn't seem at all fair.

Car Safety Review : Ford Ka vs. Vauxhall Astra For the purposes of our crash test, we had the Vauxhall driven by Yorkshiresoul in his normal ambling manner, i.e. about 40 mph in a 60 zone, the Ford Ka was driven (badly) by Miss X. The resulting impact shredded the passenger side tyre and mangled the front wheel and wheel arch on the Vauxhall, and dented the passenger door deeply enough for the speaker inside to pop out of its mounting, all four panels on the Vauzhall's passenger side were badly scratched and dented. The Ford Ka though, well it sort of dissolved. The impact removed pretty much everything attached to the front end of the car, lights, bumper, number plate, trim, and left the reminaing metal work and bonnet in an askew and tangled mess. In our unnoficial test, we rate the Vauxhall Astra as being safer than the Ford Ka, which is apparently built from styrofoam. Of course all cars would be safer if people actually looked before pulling out of side roads.

I Have Been Examined For the RIPH Level 3 that is, it was all going quite well until the clutch of questions about specific legal powers of EHA Officers, and then I just had to guess. Not much different from exams when I was 16 then.

Earthquake ? What Earthquake ?? Sleep as soundly as Yorkshiresoul does with a generous measure of 12 year old Glenlivet.

Golf, It's A Dangerous Game A golf tee, not dangerous by itself you might think, but you would be wrong. I was opening up the clubhouse on Friday morning just before 7am, I thought I'd have a shower in the gents locker room so I was wandering around in bare feeet when, by some bizarre chance, I managed to stand on a tee peg that someone had dropped. The tee had somehow managed to stand perfectly upside down making itself into a kind of golfing caltrop for the unwary. Ouch, bloody ouch.

Back To School It's never too late to teach an old dog new tricks, or something, so this week I'm ding my Royal Institute of Public Hygiene Stage 3 Award, what I don't know now about bacteria, projectile vomiting and liquid diarreah isn't worth knowing. It has been quite a heavy schedule of learning and lectures, but we had a fun break in the learning today when someone at the lovely Tempest Arms managed to set the industrial waste bins on fire and the fire brigade were called to put them out. The food at the Tempest has been great, on previous courses I have attended we have usually had a fairly poor sandwich buffet for lunch, but here we get really nice two course dinners in the restaurant. Gravadlax and Wild Mushroom Risotto yesterday, Fishcakes with Chilli Sauce and Cumberland Sausage, Champ and White Onion Sauce today, excellent fare. Despite the nature of our work nodoby on the course seems to have suffered a loss of appetite at lunchtime.

Music When The Lights Go Down So, I'm sat in a booth at the back of a pub, there are three booths along the wall, one is empty and the other is occupied by four blokes playing dominoes. I'm reading over my second pint of bitter, when, without warning, the lights in the booths go out. There is some laughter from the blokes behind me and we all look over quizzically at the barmaid. After a moment I wander across to the bar and ask if they could put the lights back on as I was quite happily reading, one of the men calls out in a good natured manner that he can no longer see the spots on his doms and he thinks his mates are cheating. 'No', comes the reply. I ask why, 'Because we always turn the lights down at 7.30' Right, but as the booths are occupied by 5 drinkers, and we would all like them turned back on, couldn't you do that ? 'No' comes the reply, 'It's the rules.' Five minutes later, the four blokes have left the pub to find somewhere else to drink, and I'm sat grumpily at the bar finishing my pint, then I too leave to find somewhere else, and better lit, to drink.

Sick Of Work, Or Just Sick ? With a final large flourish, the Christmas season ended. We did a dinner for 70 on Saturday night, with a disco, thus an early Sunday morning rather than late Saturday night finish. Then on Sunday we had lunch for 65 after the prize Christmas raffle run by our Golf Professional John Hammond. I've worked every day and many nights over Christmas and New Year assisted by those of my staff who have been able to work. We have had to send staff home if we even suspect they may have come into contact with the dreaded Norovirus or Winter Vomiting Bug. After the disaster that has befallen the restaurant Saffron up in town (for non-Ilkleyites, they have had a water born infection / poisoning that has made over 50 customers seriously poorly with some having to spend weeks off work, the restaurant has now closed down) we can't take too many precautions to ensure our kitchen is clean and healthy. My team have worked particularly well over the last week, thanks to the crew who came on New Year's Eve, Christine, Rob, Robyn and Claire. This weekend I thought the waiting staff had really gelled into an organised unit, Lucy L, Carol, April, Paula and Georgie all worked like troopers. Georgie has been front on house with me on the carvery twice now, under protest it must be said, but as per earlier posts about staff training they are going to learn some new skills, and she's starting to pick it up. Carving in front of the guests isn't the easiest thing in the world, gammons and loins of pork are quite straitforward, but ribs of beef and shoulders of anything can be quite tricky. I have been forcing the girls to learn though and we now have two good carvers in Carol and myself, and two that coming along nicely in April and Georgie. We do a lot of carveries so it is handy to have a group of us who can do the front of house part of the job. Mid January is traditionally the quitest time of the year, I might even get some walking done, but not today, I can hear the wind howling through the trees outside, brrrr, sounds like an Eve geek day to me.

I Like It Just So Foibles, tics, quirks and downright strangenesses, we all have them, it's part of what we are, for example, I find fizzy drinks to be just too fizzy, the bubbles get up my nose and annoy me, so if I have a bottle of pop, or more likely, tonic water to accompany my Bombay Sapphire gin, I like to open it up a few times and give it a bit of a shake to let some of the bubbles out. I don't like fizzy drinks flat, I just like them less bubbly than the manufacturers do. Coffee, I like it black and without sugar, but as far as temperature goes I don't like to drink it when it's really hot, and if I have a mug lying around in the kitchen because work has distracted me from drinking it, then I'll drink it no matter how cold it has got. I'm a bit particular about timing, especially when I'm cooking dinner, but I can't bear to be late when we're expected somewhere, if an invitation says 7pm, then I really want to be there for 7pm, I think it's rude not to, after all if they wanted us there for 7.30 it would have said that on the invite. I don't accept the concept of 'fashionably late', that's just rude. I realise that in this I have become my father, he used to be sat outside the house, in the car revving the engine as he waited impatiently for my mother to get ready, and now I find myself doing exactly the same thing. What are your foibles ? Do you wear lucky underpants when your team are playing ? Do you seperate your dinner into colour groups ? Come on, expose yourself, figuratively speaking that is.

The Featherlight Touch Of Fear Now, just once in a while Mrs YS gives me permission to go out on my own and consume alcohol, this is usally book club nights and I often return in a state of advenced happiness. Being a considerate soul, on finding that Mrs YS had already gone to bed and was fast asleep, I thought I would undress in the office, not bother switching on the bedroom lights or the bathroom light as this would shine through and might awaken my dear wife. As silently as I could I piled my clothes up and crept into the darkened bathroom. I'm sure you've all been to the loo in the dark, you know how it is when you wake up in the middle of the night and you need to go, but you don't want the bright bathroom lights to make you really wake up, so you navigate the room in the dark, like you have done hundreds of times before. Yes, hundreds of times before. Except, this time while I was out, Mrs YS had decided to install a four foot high umbrella plant in the bathroom. Nice plant, big shiny leaves, likes the shade and moisture of the bathroom, not quite what I was expecting when creeping drunkenly around in the dark however. As I lurched across the bathroom, I felt a featherlight, somewhat frond like touch at my groin, and being quite unprepared for this, I screamed, like a little girl, I also leapt sideways and only narrowly avoided falling into the bath but I did manage to knock all the objects on the rim of the bath (shaving foam, razor, one of those lumps of lava that I'm never quite sure of the purpose of) clattering down into the tub. Next time I'm putting the lights on, who knows what might be lurking in the gloom, spider plants ? Sundews ? A giant YS eating Venus Fly Trap ?