It used to be a real dive, but was a wonderful mix of all types - bikers, elderly gentlemen, businessmen and students all in dark, smokey rooms with more alcohol on the carpet than in the glasses. Yes, I know, I over-sell it.  It shut down at one point and opened as (what it thought was) a more prestigious venue... cleaner, posher, with installed bouncers on the door and immediately lost any and all character, charm and our patronage. Glad to say that the modern version may be cleaner and prettier but seems much more inviting than its middle incarnation.


We eventually ran Paul home and poured him into his driveway with promsies we'd do it all again soon. Then the main thrust of the evening began. The Perseids meteor shower was due to start giving a good celestial show and so Simon and I drove out into the Yorkshire Dales and up to Ribblehead viaduct (where there was no light pollution). There were several shooting stars seen over the next few hours and if it wasn't quite the lightshow promsied it was still quite powerful to be standing under a wide, dark and fairly clear sky. I didn't get many great shots (though check out Simon's blog for some really impressive exposures, so to speak) as I wasn't able to keep the camera shutter manually open for long enough, but I manged some effective shots of the landscape thanks to Simon's car headlights. The top shot is at around 3:00am, though in reality it was much, much darker than the shot suggests.

But now, I'm just going to check outside. I hear the lightshow continues... and as we three Yorkshiremen noted last night, what's life without a few fireworks?