28 birthday surprises

#1 Make the cake

#2 Surprise the birthday girl 

#3 All the best birthdays are in April

#4 Great get together with friends, Bhaji Shop Thali Cafe, eve of the big day

#5 Birthday brunch (in luverly new jumper)

#6 and ready to hike Win Hill - was it the sunglasses that did it....?? 

#7 .... brought out the rain in bucketloads!  Picnic in the car at Castleton

#8 But still smiling up North (despite blue skies all the way down in London!!)

#9 Ahha - log fire refuge at the Packhorse Inn, Little Longstone

#10 and home to light those candles 

#11 Mining Museum at Wakefield revisited - after 20 odd years! 

#12 and what larks - great ride on the pit railway

#13 there and back again

#14 and what it's all about 

#15 down the ladder in the engine room (with apologies to Louise Mcneice)

#16 off underground for over an hour - motties at the ready

#17 tour of the mine buildings

#18 lockers 

#19 All left pretty much as it was in 1980s when the mine closed 

#20 showers

#21 Pithead

#22 and farewell to Caphouse Colliery - great visit, great guides

#23 quick arty fix at YSP for the Henry Moore 'Back to a Land'

#24 Old times sake in Broomhill - Tin Po friends and memories

#25 up on a wonderful windy Broomhead Moor, above Bradfield

#26 Free fresh wind in her hair 

#27 Glimpse of our wonderful Sheffield over the distant hills

#28 Footloose and fancy free

It all went by far too quickly but the wind, rain and general freezingness didn't deter us one iota!!

Places we visited (and almost visited) were . . .

Bhaji Shop Tahli Cafe, Chesterfield Road - newish, great food, great atmosphere
Win Hill - unparalleled views - had we been able to get up there!!
Packhorse Inn, Little Longstone - FABULOUS food
National Mining Museum, Wakefield - free entry which makes it wonderfully accessible for all (donations welcome though) and brilliant underground tour which you can book a time slot for online!
Yorkshire Sculpture Park (and our other recent YSP visit) what more can I say - one of our favourite haunts since it opened - and here is the birthday girl in equally inclement weather one misty January day way back in 1996 aged 8)

Happy Yorkshire birthday Jess

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

First day

Pretty much the first day of Spring today and perfect for a visit to our wonderful Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the current Henry Moore exhibition Back to a Land

and today Dad would also have been 99 and, as he loved that Spring heralded his birthday, I think the balmy sunny day and the budding trees would have been just about perfect for him!

at last we caught the amazing Seizure open - keep visiting on weekdays and missing it.

no pics allowed inside of course, but this is the crate Hiorns built around the room before he started work

and a bit of Miro

 then back to the Moore

and over at the chapel, Ai Weiwei's amazing Iron Tree

catching the late afternoon sun so beautifully

Enjoyed Song for Coal in the chapel

the trees here are so magnificent too - and that amazing sun - reappearing after it's eclipse performance on Friday!

then a wander up to the Bothy where the original old cafe used to be

 and the amazingly hidden underground gallery - top of a Henry Moore peeping out

 and finally off home . . .