Not Quite An Antique.

'The Raleigh' Does The Antiques Roadshow

Tiddling through Hillsborough the other day on The Raleigh, out of the corner of my good eye I spotted a crowd of peeps carrying all manner of old items into the castle grounds. 

This can possibly mean two things I thought to myself.
1. A cry had gone out for items to be donated to the castle or...
2. There was an antique valuation taking place.

Well of course it was the latter, and in transpired that the BBC Antiques Roadshow, a programme that has provided perfect Sunday evening TV viewing for many a year was in town, or in this case village.

Now my trusty steed might be almost 30 years young, but the old girl is not quite an antique yet.

Alas the same cannot be said of her owner who was valued at the princely sum of 20p, or at a stretch possibly £1 if the wind is blowing the right direction.
 

Down by The Mary Peters Track

A while back 'The Raleigh' and I were on the outskirts of Belfast when I decided, on a whim, to call in at the Mary Peters Track. 
I have some happy memories of this place, particularly the balmy summer evenings as a teenager trying to out-sprint my dad (and failing miserably time after time).

I haven't been here since the mid-nineties when I photographed the Les Jones Memorial Games, which included such notables of the athletics world as Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell, Sonia O'Sullivan and Colin Jackson etc, and to be honest very little has changed, although the track is now an eight lane one and the stand in the background is also a new addition.The venue, opened in 1976, is a natural amphitheatre at the south end of the Queen's University Malone Playing Fields and it has a real charm to it, sat as it is in 30 acres of conifer woodland with a network of forest and mountain bike trails surrounding it and leading to the Lagan Towpath and Shaws Bridge.
The silence of the area contrasts perfectly with the nearby hustle and bustle of the City of Belfast.