Aireville

From the Grassington bus last Tuesday we'd caught a view of Aireville Park – a big recreational area in Skipton. It struck us as a pleasant place to spend an afternoon when the grandchildren are with us next week. So today we went to have a look.

This section of the canal has lots of swing bridges, and the second one back from the junction leads across to the park.

It has large expanses of well-kept grass, some play areas, a conservation wildflower meadow, some paths in the woods, and a nearby swimming pool and fitness centre.

It also has an ice-cream van on the way in, staffed today by Aleš, from the Czech Republic, on a summer holiday job. It's already looking good for a splendid afternoon with the kids!

Less expected was a chat with Val, from Thirsk, who's been spending the day geocaching. She was having her lunch at the point where she'd located a tiny cache about the size of a pen top. She's the first person we've talked with who's an active geocacher, and it was interesting to see how it worked for her. She had a Garmin GPS device, similar to mine but the next model up, I think.

So that was today's expedition, all half a mile of it. It was in some contrast to what we did after lunch – a visit to the launderette. An opportunity to get a bit further through my book, which is proving quite hard work. Tonight we hope to pay our farewell visit to the Skipton Folk Club – I've been reminding my fingers of one or two of the songs I might get to play tonight. They've been reminding me that I don't get my guitar out quite as often as I might.