Chris Worfolk's Blog

For my dad’s birthday we went to Cattle Grid in Leeds. We had ribs.

No, this is not a BuzzFeed article. I had to go through a lot of my photos recently while updating my website and I thought it might be nice to post some of the old ones.

The whole thing might take a while to load. It is broken down into ten separate images, but is still five megabytes in size. In fact, if you are reading this on the homepage you will need to click the “read more” link below to see the full thing.

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I have been running more recently with the anticipation of completing the Abbey Dash in November. I had drawn up a training programme, in my head, in which I would add half a kilometre each month so that by October I was running the full 10km.

Then, a few weeks ago, I felt pretty good on my run, so I just kept going and suddenly I had done 10km. This has entirely ruined my schedule. Not really sure what to do now.

A few weeks ago I attended the long awaited wedding of my friends Craig and Zoe. They have now been together 7 years, which makes me feel really old as they got together while we were all working at McDonald’s (back in’t day).

It took place at the Woodlands Hotel in Gildersome. I was impressed by how smoothly and professionally the whole thing ran. I didn’t want to take my camera (wouldn’t want to make the official photographer jealous or anything 😛 ), so here are some low quality photos taken on my phone. It doesn’t do them justice.

It is both “hot and traditional”.

A few weeks ago myself and Hugh went on a romantic walk across Ilkley Moor. Also Cara tagged along. Here is a panorama from a stone monument we found. Click for the full size image.

I did not watch the first semi final as I do not want to spoil all the songs for Saturday (I am sure many of you feel the same way…). The results are in though. The qualifiers are…

• Armenia
• Sweden
• Iceland
• Russia
• Azerbaijan
• Ukraine
• San Marino
• The Netherlands
• Montenegro
• Hungary

While those eliminated are…

• Latvia
• Estonia
• Albania
• Belgium
• Moldova
• Portugal

The Russian entry was booed when they made it through. That is a little unpleasant for the contestants themselves, and I feel sorry for them. However, in the grand scheme of things, Eurovision is a good place for the general public to make their voices heard (ironically probably more so than parliament). And they did. Which is no surprise as if you are going to attack the LGBT community, you shouldn’t then enter the campest song contest in the world.

It’a a shame Estonia and Moldova did not make it through. Both have songs still in my rotation. Moldova’s 2011 entry “So Lucky” was a fairy on a unicycle…

While Estonia had a plastic doll. It was very effective, you couldn’t even see the strings…

*Sigh* 2011 was a good year for Eurovision. 2012 was a bit rubbish, while 2013 was a bit better. But I’m hoping for better things this year.

Great to see San Marino made it in for once. Sweden too. Speaking of which, it might be time for some Loreen…

Recently there was a huge fire in Leeds, just round the corner from where I live. You can read more about it on BBC News. We walked past there a day or two after the blaze and it was still burning strong.

At the end of April I acted as Chief Judge for the Toastmasters Division E International Speech & Evaluation contest. I did not go perfectly, but the general feedback seemed to be that nobody realised, so I am taking that as a win.

Congratulations to Gayna and Owen who won the contests. Most of all, congratulations to Doncaster Speakers and in particular Shelagh, our Contest Chair, for a fantastically well organised day.

Parkrun is a network of UK (and now international) 5km weekly runs open to the general public. There are now three in Leeds – Woodhouse Moor, Temple Newsam and Roundhay Park.

Each one takes place at 9am each Saturday. You register (for free) and print out a barcode. You then turn up and run 5km with everyone else and get your barcode scanned when you are finished. They then upload all the data and email everyone to let them know their times. They are popular events. Woodhouse Moor had around 400 people there this week.

Overall, I am not sure I prefer it to running on my own. For a number of reasons:

• I like running because it is accessible. I live next to the canal, so I can leave my front door and start running. No overheads. With Parkrun I have to make my way up to Woodhouse Moor, wait around for it to start, do my run, then come home. The whole experience takes around 75 minutes for less than 30 minutes of running.
• I am not very fast, so it is not that motivating to be at the back of the field.
• It is hard to pace yourself when running in a large crowd.

However, cleverly they give you a t-shirt when you have completed 50, 100 and 250 runs. And I want my t-shirt!