On the road to Kettlewell

It rained and rained and rained yesterday evening and overnight. Luckily our friends had an enormous tent that we could shelter in before making the dash back to our small tent to spend a largely wakeful night listening to heavy rain on the tent and thinking, "PLEASE stop raining"

Luckily it did stop raining and me, Houblon and Peter walked from Kilnsey up to Kettlewell to see if we could find a good place to watch. We eventually settled on a perch on a bank about 8 feet above the road near the top of a narrow incline. Long before the official peloton came through an unofficial peloton made up of all ages, shapes, sizes, and bike types tested the route, many no doubt heading for the first categorised climb to pick their own vantage points. Just near our perch there was a field of yellow sheep. Yes, yellow sheep. A publicity stunt for Yorkshire Building Society. These sheep were kept together in a yellow block, by the vigilance of a farmer plus one border collie. As the unofficial peloton reached the top of the small climb, there were cries of, "Yellow sheep". The sheep have duly been immortalised on thousands of photos. Later, we witnessed mini traffic jams as official tour vehicles were unable to resist pausing to take pictures of said sheep. We laughed.

It was fantastic to see the race go by. We were lucky that there was a breakaway, which increased the time they took to go past. They completely filled the narrow road in a blur of colour and speed, followed closely by their support vehicles (until the sheep caused a distraction). It was also very satisfying to be watching out in the beautiful countryside where it wasn't very busy. Definitely a unique moment. We got back to Kilnsey in time to watch the finish (and Cav's crash) on the big screen. It's fair to say that everybody was very disappointed.

So, after all this, why have I blipped a jokey sign? Well, part if the attraction of the tour in Yorkshire is definitely the humour shown in decorations. This was one of the most creative I saw. I would have blipped yellow sheep, but none of my pictures were sharp. There were other droll slogans chalked on roads, "Last one up is a Buttertubs" and, "Wot, no Wiggo?" So my blip is trying to capture some of the atmosphere of the tour in Yorkshire. Also, my pictures of the race are not very good, and I'm sure that blip is festooned with great tour shots just now.