When I first moved down to Yorkshire I drove through Skipton. It’s a nice little market town just on the edge of the Dales and has even appeared on a couple of UK travel shows as a holiday destination. One thing I noticed was that there is a rather large hill just to the south of the village and I thought to myself how nice a view it must be from up there. I decided that at some point in the next few months I’d wander up there and take some photos. Well, nearly three years later I’ve finally made it.

One of my friends is leaving the country (for a warmer climate) and is making a last-ditch effort to get to see the area a bit better. So I went with him and another of my countrymen mountain biking around the moors behind Skipton. And very nice it was too. The thing about Yorkshire is that within 5 minutes of leaving your car you can be in almost total wilderness, untouched by human hands. The weather was pretty good and the fitness is gradually starting to come back.

It’s grand prix weekend again. This means that I’ll be watching and hoping and praying that David Coulthard will finally shrug off some of his bad luck and mount a serious challenge for the world championship.

Begin rant>>>>>>

I’ve been watching formula one racing since before I could drive a car – I’ll never forget the weekend Ayrton Senna was tragically killed (and the fact that during the race he was carrying the Austrian flag in honour of Roland Ratzenberger who was killed in qualifying the day before, which he planned to wave when he won the race). And as long as Coulthard has been driving a formula one car he’s been plagued with incredible bad luck. The days of spinning off on the parade lap before the race may be over, but random engine failures and electrical failures still keep cutting him down.

He’s a quality racer. He’s got the skills to pay the bills. But while his teammate for the last few seasons (Mika Hakkinen) was winning a couple of championships, Coulthard was leading races, having his engine explode, and then Hakkinen going on to win. So far this season he’s had problems during almost every practice session that has cost him in testing time which has reflected during races. Well, it would have reflected had his damn car stopped breaking down on him!

So before watching the qualifying this morning I knew that his new rookie teammate was going to out-qualify him on account of some mechanical problem or other. Sure enough, he spent the first 20 minutes of the session in the garage while his engine was replaced! So he only qualified in 6th place, behind his teammate… Typical.

I’ll watch the race. But I already know what’s going to happen…

<<<<<<End rant