This morning I was hoping for a repeat of yesterday’s weather so I put shorts on. That was OK for the first couple of hours, and when the rain started at least I wasn’t getting my jeans wet. We had arranged to travel with Festina Lente again, and they very kindly waited for use while we filled out water tank. Ey up, first lock is a three rise with no lockkeeper.

Well, I’m glad we had company for that. Lorraine and I worked the locks (damn those ground paddles are stiff) while Paula and Mark navigated the boats from lock to lock. We moored up in Shipley for a supermarket run and then a trip to see our friend Colin in Bradford.

The first rain shower had stopped by the time we got to Shipley, and it was hot and humid, so I left the shorts on. Mistake. We got a downpour on the way to the railway station, and it got quite a bit colder. It’s about ten minutes on the train to Bradford, and since Colin was not free till later we went to the National Media Museum, home of the only surviving Wallace and Gromit set.

The rest were destroyed in a studio fire, but the museum set from the Oscar winning short The Wrong Trousers (which would have been T’Rong Kecks if it had been made in Leeds) was already in a museum.

And you thought the title of this post was about my shorts…

The museum is a strange mixture of fine art and historical photography, science demos for kids, and TV and movie memorabilia. Oh look! Wombles!

There’s a temporary exhibit on pinhole photography, and a mirror maze.

Can you spot the real Paula?

There’s Gerry Anderson puppets …

… the first single lens moving picture camera…

… which as we all know was made in Leeds, and Oh Shit! Run Away!

This is a vintage 1975 dalek. Close up, yeah, the sucker really is a toilet plunger…

… but when that eyestalk points at you it is still pretty frightening.

I need a sofa to hide behind.

A short walk took us to Colin’s theatre, The Bradford Playhouse, which he bought because he wanted it to stay open as a theatre.

The building was combined with a three story warehouse next door, so there are all sorts of interesting spaces including a bar and coffee house, workshop, rehearsal space, a studio theater, as well as the main auditorium.

There’s an upstairs space where a backdrop is being painted that has plaster flaking off the walls to reveal exposed brick.

“That’s real decrepitude!” Paula exclaimed. “Other people have to pay to get that effect!”