Recently the tell-tale streaks of rust coloured liquid running down the left crank indicated the bottom bracket bearing had failed. I removed the crank and my suspicions were confirmed. The right bearing was still running perfectly so the left bearing failure must have been just bad luck. It had done just under 9,000 miles. I managed to pick up a replacement from Paul Hewitt cycles in Leyland and found the replacement process fairly straightforward. The bearings were helpfully marked left and right and also the thread direction as each side has a different thread orientation.

the tell-take streaks of rust oozing from the bearing indicate they are worn out

the bearing shell about to be remove

a shiny new set of bearings are fitted

On Thu 24 Nov 2011 Lizzie Jones made a very welcome return to Astley Hall to give her presentation ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ covering the life of Mary Stuart from her birth in 1542 at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland to her imprisonment at Tutbury Castle near Derby. The event was organised by Chorley Historical and Archaeological Society who have been arranging annual visits to Astley Hall by Lizzie for many years.
Astley’s Great Hall was filled to capacity as Lizzie, dressed as Mary Stuart Queen of Scots, gave a captivating and moving monologue of her life so far.
She assumed the position of Mary after 15 years of captivity and currently imprisoned in the cold and uncomfortable Tutbury Castle.
The life of Mary was filled with tragedy and political intrigue. Her father King James V of Scots died 6 days after Mary was born and Mary subsequently became Queen Mary I, Queen of Scots. To protect her from various political plots she was taken to France to marry Francis II, son of the King. The following year in 1558 the King died so Francis became King and Mary the Queen Consort of France. Sadly Francis died in 1560 so Mary returned to Scotland in 1561. She was still Queen of the Scots and proceeded to try and unite the various factions in her country.

Lizzie Jones at Astley Hall as Mary Stuart

Mary Queen of Scots while in captivity..

At the same time the English throne was occupied by Queen Elizabeth I and Elizabeth was concerned by an earlier claim to the English throne by Mary, who was her cousin. Another major concern was that Mary wanted to return the English Protestant Church to the Roman Catholic faith. Mary’s Roman Catholic faith stayed with her all her life but she always said she had no wish to impose in on England.
In 1565 Mary married Henry Stuart also known as Lord Darnley. The marriage was not a success but they had a son James who eventually became King James VI of Scotland and on the death of Elizabeth I of England became King James I of England in 1603. King James visited the Chorley area in 1617 when he visited Hoghton Tower.
Political intrigue continued in Scotland and Mary was imprisoned in her own country. She managed to escape to England in 1568, hoping that her cousin Elizabeth would help her to return to Scotland. Unfortunately the only reception she received was 19 years imprisonment in various castles and houses culminating in her execution at Fortheringhay Castle in 1587.
Her execution was as a result of a shady conspiracy called the Babington plot. This is where another Chorley link was pointed out.
In 1586, a man called Anthony Babington devised a plot to kill Elizabeth, rescue Mary and then see her as the next Queen of England. The plot was real but it is debatable whether Mary knew of it.
Queen Elizabeth’s spies found out about the plot and Babington and his associates were tried, found guilty and executed in September 1586. One of Babington’s associates was Chorley’s own John Charnock (1551 – 1587). He was executed on 21 Sept 1586. Mary was also tried, found guilty and executed on 8 February 1587. One of the consequences of the dubious trial and execution was the anger felt in Catholic countries, especially Spain. The following year in 1588 King Philip II of Spain sent his Spanish Armada to invade England and hopefully remove Elizabeth from power. The attack failed and England remained under the reign of Elizabeth.

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This afternoon walked to Shaw Hill Gold Club to give blood. I was last here in July but this time it was more interesting as instead of lying on a flat table there were reclining seats. Apparently they are more efficient to operate as they stack together for transportation and make access for the staff better. Also the patient can now see what’s happening, if they want to. I could watch the nurse connection the pipe up and see that two pipes run out from the main one. One is to take an initial sample for analysis, and take the first ‘flush’ of blood which contains skin cells from the needle. The second pipe goes in to the receiving bag. The bag is weighed electronically and it’s possible to see the progress as half a litre is taken. I’ve donated blood 33 times.

the New tilting seats means its possible to see what's going on as the blood drains away

Instead of the old 'Operating Tables'
patients are now sat in tilting seats

I was handed an overdue badge for being a blood donor. I'm now way past 25 donations.

A rather posh location for donating blood,
this is Shaw Hill Gold Club.

I was out on a walk round the plateau of Kinder Scout in Derbyshire. I saw an interesting rocky feature and thought it would be a good subject to take comparison photos on my Panasonic camera and HTC mobile phone. By modern standards its an old phone and low level camera specification but it still impresses me. I've applied HDR (High Dynamic Range) software in each case to the single exposure.

Taken on my HTC Wildfire mobile phone

Taken on my Panasonic GH1 camera

Last week I started using my son’s old phone as he’s got a new one. It has many more bells and whistle than my old basic one. I was out for a cycle ride via Belmont and Bolton and on the way stopped by one of the reservoirs to take these pictures on the phone’s camera. I was quite impressed the quality that it produced. While riding I had the phone’s GPS track recording facility switched on so when I got home I could transfer the gpx file to the PC and see exactly where I’d been, the altitude profile and how fast I was going.

taken on my new (second hand) HTC Wildfire phone

I'm a sucker for wide views and can't resist taking several shots to merge later. This view of the Lune valley shows the Howgill fells in the distance. Below is the River Lune and vehicles can be seen travelling on the M6 motorway

Below are the Whittle and Clayton photos

The memorial service started in the playground of St John's School then walked to the memorial. This photo was taken when walking back.

Below are the Withnell Fold photos

Before the memorial service I took this wide view photo of the memorial garden.

The photo on the right was brought to the service by the soldiers grandson. The soldiers name was L/cpl. Thomas Chadwick and he died on 25 March 1918. The numbers of soldiers who enlisted and subsequent casualties for Withnell Fold Paper Mill are as follows:
 

L/cpl Thomas Chadwick

This evening caught the bus to Finnington Lane, Hoghton and walked home along the canal. There was a nice moonrise.

Today is unique as it is the Armistice day with the date of 11/11/11 at 11am. At the Whittle and Clayton Cenotaph for the 11 am two-minute silence were several pupils form the adjacent Whittle-le-Woods C of E Primary School and also Bill Ramsbotham, a WW11 veteran who saw action in North Africa and Solerno in Italy. The children had several questions for Bill as they were interested in his war memories. One of the many questions was ‘what did you eat?’ to which Bill replied ‘we sere sent ration boxes which contained tins of corn beef and other canned items. One thing we particularly looked forward to were cigarettes, but usually these had been liberated from the ration boxes before we received them’. Bill’s friend Frank Riley was with him during the Italy campaign but unfortunately Frank was killed in action and never came home. His name is now on the memorial where the two-minute silence took place.

observing the two-minute silence

Pupils of Whittle-le-Woods C of E School, Bill Ramsbotham (seated) and Cllr Eric Bell

This evening I caught the bus to Chorley. While at the Bus Station I thought I'd better take a photo of the information board while we still have it. It is quite unbelievable that Lancashire County Council are going to switch it off next month to save money. If you want to stop people visiting Chorley and stop using the bus service this is one of the ways you can do it. LCC must be bonkers.

Yes I know they're just another couple of sunsets but when I'm out cycling I always get the urge to to snap them when a nice one is visible. These were taken looking west across Anglezarke Reservoir.