Well I did collect my extra hour last night

and also this morning since, after I'd got up (crawled out) I found that the phone clock, which I use for an alarm, still said the old time. I thought I'd given myself 7 hours sleep and instead it was only six. But today I have an extra hour to umm...do something? So far I have definately fed the cats and got out of bed. Oh and I've looked at blogs. I've emptied a pocket and discovered a note to myself that says tomorrow I have to be at work early as I'm going to be minding the shop. (They're all going to an auction to look at violins...who knows what wonders they may bring back and I won't know till Weds). And I shall have fun trying to decipher the labels on the fiddle cases (£45 or £250?) and the rehaired bows. (ready or not?) and searching the shop for violins that may be untouched, still being repaired, finished, sold, out on approval, wondering if a double bass could really be hiding in that horrible cupboard halfway up the wall...oh my poor little brain. And being nice to customers while trying to find a 1/2 size A string for a viola from the various places strings get stacked (one day we're going to have a really clear string display unit which anyone, even the customers, even me, could find the right strings in. Promises promises)
Well that's my extra hour used up. Beter get on with getting up. Oh and put the phone clock back...forwards..whichever.

I think I've OD'd

Been following posts to new blogs and I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed. There are some SO clever funny people out there.
Have also been blithely commenting away trying to be funny and clever too. Got bored with saying I like your blog so much.
Also my bog bookmark list is getting huge.
Better post a picture.Sutton Hoo. the mounds were very nice mounds and full of historical significance and stuff but trees make better pics.

After a weekend of domestic bliss with the granddaughter

The grandparents are letting their hair down.
The gorgeous child has gone home and we are rolling fags, pouring large glasses of wine and relaxing in a big way.
This may be my last few coherant (and correctly spelt) words for a while.
She is a lovely child and it is a priviledge to be acceptable hosts but we are very tired of being polite and well behaved and 'firm but kind'. We have become aware of our age and, well, our naturally reprehensible natures. and we are mentally exhausted by the ability of a very small person to outwit and overturn an adult (who thinks they are being reasonable and understanding) at all times.
And she was quite unaware of the advantages of an extra hour in the morning. I have been wondering if I could collect my extra time tonight...

Here is a small person I saw once at the races. He was irresistible.

the pitfalls of the written name!

OMG I forgot to say! well it didn't occur to me because I know who I am. but somebody asked (intelligent person), and I am not a midge! I am a migg.
thought I'd better sort that out quick.
I remember reading an article by either Marion Zimmer Bradley or CJ Cherryh discussing readers' ways of pronouncing her characters' names and she phonetically spelled one I was particlularly fond of and Oh dear I'd got it wrong. I had to rethink the whole character.
Barney says one reason he doesn't like reading SF is because he can't get the names right in his head. (the other reason is he's a non-fiction reader by preference)
I've never been able to cope with Ralph pronounced Rafe either.
I went out with a bloke for weeks once before I realised he was a Jon, not a John. I had to rethink him too.















they don't make chimneys like that any more.

Kathleen Mary Rose

Barney's mum.
she was a very special lady.
I took this picture on the way to visiting her in hospital and I was so pleased with it I was going to do a print to show her on my next visit but she died before I came again.and while she was in hospital, her magnolia and fritillaries bloomed.

Actually I think it's a mushroom

A day and a half

Barney's Auntie Barbara rang yesterday to see if she could visit..she lives in Scotland and is staying with friends in Henley (a few miles away), so today we wnet for lunch at our local pub. usually when Barbara travels it always used to be with Cousin Margaret and Barney's mum (who died this year and left a huge hole in all our lives). So I rather expected Margaret to be there too. Instead, a delightful elderly Irishman called Bernard. I possibly ought to mention that the elder ladies in the Bardsley clan are terrific flirts and fantastically good company.
So lunch at our local, served impeccably by our daughter (who is head waitress there) and by the time Barbara and Bernard were whisked away by his delightful daughter, I was well and truly exhausted...they seemed to have inexhaustible energy and fun! Half an hour for a cig and several cups of tea and it was time to go and fetch Summer, Ruth's little girl. also delightful and blessed with inexhaustible energy and fun. She is staying the weekend (she stays with us every fourth weekend which is just about long enough to recover). she's gone to bed now. I am knackered!
I think the cats have brought in a live mouse which is hiding behind the sideboard. Nutmeg reacted to the new dog food I had to get and gave it back...I really didn't need it, honest. Tomorrow, Barney has to go out for most of the morning so Summer will have plenty of time to wear me out all over again.
how on earth did I manange to bring up three children? how does anyone. I just don't believe it's possible! It's the amount of talking you have to do!!!
Last visit Summer had us in fits of hysteria by first being very funny and then telling Barney "not to make funny at her". frowning seriously and adding "it's not funny" (Oh but it was)
I may not have much to say for the rest of the weekend!
Or I may produce vast random slightly distracted outpourings...what do you mean I already...
hmm.

High cats and low cats

Tosca is a high cat: her preferred perch is on top of the highest cupboard in the kitchen and she likes to attack from above. She runs up trees.
Mandu is a low cat: She crouches and fixes you with an unbending golden stare. She likes to curl up on chairs under the table and on the warm spot on the bathroom floor. Lacking tosca's frivolous approach to life, she is very serious about her requests for stroking, usually when I am thinking about more basic things (in the bathroom) and approaches from below the knee. tosca likes to be picked up and then turns herself upside down and into a dribbling armful with an excessive number of of black and white legs.
I have to say Mandu is by far the most successful and dedicated hunter..her offerings are regular and accompanied by loud mewings. Tosca often brings in live ones and then loses them....her voice comes somewhere between a squawk and a creak!
Mandu gets trodden on more often and Tosca often finds heself descending while I am rising... we have had some interesting encounters.

I had a nasty shock just now

Opened my blog and checked all my favourite links to see what's new and my link to Starbender...which I swear worked last night...took me to microsoft!!!
Took me ages to work out I'd duplicated the http:// bit! It's ok now.
Did have a moment of paranoia there. oops, microsoft are taking over the world and they don't like my blog.

This is the Pontycsllte aqueduct on the Llangollen canal over the River Dee. Possibly the coolest aqueduct I've ever seen.
Just wide enough to take a narrow boat and if you're inside the boat and you look out on the no-towpath side this is what you see. somewhere in the middle of it there is a plug they can pull out when it needs maintenance. I wouldn't like to be underneath when they do that!
If you feel really brave, you can let the boat steer itself - it can't go anywhere but straight on. And after all the aqueduct has been there for a long time...it probably won't break.

tranquil tree

Shopping, parking, rushing about.
aah, that's better.

Soppy list

I think pretentious was the word I was looking for. Sorry, 2 glasses of wine into the evening and I have no control over my grammar.
however, like things that are trite are often true, so are things that sound pretentious.
goodness what am I talking like!!?
I must try not to cook while blogging...there are some that would put it the other way round I know.
anyway I'm so pleased it's a nice list and now I've read it again I stand by it. thanks tabby rabbit. Might even add bits occasionally. (so as to confuse people even more which is always fun)
A picture near where I work. got bored one afternoon and rushed out with new camera to play for half an hour. Later spent several hours trying to make the (old) printer do CD labels for me. The CD label programme was a bit beyond me but I enjoyed playing with the picture.

Egypt busted!

I'm afraid anyone interested will have to wait a while longer for my huge Egypt diary...the word plug-in doesn't suport images.
Never mind..I expect I can cobble something together. slowly!

Daring...shall I, shan't I....

We went to Egypt for our, umm...30th anniversary I think. We loved it and I wrote a fairly detailed daily journal. added pictures when I got home which was what originally prompted Adam to say maybe I ought to start a blog.
I think the only way to transfer this to a blog is to download the word plug-in. It says it's easy. My experience of new computer ventures is they take hours...and as I've said before, I keep running out of those.
Well, a new day, a new blog. More soon.
There's something ever so noisy and dramatic on the telly next door.

Some things I really like a lot

(there you go tabby rabbit)


Light
Colour
Music
Water (big, small, running, still, falling...however it comes)
Rocks (big, small, wet, dry, huge, enormous, bare, clothed in forest, draped in waterfalls, tiny like sand)
Wine
Words
Things that work
The wind
Silk,linen and exotic wool.
Glass
The night sounds in the Amazon Rain forest.
Small, utterly delicious dinners with something rich and chocolaty and creamy afterwords with a nice coffee.
Fish, swimming or cooked
Hell, cigarettes if I'm honest!
People who like me
Warm soft snuggling children
Freshwater Pearls
Sassy children with attitude and the courage and wit to get away with it
Sassy grown-ups the same.
Birds, Hey the other day I saw a flock of litle greenish birds like a huge leaf fall swooping in the wind and making patterns and criss crossing. I think somebody's aviary got opened by mistake. No camera with me. Probably not enough time to catch them anyway. I hope they went home safely.
The scent in the air when rain starts to fall on a dry dusty summer's day
The smell of freshly chopped herbs, crushed garlic, chopped ginger.

got to stop and make dinner now.

These look delicious...but in fact being neither plums, damsons or sloes but some quite other thing, they are disapointingly not.

I made a list

Of things I like. It was quite a pretty sounding list but it turned out a bit soppy and long.
Here is a typical list of things I feel I ought to remember.

TONIGHT
*****
Look up hellotansy, Fred and Dav.
Washing!
Phone Gail
Discuss w/end up north with Barney
*****
In: am
(Check oil)
Send money for monitor

*****
Out: day
Work
Bank Barney
Shopping (eggs/1 wet dog/2 dry cat/2 toms/bucket?/60watt spot small screw)
Body shop armpits
Post Liz
Return lampshade
Phone splitter/filter
*****
In: pm
Dinner : litle birds
Washing!
back up
*****
TOMORROW
Finish List of tunes
WILL FORM
Floyd in India

Before the computer I used to make lists constantly. If I went out without my notepad the children said I'd forgotten my brain.
Now I have the computer and a PSD and not only do I make constant lists, the computer can exchange them with the PSD. So we are all happy and somethimes I even remember things.



Welcome to my workspace

Wish you could see this

Sometimes I'm driving along or just looking out of the window and I see something wonderful...I find myself saying OH LOOK!!!. I think I sort of hope if I say it feelingly enough someone will look and see it too even though I'm all alone.Well lots of people certainly see this...Sunset over Cairo. I think I will make a blog for our holiday in Egypt..it's one hell of a wonderful/scary place.

Post secrets

I've just added a ink to the most amazing website called post secrets. This guy Frank left lots of blank postcards lying around in public places with his address on the front and invited people to send him their secrets. they did...it's all quite succssfully secure and totally uncensored. Moving, shocking, tragic, funny...often clever, occasionally beautiful. Really worth a visit.

Wild Night 2

An immense darkness of clouds
An ocean in the trees.
Fine soft spray
The scent of coolness on the way



I had a brief infatuation with Haiku a few months ago. Only stopped because I overdid it..I wrote about 40 over 3 nights. which isn't really what it's all about, it's supposed to be meditational and serene. I couldn't get this down to 17 syllables or even three lines so it's not a Haiku anyway. But the idea is there.


If you’re trying to see something in the dark, look at something even darker near to it. After a while you can see the object peripherally.
After a little longer you can see all kinds of things cloaked in darkness.

I could feel the dog sit down in the wet grass and then his quivering nose down the length of the lead.

He can't understand why suddenly his last outing is two hours earlier than it used to be! He doesn't mind though. Any old time will do for him though he prefers it not to rain.

Wild night

The wind is getting up, I can hear it in the oak tree by the gate and the door is rattling. When Nutmeg and I go out last thing, we'll be blown away. He'll be able to catch tantalising snatches of scent from across the valley and I'll hear the wind rushing through the trees like the sound of a distant torrent.

The Walnut Tree

It actually grows walnuts. We are amazed (though it's not so uncommon really) and harvest them lovingly.

Our house is a very very fine house

As the song goes. I love it. But couldn't quite leave it untouched since I'd just discovered filters. I have this print on the front of my tobacco tin.

Comments

By the way, I keep getting confused about whether to reply to comments next to the original comment (on my blog) or on the other bloggers' blog as a new comment. So replies scattered randomly across blogs.
What is the normal protocol?

Verification

I always have such trouble reading the verification id letters...I wonder if I'm actually an automatic programme!

Ireland: Land of mists, mellow, fruitful guinness and God

Many years ago, my flat mate and I, whiled away a whole evening discussing Faith and God. I believe the discussion started on the subject of argument and led on to religion as a probably inflammatory subject. It boiled very quickly down to faith...if you have it you do what is dictated by the God in whom you have it and if you don't have it you do whatever you do. (simplified somewhat). she did have it and I didn't think I had but was prepared to with-hold judgement. So we talked round and round Faith and the existence of God and tried to find a point at which we could agree. eventually we did find that point and, hugely satisfied we accepted quite contentedly that...if there is a God there is one and if there isn't one there isn't.
I feel a bit cagey about admitting my religious position...I have known people who simply weren't interested in knowing me any more when they knew I didn't have a God...and in earlier times, when I thought I was a Roman catholic, people who didn't want to know me because I had that particular God!
But as I understand it, Faith is a gift...as far as I can tell I haven't been given it. The ball's in your court God.

On, on to the next task

Thanks for that Dav.
Today I decided to take Eclipse by the horns and ask them why my connection is falling apart. So far I've been on the phone for 20 minutes listening to piped music and have noticed that using the keyboard affects the piped music...oh and also the recorded voice telling me soon I can speak to a person. Interesting. I also had time to wonder about how, the other day,glancing out of the window, I saw two BT blokes working on the phone line up the road and thought Oh last time I saw them my internet connection started to break down. Lo and behold, the very same day there it was breaking down.
then I thought could the problem be at the wall? Hmm.
Then the nice man answered, just as I successsfully connected and started this post.
Shame it was working really. But he did suggest putting another splitter filter on the upstairs phone and on anything else that uses the phone line. and he did say, yes BT work on the line could well be related to this issue.
And phoning back when the connection isn't working....like now? It's just disconnected itself.
so my next mission, should I choose.....ha ha. is to obtain a splitter filter and check if this one's faulty and then probably another one for upstairs anyway. and we did have a phone problem after a storm a while ago.
got to go to work now...where did I see a phone shop the other day?

Violin at the seaside

Violin sunning itself

Ummm...random stuff

Francesca said I should have more general titles for posts...like mention cats or other stuff that might catch people's interest. Hmm.
Yesterday I took an old jumper and recklessly sliced it up the middle of its front, spread anti spray stuff along the cut edges and hey presto, a new green cardigan. It works! Cut and paste!
I'm sure I was going to say something else but dinner intervened and I realise that my internet connection is becoming seriously unstable. Last time this happened ...oh well suffice it to say there may be a hiatus. Then no doubt I shall find someone to get it working again or maybe eve fix it myuslf (perhaps with a hammer) and I'll be back.
Must send out a general email tomorrow in case of crash and then connections permitting, I must approach the setting up of links..I haven't done this up to now because I kept forgetting. Also must phone IPS and beg them to tell me what's not going on.
I think i'm going to be late again tonight. So far the early to bed thing is losing me all the hours I used to spend at night and not gaining me more than one or two in the morning. I realise I have to overcome the dislike of getting out of bed.
Has any one got any really good ideas?

In case you're thinking this is a lightweight blog

with not much political/moral input, you're right of course.
but think of the economics behind large fast fresh food.
I'll think about it tomorrow...I have to go to bed now.
Let me know if you have any good thoughts while I'm sleeping.

*****!!!!!!!!*****

And don't even talk to me about giant bagels.

On the subject of large food

The number of times I've wandered around all the local caffs and snack places looking for a LITTLE snack. a samll strong delicious coffee and a litle pastry perhaps. Or maybe a nice little roll, lightly filled with something tasty and a litle bit of salady stuff. Or maybe even a small plateful of something warm and scrummy.
You must be joking.
The choices sem to an enormous sticky heap of something sweet and a medium sized bucket of coffee topped with half an acre of froth, or a gigantic (tooth cracking) baguette overflowing with piles of meat or prawns and with mounds of lettuce and stuff bulging out in every direction. Or a huge oval plate with a heap of pasta or rice and a vast mountain of coleslaw overloading it.
Even sandwiches (the english kind, two slices of bread filled with stuff) come bursting at the seams with runny bits and crispy bits and chewy bits.
the best small thing you can get it seems is a toasty. But they are a bit hard to eat on the run as it were and even they tend to bulge more and more these days. And to dribble of course.
oh and cornish pasties are getting bigger and bigger...first the filling is huge and then to make the whole thing even more overwhelming, they put a two inch crust all the way round so it takes you half an hour to fight your way into the filling. by which time I'm stuffed!
I say nothing about the prices.
I may be (am) a bit fat but I am only a litle oldish person. I don't need much building up and I may need to hurry along a bit after eating. time the fast fresh food companies took pity on the hungry but not starving...umm..minority?

Monmouth and Breconshire Canal

No enhancements needed. It came like this

Reflection in a gap

2 or 3 years ago they cut down a swathe of woodland and left a straggly gap. I filled it in with the remaining woods. Glad I took the opportunity because it's all full of new young trees now.

I am not a health freak

In fact a while ago on a long journey home from a funeral, our daughters whiled away an hour with a how healthily do you eat sort of quiz. Barney came out somewhere below good but not a total rotten egg. I on the other hand could tell quite early on that I'd be dead by the end of the quiz. Bottom of the class for healthy eating. they were all concerned and disapproving but hey! here I am, 54 and still enjoying life. Sure, my feet hurt, my knees ache and I sometimes forget what I'm doing...Oh and my teeth cause me untold anxiety and stress (just before I go to the dentist anyway). And I do have heartburn regularly (after trying to work out what foods caused it I realised it's eating that causes it). and though probably not 'clinically obese' I am quite fat! And totally unfit. And as you may have noticed last post, a smoker. So yes I do run out of breath quite a lot.
And I absolutely love chloresterol and starch laden food and find veg and fruit a bit like hard work....don't dislike them at all but usually don't make the effort. On the other hand I loathe all MacDonald type products. Particularly the bready stuff they like to wrap it in and stack it on. and most particularly the special chemical salt 'no flavour' taste of it. And also particularly the instant collapse but sticky texture of it.
On yet a third hand I still occasionally get a craving for a tin of Heinz Spaghetti bolognese.
On some other hand, I love wine and tea and coffee. Water...well it's lovely to pour on your head and swim in and surprisingly nice to drink once in a while. Like, not 2 litres (or whatever it is you ought to drink) a day.

My Dad was a GP and I once asked him with female teenage fervour what I could do to lose weight...like "Daddy what's the best diet for losing weight?" He looked momentarily flummoxed and then said "eat less".

Sunset over Leeds

Over the years I have spent many hours outside the doors of various non-smoking households admiring various views while enjoying a cigarette. The skies above Leeds were particularly generous with their sunsets.

Deadline

Tonight is crunch night with the whole deadline bed time thing. I want to play my fiddle (got a lesson tomorow) I want to post more pictures and read new blogs and catch up with favourites and midnight approaches...in fact, oh. It's here.
witching, pumpkins and roll away time. I will be good.

camouflaged cats

And who says black and white cats can't hide in trees?
They come out for walks with me and the dog sometimes. Tosca is a patch of moonlight bounding and positively frolicking. Mandu is a shadow gliding.

picture-book picture

Well it is isn't it. I couldn't resist and although it didn't come out perfectly sharp...well things don't often arrange themselves for a photo just so, do they!

Leaves

I did some fun things with photoshop to this picture because in my memory the leaves were amazingly bright, floating on a dark background.
But this one is just as it came.

life is fragile

That's a rather pretentious title in the circumstances. But just now Barney went off to a meeting leaving me finishing my dinner and as he drove off (yeay verily at the moment when I heard the pickup pull out of the drive and trundle away) I choked on a sip of wine.
after I'd spluttered and coughed and done all that stuff you do, and of course the dog had satisfied himself that this wasn't a new and interesting way of dropping food under the table I thought well, he might (Barney not the dog) have come home to a stiff blue wife and then where would we all be.
As I get older I find myself realising more and more how close we are to 'accidental death'. Accidents, by their nature being things you didn't intend, hadn't planned and can't really guard against, unless you're prepared to become obsessive which anyway wouldn't work since none of us is clever enough to imagiine every possibility in advance.
Well I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my cold beef and 'orkshires (sorry, yorkshire pudddings)and now, lucky me, have the rest of the evening to do useful and interesting things.
Which reminds me. Talking of pretentiousness.
Some few years ago I took some persistant little sore white patches on my tongue to a surgeon to have a biopsy. We all agreed, (me, my doctor and the surgeon's head nurse) thqt it probably wasn't cancer but we ought to make sure. After examining the blobs, said surgeon also agreed. The biopsy was duly undertaken, not by Mr surgeon but by 2 nurses who had a lot of trouble holding my tongue still enough to cut off very small pieces, while said tongue flopped helplessly and slipperily about and co-operated not at all..I could be kind and say that it was under the influence of anaesthetic and so not responsible for its actions...I'm saying nothing about my responsibility for its actions, (have you ever tried to keep your tongue still while one person tries to pull it out of your mouth and another tries to cut bits off it? It's a case for serious attacks of the giggles I can assure you).
Anyway, a few weeks later I returned to hear the great man's verdict and he greeted me as I sat down by saying "Aah Mrs Bardsley. I give you life"
I thought, !!!??? Do we get down on our knees next or what?
I didn't start giggling till I'd left the consultng room though...you never know, I might need him some day.
It turns out he just meant (as we'd all thought all along) that I didn't have cancer. Just "a benign polyp". Yeah right, benign enough to make eating a purgatory and waking up with a dry mouth a small persistant hell.
some of the words borrowed by the medical profession to describe things that go wrong (or not wrong) with us are serious misuse of the english language!
I'm sure you'll be pleased to know the damn things have gradually faded to an occasional nuisance. Because as far as I could tell there wasn't going to be any treatment for them! Since they were benign. In fact my dentist fortuitously cured one of them by taking a tooth out. nice man. I almost liked him for a while.
Definitely need a picture here. Away you surgeons and dentists and teeth and tongues and things. Bring on the fabulous skies, the rosy pigeon coloured clouds and glorious horizons for tomorrow we may oops, have an accident.

A late rose. And a late moth.

Another thing. I don't like getting up. I'm such a slow starter.To catch the early morning sun and mist I'd have to get up at dawn....I need at least an hour and a half to get moving and start paying attention to the day.

Well, since I managed to get up before 9.00 this morning I ought to be on the go by umm...now. Not quite there yet.
I'm not sure how loong it will take for this early bed going to start having a useful effect on the day time. That was one of the objectives.


During the summer when the windows are al open, we get moths by the hundreds all over the walls and ceilings. Some of them are quite beautiful. Others are just untidy looking. I particularly like the white ones with dark brown markings. they remind me of snowy owls. But this was a pretty chap. and he was resting so he had time to let me take his photo. Like a live leaf made of burnished copper.
One day I'll take a pic of the spiders in the bath....they're trememndous.

I HATE DEADLINES

Not as in a work situation but as in I must do this by 3 oclock if I'm going to have time to get ready for wherever it is I have to go at 3.30. Because these deadlines don't leave me enough empty time in which to do whatever I want.
I still suffer from (or depend on) the childish idea that when I grow up I can do what I like. Except now I am grown up I try and make spaces in a day for that doing. Then childishly I often do bugger all!
Just now I have made a (rather one sided) pact with Barney that I will try and start getting ready for bed at midnight. so I should be in it by 1.00, yes? One day in, yes OK I did it. then I was tired from the 4 am night before so I didn't get up till 10.40 am. Lost a lot of day.
The thing about night was though, after every one else was gone to bed and sleeping the sleep of the just or whatever they were doing, it seemed a little more elastic than a day which has 'go to work', 'feed the dog (before he starves), 'make dinner', 'go out in the evening', 'away for the weekend', written in at intervals. Written in as deadlines. I've accepted that I have to do things I don't want. It's just that I still try to find some time when I can freely do things I do want...or not. Free choice times. with no obvious ends.
Ok I just feel hemmed in. I've set the timer so I know I have to get ready for bed in a minute or ten.
Actually I need two lives. One for work and Barney and stuff like house work and work and meals and ....stuff
And one for me. I tried doing me in the night but actually you do have to sleep occasionally. Two lives and one sleep just doesn't quite add up to one day at a time.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not insomniac...I like sleeping.
the hell with it. Just got time to put a picture in if it all goes smoothly.
It went smoothly. I really have to go now....NOW...if I'm going to make tonight's deadline.
anyone else addicted to staying up at night?

Buzzards

We have several of those nesting around here too. Just now, as I went out to take some pictures of the sun shining throught the oak tree, I saw a pair circling above the house accompanied by a lot of rooks. Oh excitement....and flat batteries.
I rushed in, changed the batteries and rushed out again. Buzzards gone (of course) and an army of rooks returning victorious to their roosts.

More kites

I saw these two from across a field and naturally set off across it, clutching camera and taking pics every few feet in case they should do the wing thing and head for the distant horizon. After a while I realised that the stubble was interlaid with quite recently scattered, very natural fertiliser. Quite a nice pair of sandals I was wearing too.

Kites and rain

I must remember to check that I've spelt me properly before hitting enter.
I also keep noticing that I've been bookmarking other peoples blogs to a folder called bogs. Not always appropriate!
We have red kites breeding near us and for years I've been trying to take pics of them. They have this habit of gliding provocatively over the roof...all wingspan amd power. I rush in and grab the camera (sfter shutting my mouth and switching off from glazed admiration mode) and they immediately do some sort of wing flick thing and are almost instantly several hundred feet up and halfway across the valley. Bastards! Beautiful bastards.
Well, Barney took me to the Chilterns where they breed in hundreds after a major rehabilitation programme and I finally got this pic.

we went home and it rained.




later the sun came out.
god I am so lucky.

5 cooks are not too many

We had a huge family BBQ last summer for nearly all the sides of both ours families.
Here are 4 of the cooks (Adam, Ruth, Barney and Fran)

Andy was the 5th cook but he wouldn't fit on the page.

There were other cooks during teh course of the day.
Suffice it to say the broth was not spoiled

more pictures needed

I'm always amazed by how much more the camera can see than I can. This old tree is more than half a field away so I only see what it really looks like when I take pictures of it. Changes all the time of course. this was taken in Spring and the apple tree in our garden is coming into leaf. And there was this wonderful greenish light.

Just been out for dinner

A wonderful dinner (thanks Peter) with lovely friends.
Had more than enough but not too much very very nice wine,wonderful food and not quite enough (but lots) of hilarious and serious conversation.
Came back and read an article by/about Tracy Emmin. Couldn't decide what to make of her. I never wanted to see the famous umade bed thing and had no idea what else she's done. Some quite striking and visually satisfying pics in the article. And she's had a rough life and dragged herself up by the bootlaces to sucess. I warmed to her a bit. Then there was a bit about an abortion and it made me less warm. Something about the way she described it. I am anti abortion on principle but it doesn't mean I don't see that sometimes it seems like the only solution (and sometimes is the only solution). There may come a day when some one's only solution is to terminate me!!!! I hope not. no that's a bit silly..it's not a good analogy.
Well I don't know why I felt jarred by what she said (Telegraph, 8th October). If anyone else read it I'd be interested to know what they thought.
Bother. she's upset me. Perhaps I should have known better than to read about someone who shows the world her unmade bed and soiled underwear in the name of art. After all, even if she's moved on from there it's quite a statement isn't it. and it's not going to be a cosy character who does that.

picture time.

EEE

Where have you gone? I was going to read your blog again and it's vanished. hope you're OK.

Of course, now I take photos.

Sorry the title doesn't make sense any more...I just deleted a rather long and boring blog :)

This is my fiddle.
Pretty isn't she.

The rainbow at the end of the pot of gold

It's been a long haul but I think I've finally got the monster under control.
Sorry, this is obscure, but believe me I have a big sense of relief.

blue glass