Monday, October 31, 2005

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.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

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.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

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.

Friday, October 28, 2005

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.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

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!

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

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.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

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.

Monday, October 24, 2005

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

Sunday, October 23, 2005

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?

Saturday, October 22, 2005

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?

Friday, October 21, 2005

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.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

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.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

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?

Sunday, October 16, 2005

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.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

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.

Friday, October 14, 2005

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.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

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.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

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




Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Some thoughts on Feng Shui

I was entranced by the discovery of Feng Shui and read lots about it. After a while I realised I was sneakily ignoring the bits I don't agree with and I thought I'd better sort out what was going on in my head. The item that came like a little prod in the ribs and said, hey, what's going on here, was the suggestion that you shuouldn't leave cupboard doors open bcause demons might get in or out through them. Uh?
Then I remembered feeling uneasy about having to align my house and arrange my belongings North/south/East/West. Not always possible. And why?
I'll assume you've heard of Feng Shui and have come across some stuff about it because I'm not good at explaining stuff...I just talk a lot :)
OK. imagine someone wanting to make their house care for them and help them on their daily 'way'. The North light changes least during the average day because the sun doesn't go there. so you might want that stable influence always at your back. And if you come from a culture that produces Haiku (wonderful short ultra disciplined poetry) you might want the effects of changing light to be in front where you can watch it. And of course the sun shining in, warms and lights up your life. And if you come from a culture where the sword is a prayer and combat is a dance, you might want the light on all that is in front of you so you can watch out for other religious dancers in whos way you might just be.
Then there's the whole clutter/space thing. After some tentative rearrangements of some of my stuff I realised some more things.
Clearing mess and arranging things so they don't fuss at you absolutely does help to clear your mind.
Mirrors that reflect above or below your line of sight cause flickers of movement to attract your attention without informing you of what they are.
A beautifully arranged room with all the things in it singing to each other is like a well composed picture. It leads the eye where the designer (you) want it to go.
Space lets in light. Each item in a room drinks up a litle bit of light.
Each cupboard door left open, becomes another light drinkng item and besides, has inside it, a darkness.
Items that have to do with illness or death are reminders of illness or death.
Colours may or may not affect your life but they may affect the way you think about your life. (there's a bit of a culture thing here...red may mean wealth (?) to a Japanese or a Russian but it means stop and anger to a European! But heat for everyone I guess. Green on the other hand probably does mean peace and coolness to most people everywhere. Even life, to people where water is scarce).
After thinking all these things (I may add more some other time) I thought, we are a highly visual species. We like light. Darkness reminds us of danger and cold and hunger.
I think Feng Shui is about keeping the dark at bay but taken a bit further to draw light in and bathe in it. It's a positive approach to darkness.
I had some other thoughts about straight lines and the upright human but I'll do that one another day.
And some other thoughts about water. Another day.

weather changing

It's been so warm these last two days, the wind blows warmth around you. You open the window and warmth wanders in. Not what I expect in an english October. Makes me wonder a bit, should we be expecting something wild. I seem to remember weather changing in a regular sort of way with the seasons but then we got the hurricane and then even a little earthquake. Not at all what you expect of english weather. So when really scary wild weather lashes the rest of the world and suddenly doesn't even leave our little island untouched well, you start to wonder. What next. We shouldn't rely on the unchanging natural order of things. Especially here, where as people keep pointing out we just fall apart when the weather goes a bit further than we're used to. And of course the human race has a short memory. we think becasue a thing has been so all our lives thaty's how it always is. But the Earth does change, shakes its whole skin every so often and thinks about a little dance, a bit of a change of clothing, new shoes. Turn up the heat a bit and raise the volume.
Well here's a picture of sky full of water waiting to fall.

frosty morning

When next door moved in, they spent an afternoon digging up curvy bits of front lawn and then vanished in their car for several hours. when they returned it was with a car full of garden collected from friends. They planted it all and it thrived and looks fantastic right next to our lawn. So we share the benefit!

rather strange cats

Mandu's tongue is very pink but the eyes give it away. She's really a merciless predator.



A wicked cat.
Sometimes Tosca is a 'butter wouldn't melt' sort of cat. sometimes an arial cat. best of all, just wicked.











That's Mandu, short for Catmandu we think. It was her eyes that made me decide we had to bring her home from the cat rescue place. But I didn't know they could do that!a very strange cat.

Monday, October 10, 2005

So!

The new title is an improvement, the pictures are flowing and I'm going to be late for work. Also got a slightly tart msg from Adam. Fair enough, I sent him one. It's clear he really doesn't regard himself as my computer teacher any more. Shame. It was fun, if stressful, learning from him and kept me staggering around on my mental toes for hours and hours in the middle of the night. Which i still do, obviously, but I miss the punctuating requests for more tea and suddden demands that I watch some alarming film at 2 am while keeping an eye on his download and wondering if the computer will break before he goes back or after he's gone.
I noticed the last time he visited, that the computer didn't in fact break after he'd gone. That was a first! Obviously the computer also misses him!

why oh why

did I think, because it looks nice and cool and some utterly idiotic smart-ass GEEK reviewed it and said it was easy to use, that I'd be able to work out how to use it straight away.
Actually I'm sure it is easy to use. Just that I don't understand the 3 interlocking thrice dammned MANUALS. not to mention I've forgotten how to do scanning and OCR stuff so I have to keep looking through 3 manuals to find out which one has the bit of info which will tell me which button to press next! then try and remember what I wanted it to do before pressing...Oooooh Noooo!!!! THE WRONG BUTTON
Tomorrow Barney will say can you do some very simple but useful thing and I won't be able to without hours of swearing and cursing and retries and losing the manual and why has Photoshop suddenly stopped opening PSD files from my docs?
Barney claims to be a technological dinosaur. this is just so he can get me to type out his email replies and struggle with new printer software. He's pefectly good at programming the video to record Dylan programmes.
I'd better soothe my shattered nerves by posting a picture.
Oh! It got stuck some where. try again.
Umm. It says the document contains no data??? but I can see the picture.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

happy happy

Hey I got my new printer today and not only did I get it set up before all the family arrived, I made it print a picture. I haven't tried copying or scanning yet. ho ho. i have music to print. Can't wait. and photos to fit in frames.
Oh and a table full of dinner left overs to put away. I like this feeling that the house is full of sleeping people but I wish they were all deaf so I could play my fiddle. though as we drank at least six bottles of wine between 9 of us (and three of them non-drinking children) it's probably just as well I can't play it now. It really wouldn't sound too good.
oh but I wish I could set up the scanning and just try something out!!!

So here's a picture of the wild North Country

Actually I think the ancestors are on my Dad's side. the bottle came from somewhere in our garden. there is a photo of the Bampton Campers Aunt Sally team and two photos of the children when very small. Random see?

Families



this is a little section of the house where I put some very family stuff. My Dad's medals from the 1st world war, my stepfather and Aunt's cups from France and just to confuse the issue a set of scales Barney bought at an auction. And some other stuff. It's how we are. Sentimental about some things, intrigued by others and impressed by our ancestors. and I have a need to arrange bits of the house in a visually satisfying way, which means lightly random results. I think the big photo is of some of my dutch family..or maybe Barney's lancashire family. But aren't they tremendous whoever they are!

Unlike Christmas

midnight comes every night regular as clockwork. And here it came again and went. But tonight it wasn't just me staying up. We have two birthdays tomorrow (83 and 40 something) so the whole of Barney's family are staying over. Some of us have sat up and drunk together till....well here it's 1.30ish. I must try and work out what time it is over there where most bloggers seem to live.
Ooops. I took the arms off my computer chair so it would fit at the table and I keep forgetting not to lean on them.
We talked for hours about our children and our lives and the world in general. I wish I was going to see my son again sooner but he's a busy lad. And quite far away. We see the youngest, Ruth, regularly, as hers is the grandchild and she lives just round the corner. and I see the middle one, Francesca quite often as she has close ties with friends and us and often visits. Adam lives at the other end of the country, very near the wild North Country, in Lancaster. It's odd that he's gone to live up there where parts of both our families come from and yet although he's so close to our roots here we are in the soft South and rarely see him. Who was born and brought up here.
what new updates you silly machine?!

Saturday, October 08, 2005

This blog thing

Is like talking to a million strangers in the dark. Interesting. It reminds me of those trust games that acting students do.
I suppose some people do their blogs in daylight!

Flash2




I like the way you can almost see the camera.

Flash1

Ooops!

before 10am means before 9.30 doesn't it if I'm going to have time to actually get into the shop and carry the thing out.
Tomorow I shall have fun moving furniture.

Another Dawn

Absentmindedly smoking with one hand and taking pictures with the other. When I first looked at this I thought it was some sort of ghostly event. Well actually I thought I'd somehow got some glass reflecting in the picture...but the ghostly idea was interesting for a moment.



Last night I had every intention of going to bed very early (before 1am anyway) but inadvertantly looked at some pctures I might want to put on the blog some time. Then rearranged them slightly so they'd be ready to post and then somehow it seemed silly not to upload them. Went to bed at 3am. Still got up this morning though so maybe if I get to bed soon I'll have caught up a bit with the days. New printer ready to collect but it has to be done before 10 am when the road outside the shop becomes pedestrian. Hmm. well it's only 00.30 now.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Dawn




One of those nights which didn't quite end.


********

Leeds Skies





I spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law in Leeds last year.
She lives high up on a hillside overlooking the city and the sunsets were spectacular.
Then there was a bit of a learning curve with Adobe Photoshop.
Over the top but quite fun.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

leaves and shadows

Bother!

I'll have to get back into the website thing. I had one but there were those who in their wisdom decreed it not-conforming and attempted to teach me HOW TO CONFORM TO STANDARDS. I regret I was not easy to teach. Them what knew better than me then set it all up properly for me and left me with a million pictures to upload and simple instructions which I forgot the moment they went back to Uni. (You know who you are)
This gave me insight into how I had brung them up. not encouragingly I realised. There's nothing so damning as "Let me do this hard bit for you and then you can carry on with the rest". Younger parents be warned while you still have the chance to encourage your children to make their own mistakes. If you don't, they will later discourage you.
What's more my uninspired blog title is derivative (too much use of Firefox). I shall have to change it.

Bampton 2005

This is a typical Bampton house. It's a wonderful Oxfordshire village where we go every year (nominally) to watch the Morris dancers doing their trad thing. there's the beer of course too and the gardens and a host of old friends (other visitors and local people) not to mention the Sunday lunch at the campsite and the Aunt Sally tournament (local team v campers). Often it's sunny...or wet.


And this is Barney and Ralph after Sunday lunch. What a pair. I seem to have caught Barney with half his trousers up.

picture

Oh well, I settled temporarily forn unplanned photo. Lucky to have a friend who takes marvellous photos of people. Otherwise it might have been a pasport photo! And yes I look like a slightly mad person who didn't sleep for the last year. Unfortunately that's nearly what I am like! and who wants the world to se what they're realy like!

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Rainbow

Last spring...The weather changing.

house change

My printer broke. the nice man said basically it's lost its marbles...you can bring it to us if you like but it'll cost you £25 for us just to look. OK. new printer time. And let's go the whole hog and get copier and scanner all in one. the business can share the cost (he's always asking if I can get copies and can't we scan things).
Well, printer may arrive on Weds at Cartridge World and I suddenly realise how much bigger this super beast will be. (It's a canon pixma mp760 for those technic minded people who aren't reading my blog). OK. we need to move the small table across to accomodate the printer and the little chest will go where the table went and oops there won't be enough room for the files any more so I'l have to move the chest ...or, hang on, why not swop it with the one in the sitting room and then move the bookcase across next to the piano and get the chest down from upstairs and....eventually I'll sort it and Barney will come home and say"you've been moving things again haven't you"
Funny how the introduction of a relatively small item of equipment to the dining room can mean changing all the bedrooms and building an outhouse.

shadow candle


This doesn't want to upload. Is it too big or am I being cut off!
Well it's one of those things....I saw the shadows and the light through the candle and had to rush around getting rid of the scrap paper and old receipts and junk before the sun went behind a cloud. Got the pic and then later found I'd forgotten to hold the camera straight. Had to rotate and crop and this is what was left.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

New camera.


I hadn't had the camera long when I took these so trawled around the house, focusing on things.

Nut meg.

He chews his tuggy thing in a dreamy sort of way after thoroughly shaking it to death and breaking it's back several times. Goes from pointy eared manic growling to Disney eyed soppiness in a flash.
Usually the pointy eared stuff all happens too fast for the camera. Along with the bowing chinese dog pose which one day I will catch on camera.

Saturday

was hectic. We had Summer all morning which means I did nothing of use (except hopefully to her small self). failure to practice on Friday resulted in failure to play music at all adequately in the afternoon. However I suspect everyone else must also have had a grand or other child underfoot because I was not the only one struggling.
We had a gig in the evening and fortunately lack of practice stimulates some sort of adrenalin/fury response so it went really well. also playing folk for dancers is less exposed than playing violin 1 in a rehearsal for a concert. I may have made an error or twenty but it seemed to come out in the wash OK.
It was a tennis club do so all reasonably well off and middle classish. So all fit and fairly bright. This was possibly less entertaining than a wedding or a drunken office do but quite satisfying. You wouldn't think a barn dance would sort out classes and genders and types so sharply but it does. and you wouldn't think people would be so skittish about whether they will be able to do it right but they are.
And it always amazes me that people come to barn dances even though they can be heard to swear in front of witnesses that THEY NEVER DANCE. Often it's true! Equally often it's not. Actually I know why they come...they have a partner who does love to dance and they are (probably genuinely) too kind to deny said partner the chance to dance. But there's this game thing of sittng there NOT DANCING all evening.
Now I'm deeply resistant to being persuaded to do something I don't want to do just because the crowd want us all to be in it together. I am absolutely not a team player. I will make a fool of myself in the general melee if I like the idea of the thing we're all meleeing about but not if I don't. (Like)
I went gliding for my birthday...I absolutely loved it . But not only had I no desire to take the controls of that fragile thing, I didn't want to spend my half hour in the sky worrying about left, right, up and down. Not to mention sideslip and is there anything else in the sky. I didn't want to spend any of my half hour worrying! There was naturall anxiety but I decided to overcome the desire to prove anything about anxiety and just enjoy. I was up there for the ride and it was totally a amazing and fantastic ride. curve of the Earth or what!!! Whoosh!! But everyone I told about it couldn't understand why I didn't have a go at flying it. No need...
So it's odd that I can't quite get inside the mind of the man who sits at his table at a barn dance refusing to dance. While all the world and his wife have a riotous time and make happy fools of themselves on the dance floor. And entertain the band while they're at it.
The other best thing about Saturday night I've just remembered was we played 2 or 3 of my new tunes and not only did people stop to listen but our caller made lovely compliments! Wow.
After the delight of making a new tune and getting the band to play it (or the group if it's classical) is anyone hearing it and saying nice things. Have to say though the absolute best thing is making it and thinking yeah. That works. I can never play them though. I always write about two grades better and higher than I can play. Sad. Oh but once I got a group of really good players to do one of my quartets at a party and it was fantastic...a million times better than at home on the computer. they liked it too. double wow.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Summer-sitting (this was rightly yesterday's post but I forget to ....

Summer is our grandchild and she's staying the night. She is delightful. And bossy.
But very well behaved. I don't remember her mother going obediently and cheerfully to bed as soon as it was suggested. I don't remember myself going to bed obediently and cheerfully at any time or at any age. Odd. but nice.
There was lip quivering though when I insisted on making my own tea. Surely she doesn't make cups of tea at home? She's only three. Or maybe she thinks of us as playland. Anyway she is going to make chocolate cornflake crispies with Grandad tomorrow. We have the ingredients. She doesn't know this yet but I'm sure it will make her very happy.
I have to play my fiddle downstairs when she comes (or great grandad for that matter) since the music room is just opposite her/Fran's/GG's room. this upsets Mandu (the other cat) as she doesn't like me to play, and the Nutmeg (the dog) as he thinks if I am here I ought to be taking him out. In fact at this moment he's right. I ought to take him out and it will be a bit wild and wet and windy. which I shall like and he will hate. He's such a wimp.