Well met by Waterloo Lake

Yes, well. Leeds involved a lot of mud.
I've said before that I really like Leeds, still, I'm not accustomed to being knee deep in mud when I visit there.
But we did go to help sister in law with her allotment and we spent a happy couple of mornings lugging large bags of stones and bark around and sprinkling it very decoratively (but also, usefully) around the muddy bits.
And we met a bee lady and SiL's patch has a pond busting at the seams with frogspawn and it only rained a bit.
On Saturday afternoon, while Barney went to a stamp fair and SiL had a bath and recovered, I met a fellow photographer. One of the first to visit this blog and indeed, one of the first whose blog I visited. We met under the Oakwood clock...(one day I shall certainly take a picture of this) and we knew we'd have no trouble finding each other...cameras all over the place (he has two) and then we went for a wander round Roundhay Park.Following a conversation we had, I feel obliged to point out that the sky wasn't this colour*. However the camera seemed to think it was and I liked the result so it stays. Slightly enhanced even. Also, filtered with neat image because it was a very noisy picture :)
Roundhay Park is an excellent park and I do hope the council don't fence round all the lakes because it wouldn't enhance the view at all. I suppose it might stop a few children from drowning there but really, I feel it's up to parents to stop their children leaping into lakes and drowning, not councils. I never let any of my children leap into lakes and drown so I think other parents ought to be able to manage this feat too. See?
Anyway, me and my friend had the sort of delightful walk, which possibly only photographers enjoy, lots of sudden stops and backtracking and interrupted conversations and pauses to adjust lenses and allow each other the perfect view. Swans performed for us
and moorhens did the opposite of what we wanted. And here's a duck for Mel :)
The rain held off and filled the sky with good clouds and it was really very very nice.
We saw magpies (there were six at least...Barney says six is for gold which is a nice thought)
Then there was a splendidly healthy trek back up a mountain (no? well a steep hill then, Leeds has a few of those and Roundhay Park grows on several sides of some of them).
On the walk back through Gipton Wood (where I didn't get lost, though I must say I wasn't totally confident about finding SiL's house without at least one or two steep backtrackings) I saw a two squirrels leaping from branch to branch and out of twenty or so pictures, one came out (very pleased about that :)
And now I shall go and take my cold to bed...where on earth did I get a cold? Frangelita, I believe it's yours....would you like it back?
Nice to be back :)
Sleep well.

*The green bits weren't anyway. The blue was lurking around here and there though :)

Leaving Cloud Cuckoo Land

I forgot to say, I'm away for the weekend, visiting sister in law in sunny (?) Leeds.
Barney will help build a raised flower bed in her allotment and I will...um, cook dinner? take some pics? Maybe meet an old blogging friend?

Barney is sad, it seems, because I'm not earning any money. It depresses him.
Must say I'm not sure how much he thinks a totally unqualified person can add to our pension prospects but I think I'll have to stop enjoying the peace of an empty house (except when the weather is bad) and the time to wander round the heavenly countryside and look for a bit of the old gainful.

So, what I've got to look forward to includes, having a bit of extra cash, meeting new people and learning new things, um.....well you never know, maybe finding the other job I've always wanted but couldn't imagine. (yes I know I liked working for ex boss but I seem to have mislaid that job). Er, gaining respect and approval in the workplace? Oh and being able to say "you'll have to feed the animals, I'm late for work and don't forget to lock up and chase the cats out from upstairs and can you make dinner tonight because I've got a meeting", having the satisfaction of knowing I'm contributing (more than I was).

Well, and on the other side, there's having to explain what I did with the extra cash, applying for jobs and being told I'm not quite what they were looking for, trying to think of a good reason why I haven't worked for seven months (other than that I didn't want to), meeting new people and finding that they're a pain to work for/with, finding a job that I don't like much (but I can always make the best of it), being told I'm ever so good with this that and the other but I need to improve that, the other and all these to come up to scratch, having to be polite when they tell me it, worrying that I'm doing it wrong, having to be somewhere every day at the same time until I die, missing a thousand wonderful pictures because I'll be late for work, being late for work because I took one (Oh alright, a few), having to defend my (unwanted ) job from whinges about how I ought to be getting paid more and the house is a bit of a mess (implication being that my contribution hasn't increased enough and I'm not doing my bit at home any more), having to sort out the house after a day's work, hardly ever being able to meet people casually in the day time, coming home with amusing stories about work today and getting the blank look, .....Er, this list seems to be getting longer.
Actually I think I'd better stop making it now. I don't need to work myself into a state over it.
After all, most families have two wage earners and I've had a nice break. And it'll give me something to talk about. Goodness, I made enough fuss when I had to leave the last job....surely I don't need to make a fuss about looking another one. Well actually, yes I do need to. Then I'll consider it calmly and pleasantly with optimism and common sense and I'll pull my feet up and put my socks on the ground and now I'd better pack. Got an early start tomorrow.
Have a nice productive weekend and I hope the sun shines for all of us.

Out' back next door.
Sunny day (I bet it does this all the time when I'm at work)
Grey day (make the best of it)

Oh, and I spend all my time "playing around with photos on that computer...couldn't I get a job doing something like that".

Lightheaded

I mused a bit this afternoon.
Having got up at an almost respectable hour and taken a lot of pictures (no, really, a lot) I was driving home, making a huge effort to stop suddenly swerving all over the road and swooping into gateways without any warning for other, unsuspecting drivers...in order to scramble out clutching camera and making odd noises and random mutterings about being hungry and but it's got to be worth just this one more picture.
And I thought, amazing how light changes everything.
(Which led me to think that anyone who has religious convictions will understand that concept in quite another light...which in turn led me off on some musings about faith untill I turned another corner and saw a new light on a new view...which led me back to light)*
In today's sunlight, every corner reveals a completely new place that just wasn't there yesterday.
I wanted, in fact to go to all the places I went yesterday, just to see them in a new light.

The first thing you learn as an artist is how to see what light does to things...how it shows you the form of a thing. A child draws a line round what she sees and believes that inside the line is the thing. When you learn to see light falling, you realise that the thing is there already, on your page...all you have to do is see that the light will shine on one side where it comes from. The shadows where it's blocked show that there is another side. The intensity and depth of light and shadow show how the thing curves away from and into light and has still more sides and planes and angles and...form. Light reflects off it and across it and shadows lie under and around it...the form is in...space.

As a photographer (albeit an entirely unlessoned one**) I have rediscovered light in a different context. There is form and space of course. And instead of trying to create an illusion which will make you think you are seeing light, making a form in space, you try to capture a reality which is profoundly changed by the light that illuminates it and the colours that light reveals. Indeed, with a camera, you are actually trying to capture the light to use it as a painter would use a brush***
Instead of talking about form, you talk about depth, light and shadow filling the space between here and there.
And colour. There's something quite different about the way light makes colour in a photograph from the way an artist uses it in a painting...I'm not quite sure how this works but it is different...I'm a bit casual about colour, I don't know much about it but I know what I like!

I think I'll stop there...I'm exploring the whole thing and while some years' art study may have taught me some useful words about art, I don't have a great many useful words to apply to photograpy. Which rather makes me think that it may be true that it's much easier to think if you have a vocabulary to do it with. (though it's important to bear in mind how enormously a vocabulary can constrain your thinking...there's another post. I can borrow from Frangelita's dissertation on journalistic vocabulary...correct me there Frangelita, I can't remember what it was really about:)

Yesterday's grey, flat light on a path leading away under some ancient yew trees.
Today's brilliant sunlight on a path leading through hazel and oak.

For ILTV...a hare jumping over the moon :)
Or would you prefer the one that jumped a little later on when the light was beginning to fade and the hare became a distant silhouette....Ooh, I'm getting all poetical now!
I do so enjoy a bit of thinking now and then. I think I'll go to bed now..G'night, sleep well and may all your dreams be light :)


*So I may just do a post on Faith tomorrow, if I can remember what I thought...well you never know, stranger things may have happened.
**Except for two weeks at art college and two days from my photographer friend :)
***Or a chisel or a pencil or whatever, I'm simplifying...I talk too much already :)

River Pang crossing?

I don't think so!

But definitely a wet picture.

And a wonder:)
Tonight I am going to bed...er...now.
And I'm definitely getting up early tomorrow:)
Sleep well :)

A morning post

Last night I nearly posted a post that said
"I'm going to bed NOW" so I can get up early and catch whatever the light does.
I didn't do either...Not only blogging is addictive, Flickr is too....but here I am, early.
At eight o'clock the light looked much as it does now. Wet.

Well sod it. I am going out. I've made my tiny flask of coffee, fed the cats and done my teeth. Who knows, I may find wonders out there.
Or possibly mud.

See you later :)

Passionately grumpy

Is that a contradiction in terms?
We watched 'the grumpy guide to food and wine' tonight and it was occasionally very funny.
Oddly, though the grumpy people had many enjoyably sour and tasteless things to say about the annoyances and pitfalls of eating out, none of them mentioned the currently popular necessity to be passionate about food.

Are you pasionate about food? Myself I like it quite a lot, (and quite a lot of it) however, I restrain myself from passion.
It seems reasonable to me to be passionate about, say, justice, a person or art. But food?* Umm, surely a little indiscriminate, even a bit odd, no?
Well maybe I'm being a boring old fart (can a woman be one of those or is this a male prerogative?), but I do think that if we're not careful, we'll be getting indiscriminately passionate about all sorts of nice ordinary things and I do feel that passion over something intended to fill the stomach, is, well, a bit silly...I can understand food being a source of deep pleasure or satisfaction or delight, not to mention enjoyable repletion...but perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of passion?

I am getting a bit tired of TV chefs, presenters, and all sorts of odds and sods declaiming that they are etc etc or that they could only hire waitresses who are etc etc or that the chef at their favourite restaurant is etc etc. Really it does sound so extreme. And though the first time I heard Jamie or Gordon or somebody or other saying it I just thought it amusingly precious, it's beginning to get on my nerves now everyone's saying it at every opportunity!

And just think about what happens to food after you've eaten it...no let's not go there.

(I suppose this chap is passionate about chickens).

Have a great weekend (if you haven't already by the time I get this together) and do enjoy your sunday dinner:)

*depends maybe on whether you consider cooking is an art or a science. Or not.**

**Well I suppose if you consider it a science you might feel it's reasonable to be passionate about science?***

***But then I don't find the majority of these passionate foodie people very scientific.****

****Except Heston Blumenthal of course.

Smoking and hunting ban

Life around here has changed in that subtle way it does when one in a partnership makes a major habit change. You can guess what that is (or go back two posts if you're a new visitor...If so, Hi :)
So Barney is on patches and self denial.
How come this makes me the edgy, jumpy one, desparate for a fag and wondering if I can sneak out for a quick puff??????
He's sleeping more calmly though, that's got to be a plus. The elbows and knees fold themselves up tidily and I'm hoping he's going to stop turning round in the middle of the night to cough loudly and richly in my face :) (I always wake up to cough and decorously smother it under the blankets if I can't be bothered to turn away...I'm just so considerate :)

Well, the other morning, I was peering dopily out of the window and I saw a brown lump in the field, really not so far from the hedge. Aha! a hare, I thought. Got to be worth a quick shot. So I flung a woollie over my pajamas and grabbed a pair of sandals and set off into the wet garden to stalk a hare. Creeping, you know, and peering through the hedge so as not to appear on a skyline and all that.
So imagine my surprise and slight discomfort when I hear hunting horns, loud cries and a horde of people on horses, on foot, on quad cars (!!!??) and a pack of hounds sudenly surge into view, hollering, baying and generally interfering with my hare!!!!
My Hare, I say indignantly to myself. Well, my hares actually. Because as the hunt thundered away across the field and the hounds milled about yelping a lot, all disappearing into the woods, hares suddenly appeared all over the place. They ran across the field, quite at cross purposes with the hunt and with each other. They stopped and sat around thinking hard and then ran different ways. Then they crouched down and turned into brown lumps. One came softly along the hedge practically under my nose and sloshed through the place where our septic tank ends.
The hunt, now quite distant all turned round and went in several directions, mostly, not the same directions as the hounds (which themselves seemed pretty confused about directions) nor the hares.
Hares, I have to say are quite astonishingly fast. The hounds were beagles so not as fast as say, harriers or fox hounds.

By now I was standing on the stile, pajamas and sandals forgotten and asked a passing hunt person (on foot), wasn't this illegal?
I kept her standing around for quite a while explaining that they were allowed to hunt 'shot hares' after a hare shoot earlier on and made her repeat herself quite a lot (very politely but indulging in a good deal of pedantry and masked snydeness) while watching, out of the corners of my eyes, two hares running in opposite directions to different covers and noticing a third doing the brown lump thing not far away. She must have been wondering if I had a serious squint.
Anyway eventually she set off again, now in a bit of a hurry and panting through the same septic tank run off as the hare had traversed earlier.
Three deer joined the game at one stage and a sparrow hawk left the woods, in some high dudgeon, I expect.

I don't think all the hares made it to safety what with all the hunt persons posted around to drive them back into the field. Still I know a few did because two of them were there this morning.
Can't help wondering how the hounds could tell which hares were 'shot hares'.
And for all that the hares seemed to be winning most of the time, I have one or two shots (my goodness they were fast) which show that it wasn't all a game for them.
I am sad about the ones that didn't get away and am going to get in touch with the RSPCA or whichever body it is that is supposed to keep these idiots under control.
I'm not passionately anti-hunting. There are far worse things happening than that. but I think it's self evidently silly to say it's an efficient way to deal with pests. And though I don't really believe hunting people are emotionally aware enough to be full of blood lust, they are clearly emotionally as thick as several short planks and need to be turned into flies for a while and have their wings pulled off by small ignorant boys to teach them something about being the under-dog in a world full of alpha humans*-**. And I'm not ignorant about the other side of it. When I was a small pony mad brat I went hunting three times. Actually I loved all the galloping about and didn't mind at all that on each of those times there was no kill. No one else seemed to care very much either. But I was fairly plank shaped in the head in those days.


Right. On on and ever upward.
Barney forgot Valentines day. He was so struck with remorse (since I had, this year, remembered) that he bought and made a fantastically complex and delicious meal involving fish and herbs and six saucepans and all the mixing bowls and chocolate and cream and all sorts of wonderful stuff.
And, I bought him a rather splendid Japanes knife for Christmas and then an amazing knife sharpener for his birthday. I tell you the combination is lethal. He doesn't dare drink when he's using it any more! And all the knives are now so sharp that if you see them in the washing up water, you keep checking your fingers to see if any of them have sneakily touched you without being noticed. Onions quail at the sight of them and fall into tiny thin slices in terror. Herbs sliver into a million tiny shreds and apple peel falls quaking to the floor in perfect rings. It's all rather exciting in our kitchen these days:)

*I expect there are people who feel the same way about bloggers
**I suddenly remember that there's half a hare in the freezer. I feel a bit twitchy about it. This is the first time I've ever done that.
Dammed hares :(
Nice hares :+
My hares ?????? ~:{
Oops.

....Thanks for all the fish

I've been feeling quite guilty lately about my laxness with blogging. Not, I hasten to add, about my own posts, I don't feel obliged to post every day fortunately, as quite frankly, I can't muster up the mental energy to attempt interestingness every day :) That would be silly.
But as I wander around with the camera and do my shopping and (a little) housework and all that stuff that one does, thoughts, pop in and out of my head (never too many at once though, there isn't room for more than one and a half thoughts in my head at any one time) and often they're about the people I 'know' and 'talk to' here and whether they would be amused or entertained by (for instance) the fact that my electric toothbrush makes me feel as though I have a small angry hornet buzzing around inside my head* which is a major disincentive** to keeping my teeth from falling out (I've always hated my teeth and if they fell out I wouldn't have to worry about them any more would I).
Where was I? Oh yes...There are all these lovely people, some on the other side of the world for heaven's sake, who take the time to visit and say something encouraging and friendly after I have rabbited on about whatever burblings I've been moved to post...
Well, thank you all (from somewhere around the middle of my heart...I feel that the bottom of it is quite a murky and muddled place which I don't often sort out, better to have thanks from a tidier bit)

I would never have imagined when I started this that it could be so immensely rewarding and warming to the soul. Thank you for frequently restoring my faith in humanity and for always entertaining me and for enriching and widening my experience and understanding of the world.

Wow! enough of this soppiness!
I need to finish getting up and let the thrice dammed dog out (poor idiot thing that he sometimes is) and feed the hungry cats...oh, and eat!

See, even though I neglect my blogging, it comes before food!

Oh and what I really meant to say (I know I'm getting old, I distinctly remember saying something like this before) is I may not be visiting a much as I used to but I still do and read whole loads of wonderful stuff but it takes me so long to think of any one comment (yes, even saying "that's really brilliant" involves long periods of brow furrowing and deleting and rewriting and wondering if I've now said the same thing fifteen times in a row thus giving the impression that I wasn't paying attention sit up at the back there bardsley and whether I remembered correctly what someone said at the beginning of a post that I'm now reading the end of) - well, you know -

Umm...Oh yes, it takes me so long that sometimes I just stop and think, no I can't think any more....try again tomorrow and as you know, tomorrow never comes.

And now I have a million Flickr places to visit where the problem of excessive superlatives is even greater and I've just realised I've neglected a whole lot more people. Where does it all stop?????

I talk too much!
As the witches in Sheri Teppers *** delightful Jinian series tell her, "consider water"
so I will
and early morning sunlight on frost for good measure :)

*I realise that a small angry hornet in my head would, in fact, be a very different experience from electrical mouth hygeine.
**This is a horrible word but I can't immediately think of the proper English one...sorry.
***I always enjoy Sheri Tepper's books, however, she does have a quite aggressive feminist slant which in later books becomes pretty much unvarnished man-hating. And there's a strong anti religeous theme which marries oppressively with a 'wipe out all the bad people'theme. This occasionally drifts towards a 'wipe out all the unfit people' theme. Hmm. Not my thing at all.
But her characters are strong and she tells a good story.

Honey and frost and ancient wrecks

A few years ago I discovered desert wines. As a rule I'm strictly a dry wine drinker, preferably rich and full-bodied and red. With a hint of chocolate and some ripe jammy stuff. But I'm a sucker for descriptions (and book covers) and when I read about "honeyed fruit with smokey undertones" I had to try it.
Very nice with coffee. Mmmm :)

In honour of the Birthday boy, we went out for dinner tonight. (at a smart and sparkly restaurant in town). Unfortunately, last night we went to the pub and Barney was plied with strong drink and had a hangover this morning. Possibly because he also gave up smoking in the early hours of today and has now got a nicotine patch as well as a hangover, or possibly because he may have a bug, he isn't feeling too good. We came home without pudding and now I'm having coffee and desert wine. (and he's watching football with a cup of tea).
In fact we've both spent the day lounging around in a slightly disassociated state (I've no idea what my excuse is, I'm sure I didn't drink very much last night). And earlier this evening, the dog did his fast forward to the other end of the lead thing. Last time he did this I fell down the stone steps in the garden and considered myself lucky not to have my neck broken so tonight, I braced myself as he vanished and so didn't fall down any steps. Instead, when he reached the end of the lead at high velocity, my hand was crushed against the back door. So now I have minor lacerations all over the back of my hand, a twisted wrist and stiff fingers. As well as the stiff knees and ankle (from all the trudging around with the camera in various weather). Add to that a suggestion of toothache and an urgent desire to be asleep in bed without having made any effort to get there and you'll get the general picture. And Barney is feeling his age and soothing his hangover!
What a pair of ancient wrecks!
As you can see, I have absolutely nothing of interest or import to say tonight.
I think I'll just post some pictures and go to bed.

I'm very fond of this stand of pines and on a frosty morning, they're irresistable.

This picture* reminds me of John Millais' Ophelia (minus Ophelia herself of course. At least I didn't see her floating anywhere in there). In fact when I looked the painting up I could see that there was almost no resemblance at all except a certain amount of green wetness. So often the way with memories and reminders.
*That's this picture, not the other one. The other one doesn't remind me of anything much, it's just a nice pond:)

Yes, I saw it.....

Well what with all the dire warnings it would have been unusually dim of me to have missed it this time! We were all checking the barometer and the thermometer and the news as though we'd never seen snow before. The estimated depth varied from 6 cm to 7 inches. I expect the actual depth did too. Here, it was deep enough to wait for me to extricate myself from dogs, cats and husband in time to get a few shots.


(No! Really?)

It's been a confusing time here for the last week or however long it's been. Barney's been at home on unusual days, the day after Eldest fixed the email it broke again and I've been out with the camera five days in a row. Also we've been out in the evening twice and will be out tonight and tomorrow. And all my swimming and fiddle lessons have been cancelled as fiddle teacher is ill. I don't know if I'm coming or going...or whether I've been? And I don't know why it is that snow makes me feel as if nothing normal can be done*.

Anyway, the unaccustomed excercise (stumping around frosty, sunny, snowfilled and otherwise cold and difficult lanes and fields and woods) has had me collapsed in a stuffy stupor every evening! I did play with some of the several hundred pictures I've amassed...till the computer screen put me to sleep :)
Here's a frosty one from Sunday? Monday? Whichever day was gorgeously frosty :)

Next door's catoniasta has a new photo to offer whatever the weather :)

One normal thiing I did was to go to the farm shop (failing totally to catch a shot of a very grumpy Kite humped up on a branch) Where I failed again to catch the Kite, now gliding lazily over the roof of the farm, but instead made an attempt on these adorable wild boar piglets (sadly destined for the table at our local pub restaurant)

They were extremely lively piglets and most of the pictures came out as small brown blurs :)

So! More snow today for barney's birthday. This is nice as it means he gets to have his birthday at home instead of being up a cold damp roof in the wind and drizzle. He's currently struggling through a new stamp catalogue which is written in German in very small print. And he's looking to identify Peruvian stamps for his latest collection.** I think he's finding it a bit confusing.
I may have another chance at virgin fields tomorrow...or even later today. And there will be more pics (frosty, sunny and chilly) in a day or so if I don't fall asleep too often. It's all very well getting up in the morning but it does use up precious sleeping time. I'm not sure if this morning thing is a good idea after all!

Well I guess I've arrived back at my blog just as everyone else is shutting up shop for the weekend :)
Have a tremendous, safe, warm and snowy weekend everyone. (or just a tremendously nice one if you're not snowbound:)

*I mean it's not like a power cut when nothing normal can be done is it. Speaking of which.......
we haven't had one yet, don't tell anyone though.....
**He bought an incomplete album on a whim because Peru didn't make very many stamps so it shouldn't be too difficult to complete it. However, they made so few of some of the missing ones that they're very very rare and probably very very expensive. And there aren't a lot of collectors of Peruvian stamps so not that many opportunities to add to the collection. I don't really understand stamp collecting but the finished albums look very nice :)

Oh Joy and Wonder

Eldest has delivered the goods..by remote!
Took over my computer from afar and what with mice whizzing about all over the place and multiple windows and instructions and queries being typed back and forth from Berkshire to Lancashire it was all very very exciting indeed!
I am totally exhausted and didn't get to go to the pub but the business email now works again. And maybe I even remember how to fix the funny pictures in the website!

Now I am going to do a thing I promised myself a long time ago and write down and print (and save-as) large and bold and brightly coloured and dated and labelled, all the internet passwords, settings and other such stuff in a big word folder. Which I shall name in some obscure and puzzling way so that identity thieves won't realise that it's all in there but I will remember it. Then I'll put it somewhere obscure and puzzling so that next time the email breaks I can spend several hours trying to remember where it is! And the print can go in a special drawer or box...so special that I'll never ever remember again where that is.

As well as this marvellous event, Barney and I went to Welford today to look at snowdrops. And I mean SNOWDROPS.....uncountable millions of them in a great white, still, gleaming carpet.
I have to say that photography with a husband and a dog is a bit like shopping with a husband and a dog...you don't quite get the meditative space you need to do it properly. Still, I took a few pictures. I suspect that there may be a few snowdrop pictures on Flickr tonight, we encountered dozens of other photographers today :). Emails and phone cameras will be buzzing with snowdrop pictures too :)


It was a sight to gladden the heart alright.

...this is internet perversity (insert M&S voice-over here)

"In Saudi Arabia, a woman may divorce her husband if he does not keep her supplied with coffee"*
This is all well and good, as long as the coffee is also good :)
Meanwhile, I need a private, personal webmaster, a visit from Eldest, or a course in email set- up and maintenance. Or a different book from the one which hid it's meanings behind simple words and three simple diagrams. Also, I need a map of how our emails are set up.

In order to calm the boiling confusion in my head, I shall attempt to explain, starting from THE END.

In the end, was the failure of Barney's email to function.

In between, mine seems to be proceeding in its usual disorderly fashion (somewhat more smoothly since eldest's last visit).

(You can skip the next part if you like, I'm sure it doesn't make any sense)
In the beginning, we had one computer, a dial-up connection (I'm not going to mention Eldest's computer or his seperate phone line nor any of the things that went with all that) a free email account with Freenetname and we each had an account, one for me and one for the business. At some point, it was decided that the family should have a website (now defunct) and there was something Freenetname wouldn't do so we opened an Eclipse account. To keep things tidy, we changed the email to Eclipse as well.
At some other point (posibly earlier than the change to Eclipse, we decided to have a business website and Eldest trawled through many many web hosting companies and we opened an account with UK2.net. and, if I remember rightly, made an email account to go with the business, also with UK2.net.
Are you with me so far or has your brain glazed over yet?....
We (maybe) now have one email and website provider for the family and another for the business. But what I completely fail to understand is why the outgoing smtp thingie for the business seems to be attached to Eclipse. Of course I also completely fail to understand why suddenly the business (UK2.net and maybe Eclipse as well) email suddenly doesn't work (and before you ask, yes it is plugged in).**
After a frantic yell to Eldest for help and advice I have spent a frantic evening trying to contact UK2.net to ask if they've changed something without telling us... however, they don't seem to recognise our password, and of course, since we can't receive email from that account, we can't have a reminder. I've also scoured the UK2.net knowledge base and have encountered a number of....well, things I might have to do or maybe shouldn't do under any circumstances, depending on the circumstances. See? No? well now you know why I have a mutton head. (boiled) Also a butter brains (churned). Oh and cold feet (draughts and panic).
Wasn't the weather nice today? Tralalalalala....lala }:#

And AAARRGGGH! Blogger's off again. No posting, no commenting, no pictures, no nothing....no saving???? Oh broad and bloggy hell on a b b b b b b webcycle! I shall copy and paste and retire to a well earned bed and hope a horizontal alignment will soothe the raging storms of incomprehension before the inside of my head expands to fit a space larger than is available and I need an extension to house the whole internet and all its concepts.

Have you ever noticed how enormously much larger the space inside your head seems than would appear to be accommodated by the bits round the outside of it?

This morning in the cold light of day and after my brain has stopped heaving like a stormy sea, I recall that we opened the Eclipse account because Frenetname didn't do broadband. This doesn't seem to clarify matters much. Oh and Eldest gave me a wireless router but I really don't think the problem is inside that....this time. I suppose the Eclipse bit in the business email is to do with broadband.

I am seriously considering the man on the market who fixes/helps/sorts and generally understands computers. If he succeeded in helping Dorothy to get herself an email account and use it he ought to be able to explain quantam physics to me!

* (Strong absorbent trivia for the toilet- a truly excellent book)
** and switched on.

8am!

Yesterday I gotupinthe morningearly because the sun was shining and I really wanted to get out and take pictures before it hid.
Made it!!!!
First the cat interfered with my picture of snowdrops (the angle of the sun proves that this pic was taken at a ridiculous hour, ie, before 9am)
And then, after a four hour walk round Greenham common (of infamous repute) I came back with a few pictures*, a rumbling stomach and frozen fingers. (had to walk backwards from time to time to get the sunshine on the southerly fingers as they were the ones pressing the buttons).

I met dogwalkers, crows, the thing from Greenham Common and a cock.


The dogwalkers, crows and thing are to be expected. The cock is definitely not.
*524...or was it 542?

Important note: I absolutely dare not so much as glance at another blog tonight...four hour walks and half hours swimming and getting up at 8am {twice} followed by 500 pictures to be looked at means I am a tired blogger and can't find another two hours tonight. Please wait for me...I'll be there tomorrow (ish)
And now I can't change the colour of this so you'll have to peer at it! I'm not sure it's worth the blogger...I mean bother.
Bother!