Pictures speak quietly

I'm not here any more

2011-05-05T11:42:00.004+01:00

It could be that the above link (if there is one) will go to where I am now - if not, it's here.

Well???????

2008-10-18T11:48:00.001+01:00

is it working yet?
Good Lord! Finally after about six weeks it sems to be working again.
Sorry Blogger, due to almost total failure to get any kind of help with the no publishing problem and the enormous difficulty of navigating round the impressively unhelpful help topics, I've left you.
New blog on wordpress here.

Wordpress is pretty good. I like it.

We can work it out

2008-09-01T18:53:00.007+01:00

I was absently and hopefully singing this while scrambling up and down a hedge in search of a particular view. (Not sure how I got there from this but it seemed to work.)
Later, having received a text which said they had worked it out, I found myself singing
this and wondering if it was appropriate. (To be honest, it often has been with youngest - she's the kind of open, affectionate young woman who attracts jealous guys. Then blow me if they don't get jealous when more guys are attracted to her. And when previous guys are still attracted!).
(irrelevant photo of brambles)
All the wedding stuff seems to be going to plan. This weekend saw the stag do as well as the hen thing - Eldest appeared briefly here, three times, once with a lot of washing and later with some paintballed clothing and a trophy for being the best at quad-biking and um, not go-carting but something like it and then a third time to collect all his bits and pieces and hurry off back to Lancaster. And we got to see his pics of mountain biking in France. These actually seemed to be mostly about mountaineering and abseiling which made me feel a bit vertiginous. I'm glad I don't have to watch him doing this sort of stuff any more!
Meanwhile, we went to a sort of tiny, private music festival in Reading and listened to some very enjoyable local musicians and barbecued sausages* and generally had a good time. And I did find a few minutes to wander off and discovered a bonfire - it was a wonderfully sunny evening :)Now it transpires that I have to entertain GB probably from about 8 am tomorrow morning. I'd better go to bed or she'll have to wake me up before I can do the entertaining!
*No we didn't listen to the sausages, we barbecued them. But you could hear them sizzling if you really wanted to listen to them.

Oh look! Lots of chickens

2008-08-31T16:27:00.003+01:00

Me and my girls (I would have included the boy but he wasn't invited to the hen night)

And the rest - a lovely crowd :)

:)

Got a family crisis

2008-08-31T13:32:00.002+01:00

Sorry I may be absent for a while. No details, it's not my crisis to tell stories about.
It's ok though , nothing to do with the wedding :)

xxx

PS, the hen night was fun :) Pics when I have time.

I'm supposed to be finishing the booklet

2008-08-27T11:34:00.006+01:00

and making a final selection of pics for the holiday crowd to see TOMORROW!!!!
This will teach me to take too many photos. Won't it?
Well, the other day, Frangelita and I had to get together to collect some stuff and we had lunch - Carbonara, very very good and huge!
I showed her my new lens and she said Oh is it one of those ones where you can do close-up eyes and stuff like that and I said Oh yes I hadn't thought about eyes. So naturally we did eyes across our carbonara.
My Eye (with rather nice clear reflection of Frangelita's hand taking the photo)Eye take a photo (of Frangelita's eye - less clear but still with the photographer's fingers reflected in there somewhere :)
Then we went home feeling absolutely stuffed to the gunn'ls (or gills, depending on whether you feel boatish or fishy, either way pretty bloated which is itself a bit fishy and quite appropriate since I am invited to Fran's grown up Hen Night* and we're having a fish restaurant dinner)

Moving right along to Wednesday, I can't do anything about photos or any of that right now because the computer is downloading yesterday's sunshine, very slowly. (which is bad of me because I ought to finish the other stuff first). But I'm quite excited - last night I nearly finished the booklet and there are only 3 more pairs of pages to go. And would you believe, they actually did meet in the middle. (They couldn't have done anything else really since I was working inwards from both ends of the booklet anyway but I could imagine that somehow I might have cocked up the process and ended up with ten pages of lovingly printed photos which didn't work out after all). There really is something quite satisfying about printing instead of just viewing.

So while I'm waiting for the photos I've tidied the kitchen (it's been getting harder and harder to find anywhere to put anything the last few days) and walked the dog across the road. We tried an extended version of our usual amble which involved going round the edge of the big field and climbing out into the road. The good thing about this is that after a gentle slightly downhill amble there is a stiff uphill walk back to our gate. A very short stiff uphill walk but definitely uphill. (This is good because it's exercise for us both. It's also bad because it's hard work).
We both found this quite challenging and I was hoping that when we got back the photos would be finished so I could get my breath back and sit down for a while. No such luck so now I must hoover. Ugh!

And finally, Thursday arrives and I've finished the booklet and sorted out all the pictures and now I'm copying them to CD. There are still 552 to look at and I can't imagine they'll want to see them all at one sitting so they can take home a CD. Then I shall become a whirlwind** of dust and untidiness and finally, settle down into a tidy dining room and kitchen and clean bathroom and bogs.
Meanwhile, from my sunny evening (it lasted all of half an hour) here's a hare started up by the harvesting (which seems to be going on for a very long time this year - I think the weather is giving the farmers a lot of trouble)
Bounding away into the sunset
And a cool, windy, sunny afternoon at Winterbourne.
Do you know, they did want to see all 552 pictures and then we looked at all Linda's pictures too and Steve brought the most enormous monitor I've ever seen so we all sat round the dinner table and behaved exactly like my parents used to with their friends, showing each other's holiday slides on projector screens. And it was fun!
But I forgot to show them the booklet!!!!!
Gaah!

Got to go to sleep now. It seems to have been a long day. I hope you all had a good day too. And I hope you all sleep well.
Goodnight :)

*The youthful and exuberant Hen Night is to be at the Bestival Festival on the Isle of Wight and they are all going as brides. I am excused thank heavens!
**Slight exaggeration, more like a lazy breeze with the odd eddy.

2008-08-26T18:44:00.004+01:00

The met office says at 7pm there will be one of these
outside. That's in 13 minutes.
So I put my trust in them and organised my whole day around a plan to go out at around 7pm and take some photos. To be fair, it's been all day so I wouldn't have gone running out with my camera anyway. Still, there's no sign of any sunshine yet. Meanwhile, I've cooked the dinner, hours in advance, made little quiches for barney's lunches for the rest of the week, kicked the dog out several times because he was looking at me with too many big, brown, hopeful eyes, kicked the cat out because she was throwing up, let them both in again because I felt sorry for them, kicked them both out again because they wre driving me scatty and let them both in again to feed them (was this a good idea I wonder), not quite hung the washing up to dry because that felt like being too, too boring, printed several more pages of little booklets of canal holiday pics and turned my brain inside out in the process and now it's time for the weather to look like changing.
Er.......
Well?......
Sunshine?..............

Hmm.

Oh Ooops! it's 18.57 and the faintest little patch of sunlight is struggling through the clouds. Oh my goodness! I have to lock up and run away.
Back later - tomorrow maybe :)

2008-08-23T18:41:00.009+01:00

A good match then. The weather and today's icon from the met office. (Except their weather seems to be going in the opposite direction from mine)

Barney tells me that one of the other members of the stamp club is a birdwatcher who has told him that there is a Peregrine falcon to be seen occasionally on top of one of the town's least pretty and tallest buildings.
Also that there was a French market in town today.

So I spent the morning looking at a selection of rather sad, dried sausages and limp, warm cheeses and perambulating obsessively round the building in question.
The sun shone brightly, no peregrines were to be seen and I came home with no sausages and a stiff neck.**

Now I am cooking English, undried sausages in a casserole with Chorizo and tomatoes and basil. And we're having it with a warm salad of puy lentils. Thus it is not sausage casserole as such (ie a warming, winter dish for wet windy nights) but a light savoury sausage dish to be eaten with salad on chilly summer evenings.
The difference as far as I recall is that instead of adding the lentils to the sausagey, winey, tomatoey, herby gloop and heating it all together I dribble the gloop over the warm lentils and perch the sausages on top and scatter some leaves and herbs over the top of that.
See. A summery sausage dish :)
(Shall I add cucumber? No, I don't think that will work.)
No, he wasn't in the least bit taken in by all this nonsense but accepted the inevitable when I offered him the opportunity to cook something himself instead. I like a man who bows to the inevitable. (Though I love a man who occasionally rises to the bait and cooks for us himself :)

And now, being completely dried up of inspiration I shall er.... well.... say goodnight. For now.
Goodnight :)

*I stole the icon from the met office website. d'you think they'll mind? I had a lot of fun trying to find various ways to steal it like copying and pasting into word and also into the blog post but in the end I realised I could just save it to disc as a gif. I've now stolen all their weather icons :) It seems to take up a whole line of er - space - which is a little excessive for something so small.
**Actually I went out with the stiff neck and indeed got up with it this morning but it fitted in better, obviously, after the perambulations round a tall building.

In which my left and right brains are severely challenged and rearranged

2008-08-20T11:18:00.005+01:00

Oops. I've just filled the kitchen with smoke.
Brrr, now I've made the whole house cold.
However, all is well.
Yesterday, we got the immersion heater fixed. One more leaky thing down and two to go - it turned out the immersion heater was another leaky thing not just a watery one. It took all day and wasn't keen to fit in the allotted space so there was a sigh of relief all round when it finally filled up and the water got hot again - just in time for Barney's shower when he got home. And well in time for me to have one this morning. Isn't it funny how these things always go wrong just after you've said, Oh I really haven't got time for a shower today - I'll do it in the morning!

Finally, I've been through all the holiday pics. The other holiday people can come and see them any time. Only I have this feeling that they may not want to see 800 photos in one evening. So there's still a bit of sorting to do, of the sorted ones. But for me, it's like reliving the holiday. I can watch a slideshow and see the water gliding past and remember each picture as it was taken and what I was hoping to produce and what I actually saw. Every so often I think, "what on earth did I take that for?" and occasionally - quite often - "Oh I knew that wouldn't come out" and sometimes "what were you thinking when you took that!!!!". And now and then"Oh wow! That came out!!" Oh and quite often "Gaah! Idiot! Missed it!".
I've deleted over 4000 pictures.

Then, feeling a bit smug, I thought, wouldn't it be nice to print a few out. Perhaps as a little booklet. The idea took hold and suddenly I found myself fiddling around with the picture package thingie which I use to arrange pictures on a page so that they come out the way I want them - not!
See, the obvious thing to do is print each sheet of A4 so that you have two A5 pages with two pictures on each, er, a front page and a back page. Umm, and then on the other side a back page and a front page.
Right. And oops! you don't want the pictures on the back pages to follow the pictures on the front pages, they need to be taken from the end of the holiday - in reverse order- so that as you lok through the booklet you follow the pictures in the order they were taken. And then of course when you arrange the pages, the pictures at the top of each page need to end up opposite the ones they are following in the final booklet not following the ones at the other end of the final booklet.
With me so far?
Yes, I thought not.

Well and then when it comes to printing, you do have to make sure that the pictures come out on each side of the page facing the same way up! And it was at this stage that I nearly fell apart altogether since the printer produces the pictures the opposite way up from the way they are displayed on the screen. And back to front.
Which is to say that when you put the sheet with the first lot of pictures already printed on it, back into the printer to do the next lot on the back you have to make sure that they're going to emerge upside down and back to front - and face down of course. But you knew that didn't you?
Hahahaha!
Oh didn't you? Neither did I. Wasn't it a good thing I decided to print one pair of pages before doing the whole lot!

Well now I have pages 1-4 from the front and sort of x- minus 4x from the back (because I'm not sure how many pictures I'm going to do yet. So I'm doing the whole booklet from two directions at once - the back pages from the end of the holiday, backwards, and the front pages from the beginning , forwards). And they're all the same way up and they seem to be in the right chronological order. So far. It'll be interesting to see if they meet in the middle :)

Amazingly, the black ink didn't run out until I'd got to the end of the first stage of the marathon.
I am always slightly amused by the way it says,

"the black ink has run out

change

the ink cartridge"

And then it says

"the printer cover is open

Close

the cover"

Oh look, A wish arrive on the carpet:)

And I got to walk in the woods in the sun :)
Got to go an unravel my brain now.
Sleep well :)

Le plus ca change

2008-08-19T10:03:00.005+01:00

Le plus c'est le meme chose.

But maybe it would be more accurate to say (I can't do this bit in French) the more we scurry about, rearranging them to stay the same.

Things change.
I was talking to someone a while ago and it suddenly hit me that this is one of the truths that I've known since I was very small. My family moved twice when I was quite young and there was a large rearrangement of my life required. I wasn't old enough to do a great deal of rearranging to suit myself so the changes were far-reaching for me. One of them happened just as I was about to start School - which I loathed, hated and feared with all the passion a five year old can muster. Quite a lot! But demonstrated it quietly, obstinately and in passive ways. There wasn't the space in our life for me to do tantrums or throw fits of rage or run screaming to hide in cupboards. I hadn't learnt to read and hadn't read stories about children who agreed with me so running away from the unbearable - and home - didn't occur as a solution. Besides, I did know that mummydaddy would be hurt if I didn't do the required thing. So I did it. But with very bad grace.

Later moves introduced new schools and new lives in new places. They were precipitated by my Father's illnesses which were the typical ones that attend a portly, elderly Doctor who works too hard, exercises too little, smokes like a chimney and eats and drinks too well. Heart, stomach, cancer (only a little one in his jaw but very distressing for him all the same) and lastly, arterio-sclerosis. Each one involving changes for all of us.
It's small wonder my Mum had depression, for much of our lives it was her task to orchestrate the changes and manage the problems they brought and she was a woman who should have been nurtured and cherished in security if ever there was one. And, again typical of so many woman with professional husbands, it was her job to make it seem that all the responsibility was carried by a faultless husband. A man thirty years her senior who was, himself, baffled by her sadness and my recalcitrance. And both of them were dead by the time I was twenty (ish - I'm not good with dates)

What it all meant for me was that by the time I reached adulthood I knew that life is subject to change. No place, no person and no arrangement is dependable. Other people might have time to form deep and lasting relationships but I would probably not. Roots are fragile and easily torn up. Trees fall and reeds wilt. And let's be fair, I am likely to abandon anyone who looks like changing a lot.

So I rarely 'fall' into any relationship but every so often I find myself 'choosing' one. Thinking, yes, this person I will try to stay connected to whatever happens. And that means however much they change, however far they travel and whatever they do.
Oddly, the selection process is impulsive and intuitive though the decision to keep the connection alive is calculated. I'm happy with that.
Not so happy with the certainty that change is waiting round many corners to undo all my calculations and deprive me. Which is why it's odd that the beauty of the world is a constant solace and a thing on which I utterly depend. Change is constant in the views I watch. Change threatens all the time and amazingly, every change brings beauty. We are warned of unimaginably large changes that may come to the world we know and while it scares me, I still, selfishly, hope that there will be something newly wonderful for me to see.

From France with love

2008-08-18T13:38:00.004+01:00

It's almost as good as being there :)
Two more postcards! - and look - Little boats!!!! :)
I am now feeling even more hugged and hugely privileged.

Oh I hope the holiday is being good and fun and happy.

Bridegrooms to be - read no further!

2008-08-18T11:14:00.009+01:00

In case you see something you shouldn't!

Lalalalalalalala -lala -lala.
Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

(All bridegrooms gone? Good)

Things are definitely getting organised for the Frangelita's wedding :)
We had a long phone call today about 'my responsibilities'. It's not happening all that soon but soon enough that it's a good idea for me to get those responsibilities firmly in my head. Fortunately Fran knows how forgetful I am :) I anticipate several more such phone calls over the next few weeks!

Nonetheless, Ooh!
Book travelodge for close family - done
Make necklace for bride - done but in the wrong colour, she wants gold and I only have silver wire. Well it might be ok or I might have to obtain fine gold wire somewhere!
Get Dad to Fran's place in time to accompany her - no problem, he'll be there :)
Speak to Bridegroom's Mum - she's a bit shy and will need to have support from the Bride's Mum :)
Book taxis from travelodge to wedding and back - well no one will want to be toasting the happy couple with fizzy water and Ribena will they :)
Make sure we remember to order pizza for the band - as members of a band ourselves we know they won't be very happy if they don't get fed!
Print orders of service - I hope and believe Fran will send me something I can just press a button and get a result with
Collect glasses the morning after,wash and return to their various owners - I am so noble! And before 10 am too!
Think hard about breakfast the morning after - we won't want a travelodge breakfast in our rooms so it'll be a question of finding a nice place where we can all breakfast together. This could be challenging especially in view of the glasses collection thing
Turn up at the church the night before to have a practice! Goodness!
Oh! Turn up at the church! On the day! On time!!!! Yes :)
And Fran tells me my main duty is to beam a lot. I expect I can manage that :) Fortunately I am not the official photographer! This would be altogether too much of a responsibility. However, it's possible I may take a pic or two :)

Bother! I can see that gold would look better. Shall have to investigate!

A gift from France :)

2008-08-17T01:40:00.004+01:00

Looks like just a postcard (But what a postcard! I mean look at the wrapping!)
Feels like a hug :)

Hugs back :)

Blue skies and Butterflies

2008-08-15T18:04:00.003+01:00

My word I've had a busy few days - I think.
Blowed if I can remember all the stuff that's been going on.
Last night there was a Newbury Flickr group had a meeting with a young man who runs a photo page in the shiny bit of the local rag. He wanted to include some of our pics which was fine :) Better still, only two of us actually brought any pics to show him and guess who was one of those.
So could be I might be about to have a first published picture! (But not for two months so we won't hold our breath :)
And then today, not only did I get the car window fixed (one leak down, three to go*) but I went to a music morning and played my fiddle to my little heart's content for a couple of hours and then somehow found myself wandering around the woods nearby. And I found little blue butterflies. Now there aren't so very many blue butterflies left in England (I still remember how it seemed like an unusual and awful thing when the Chalk Blue butterflies were reported to be rapidly becoming extinct and that was a very long time ago. Really, before it became a regular item of news that yet another species is endangered and I always get very excited when I see a little blue butterfly.
Today, I saw dozens, all flitting about among the heather and gorse.
What's more, my fiddle teacher had time for a lesson even after the music morning so I got to play some more music (but very badly - I was getting a bit dozy by then. Never mind trying to count up to four, I could hardly count up to one!)
Anyway, what with butterflies and woods and music I've had a very full day and now I'm waiting to see if I have any photos of little blue butterflies or just lots and lots of little blue blurs. :) It's going to take a long time - you don't want to know how many pictures I took today!

They came out! Oh look they've got blue fur! And the dearest little slanting eyes!

!

:)
Got to go to sleep now :) 'Night :)

*Only two actual leaks but three bits of watery machinery rapidly approaching their final glug.

Beauty and the eye. And sundry leakages.

2008-08-12T10:45:00.008+01:00

We made an unscheduled trip to A&E yesterday. Well, it was this morning when we got home!
That was my fault really since I am used to Barney getting stuff in his eyes. It goes with the job, bits of straw and dust follow him round and even return home with him (not as bad as cat hair but even more ubiquitous).
So when he said he had something in his eye, I was sympathetic but not much worried. Later, I tried to have a look at it but it was a bit gloomy and I couldn't see anything. Later still, I suddenly thought I really ought to have a proper look before he went to sleep with it, apparently, still in there, so I hied him off to the bright lights of the kitchen, sat him on a chair under the light (we'd just been watching 'The real life on Mars' so I made a crack about interrogation - received rather frostily) .
Oops! There was something in there all right. Not a huge thing but definitely an embedded thing - not to be removed by wife with damp kitchen roll I decided. Oh, huge guilt for enjoying the TV while the poor fellow was sitting there with a great big (tiny) thing in his eye! I am a bad wife!
Now it's funny that although Barney is as good as any man where it comes to man-flu and 'pain' and deserves a standing ovation for the dramatic productions over cramp (which is bad, I know, but if it was as bad as he makes it sound, he'd be dead by now), when it comes to potentially serious things, he goes all small and quiet,tells me very little and won't make the smallest move towards getting it sorted until I till him to.
I'm not sure if the longstanding family joke (his joke) about my father being a doctor and therefore me being a smartass where medical stuff is concerned is a case of 'many a true word spoken in jest'. So I should have guessed from the sad and patient look of suffering that it was a bit worse than the usual speck of dust! And when I said, right, we'll ring the doctor now, he made me feel even more guilty by looking anxious and trusting and red-eyed!
Well, I got brisk and efficient and rang the out of hours number and it seems that the local hospital doesn't do foreign bodies in the eyes. Off we went to A&E in Reading and were very lucky that there didn't seem to have been any major incidents in the area last night and he got seen quite quickly and the removal of the foreign body* was fairly swift and effective too. (Although the doctor who did the removal admitted that he wasn't used to the paper work because he normally worked in another department).

And now, I get to put drops in Barney's eye four times a day. (I have to say this is a great deal less stressful than it was when I had to do it for the cat - for one thing, I don't have to hold him upside down in my arms and stop all his arms and legs from scratching me and anyway he only has two of each unlike the cat who clearly had a dozen or so).
I also get to feel slightly guilty and apologetic that I didn't pay proper attention to his poor eye till the middle of the night. And relieved that my failure to do so hasn't resulted in some awful eye operation being necessary. And watchful over the recovery time because an eye infection is no joke!

Oh, and I get to see the foreign body, displayed on the end of a cotton bud since he brought it home with him (???!!). It's really very small. But close up and personal, I suppose, very large :)

On my way home from somewhere or other today, I stopped and had a wander round Hampstead Norreys Church. Unusually, it was open so I got the chance to see inside. I do love the smell of churches :) And the windows.
And the graveyards :)And when I got home, Youngest came visiting with Gorgeous Babe who gave me a sprig of lavender (picked from our back doorstep) as a present. and When Barney came home he got to have special cuddles because he's her favourite grandparent, and his eye is feeling much better (I'll soon be having trouble persuading him to keep bothering with the drops - it could get to me having to hold him upside down after all) so really, apart from the washing machine and the dishwasher leaking and the car window having stopped working when it's slightly open (so that's leaking too - I had to leave it with an umbrella inside last night), Er? Yes. apart from all that everything is fine :)
Oh well and the immersion heater making the power cut out last night but, hey, what's wrong with less hot water? It's Summer after all. (Ok we won't go there. It is Summer whatever the weather suggests. See.)
Now the dog would really really like to go out please and I suppose I would quite like to go to bed.
G'night

*I love this expression - makes me think of that Azimov book/film about the tiny people voyaging through the patient's body to do some kind of medical intervention which couldn't be done by a proper surgeon.

While I was going through the holiday pics

2008-08-11T01:24:00.001+01:00

I found these :)

I hope I haven't posted them before :)

Cookery is

2008-08-10T19:39:00.009+01:00

"An art!"
"A science!"
"An art!!"
"A science!!"
"An..."

No it isn't. It's a game :)
Well we got a round yellow courgette as a gift :)
What on earth are you supposed to do with one of those? Play a cooking game with it of course :)
It's stuffed with something or other and olive oiled and it's just gone in the oven with the roast potatoes and parsnips. I wonder how it will come out?

The really great thing about the cooking game is that I get to play and somebody else gets to win or lose :~)

We had a sort of plan for this evening only it sort of depended on the weather.
There's music at the local pub tonight and they serve pizza on Sunday evenings. However, we usually have a Sunday roast. And the main point of going tonight would have been to sit outside in the sun listening to music and eating pizza and abandoning the roastie thing till tomorrow.
The weather wasn't playing though and while we were dithering about the littlecloudwithoneraindropandasunpeepingouttheback icon on the met office report, I sort of started cooking.
So Barney went to the pub and is now indoors listening to music and I am at home playing at cooking and working through holiday pics and thinking what a shame I didn't go to the pub when the sun was shining (which it did intermittently all afternoon - that would be thelittlesunpeepingouttheback part of the icon) and being glad I didn't when it rained heavily (littlecloudwithraindropunderneath part).

One thing I am gradually learning about my new macro lens is it's not a zoom lens. Twiddling the focus ring doesn't bring the image any closer. It just makes it go more or less out of focus. However as long as something in the picture is in focus, probably everything that's the same distance away from the lens will be in focus too. So if I stood in the middle of a bush and focused on something and then turned round and pressed the shutter, probably something would be in focus! This could be worth a try!
And, a macro shot is not just a close-up. At least, I don't think it is?
It's all very puzzling ?:~) I think it would only take one more lens to take me beyond the boundaries of what I'm able to understand. Fortunately, I'm happy with the two I have :)
Sleep well :)

(The courgette was nice. I didn't realise how much water there is inside one though :)

I got it!!!!

2008-08-07T20:03:00.006+01:00

Just thought I'd say.
I think I may never go to Ikea again :) One of the funny things about the trip was turning, as instructed, into the Valley Park turn off and heading for the Croydon IKEA chimneys*followed by several other cars. Obviously all going to the same place since when we arrived in a deserted scrap yard, we all drove round in small circles with much pointing, gesticulating and expressive face-making to return to the proper Valley Park turn off and head once again for the chimneys.
And there were compensations on the homeward journey in spite of rain and horrible traffic on the M25.
Well, this morning, I looked out of the bathroom window and watched house martins flying in and out of their nests under the eaves and one solitary hare, motionless in the field. The sun had a brief flirtation with the tree tops and vanished. A cat paced (very deliberately, crunching noises accompanying every step) across the newly shingled drive and a blackbird flitted to the top of the apple tree and did a very impressive imitation of the phone ringing. After a while, I realised that the real phone was also ringing. Thus the odd stereo effect.

Today it's back to the filing. I wonder how many photos our holiday companions would actually like to see? There's 355 in the holiday folder and I've only worked my way through the first two and a half days :) (That's 355 which have been cut out of the rubbish and made pretty for viewing!)
Me? Dead? Not a bit of it. I may be getting a bit deaf in me old age though.

*I think it's a bit of cheek for IKEA to appropriate these chimneys. I'm sure they've been a Croydon landmark since long before IKEA was so much as a financial gleam in the eye of some Swedish entrepreneur!

Resurrection

2008-08-06T17:57:00.007+01:00

I had a nasty shock today.
I was planning to hoover (or, more properly, Sanyo) the dining room.
Mandu, my little tabby cat was sleeping peacefully on the floor so not wishing to shock her into a heart attack or anything like that, I made a fair amount of hoover-arriving noise.
There was no response. So I switched on at the wall and found that last time I used the infernal thing, I hadn't turned it off so it started up. So much for sparing the cat's anxieties.
Only she didn't react. Not a twitch of a whisker. Suddenly apprehensive I stared at her peaceful form.

After a minute, I prodded her, very gently (and rather gingerly as I have to admit to a slight squeamishness about, well, about - that sort of thing). No response.
Ooooh!
Oh dear!
Oh No!!!!! Not my naughty, anxious little mouse murderer....not, dead?

I sat and looked at her still form and then thought, well, she looks so peaceful and just as though she's sleeping, I ought to take a photo.
So I did.

Whereupon, she twitched an ear, opened one eye, blinked up at me and then sat up and had a good wash.

My word, I had that hoover (Sanyo) going like a shot! Full blast and with lots of energy. (after giving her a quick stroke and a welcome back shove, out into the kitchen)

Meanwhile, on the Ikea front, I've been chasing my desk (the one which has been discontinued). I've whinged at some length to the customer Services department and attempted to find out if the Croydon store really has 77 still in stock - only the store wouldn't answer the phone when the CS lady tried to phone them.
But it seems possible they still have some. And this morning, I thought I'll make one last effort. So I rang and my new CS lady looked up Croydon and said yes they have the item, 44 of them.
Just out of devilment, I said how about Wembley?
Oh, well they have 35 in stock but it's also coming up as discontinued.
So could she check and find out what's the truth?
Oh well, I'd have to ring after 10 am.
Yeahyeahyeah. So will they answer their phone I wonder.
:(
Wembley seems a little less of a marathon journey than Croydon but it's still an weary long way into the scary big city on the chance of a different kind of resurrection :)
Also I've almost run out of tobacco. Though I have plenty of sugar :)
Ok. 10 oclock arrives and now I am on hold, waiting for Wembley to tell us their story!
It's all really outresting don't you think?
A few raindrops to accompany the piped music :)

3 rather lovely old fellows playing some really beautiful blues on steel and slide guitar (quite the dreamiest sound and much nicer than the piped music). These three British Blues singers, Richard Cox-Smith, Sonny Black (aka Bill Boazman) and Mike Cooper are among the best. And on this evening, Mike Cooper and Bill Boazman were reunited for the first time in - oh, lots of years. Great music :)

Oh, pooh. Wembley won't answer but Croydon has 44 in stock. I'm off. It's taken me 3/4 of an hour to get this far, which is nowhere!
Wish me luck!

(probably I forgot to mention that normally the appearance of the hoover causes all cats to leave precipitously without so much as a faretheewell and the dog to have a kind of anxious 'play?', 'fight?', 'be friends?', 'Waaah!!! got to leave now' dance, in and out of the room.)

There they are :)

2008-08-05T11:15:00.003+01:00

Last nights boggled pics :)
(I hope I haven't posted them already :)

It's raining and the cat got shut in the bathroom this morning. You don''t want to know about that though. Honestly.
Shall I travel lots of miles to another Ikea or shall I do filing? Can't decide.
.
.
.
.
Ok, three phone calls for Barney (who's at work*), some map study and lot more rain later I've decided to stay at home and tidy and file. By the time I'd been properly polite and informative to all three customers it was getting a bit late for an early start to head for the wilds of Surrey in search of a unknown Ikea and a desk. How much do I really want this desk?
I think maybe I'm just being stubborn, though it does have exactly the adjustableness and shelves I need and if I hadn't been chasing up and down the motorway for the last six months it would be very reasonably priced.
I'm going shopping (for dinner and dog food) now.

*We're always amazed by people ringing a thatcher at 11am and expecting him to be by his phone. Do they think thatchers take an office up the ladder and park it on the roof while they're working?

And yet more filing

2008-08-05T02:09:00.004+01:00

and also deleting, processing and moving files around with increasing but probably misplaced confidence.

It's becoming a sort of reflex. Sit down at the computer and look at a few hundred holiday pics and start working on 'just another one'. If I ever get through them all I won't know what to do with myself!
Earlier this evening I stood by the back door, breathing in the night breezes and enjoying the peace. And the company of one dog (peeing copiously) two cats (looking expectantly at me - I don't know why, they'd been fed hours ago) five slugs (all heading at rocket speed - as far as they were concerned - for the top of the steps) and five hundred moths (heading sort of anywhere but definitely at rocket speed).
And now I'm definitely not, under any circumstance at all, going to do 'just one more pic processing'. I'm going to bed.
No! Not another one...not even that one.
Definitely.
Good Night and sleep the sleep of the deserving. We all deserve a good night's sleep.

(sorry, there were going to be pics but blogger threw a boggley and now they've gone awol - tomorrow maybe. Internal errors indeed! Exactly where, internally, may I ask?)

Archetypes!

2008-08-01T13:37:00.006+01:00

That's the word I've been looking for :)
Archetypes are, according to Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. Being universal and innate, their influence can be detected in the form of myths, symbols, rituals and instincts of human beings. Archetypes are components of the collective unconscious and serve to organize, direct and inform human thought and behaviour.

S'good that wikipedia :) Mind I'm not completely sure I understand the bit about phsychic dispositions or substrates. But I like the bits about them being universal and innate and being detected in the forms of myth, ritual, symbol and instincts. On the other hand I'd argue a bit about the instinct bit but that's because I take Jung with a pinch of salt. Tasty stuff and appetising but I'm not convinced of his scientific basis.* And I've always understood instincts to be similar to reflexes but in a way that relates to mind instead of body. So, hard-wired into the psyche. And while I can happily accept myths, rituals and symbols being a way to express a commonly understood imagery I'm not prepared to accept that the imagery which we categorise as archetypal is as deeply wired into our psyche as a reflex is into our physiology.**

However, Old Father Thames, winding through the city, is an archetype for me. I'm not sure if one is allowed personal archetypes as well as the ones that belong to the collective unconscious (which I'm not totally convinced exists anyway, though it's a nice and comforting idea) .
But I guess any great river with a settlement along its banks ought to be an archetype? And an emblem both of fear and of security. (Water where predators and prey gather together and there is rarely a truce and equally, water where life can be sustained and survival becomes easy for a while). Such places must be very important in the collective, hand-me-down human memory, at least, and if there were a collective unconscious I bet they'd be there too.

Speaking of a blithe disregard (which I am about to do below) I spent the day sorting through old files, throwing stuff out and diligently editing photos for our canal holiday companions to come and see. Barney insists that I don't show them the full five thousand (I can't think why!).
After which I had a sudden attack of 'who cares if it's perfect as long as it's fun!!!!'
This is a bit of silliness, combining two mismatched and wrongly exposed photos in photoshop. Together with some quite random post processing.
Also there were bees. The thing about bees is they're very easy to see. (Which makes them a good subject for a muttering, peering photographer who's not quite sure what she's doing)
The other thing about bees is they appear and vanish in the blink of an eye. Or indeed the click of a shutter. One instant there's a bee, the next, there isn't. Makes for some interesting photos :)The bee I was trying to photograph vanished as I clicked but coincidentally, this bee flew through the area I was focused on, at the same time :) I really like bees :)
Tomorrow it's back to the filing - Barney thinks it's going to take me at least a day! Ha. He should be so lucky. I suggested a week and he laughed - I think he thought I was joking :)
So now I must stop playing and go to bed.
Good night and have a lovely weekend :)

*This is easy for me to say as I've only ever read popularised versions of Jung's work and certainly have never studied any of the science of any of the old psychologies. But 'it takes one to know one' and I seem to recognise a blithe, inventive and adventurous disregard for dry facts in what little I have read :)
**You may think my interpretation of 'instinct' is a decidedly dicey one which bears very little resemblance to its real meaning. In fact it's quite probable that I am misinterpreting and misrepresenting the good Mr Jung entirely. Do tell me if you know :)

2008-07-31T21:37:00.002+01:00

Been to the Big Smoke and visited lovely I,SLTV in a glass tower.
Been given lunch and wonderful company.
Sat on a football and seen the best views of the city.
Been shown some wonderful layered drawings of the things that rise and fall on the tide and how other things appear and vanish and look just the same but quite different in subtle ways.
Been very very clever about driving round the scary city and not getting lost at all.
Seen Old Father Thames backing up as the last of the tide came in and then flowing away as it began to go out.
Been to Ikea and got very cross.*

And now I'm going to go and collapse in a heap on the floor and read for an hour with my feet up.
Tomorrow I will catch up with the rest of the world. Please don't all go away ok :)
Sleep well :)

* See, the thing I've been trying to get from them for months and months, their website said was in stock.
YES!
Checked the website this morning and it was still in stock
YES!
Got there and lo and behold, far from being either even slightly in or out of stock, it was discontinued! Never to be seen again.
I went looking for someone to complain to (loudly, distinctly and in great detail) and instead encountered a tired customer server who had just gone to fetch himself a stool since he just couldn't stand up any longer! Since my feet were feeling fairly tired, I couldn't help but feel sympathy (not his fault after all). And then he was so wearily disarming and apologetic and helpful, looking through all the various stores to see if any of them had remaining stock of the wretched desk, that it ended up with him saying drop in again some time and me saying definitely and us wishing each other a nice day in a quite genuine way.

However, I still intend to send Ikea a blistering letter (though I may mention that the shop staff were very helpful and didn't deserve to have to deal with furious customers misled by some idiot's failure to update the website (which claims to have been updated today)

2008-07-30T11:14:00.005+01:00

Golly it's quiet!
Father and Sister in Law and lovely daughter have gone and me and the dog are wondering where everyone is! But there's just us! (The cats must be sleeping in the sun somewhere)
And the sun is still shining :)

One of the things I shall miss is the sound of Sister in Law's delightful full throated laughter echoing from the garden or from upstairs or downstairs or somewhere around the house. And the occasional encounters with the lovely, leggy teenager (girls of that age are so beautiful but so - absent).
Father in Law will also be missed - he's such a flirt and so mischievous :)

Now one of the things I have never understood, is how do people make poached eggs. Either the straight into a saucepan of boiling water variety or the kind we always used to have, cooked in a little egg poaching pan above boiling water. Today I had the interesting idea of having a poached egg on top of smoked mackerel pate on toast. However, instead of my usual egg with a satisfactorily runny yolk but slightly undercooked white I managed to make one which had an overcooked yolk and a sloppy white. How did I manage that?
It still worked quite well I must say and if I ever do succeed in poaching an egg properly I hope I'll have some smoked mackerel pate to hand as well!

Speaking of things that happened without my conscious intention, after a surprisingly un-painful visit to the hygienist the other day, I found that I had walked into Jessops and emerged with a new macro lens for the camera. Now I really have no idea how that happened! I certainly hadn't planned to do anything like that ?:-o
(Sssh! don't tell anyone - I still haven't quite got to terms with the idea that I did that, so I haven't told anyone yet!)

And now I'm waiting for a large amount of lamb to arrive which Barney ordered at the pub the other night. I'm quite sure we agreed to have half a lamb but he's got a whole one and I'm not sure it'll go in the freezer! More things that happened without my full consent and intention!

Perhaps I should just abandon intentions altogether :)

Sweet Pea BeeAnd strange flowerCourtesy of new lens :)
'Night :)

Cycles. Of life both domesticated and wild.

2008-07-27T00:54:00.005+01:00

So, one hairy pest has been successfully relocated.
However we are a bit concerned because it seems possible another kind of pest may have moved in.
Yesterday (the morning of the family do) Barney told me a 'something very fast and small' had flown past him in the kitchen. He couldn't see how it had got in since all the windows were closed. Unless it was a bird that the cats brought in and then let go.
Only it seemed to him that it looked like a bat.
Ooh! A bat in residence!
Well, actually, um, a pest in residence!
I have no anxieties about bats and no fears that they will tangle in my hair or anything like that. However, I am not at all happy about a small, flying, multiplying mammal colonising our kitchen!
And later in the morning, the bat confirmed its existence by coming out in full view and flying around before vanishing back - into the very place from which Tosca has recently been ejected!

One problem is that bats aren't very easy to catch. Another is that they are a protected species and you aren't allowed to do anything to disturb them! So I am told by our friends who have an unwelcome colony firmly settled in their roof!
And a third is that we really don't know how long this little interloper has been here or indeed, how many of it there are! It's not like it will sit and introduce itself to you and give you a chance to get to know it! It's a case of 'all bats look the same when they're flying around your kitchen'!

Well, all these questions prompted me to look for an answer or two. And I find that though bats are indeed protected and you can be heavily fined for disturbing their roosts, one that is encountered flying around your house is probably lost and wants to get out! Which is fine by me :)
I'm hoping a night with the window open has encouraged it to leave. We haven't seen it again :)
I'm in the middle of downloading a few pictures from the weekend.

More time has passed. The weekend is over and only Father and Sister -in -law are still with us (and Sister in Law's lovely daughter and cute dog). Our dog, far from being cute, stole a helping of chocolate tart from a passing small child at the weekend and has been throwing up all day.
A window fell out of it's moorings today when a thunderstorm blew past. The weekend itself was all sunshine and hotness and small children splashing about in the paddling pool. And vast quantities of food and drink :) I am a stuffed bunny, almost unable to move for barbecued pork and chocolate tart and subsequent meals, too many and too large to describe (including a quite heavenly fish pie cooked today by Sister in Law).

It's all been good and now I am a trifle exhausted!
Apologies for my absence - I just didn't have anything polite to say. Except phew and oof and mmmm and *sigh*. A bit boring really.
But today what with sudden clouds mounting up and then the sky opening and then the open sky and a strange and wonderful mist rising after the thunderstorm, I took some pics.
Tomorrow I will visit (I daren't tonight as it's long past everyone's bedtimes - even mine :)
It's cool now :) Heaven!

Hope you've all had some lovely weather too.
xxx

Another day begins...

2008-07-25T00:40:00.004+01:00

Yesterday, Barney's day began with a house full of smoke and ended with a blocked drain.
Mine, on the other hand, began with a hair cut and seems not to have quite ended yet.
The night before last it was so deliciously hot that I opened all the windows, blocked all the doors from blowing shut and went to bed surrounded by cool breezes from every direction.
Very early next morning (If not in the middle of the night - who can say) one of our further away neighbours had a fire lit. They are only neighbours in the sense that they are next but one along the road. A mere half mile or so away. the fire was to burn a large amount of tree branches they recently had cut down with a lot of green wood in them. So a lot of smoke. And the wind blew it across the field straight into our windows! All open invitingly :)
Barney was not amused! (But I was asleep and missed it all)
But after shutting all the windows, he went off to work and then when he came home (fortunately before he'd had his shower), he discovered that our drain was blocked. There followed a good deal of grumpy and hot and sweaty stuff involving bent pieces of metal and hot water and all my washing up liquid. That's life in the country for you :)
Anyway, I got up, rushed off and got the haystack trimmed and then spent the day spending vast amounts of money on food (to be consumed on Saturday when the family all descend. Later I came home and opened all the windows again, since the fire across the valley had now declined to a trickle of vertical smoke instead of a cloud billowing across the countryside. And did a few bits and pieces of cleaning and tidying. All very civilised really. Such also is life in the country :)

We had a conversations last night which went like this.

"Is there anything you want me to do tomorow, I'm writing a list."
"I don't think so, I've got my list here and mostly it's stuff you won't have time to do, Besides, your list looks enormous"

" Well I get up earlier than you so I have more time to do things so I get more done"
"But things have a way of taking longer than you expect"

"Yes but as I'll be getting up so much earlier than you I'll still get more done"
"Ah" biting tongue "Right then. Well it's true you get up earlier than me"
And "Well you could go into Thatcham and collect the glasses and check out the fish shop if you like".
I noticed that he didn't actually put these things on his list!

For some reason, I forgot to put on my list 'spend the first two hours helping Barney to do the things on his list'
Wasn't that silly of me?
So I got up about an hour after him and promptly spent the next two hours helping him put up tents and marquees and things. As I said, things have a way of taking longer than you expect.
Later he was distressed to discover that pastry for the chocolate tart had to spend a whole hour in the fridge before he could do the rest of it. .....As I said......
And he was quite taken aback to learn that he had to go and collect the glasses, wasn't sure if he'd have time for that. What? And go to the fish shop too? ..... What was it I said?....

On the positive side, we have found the perfect way to get the trailer tent up. Hardly any poles fell down and it took rather less time than it usually does (though rather more than he expected)

Oh I am such a smartass :) But a smartass surrounded by a clean tidy house so that makes me a smartass bathing in reflected shininess which is very very good :)And there has been some sun shine too which is also very good :)
I shall go and sleep the sleep of the just. (The just too damned smartass to live)
Good night :)

Finally I have the answer!

2008-07-23T19:55:00.003+01:00

Down the front of my bra! Why didn't I think of it before? And Barney has fixed the scales too :) Isn't that wonderful?

The cats and dog have been getting a bit of stick today - well, foot, curse, heel, trip, mutter and stumble really. In the interests of cleaning (yes I know I've mentioned it before but it's a rare event here in sunny Berkshire) I've had doors open where normally they are closed. Also in the interests of keeping - er, less hot. Cool would be overdoing it.
So they keep ambling, nonchalantly but watchfully into places they know they aren't allowed. And I forget they're there and trip over them. Then, of course, as I reverse swiftly with a bit of fancy footwork, they change direction and we meet again. More trippage and colourful language. (I know how to say "OW!" in both cat-chian and dog-ese)

And the top of the cupboard has been transformed with saucepan handles and other sticky-out things into a bristling wall of obstacles. Also a nest has been provided above the washing machine. So far this has been coldly ignored but maybe that's because it's too hot for nests?*

The weather is too hot today! I love it!!!!
Now I must simultaneously have a shower and cook the potatoes. For tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut and tonight Barney (scales-fixer extraordinaire) may want dinner. The only thingie on the horizon is that the hair cut is booked for 9.15 in the am. A time when normally I would think how many hours since 3.am? Oh not enough, go back to sleep.

Blogger has been playing silly bloggers. One minute the whole virtual world is at my fingertips, the next it says "sorry, blogger is offline at the moment" or "sorry, mozilla firefox can't find the requested url" or "sorry, the server at blogger.com timed out. If you keep having this problem (or if you cannot open any urls) please contact your provider"
Sometimes, just for variety it says any or all of these things about Flickr. Or Google. Or Hotmail. Or ....no that's about my limit.
I know I'm not the only one thus afflicted. Every so often I'm able to open a tantalising window onto likable view or a dream or two or the world of a cyber vicar or a place of testing or a place about to fall off, or, or,
Well you get the picture. I can't put the links in because I am currently confined to the virtual inside of my own computer since "publishing and saving may fail" and also nothing else will open.
And I see that others have also been denied (no doubt most apologetically) access to their own comments or others blogs or whatever.
Isn't it just the way of the world to offer you itself and then say "Oh sorry, not that bit" or "not just now though" or "try again later, we've all gone home".
The thing seems to be to comment before taking time to read the posts. (it worked with posting the photos). I'll try that next!

I wanted to call this poetry in washing or possibly sock stanzasAnd I did mention a walk in the Thatcham Reed Beds?And shingle? Ankle's eye view
Moonlight or sunlight? You choose.
Oh, Sorry! Were you wondering about the question? Well the question is, where can I keep my cigarette lighter handy when I'm not wearing pockets. Works a treat :)

I'm sure there was something else I could have told you, something that tidies up this rather random post and ties it up neatly. But I can't think what that might have been.
So good night and sleep well and have lovely dreams and wake up 'freshed in the morning.
Love :)

*see recent post about sad cat if you find this information puzzlingly irrelevant. It won't get any more relevant but at least you'll see why I put it in.

Why do I have to do these things at 3 am?????

2008-07-23T02:46:00.005+01:00

Oh well, I just do!
Spent the last two days alternately learning a new thing about photoshop, which could have saved me hundreds and hundreds of hours of clicking and peering and mouse clutching over the years, and running about like a scalded cat doing stuff I should have done earlier :)
Never mind.
The sun was doing nice things to flowers yesterday :)

And I went for a walk by the Reed beds in Thatcham:)
And then I came home
Night all :)
Do you remember Dixon of Dock Green?
(Bet you're all too young :)

The end of an era

2008-07-21T15:50:00.002+01:00

A sad time has come to Tosca, our little black and white cat. Though she doesn't yet know it, she is getting too old (and hairy) to continue to leap up to the top of the cupboard in the corner of the kitchen to roost at night. Some time very soon, she is going to find her access blocked and her long time nest occupied by something else.

You might think this was a thoughtful plan concocted by her loving people to protect her from the dangers of such a leap for such a little old cat.
You would be wrong.
It's a sudden decision brought about by 'the annual cleaning of the house'. Of which I always blog round about this time of year since it's when most of both our families descend upon us for a weekend and Barney (who is a true romantic in the old sense of the word*) likes the house to look as though it's kept clean.
When Tosca first came to us we were enchanted, amazed and stunned by her ability to leap (fly?) to a height of about three feet across a similar depth (that gives you the perpendicular and the horizontal and clearly Tosca is a better mathematician than I, since she seems to calculate the hypotenuse with unerring accuracy and land up there every time without apparent effort). The return is almost more amazing since she has to land on a spot which is about eight inches square.
The problem is that she sheds hair. Probably in flight but certainly while she's up there. And annually I wrestle with handfuls and clothsfull and scrubby thingsfull of the stuff. I wonder about the hygiene implications. I watch it swirl around the plughole before inevitably creating a blockage somewhere in the drainage system. I curse the occasional handful that drifts down when she's having a particularly vigorous grooming session. And also the handfuls that collect in utensils that hang nearby and have to be cleaned before every use. It's got to stop. Tosca has got to stay below decks with the rest of us mortals. I only hope it doesn't send her into a decline!
Oops, she's just come in - I'd better stop before she gets wind of my dastardly plan!

Of course the big difficulty is going to be finding a suitable lot of objects to store up there and simultaneously creating a new place for her to sleep! I did suggest that Barney install spikes along the top of the cupboard but he refused point blank.

Meanwhile Blogger won't let me comment. I've visited though and babbled on.
Thinking of you all and oh bother, now it won't let me post pictures either!
Well Happy Tuesday to you all.

*As in liking to view life as a romance, which means, literally, a story. (If you go even further back in its derivation I believe it once meant 'a lie')

Shiny :)

2008-07-20T13:21:00.006+01:00

I did say I'd post pics of new shiny things :)
I cleaned the cooker yesterday even though it still looks so dazzling compared to the old one that it was hard to believe this was necessary!

And after spending ages trying to capture facets and smoothness and soft gleamings, I caught a lucky ray of sunshine. That'll do for now :)
I have to go shopping now or we won't have anything for dinner. Though after last night I'm not sure I have room for dinner yet :)
Hope you are having a lovely weekend. Soon it'll be another day, another week another time for new things :)
(Which reminds me, it's almost time for me to start panicking about the family party. Oops, I need a hair cut! Oops even more, I need to clean the house and find places for everyone to sleep! Not our children though or two of their partners or the three granchildren. All three of the dear ones have somehow managed to book holidays, or some such nonsense for next weekend! well at least there'll be one more room for people to sleep in :)
Speaking of sleeping, sleep well :)

2008-07-20T03:21:00.003+01:00

We went out for dinner and as Barney pointed out on the way home, we were out for seven hours! Virtually a day's work! So it's not surprising that we felt a little weary by the time we returned.

It was a good dinner, lovingly prepared and served with lovely wines for each course and all very delicious. And then we all got various instruments out and played rather random blues and folk for an hour or two. All pleasant and delightful.

Came home to a very eager dog who would really like to go out for some essential business right now please, so while Barney went to bed me and the dog went up the road. Joined by both cats in the bright moonlight. It was possibly the best part of the whole evening, (once we'd passed the shingle stuff), wandering across a moonlit field, the cats taking turns to vanish into the grass and then pounce out in front of me and the dog. Dog bounding joyously from tuft to tuft. Some large black flying thing (owl?) passing across the white clouds. Odd night sounds and the purring of cats and the distant motorway all balanced against the explosive snorting of the dog's discoveries amongst the grasses. My feet following the path across the meadow even though I wasn't paying attention.
Now I'm quite totally knackered but I wanted to tell you about the night. Photos wouldn't really do it since nothing was staying still long enough to be captured but everything was moving from view to view in the moonlight and through the night breeze.
I brought them all home (whereupon the cats purred a bit more and then went out to do their own business out in the bright darkess).
Now I'm going to bed :)
Sleep well :)

Grumblings from the lower ranks and the one who should always be right.

2008-07-18T19:09:00.004+01:00

Speaking as 'the one who should always be right' (ie the customer), every so often I get a bee (or a lack of olive oil or an absence of anchovies)in my bonnet. Metaphorically speaking with the bonnet. And the bee.
I went looking for anchovies today in my local Waitrose. Where are the anchovies I asked a nice young woman. She led me to them and though surprised to find them with the tinned meat I settled down to search for anchovies, in tins or jars and in olive oil, without manchega cheese or garlic or herbs or indeed any other additives. Unsmoked.
Went back to my young woman who agreed that these were not to be found and went off to ask about it.
She came back to tell me that they have problem with this item and aren't stocking it any more. But would I like her to show me the anchovies on the deli counter (which I know come with vinegar and all sorts of soggy looking additives - sorry, um, well you know, things like sundried tomatoes and olives and stuff. Additives. I thought I'd made it fairly clear what I was looking for but, ok, she was doing her best to offer me an alternative which wouldn't be what I wanted but might make me go away feeling less deprived (but more manipulated). So I've emailed customer services.

Ok. Another bee. I wanted one day to get some mayonnaise. And just out of interest, I checked the ingredients. Odd, they use sunflower oil instead of olive oil. Now I have looked at mayo recipes over the years and have noted that the ingredients are eggs, olive oil, white wine vinegar and seasoning. You know the eggs give the creaminess, the olive oil gives it's flavour and combines with the ww vinegar to make the emulsion and all that. So, ok, this must be the cheaper version. So I looked at the deluxe version and then the posh french labelled versions and then the homemade looking versions and the 'look this is really special' versions and even the 'freshly made' version. Guess what. Not a smidgin of olive oil to be found amongst the lot of them. I despair but it's not worth an email since it's obviously established practice.

Speaking as the lower ranks, Barney is up to his knees in pea shingle and has embarked on a morning's shovelling and barrowing which I was tempted to think of as his just punishment for introducing the loathesome stuff into our garden in the first place.
My chief and strongest objection to it is that it will be the end of my quiet wanderings up the drive, late at night, with the dog but my more reasonable objections include its habit of wandering into every part of the house and garden and its lack of lasting usefulness. Little stones constantly clatter around in the hoover and fly up from the lawn-mower. After a few months, (or weeks or even days) as it settles, deep ruts appear in it where the car wheels pass most often and scour out the ground underneath. So instead of keeping the drive level, it grinds out ever deeper holes to fill with water and turn to mud.
Then there's the effort of struggling through the shingle instead of walking on good solid whatever it was before and the stones leaping into the shoes and the impossibility of leaving the house barefoot, and most particularly the struggle to get the wheelie bin (axle deep) from one end of it to the other.
But worst of all is the enormous crunching sound like an army on the march every time anyone comes up the drive!

At least in the interests of appearing impartial I am able to tell Barney that it looks quite neat and it's quite a nice colour. At the moment.
Shingle, in my not at all humble opinion, should stay on the beaches where it belongs!

However, watching him pushing and shovelling away out there, I felt obliged to offer my assistance and got dressed in yesterday's dirty clothes and donned a pair of rubber gloves and wandered out only to be told it was too hard for me and there was only one shovel anyway!*
So, ok. I shall have a shower, get dressed up to kill and prepare to go out for dinner with some friends tonight (I have to do some serious tarting up since the young lady is very very dressy and slim and last time I met her I was in fancy dress as a pierrot with a very sad face - covered with running and cracking white and black stuff :)
I hope you are having a good and happy weekend. I hope things are going ever so well. I hope for good moments to shower upon you all.
And I hope the sun keeps popping out for a quick blessing upon you :)

*what happened to the other two then?

While I was sorting folders I came across some pictures from long ago.*

2008-07-17T13:45:00.005+01:00

Thought you might like to see them :)

So, here I am drinking my coffee and actually doing the computer housework I’d sort of not got round to the other day when I was supposed to be taking time off.

Because the internet is taking time off – too much time to load any pages. Yes I checked my internet connection settings. As usual, I don’t understand them. But you never know, one day, one of the interminable updates may include one that says “this is what you want your settings to say and here is the problem explained in simple English and here is the funny code us computers use which you can now quote to any clever computer person who will then be able to make your internet work again”

So I’m typing this while the computer moves files. It seems unusually happy to do this and once I’ve got all the June stuff in the June folder and all the July stuff etc etc, I may even start moving the whole lot into the back up disc.

Or working my way through the folders deleting junk pictures and, you know, all the ones that really look exactly like the ones I’ve selected as the best. The ones I couldn’t decide about.

What’s more I am seriously thinking about getting a new computer before this one has a fatal incident. One with a dual core thingie. Far be it from me to brag but I really do think faster than this one responds (I’m sure it’s thinking a lot in there and doing a lot more stuff than I could think about at all but hey! I want performance here!)

Well something I just typed reminded me of a rhyme the children used to recite at playgroup. It went: -

One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other

Eldest delighted us all by finishing, “drew their swords and shot their chothers”.

As children learn the rules of grammar they uncover anomalies and peculiarities in the language. Probably you could identify children with particularly logical minds by the number of weird grammatical errors they produce.

Wow! While I was typing this, the computer has moved all the files.

I got side tracked again. It seems there's a number of products on the market designed to warn drivers of the presence of speed traps. the one I looked at started by saying "you're a mug if you ever pay a speeding ticket".

True! I mean how hard is it to stay within the speed limit? Well sometimes you miss the sign or forget what it said or just forget how fast you're going so some help would be useful. But the object of these gadgets seems to be to help you to break the speed limits while avoiding being caught by speed traps.

Uh, hello???? We have an industry devoted to helping drivers to break the law without being caught????? And this industry is legal?????

See, I'm so naive I thought it would be a good idea to have a gadget that warned you when you entered a changed speed limit and then warned you if you were exceeding it. Silly me.

*that's only long as in about two years!

Oh alright then, I give up

2008-07-17T00:52:00.002+01:00

Instead of taking a break I was immediately seduced into writing a post and reading everyone else's.
And, thinking I was taking a break, I started a new blog. Presumably to fill in the break :)
Meanwhile the internet thingy blocked all my comments and all my attempts to upload to Flickr and almost everything I was supposed not to be doing online so I got very cross!
The new one is all about photography. Well, no, it's all about what I think about photography.
(Does have a few pics on it as well.)
Not everyone's cup of tea but I'm enjoying being philosophical about light and composition and suchlike :)

And yesterday I had a funny food moment. I have a habit of suddenly being very very hungry when I've just been shopping and I sometimes buy a little plastic box of prawn cocktail to eat in the car before going home. Which I do very sedately (with a camping cutlery set I keep in the car for emergency eating) and maybe a tiny bit covertly in the car park at Waitrose.
Yesterday, as I nibbled at my prawn cocktail, a young woman got into her car next to me and carefully unwrapped a chocolate something or other and sedately and perhaps a tiny bit covertly ate it. We finished at about the same time, gave each other conspiratorial smiles and drove off :)
Isn't that nice :)
Lotsa love
(Oh is that the thing you didn't like 'shot? Oh well can't be helped :)

While I'm taking time off blogging and the dinner is cooking

2008-07-14T17:52:00.005+01:00

I had these thoughts which I couldn't possibly deprive you of. (I'll take time off grammar instead)
I'm making Ghee! This is probably way beyond the call of duty but since I began this curry with rosewater and saffron, (which are rare, expensive and precious stuffs*) I feel I ought to be following the directions as far as I possibly can.
So you take a lump of butter (A BIG lump of butter) and heat it gently 'until all the milk solids turn brown and cling to the side of the pan or fall to the bottom. Towards the end, watch carefully in case it starts to burn'. Oops. I'd better go and do some careful watching!
All this fiddling about with butter is just so I can fry crispy onions properly to add to a biryani. However, the Biryani in question is (I quote) "the true princess at the ball, tall, pale and properly pedigreed, her tastefully chosen diamonds and emeralds glinting in the light of a thousand oil lamps". In contrast to the South African "hot chick" Biryani.
If you will use recipes written by a famous actress, writer and Indian socialite I suppose you can expect a bit of exotic excess :) And Madhur Jaffrey claims to have obtained this antique recipe from an aristocratic family and says it was probably used in the 18th C courts of the Moghul Emperor**.
Well, as instructed in the original recipe, I "began with a silent prayer directed heavenwards and commenced proceedings" Um, well, no not really, it was more in the way of a muttered curse directed downward at the bottom shelf where the black Cumin wasn't. But should have been.
She says the recipe is foolproof. Hmmm. Pudding. Eating. Proof.

Moving right along from dinner (which is now sealed in the oven for 1 and 1/2 hours), I'm a bit cross with the local council.
They're supposedly entering into a major rubbish recycling scheme which will improve on the, admittedly feeble, one they used to run. So instead of glass and cans in one little basket and paper in another, we now have two boxes for paper and glass and a bag for cans and plastic.
Now wouldn't you think, if we used to get all our bottles and cans into one small basket, we'd only need two small - perhaps even smaller - baskets for each? Especially as the plastic only accounts for bottles, no yoghurt pots or other packaging please!
(Well and wouldn't you also think that 'plastics' might mean plastics of all kinds not just milk and drink bottles).
Then you might think that a household accustomed to accommodating two small baskets might have a little trouble finding space for three. So it seems a little excessive to have to put the cans and plastics into an enormous bag. Not a nice solid weatherproof bag but a big soft floppy one (already after being used once, fraying round all its edges and seams and silly handles) with a huge flappy lid and carrying handles on two sides and a strangely placed third handle somewhere else. And then to have to find indoor space for the huge paper box. You wouldn't want to keep it outside in the English summer, never mind any kind of winter. Since the dustmen (sorry, waste removal operatives) wouldn't thank you for leaving them a huge box full of sodden newspapers.
Well obviously the whole scheme was designed by a person who doesn't, ever, themselves, deal with the recycling of waste. What's more they live in a BIG house. And they haven't paid attention to any serious design considerations and what's more they don't care about recycling anyway since they obviously didn't bother to do any research. They didn't even glance at what's on the market already. (I've seen several better recycling storage systems in the junk mail). Sadly, I don't even think this farrago can be blamed on gender. I suspect that there are plenty of women who don't recycle, who live in big houses and who don't bother to check out the market or to research the subject when they're asked to come up with a new system.
Also, I suspect that this is just a smaller version of whatever the disposal firm have been selling to manufacturers and offices. I don't think they even considered the needs of a small household.
What a cock up. And I don't mention the grand beginning of the new system. The various organisational disasters have made the local press and resulted in some rubbish not being collected at all for several weeks!
Neither do I mention the cost of the whole exercise. Nor the probable overunning of budgets.

For once, I firmly believe even I could design a better system. And that is a terrible sad thing! (especially if you could see the typos I managed when ranting about it). Hells Bells, I could probably design a better system and get it to work in a foreign language, using MS word as my translator! (not blogger though)
:(

*Yes I know 'stuff' is singular but I began in the plural so it was easier, and interesting and possibly medieval, to add an ess instead of changing the whole sentence and all its bits and pieces. See!
**A word which the blogger dictionary doesn't recognise - what is the world coming to?

Taking time out

2008-07-14T01:33:00.002+01:00

I need a couple of days off blogger. I have a serious amount of photo housekeeping to do and catching up on Flickr.
So a little self discipline, right? That's all I need. Just instead of sitting here reading and burbling I need to sit here and move files around and curse the computer and the hard drive instead of blogger.

Back soon :)
Lotsa love :)
Sleep well :)

No titles. I can't be doing with titles today.

2008-07-12T23:40:00.003+01:00

My daughter is teaching her fiance salsa in the kitchen. Is this appropriate?

Well whatever turns them on :)
We've had a long and complicated discussion about the wedding - mainly complicated by Barney thinking of lots of 'very important questions' that needed to be asked. Like how many beer drinkers will there be and did he really say he'd organise the beer?

We've had a very pleqsant day but it's also been a long one. So I shall leave you with some poppies and a bit more stormy sky (since that's the kind that are mostly available at the moment :)

The white poppies are opium poppies, grown locally, under a government licence, for making morphine. I find them a bit colourless, personally, but it's been a bit of a challenge to get a good photo out of something I don't much care for!
And the frilly bits are pretty :)

As for the skies, no excuse needed. I just can't resist a good sky :)
Having abandoned salsa in the kitchen Fran and HF came and took over my brain training game. Oddly, though her scores seemed to be better than mine, Fran seemed to end up with an older brain!
However, after they'd gone to bed, I (naturally) had to have a go and now my brain is a year older than last time I did the game!
What's more, though I promised pictures of my pebble I'm finding the photography of a diamond rather difficult. So that may take a little longer. It's very pretty though and sparkles in a very satisfactory way :)
I'm not visiting tonight - too knackered. But love anyway and hopefully tomorrow my brain will have regained it's lost year. Maybe two :)
G'night.

Fairytales

2008-07-08T14:52:00.002+01:00

The wanderer returned

2008-07-07T20:07:00.006+01:00

With no less than 133 photos!
And I notice (gleefully) that quite a few of them are of the 'I didn't quite get that right do it again' kind (this is something I get mocked for on a regular basis :).
I shall post some iconic steam engine photos.

Sir Nigel Gresley who pulled them from London to York (also above)
The Union of South Africa who pulled them out of York but broke down and had to be replaced by a diesel engineBittern who pulled them somewhere else but I get confused. Apparently it's doing a three point turn in order to get in front of the coaches facing the right way. Well you can see those aerodynamic lines like this :)

And all four of the A4 class engines, including Mallard, who holds the world steam locomotive speed record of 126 mph (achieved on July 3rd, 1938).
It was pouring with rain when Barney took this so I'm pretty impressed with the results.
You know? I believe Barney and his Bro had a really good time :)That's bro, looking out of the next window.
G'night :)

Bad things good things

2008-07-06T08:42:00.002+01:00

Toes, actually. When one of my girls did Ballet, they used to chant "bad toes, good toes" while practicing the proper positioning of toes for ballet.

Nothing to say about toes just now mind.
I have Gorgeous Babe for the night and am just waiting for her to wake up. (Her toes are utterly delightful) So we can have breakfast together and get ready for me to take her home. She's such a little darling, all prety and pink cheeked and well mannered and just lovely. Her presence is a blessing (though one unlooked for on this occasion as I had intended to do all sorts of incompatible things this weekend). No problem though. I got to watch 'Monster House' last night and to read Charlie and Lola (my favourite children's book series). I also got small warm kisses and to take a drink up to a sleepy babe in the middle of the night.

Further, I received updates on the epic steam train journey and Grandad got to talk to GB on the phone.

Then as well as all this, I had a plan to go to London. The first plan may have gone somewhat awry but I haven't given up on it since I've added bits like going to visit a very good friend in Kingston and maybe - just maybe, meeting the returning steam train traveller when he arrives at Kings Cross. Though this would entail finding someone to feed the dog at no notice at all which may be difficult!

On the other side, I'm feeling sad for someone.
And trying to think how best to help a sad bunny. Not that I'm going to make any big difference but when a person is on the edge you want to offer something even if it's only the tiniest thing and even if they haven't the heart to respond much. But some troubles are so big that the smallest ripple in the world around will only cause extra pain and heavens! I don't want to do that.
I don't want to push my way in where I might only be an extra trouble.
Well we'll see.

Well. Now I have to get the Babe up and somehow fit in a shower which I forgot last night. Time to move!

Love.
Pictures later, or tomorrow.

Replacement Therapy and a fondness of absence

2008-07-05T02:07:00.004+01:00

In fact it's not the absence I'm fond of so much as the person who is absent.* It's true what they say. He's away and my heart is growing fonder by the minute. In fact by the time he comes back I may almost have got as far as missing him :)
Barney is away on a trip of epic proportions (not in time, in it's greatness). He's going on a train pulled by the famous steam engine "Sir Nigel Gresley" (I hope I've got this right - if not I'll tell you when he gets back). he'll be leaving London tomorrow morning at 7.25 (and I've set my alarm to remind me to send him a text at 7.15 which will astonish him a lot - I've even saved the message so all I'll have to do is press the button and roll over to dream of him chuffing away toward Edinburgh) and he won't be back till Monday morning.

Not that I'm a playful mouse :) Oh no. Not much :) Though he is a bit of a big pussy cat in his nicer moments.

Anyway. We've been replacing things. The oven for one. It was sort of obvious that glue and screws wasn't going to do the trick when the outer glass half of the door swung down when I opened it the other day and dangled teasingly from the handle above the stone tiles on the kitchen floor. I was saying to a friend only recently, and half in jest, that we never clean the oven, just replace the whole thing when the layers of old grease and burnt stuff inside is about an inch thick :) Oddly enough, it's about there now.
So we have a new oven. Just like that!

The other replacement is an older story. About two months after we got married, we went on holiday to Morocco and spent an afternoon trying to surf in the rather small waves. It was a very cold Summer that year - even in Morocco (in fact I seem to recall that back here they were having a heat wave so maybe it was only cold in Morocco). Relatively speaking of course. It wasn't actually cold but the water was cool enough that my fingers shrank a bit and my wedding ring (a beautiful, deep coloured, 9 carat gold ring with a delicate chased pattern of leaves) slipped off and vanished into the sea. Several people spent half an hour peering into the water and diving under the surface and generally doing the sort of things people do when stuff disappears into the sea but to no avail.
Mythologically speaking and if we had been Greeks, this might mean I was then married to the Sea God, Poseidon and therefore guilty of bigamy but since we weren't in Greece I was just devastated. And Barney was pretty fed up too.

My Mother had recently remarried and had a new wedding ring made so she gave me the ring which my Father had given her. A nice plain gold band, which I've worn ever since.
So, speaking of replacements, a few weeks ago, Barney suddenly announced that he wanted to buy me a new wedding ring. Just because he could, I think and because it had niggled at him over the years that the first one was lost.
And after a little searching in local jewellery shops, I found one. We never bought an engagement ring because we were a bit hippy go lucky in those days and didn't consider ourselves bound in an engagement so the new ring is sort of a bit of both. It's a plain band with a rather nice little diamond with a pretty and simple round setting - not a rock by any means but I think it qualifies as a quite large and beautiful pebble.
Currently being enlarged** - I know this might seem like tempting fate but the jeweller assures me that my Mum's ring was two sizes too small. If I'd worn it much longer we might have had trouble getting it off :)

So I'm feeling a bit naked around the left hand and also rather fond :) And having a pleasant feeling of anticipation.***

Isn't that nice ?

We do need to replace the washing machine sometime soon but pfooff! Who cares about leaky washing machines :)

*Though I do quite enjoy his absences as long as they're fairly brief.
**Next Tuesday. Can I wait that long!
***Also wondering, since Youngest was a tiny bit miffed that nobody noticed her engagement ring (which most certainly does qualify as a rock) whether any of the children will notice it :) How dreadfully vulgar of me!

I promised you pretty bits

2008-06-30T19:29:00.006+01:00

Pretty?

Ooh! a presie :)

2008-06-30T10:43:00.010+01:00

It's not often I get these things (which is not such a bad thing as I never know quite how to do whatever I ought to be doing with them :)
Thank you Sorrow :) That's so very lovely of you.

Update
Aha! I checked up. These are to share with loving people. And it seems this is a bottomless handful. (can a handful be bottomless? I'm not sure but let's assume it can)
Dear I , please help yourself to a handful or three if you'd like some and Mel, I know you had some a while ago but if some is good more is better, right.... :)
'Shot, please do have a handful too. I still don't know if they're gummi hearts (must look up gummi hearts :) but I'd like you to have some of the love part.
Oh the hell with it! Everyone, take handfuls, bagsful, bucketsful! Plaster them around your blogs if you like or hang them with the washing or feed them to the piglets or hang them round the horse's ears, toss them to the gorgeous children and grandchildren :) If you happen to be lurking (I've no idea if I still have the odd lurker ?) pick some up very quietly and take them home with you :)

And while you're at it, enjoy this
Be astonished at every turn by this
and be heart pierced and spiritually sharpened by this

Tomorrow I'm going to delve into the mysteries of my blog roll and try and update it. All of you are on my RSS feed but the blog roll confuses me. So don't hold your breath :)
Love all (oops the tennis is getting to me!)

Can anyone tell me why my computer will only play U tube in fits and starts? I hope yours don't do it too cos none of the above pieces benefit from unwritten pauses in the music!

Further update
OMG! I just looked up gummi hearts. No 'shot, I'm sorry but I can't be doing with those! Well, ok, they're very funny. But I don't think I would eat one : D

Happy Monday to you all :)

2008-06-30T01:39:00.002+01:00

And Goodnight for Sunday!

Temporary breakage

2008-06-29T01:36:00.004+01:00

I hope - think.
Computer did itself an 'important' download the other day. Took several hours, as warned and then the internet went on the blink. (You know, blink on blink off, no comments, stuff swallowed without warning, much cursing)
Now I'm days behind with everything. I don't know what was so special about comments but I couldn't do any yesterday.
Gaaah!
I hate it when I don't know if I'm going to be able to do the next thing I'd planned.

mutter mutter! grumble.

More and yet more birds

2008-06-27T18:36:00.008+01:00

More specifically, more owl. Just one, the little burrowing owl. He didn't do much burrowing, but like Molly and Tolkien he didn't do much flying to order either. And when he did it was pretty quick and I got a lot of blurred blobs in this session. However, he posed beautifully and on one of his blindingly swift flits, landed with a mouthful of something. Rather suits him :)
And he does look very small and sweet, all alone on the ground. (That's looking firmly away from the falconer who was waving some delicious little something around for him to fly to)
In case you're thinking it's not surprising that the owls didn't want to play because they're nocturnal, it seems this isn't true of most of them. Many are diurnal and most will fly at dawn or dusk. Further, they are not in the least blinded by daylight though they do have extraordinary night vision and phenomenal hearing (Molly tracks her undersnow prey by hearing)

While we ate lunch, we were able to watch the public display from a balcony (didn't eat much lunch). The Lanner falcon did some spectacular fast swooping and stooping to the lure and I've included one of the pics of him flying just because I got him in shot. Mostly, he was long gone by the time I clicked the shutter!Later we got our own private flying display by Ivan and the Harris Hawk. She was amazingly good-natured about the whole thing and flew backwards and forwards to wherever Ivan helpfully went to give us the best shots of her landing and flying. I really liked her, such a pretty bird and so completely unconcerned.At some time during the day, we got to see the Peregrine close up. Stunning bird and much feted as the fastest natural thing on two wings. (We did see him fly earlier in the day but I can't find any pics - I think he was just too fast)What amazing eyes:)

Last thing, we were introduced to the Sparrow hawk. Brought up by Gareth, one of the falconers, who's had him since he was a three day old chick. He was very shy and we only got to see him for a few minutes before he made it clear that he didn't want to be here any more.
I'm pretty sure that one or two other people in our group got better shots than I did. Probably the couple with one wheel chair and two matching cameras with the most enormous lenses, did a great deal better (I know he got one lovely shot of Molly flying - all eyes and wings). Still, I learnt a lot and gratefully, have pictures to remind me of the wonderful, powerful creature we share our skies with. And our rabbits and insects and mice and etc :) And I was continually touched and amazed by the trust and confidence shared between birds and falconers. My eternal thanks to Brenda, Paul and Ivan for showing as much patience to their customers as to their birds. And most of all, to the birds themselves. Just for being really :) The world is richer for their existence and we really need to understand how lucky we are to have them in it.

I show you more birds?

2008-06-26T19:12:00.004+01:00

Well I hope you'll like to see some more :)
Tolkien the African Owl, had sneakily eaten half a rabbit before we arrived so he wasn't that bothered about his tempting snacks. He was persuaded to fly a couple of times but spent most of our time sitting on posts and gauntlets, squawking and chirruping endearingly. Owls seem to be amazingly chatty birds :)
Not that he was refusing any nibbles mind. Just wasn't going to perform for them :)
Chestnut the Tawny Owl wasn't required to fly but just to pose with his heart shaped face enchantingly framed in the Ivy.
And on Brenda's hand. He did this admirably. Cute or what ?
After this I forgot most of their names. The Barn Owl may have been posing or he may have been wondering if that hinge had always been there.
Occasionally he considered leaving but forgot that he was tethered to Ivan (kindly hiding inside the shepherd's hut so that we could take photos of the owl apparently all alone in his natural habitat)
And eventually he decided we'd had enough of him :)

I have become an Owl worshipper :)

Of Molly and Madeleine

2008-06-25T20:03:00.009+01:00

And one or two other characters.*

Molly (unlike Malc's Molly) was a bit distracted. Like Tolkien, another owl we met earlier, she just couldn't quite get on with the business of flying to order. She flitted without warning and had a great deal of chirrupy stuff to say and spent most of her time listening to something behind her. Apparently she comes from an Arctic waste and is accustomed to tracking weasels as they burrow along, two feet under the snow. What she makes of her admirers is hard to imagine. All that clicking and those big, single eyes staring at her. Impossible not to love her though!

Madeleine (the Secretary bird) was a different kettle. Of snakes.
She seemed quite amusing and daintily affected - until she demonstrated her talent for kicking a defenceless rubber snake to death. Later, when us photographers got our private viewing, she had a quick go at her falconer too - not he first time, he's been in hospital after she cut his head open! No, not my favourite bird. Still, the make-up and the trousers are good though the eyelashes surely had to be false :)

*I was going to show you Tolkien and maybe the Harris Hawk or possibly Chestnut, the Tawny Owl. They were all so beautiful (except the vultures who were funny and alarming by turns). but blogger's gone boggy on me so I'll go to bed instead.

Sleep well all. I hope the sun shines for you tomorrow.

It's all a bit busy

2008-06-24T12:19:00.004+01:00

round here. We had a gig on Saturday and various other stuff in the day time. Then Sunday vanished without a trace - I really can't remember what I was doing all day but there seemed to be a lot of it.
And yesterday!
Yesterday was my hawk day. (you probably won't remember, I got a present of a photography day at the hawk conservancy place for my birthday back in December :)
I seen hawks and kites and eagles and owls and vultures and herons and a secretary bird!
And of course I took a few pics.

How come I can take almost as many in one day as I can take in a whole week? (And that, I'm told, is more than most people take in a whole year!)

Oh look! a chicken!
Who d'you think you're calling a chicken

Off with her head!Oops!Nice looking couple though :)That's Paul, one of our falconers for the day, with, um, oh, I'd forgotten their names by then. Mr Bald Eagle of the US of A. a splendid gentleman and much less irascible than he looks.
xxx, more tomorrow :)

Life after holidays

2008-06-20T12:11:00.004+01:00

I suspect that this which I found here will be worth buying and reading. I think I shall. If Overnight Editor's blog is anything to go by it will at least be a feast of beautiful writing.
Speaking of beautiful (and in this case also funny) writing, I can't think how I've come to neglect ovagirl's blog for so long. After howling with laughter for several minutes, I realised that I'm already bored with the rewind of our holiday and you'll have to put up with dribs and drabs from now on. (sighs of relief all round).
Also I was quite distracted this morning by wedding outfits.
I'm sorry Frangelita but I won't be going with the red and white colour scheme. (Anyway I don't think it appropriate for the bride's mum to wear the bride's colour scheme. The bride's mum needs to look a different part see?)
No. I shall be wearing the lavender outfit. This is firstly because, in Oxfam yesterday I came across a lavender blouse with ruffles and the right size which fitted me and I thought 'Oh! That looks weddingy! And it's about the same colour as the Laura Ashley silk skirt which has been hanging in the cupboard for about two years, just in case I need to go to a wedding one day. Together with the nearly matching silk jacket.)
This morning I tried the whole lot on. And I kid you not, every part of it fitted. The blouse is exactly the same shade as the skirt and above all, I looked MAGNIFICENT!!!!! All I have to do in terms of bulges is not add any before September and I even have a barely worn pair of comfy sandals which are a soft grey and will look fine. I could hardly bear to take it all off!
Well and I might even think about looking for a hat :)
I am deeply satisfied with the way charity, after having begun in the high street, will go on to weddings.

A few dribs
The world goes on with it's normal business
colourful dereliction

Sorry, we're full, no space for extra passengers.

And drabs -
waiting
for water!

A water junkie, me

2008-06-19T23:13:00.004+01:00

A little boat

2008-06-19T11:55:00.003+01:00

For ISLTV.

What we did on our holidays

2008-06-18T01:35:00.009+01:00

Day 2 began unnaturally early. Well most of us thought it shouldn't have begun quite so early. John woke at 05.00. Am. And by 5.45 he could contain himself no longer and bounded around, generally waking people up and taking the puzzled but acquiescent dog out and bringing him back and went to the shop and, well, caused most of us to stop sleeping. There were cries of protest but we did all seem to be up by about 8. We punished John for the rest of the day by making jokes about his lack of sensible timing and everything that went slightly wrong was blamed on him, to general hilarity and hysteria. He took it very well. I think it was day 2 that ended in Manchester with a cheerful Italian dinner and quite a lot of wine. It transpired that Wendy had planned to have a healthy and excerciseful week. She decide to start the healthy part the next day.
I have to say that the journey into Manchester didn't inspire me a lot. (And the morning's photos were the ones the computer ate, so even if any of them were inspired, they're gone :(

Day 3 promised to be much more interesting.
We'd been told by the Waterboard that we would have a day's delay before the next planned bit of journey so we detoured down the part of the Rochdale canal which includes the bit that goes under (not Picadilly Station) the office block which is supported on pillars and really does seem a bit like plunging into some netherworld. There was lots of industrial and heavily urban stuff which, as always on the canals, acquires a kind of storytale glamour as you glide through its reflections and under its bridges and past its walls. Office block canyons between traffic jam clad bridges. Windows, walls, railings and bars between wire and rust and concrete. A landscape of alternate decay and contemporary glass mountains and concrete towers. Interlaced with Victorian magnificence. Ultra smart office workers thread their way on bikes and on foot between other kinds of workers and still less happy people on foot and on buses. Down-and-outs, stagger here and there clutching their bottles and secretaries in suits and girls on their night out journeys stilt walk past on their high heels in scanty clothing. All life. And then some. It's a vibrant city all right but some of the vibrations are more in tune with the rust, darkness and decay than others. While the canal glides past and reflects it all, without judgement.

In the evening, some of us went in search of a curry and found one, after a long and exhausting trek past famous Victorian buildings improbably sited amidst a mini city of glass skyscrapers and bars. (regrettably, the trek was too exhausting to allow time or energy for taking photos) Wonderfully trendy and smart with absolutely delicious food. I thoroughly recommend Shimla Pink, should you want a very good Indian meal. (we were slightly bedraggled and exhausted but weren't given the slightest hint that we didn't quite fit among the trendy, smart clientele - very good place indeed).

We moored at Dale Street car park. Very convenient if you happened to have a car parked there but we didn't. A long long time ago, when I was at school in Manchester I came here to do a painting of the (then derelict) lock gates. It's unrecognisable now.
On the way into Manchester there was this very very tall glass building. I thought it looked good balanced on a lock beam.
That's the inside of our boat. From this very er, room? cabin? John launched his attacks on our slumber :)
water pouring over the lock gates early in the morning (thank you John :)
Caught by puffs of wind and shattered into a million droplets.
Descent of boaters Into the oily depths under the city (If you look at this one large, you can see Steve poised to wind paddles and heave on gates - not in that order)More bridges, rows of themCanyons

nothing is ever quite as easy

2008-06-16T19:12:00.008+01:00

As it looks like it ought to be.
I came back from holiday (I'm back!) with several thousand (about 4,500) pictures to transfer from laptop to desktop. But laptop needs an uptodate antivirus prog. Norton (which is currently installed and has run out) is getting a bad press and AVG has been recommended (and Oh Bother it's time to make dinner!). However, AVG doesn't want to play with my computer till all other antivirus programmes have been removed. Simple, press-button uninstall doesn't seem to quite do the trick. (Norton doesn't want to let go so easily).
I'm currently arguing with AVG and Norton and the computer about what has been/should be/can be removed, by increasingly unorthodox and aggressive methods.
Ok, it's done. (with no concessions to AGV's strong recommendations about the removal of previous anti-virus programmes. I removed everything I could).
The laptop was very good, on holiday, except for a sad blip where it swallowed a whole (2gig) card's worth of photos. I loaded six cards onto it though so the loss of a card is going to save me a little photo sorting time.
So now I'm transferring photos via DVD from laptop to desktop and it's taking ages and I can't wait!!!
So, day 1. We all 6 arrived in Sowerby Bridge and parked our cars and loaded our selves and all our bags and the dog onto a mini bus which took us to Ashton-Under-Lyne. Where our boat waited. We transferred ourselves, our bags and the dog onto the boat (not without a certain amount of tripping over the dog, our bags and each other). We set off and the boys (aged fiftyish to fifty-nineish) got well stuck into the winding of lock gates and the steering of the boat while the girls sorted stuff, made tea and wandered around the boat enjoying variously, the views, the floating pleasantly along and the interesting internal arrangements of the boat. We arrived at Stalybridge and some of us went shopping while some of us did important things to the boat's innards. We went out to eat and walked a very long way to the Station Buffet where we were able to eat pies with gravy and mushy peas on the railway platform if we so wished (sadly, the famous black peas were off - we had to make do with the ordinary greenish variety).
The girls headed back to the boat while the boys went to a nearby pub. Later the boys returned to find the girls arranged in a row on John and Linda's bed, sipping wine and giggling a lot.
The boat rocked gently, later, snores were heard and all was pleasant and delightful. The dog seemed quite happy with all the arrangements so far as he had been taken for plentiful walks along the towpath and spent several illicit minutes snuggled up with Linda on the bed. (apparently he told her he was cold).
I wasn't joking about eating on the platform. Here are John and Steve, admiring the famous station clock.

One tends, on canal holidays to see a lot of bridgesAnd lockssometimes both together (but not always looking like African masks)Also, in industrial areas, factory chimneysAnd factories with stuff growing on themIn between places where it's all green and lovelyLots and lots of geese and goslings

Ther may be more of these things in days to come. Feel free to avoid this blog if the excess of bridges, locks and assorted holiday stuff gets too much :)

While I was away, floating and virtually incommunicado, I now realise that exciting and alarming things have been going on back here. I must immediately contact my best friends in the real world and check that nothing like that has been happening to them. I thought about you all a lot but I was thinking quite inappropriate thoughts since what you mostly needed was less floaty and more urgently soothing!

Lovely to be back :) got to go to bed now
xxx

All quiet

2008-06-08T10:05:00.002+01:00

On the virtual front.
I ought to be rushing around packing and sorting for the holiday but I just thought, Oh five minutes checking blogs won't hurt. Nobody's home!
Ah well, it's a lovely sunny Sunday and I guess (hope) you're all out enjoying your gardens and roof terraces and back yards and pig runs and orchards and everywhere. (And the edges of everywhere).
Well then, I'd better get on with the rushing about and packing and such like. Not to mention emptying the car after last night's gig.
I shall be taking the laptop on holiday but somehow, I doubt that the narrowboat will have wifi. Well I'm sure it won't. Previous experience leads me to suppose that I won't have time to search for wifi cafes so I shan't be posting for a while - except maybe tonight and tomorrow and, and, well you know, whenever, until :)
I've just had a call from Father-in-law. He's fed up because all the family are having lovely weather, except him! However, when I told him the weather forecast for the far North for most of next week shows little black clouds with assorted numbers of raindrops, he cheered up a bit!
It's always nice to be able to cheer up an old man isn't it :)

Well, the swan won't mind a spot of rain
though I think it'll be too late for the old tree
But it keeps the wheat growing green and the poppies popping up
And, nothing to do with rain but isn't he lovely. Best shot so far of the deer, not that I got particularly close but the light was pretty good.

Anyway, I've finished packing. This must be the first time ever I've done it before, ooh, 3 o'clock in the morning :)I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, only I have to wonder, have I forgotten something?
Dunno. What do you think?
I hope you had a lovely weekend (and if not, I hope things get much better very soon - now in fact, this minute).
Have a good week.
I'll be missing you all.

I have been warned

2008-06-06T23:53:00.005+01:00

I'm not to take breakfast stuff with us. There are shops in the North.
I mustn't take everything and the kitchen sink, we have to get it all on a mini bus. I mustn't take lots of stuff at all.
Ok.

But when I run out of crucial things I shall let him know about it. And no way am I going to travel on a boat for three hours with no tea and coffee making gear! So there! (I'll find somewhere to hide it)

Well today, everything came up roses.

Not only did the camera work but Jessops gave a me replacement battery free (!!!!) and although they had given me the last one, they had one Nikon one too so I'm well supplied (no spare brians though - oops, no spare brains either).
And the dog has been wormed.
And I did lots of tidying.
And I bought maps :)
Phew. I think it's bed time. (Oddly the dog thinks it's time to go out. The worm stuff must have gone to his head.)

Goodnight, sleep tight, (don't worry about the bugs, I'm de-fleaing the dog tomorrow).
And have lovely dreams and wake up freshed in the morning. (which is what very little Fran said to me one night because we always used to say wake up refreshed in the morning. I prefer her version :)

Woe and Dither

2008-06-05T20:01:00.005+01:00

Ok, so now I'm completely dithered.

The camera has worked smoothly all day, using a Jessops, nikon-compatible battery. The nikon battery and the other jessops battery, both fully charged - according to the charger - both make the camera say "empty battery". (Though it hasn't sulked or refused to say anything at all, today.)
Should I take my Jessops battery back to them and say, "look - your battery doesn't work - give me a new one and by the way I need a replacement for the other one too"?
Or should I - at enormous inconvenience and expense, trundle off to Kingston tomorrow and hand the whole puzzle over to Nikon themselves (who certainly won't give me a new battery as the nikon one came with the camera and is probably at least two years old).
We're not talking 2 or 3 quid here. These batteries cost arms and legs.
But bear in mind that Nikon won't check and repair anything for free either.
See. Working fine.
Oh, that was yesterday.
Well it is anyway.
Oh Woe and Doom! And Dither.
I shall take it on holiday. I don't want to go to Kingston tomorrow and I can always postpone the hawk day. Well, I'll ring them in the morning and check anyway.
Oof! exhausting all this dithering.
I shall go to bed.

Goodnight :) I hope all your rabbits are alive and well.

Flatline

2008-06-05T10:09:00.004+01:00

Or,in this particular case, no line.
I'm all of a twitter.
Last night, the camera said "err". It does that sometimes. (It means error)
I took out and replaced the battery which usually causes it to pretend it hadn't said anything and carry on as normal.
It took some pictures and then it said "err" again.
I took out and replaced (crossly) and it said
________________

I screamed (quietly because of the sleeping wildlife and Barney).
I tried more batteries. No response.
I put it all away and got it all out again and looked and it still said
________________

I looked up Nikon repairs and worked out what to do - there's a service and repair centre not so very far away, though not exactly near!
This morning I rang them and they said they would probably be able to get it looked at and fixed within 12-14 days! (Oh Woe and Doom and so much for Nikon photos of the holiday - but maybe Nikon pictures for the Hawk day which is the week after we come back)
(But woe and doom anyway)
Then I got it out again and lo and behold, it came back to life! Oddly enough, I noticed the Nikon battery seems not to be recognised by the Nikon battery charger though the Jessops batteries are. Hmm.

Dither. If I assume the Nikon battery has had it, maybe it will take pictures on holiday. If I'm wrong and the fault remains inside its works somewhere then it might not be ready for the hawk day.
Well I'll give it today to see if it feels like saying "err" again. Then I'll dither some more and then I'll probably take it to Kingston at huge inconvenience and expense and leave it there while I'm on holiday.

Woe.
Doom.
Curses.
Mutter mutter.
But at least I think it's a battery problem not a vital, central extraordinarily expensive part replacement problem. Maybe.

My ears seem to have got better - possibly when I was in London :) - though my head is still behaving oddly - typos and wrong buttons abound. I think my brain needs a replacement part.

At least I still have the dear old Panasonic and I can just about still remember how to use it! All its bits are still around somewhere :) And I must say, it's very light compared to the Nikon and quite a good little camera really :)

The sun was out

2008-06-04T10:10:00.006+01:00

I leapt (slowly with much grumbling and grunting and groaning) out of bed to greet it and tried very hard to make a plan that would make best use of it.
Did I rush off to take photos? Did I er, take the dog for a walk? Spring clean the house? Clean anything at all? Walk anywhere at all?
Did I heck.
I sat in front of this machine and relived yesterday's wet and wonderful visit.
I'm really not good at times and places. Get them in the wrong order - we could have done with this weather yesterday :)
And yesterday I failed to get my act together enough to get pictures of London.
But I did scribble happily in the train and I did see the London Eye and a few rather splendid spires and towers and the lovely arch of Paddington Station's roof (no bears, sadly).

I seem to have got a bit of the Eye and a bit of Big Ben in here as well as a bit of railway bridge near Waterloo station. Quite good value for one picture :)
And this very large person, overlooking some steps. I thought if I looked down the side of the steps I might see his feet, far below. But no. Well one big head is better than no person at all I suppose.

Well I must say trains have improved since I last used one. Quiet, clean, zooming along smoothly. I suppose it's different at rush hour but I don't do rush :) However there was one mobile phone conversation which lasted most of the way from Reading to Thatcham and somebody let loose a serious bit of unsociable behaviour. It's funny how you really can't tell who's responsible for these things - but it could have been the chap who was asleep I suppose. though I had my suspicions of the bloke opposite. I took a bit of a dislike to him with his natty grey and red stripe suit and the way he sprawled all over his seat and wriggled about and stuck his legs out into the aisle and generally acted as though the whole train was a bit of unacceptable personal space he was only using because he had to. Yes I know, that's how he felt. I just got the feeling he was a prat and an overbearing and ill-mannered one at that.

So as well as not rushing out with the camera, I undertook an enormous task today. Cleaning the dog's bed (he's coming on holiday with us and I feel that his bed in the confined space of a boat might constitute seriously unsociable behaviour).
I began with the hoover which made almost no impression on the deeply interwoven and embedded hair in the seams and corners. Then I tried the rubber gloves (usually an excellent way to get rid of animal hair) No go. Eventually, searching the immediate environment for a handy hair removing object, I found a paint stripping tool. This worked well! Followed by a fierce attack with rubber gloves, a quick hoover and as a finishing touch, a scrub with a whole packet of pet cleaning wipes. The slightly damp and limp looking bed was then hung out to dry and the last pet cleaning wipe was applied vigorously to the dog who looked startled and then horrified and rushed of to roll in the grass and remove the nasty clean-pet smell from his fur. (scientifically proven to reduce pet smells it said :)
Next, defleaing and deworming. This dog and his bed will be so clean and sanitised when he goes on holiday that I suspect the Northern dogs will think he's some sort of alien!
Meanwhile I'm considering forbidding him to use his bed. I don't want it to get all hairy again before we go :).But I decided to let him sleep in it after all :)

And now I'm going to go and curl up in my bed.

Sleep well :)

Afterthoughts

2008-06-03T18:56:00.003+01:00

Always the most infuriating. So many things I didn't ask and so many subjects gently skirted. That's always the way when you know someone well in one setting (I am so reminded of a friend of mine who's known for recognising swimming acquaintances in the street and saying "I didn't recognise you with your clothes on") and then you meet them somewhere out of context.
And I realise that lovely ISLTV and I both come from backgrounds where stuff isn't openly broached because it isn't 'done'. (Am I right?)
And she's such a lovely thoughtful companion and so ready to hear me babble - which I do, I expect you noticed.

So I've come home after a lovely, stimulating, exciting day, seeing art works which I would never have gone to see on my own and suddenly I realise that, although we talked about lots of things, I never asked stuff I wanted to know about and care about. Well, the virtual relationship is a back to front business really. Dammit I didn't even say thank you for the art gallery which was a real joy to one who loves visual things.
I feel fairly sure we'll do it again :) Sooner. I hope so.
Yes, next time or the time after or one day, come to the Berkshire countryside dear I and I'll try and find somewhere as special and beautiful to share with you :)

The time we had went like lightning. But we did see the really marvellous and entrancing "Village" and declined to scramble in the top of a globe, supported by air and a plastic membrane or to paddle in a pond hanging over nothing (tho we did enjoy watching other people doing those things).

We saw an airy, wonderful staircase made of fine netting, created by a Korean artist who has the sewing done by Korean ladies (because he thinks their skills should be appreciated and anyway I guess if you want sewing done and you know ladies who do it well you look to them rather than someone far from home and foreign).

And a marvellous, um, house....how to describe it? Another Korean showing how his Korean life and experiences crashed with America when he moved there and were almost obliterated by the American lifestyle. This isn't telling it right. Imagine a hurricane picking up a Korean house and blowing it into the side of an American apartment block (just a little one, 3 stories high) so that the fragile Korean environment is quite smashed and the American part bleeds into it. and the rubble scatters and the Korean house is broken but the American apartments remain intact. Then see this as a doll house, recreated 1/5th the size of a real pair of houses. Slice through the whole thing and see the American interiors all detailed and intact, like a big doll's house, and the fragile Korean building swept out with only rubble left inside.
Oh, impossible.
I expect I has already found a link which will show you it!

A many-agonal aluminium tunnel with a funnel view from halfway up. Just a totally different way to get from one part of the gallery to the next.

An explosion with all the parts, of the room that exploded, hanging in the air in a frozen moment. Broken bricks, furniture, fittings, all poised. will they stay for ever? will they implode back into place? will they go further out? Was it an explosion or a blast of wind? A big, motionless question, the answer shattered into a thousand pieces.

We didn't much go for the grunting, huffing person videoing a series of rooms (the soundtrack sounded so like a hungover person looking for something he'd lost that I half expected him to throw up any minute - actively not nice). Tho' the theatre in which we saw the video was interesting.
We weren't so impressed with what looked like two rooms that had been shot up by gangsters. Big bullet hole-looking things are just bigger than real ones.

We liked the frog. Though it said nothing frog at all.

And 'Village' was the best.

You'll see that I was quite blown away by my first art experience in much too long!

But the best thing was seeing ISLTV.

Which is good because I just realised that though I took a few photos (London is distracting - I need time to get accustomed to a place) I forgot to remove the thing that screws the camera to the tripod, last night. This disables the vibration reduction thingie so all today's pics will probably be blurred!

Thank you for a lovely day and a fabulous visual treat and your company I. Most of all for your company, really.

multi map muddle

2008-06-02T12:14:00.005+01:00

I really am getting nerdy. Making plans for London travel, I thought "Oh, multi map - I can print the bits I need and then I won't have to carry a great big thing around with me" . So after cursing multi map for only printing part of each page that it shows you on the screen and spending a good deal of time measuring out little overlapping sections and printing them, I got really really cross when it suddenly changed its mind about letting me print. I expect there's a limit to how many free prints you can have. Or its server went off line or something. I'd only got as far as Oxford Circus and whether you're going from Waterloo to Paddington or vice versa that's just not far enough.
So what's wrong with photocopying relevant pages from the real paper map then? Er, nothing. Nothing at all. I am a daft, nerdy, computer dependant nitwit.
I love maps. When searching for the London A-Z, I found an OS map of Manchester, which included a good deal of the Rochdale Canal and informed me that we would travel past or through such places as 'Friendly' and 'Boggarts Hole Clough'. And then there are places round there called Daisy Nook, now a country park, once much visited on sunny Sunday afternoons by Barney's Mum and Dad. Also the village of Bardsley and Bardsley House. I think it's something to do with the Norman Conquests and I suspect that well known gentleman Norman de Bardsley was a troublesome Norman knight sent off to settle or struggle in the furthest Northern parts of William's new and tiresome acquisition.
Boggarts Hole Clough reminded me of William Mayne, an author I loved as a teenager and who wrote short, tight, gripping childrens' books about local traditions and superstitions. The local boggart featured largely in 'Earthfasts' which also included standing stones which walked on a certain night of the year and led the two young heroes to discover King Arthur. I wonder if that was the same boggart now immortalised in the OS landranger map No. 109.
I wonder if you can still get William Mayne's books. Probably they're too old and out of print.
(actually it turns out that you can still get him 'used andnew' on amazon. So I might. He's written hundreds and hundreds of books I never knew about - before the internet see :)
Anyway. On on to London and such a special meeting :)

plans and promises

2008-06-02T00:46:00.004+01:00

I'm waiting for Flickr to upload a picture and it's taking for ever!
No problem.
All excited, I am, cos on Tuesday I'm going to London but not to see the Queen thank you very much. Much more fun, to meet a friend :)* And go to an art gallery (which I haven't done since Amsterdam about fifteen years ago).
Well now I'm knackered. Flickr's finished and I'm going to roll away to bed.

I believe tomorrow will be cloudy and on Tuesday it will rain. Well we'll see.
Goodnight, sleep well if you aren't already.

*We promised to meet again soon, oh, about 18 months ago. One could go on for ever saying 'soon' :) I prefer tomorrow!

Brighter

2008-06-01T00:35:00.004+01:00

Yesterday's moody off-centre day wasn't all gloom.

The centre can be wherever you like :)

okobe?

2008-05-30T22:34:00.005+01:00

The last two weeks or so all the words vers have been eight letter jawbreakers with lots of double x's and z's and too many t's and really taking duplication to excess. And then suddenly they've all gone five letter and almost meaningful. Okobe is my favourite so far. Though I was quite taken with rwaldi and vebruk. And sazqr had a certain ring to it.

Today, I may have temporarily solved my perennial camera carrying problem. The new one is too big (and heavy) for the old system so I've been using a rucksack. Good in the outside pocket department but not so good on the inside - just a big dark cave really for things to get jumbled and heaped in. And a bit floppy so that if I don't zip up all the outside pockets, it flops over and things fall out.
So now, my camera lives in a lunch bag. An Umbro lunch bag from WH Smiths no less. It seems happy there.

Yesterday was a grey day. Moody and off centre was how I felt and hey! The sky agreed with me. I went to Hampstead Norreys and found footpaths into the grey and green gloom. But first, speedwell. Probably my favourite flower. little tiny bursts of blue sky hiding obscurely in every hedgerow and meadow and bank and ditch. Got to love them.

And then, moody and off centre.
I shall leave you with flowers.
Good night :)

cobwebs blown away?*

2008-05-29T10:41:00.005+01:00

I think the wind and rain cleaned my head out. It seems to be nearly working again though I haven't stopped taking the tablets. Might try that tomorrow!
Next week but one we're off again, back to the North and the Rochdale canal. This time hopefully, to travel all the way into Manchester and possibly venture underneath Picadilly (Manchester Picadilly) Railway Station where the canal slithers into oily darkness between big concrete pillars and the thunder overhead is the sound of trains. Once seen, never forgotten. Not a romantic or pretty place but splendidly Dante-esque and just a little bit scary. One step below urban and as is always the case with canals, a whole staircase beyond the norm.
Mind, the main part of the journey will be over the Pennines again, locking up and down through twisty ways to one of the most beautiful summit pounds in the country.
I'm not a canal anorak like Barney. But water that carries you uphill and down and all the strange, huge, creaking structures that allow it to do so, are endlessly fascinating and wonderful. The tales (told of an evening in the boat or pub, by Mr Anorak himself) of the men who built them are worth a listen - I wish I had his kind of memory sometimes so I could tell you more.
I wish, even, that he'd write a blog. It would be a wonderful source of traditional and historical interest. If only he could type! (But you might as well say, 'if only dinosaurs could speak' :)

Well, and there will be pies :) (There were rather nice pies in Bampton - the best of the southern kind with thick gooey and crusty pastry and real pieces of chicken and mushroom).

And Oh look! (no not a chicken) The sun's coming out :)See you tomorrow maybe :) Have a Happy Friday.

*I wonder why they're called cobwebs? Is cob an old word for spider?

Weather report for the bank holiday weekend

2008-05-26T13:31:00.010+01:00

Horizontal buckets of water propelled across flat, open, camping fields expected and delivered at various times over the bank holiday weekend.
According to the BBC gardeners' weather report big swirly clouds full of water were due to arrive above Oxfordshire, centred over Bampton and then stop and empty themselves above the village. This they have done in spite of interference from gusts of wind.
We've been saying to everyone, last year was the worst ever in living memory (our living memory anyway) and it can't possibly be as bad this year. Indeed it wasn't as bad this year. But it's hardly been the balmy, sunny garden-viewing kind of weekend we were hoping for!
There's been a certain amount of wimping out :) Most notably, for the first time in 35 years, Barney failed to appear at the opening dance at 8.30 am, claiming cramp and a hangover as his excuse. Youngest indignantly said "I can't believe my Father hasn't made it when I can get myself and three small children here on time. (partner also assisted of course)" (Caused me some mild amusement as for many years, it was me who got ourselves and three small children there on time. Barney assisted of course :)
The three small children stood and watched the first dance with faint bemusement they don't understand yet about mad Morris dance traditions. One day they'll regard their parents with vague astonishment and wonder why all of them are continuing to turn up at a wet windy street in a pretty Oxfordshire village having shepherded and harried small children out of cold damp tents to stand and watch men in white trousers and bells and flowery hats dancing to a slightly out of tune fiddle at 8.30 in the morning. I hope so anyway.
But somehow, I feel they will do it :)

One way to enjoy a wet windy weekend (laughing at people throwing wet toys at each other and wearing the latest in campsite fashion - a bin bag bustle which should only be worn by the naturally elegant)
And another - really, he is enjoying it
I'm back by the way :)
Sleep well :)

High as a .....

2008-05-24T02:07:00.005+01:00

We'll be off in the morning, it hasn't started raining yet in spite of Met Office threats and wouldn't it be nice if they'd got it completely wrong :)
Anyway, I have three new tyres and I've packed lots of waterproofs and woollies. What more could I want?
Except anther three hours of today to play with pictures :)
At this time of year, hay cutting means kites! They follow the tractors around and swoop and dive and soar above the fields. And today the kite circus came to our back door :) I had time to try all sorts of wrong settings on the camera and still get shots of them. Even with ten or more to choose from it's quite hard to get them in focus and I've taken an awful lot of blurred brown blobs! but eventually I got the idea and here they are. Great big birds with mad eyes and huge wingspans.
:)
I have a feeling it's a good thing I'm not really any kind of bunny - I don't think it was a good day for bunnies :(
But even birds of prey have families to feed!

Have a nice weekend

2008-05-24T01:20:00.000+01:00

See you when I get back :) (Which may be sooner than currently planned if the Met Office have got it right!)
xxx

It's our camping weekend

2008-05-22T15:10:00.006+01:00

I checked the weather forecast today and yesterday. I'll take yesterday's thank you.
Now I'm checking my camping list. Yes, I'll take all that.
And there's some gas in each of the gas bottles so I suppose we'll take all of those. (No full ones!)
Chairs and tables - definitely.
The car's got a flat but we'll take it anyway. Barney will have to change the tyre and I'll have to get a new one tomorrow.
Now I'm going to go and crawl around in the attic cupboard thing and get useful stuff (like tents) out. And cooking gear. I wonder if the cooker works.

The lovely woods
And the Frilsham Rain Forest (No rain but lots of stuff growing in the trees - as well as tree that is)

Oh honestly! some people will do anything to get in the picture!While others have to be chased around the sky And others have to be stalked along hedges and surprised through gapsAnd some have to be observed by a pesron pretending to be a fence post
Pesron = a person pretending to be a gate post - obviously.
Blogger must assume that everyone dashes off their new posts in a few minutes, or that they compose them elsewhere and then transfer the finished article in one go. How else to explain that it says I posted this at 3.10 pm? It's 11.30 pm for heaven's sake!
I'd better go to bed ^&^ (I've decided that's a shrug performed with crossed legs in a nonchalant way. ^?^ or ^!^ is the raised eyebrows)

Well that was a piece of cake

2008-05-21T21:45:00.002+01:00

I'll go and have one! A very small piece.

Ah! finally. Pictures.

Sorry, got to go to bed now! We can all look at them tomorrow.

G'night :)

Sssh....don't say anything

2008-05-21T21:23:00.004+01:00

But Blogger's stopped making me sign in.
I'm not sure why and I'm a bit scared if I sign out it'll stop letting me sign in, you know how computers and the www are.
Still it saves a lot of time.

Had a very busy day today and while the photos are loading I've got a few minutes or twenty to spare.
See, I went off this afternoon to deliver some pics to the Brewery and to deliver a birthday present to a friend and on the way (which was a bit roundabout - but in a good way) I stopped to consider a quite nice, but not breathtaking view and suddenly a kite flew out of the trees right overhead. Then another one and then I realised they were all over the place. Spent a long time practising following kites round and round and up and down (suitably propped against a helpful hedge).
Then I did my errands and stopped in the woods on the way home. Then after dinner, as Barney is settled in front of the football for the night, I went for another stroll and this time encountered deer and hares and bunnies. (When I told him I'd seen a deer he said well of course - the people are all sat in front of the football so he should have had the fields to himself).
Although that's only a half dozen exciting things to see, I seem to have taken a few hundred pics. Still waiting for one cardfull to download!
So what shall I do now!

tap tap tum ti tum.

lalalala.

Ho hum.

tiddley pom. Pah pom pom POM!!!!

Oh I do like to be beside the.......Bah humbug! Nowhere near done yet!

OK. I'll sign out and then see if I can get back in.

See ya.

blackbird has spoken

2008-05-21T01:22:00.005+01:00

And he says it's time to get upEr.....?

He has to be joking.

Mornin' everyone :)

Skin deep

2008-05-19T09:10:00.008+01:00

Over the years, I've had various opportunities to go to spas to have days of 'pampering'.

I've never had to think much about rejecting the idea out of hand. For one thing the people who offered to accompany me have often been, well, um..... boring.
For another, I know full well that however pleasant it may be to be massaged and perfumed and smoothed and buffed and polished, the me that emerged from such a place would be the same me that went in, glowing a bit, smelling of whatever is currently considered a fashionably nice smell (ugh) but basically, no more beautiful nor any less short, fat and scruffy than usual. And with flat, limp hair (crushed by being heated and wetted and not properly blowdried) to boot.

Further, the people who normally go to these places seem to be either of the tall, slender, fair-skinned and elegant variety or of the rich, elderly, 'don't give a toss what the pretty girls at the spa think of me cos I'm rich' variety. Or the fit, spa-tanned, muscular, 'look after myself and work out regularly' variety.

Undoubtedly this is a wild and inaccurate generalisation. But add to my preconceptions, a horde of pretty, manicured, smoothskinned young women and (presumably a few tanned, fit, young men) on the staff to give ladies the right ideas about why they came to theses places and maybe you can see why my sad toenails, baggy stone and a half in the middle, geriatric warts*, 'once bitten, many times shy' fingernails, and lousy posture loom large in my imagination as I consider walking, flat-footed, through the portals of one of these temples to the pretty body.

To enjoy going go to such a place, I'd have to erase my preconceptions, suspend disbelief, enter into the fairy tale and accept my physical curses as minor things which everyone has seen hundreds of times before and couldn't care less about. Big mental effort! Much easier to keep the body more or less contained with it's layers of clothing and forget about it :)

And of course there's the money. Not that I have the least hesitation about spending large amounts of money on my personal desires. Oh no! If I wanted something enough, I'd sell my own grandmother to pay for it. **

What has given me pause on this occasion is that I am invited, nay, pressed, to accompany two friends to a local spa and neither of these ladies are even slightly boring (though they are both tall, fairskinned, elegant and younger than me). At the pub they both twinkled eagerly at me and demanded to know why not? Threatened to do a pub collection for my birthday. Worse (or at any rate, more) Barney has assured me that he'd happily allow the housekeeping to be spent in such a worthy cause (not that he has any more say than I do about how it's spent). (I hope he doesn't imagine that a day at a spa would change my image much).

They'd both be great fun and brilliant company and I feel a bit as if I'm digging my toes in just out of grumpiness. But the fact is it's just that this isn't one of the things I've ever wanted to do.....
For heaven's sake, for the cost of a day in a spa I could instead spend a day walking with wolves or visiting Eden or stay in a really really wild and wonderful place in the mountains and commune with nature and my camera. I could get wet and muddy and wear big boots and waterproofs and catch sunlight glinting in a wolf's eye or watch the sunrise over a single thorn tree on a misty hillside. I could hobble down to the bottom of a waterfall and see spray making rainbows or to the top and watch white water plunging. I could have a delicious, unhealthy, chloresterol-laden dinner and a glass or two of heavenly wine. I could buy a new lens! Even, I could get some new spectacles! I could go to a nature reserve and see shy birds flitting. Maybe even otters or wild deer. I could spend a day playing violin at a course. If I was thinking about my personal well being, I'd go for a day's Alexander technique.
Well, see, if I wanted to spend more money on myself it wouldn't be on being pampered. It would be on doing something!

There is a wolf sanctuary 6 miles or so up the A4. Hey, you two gorgeous ladies, want to come and walk with wolves one day? We could howl at the moon :)

Oh and did I mention that the camera wouldn't like the steam?
*Not the kind that witches of the old fashioned fairy tale kind sport, hairily on their chins and noses, but a vast quantity of mole-like things which inconveniently scatter around my neck and chest. GB has kindly monitored their presence for me ever since she first asked what they were and was reassured that they don't hurt. Still there Grandma :)
**She's dead now but she would have fetched a very good price - a fantastic, delightful and beautiful old lady. In fact, no, I wouldn't have sold her. She was too precious.

Sweet Sunday

2008-05-18T21:29:00.004+01:00

When the dreaded dizzy thing struck, we were supposed to be going to Youngest's for one of the children's birthday tea. (Not GB, one of her step siblings who are as delightful as she is). We missed it and so they all came to us for Sunday lunch today. (When it was explained that Grandma was ill so we couldn't come she said, couldn't Grandad come by himself? When it was explained that Grandad had to look after Grandma, she said well they could both come and Grandma could go to bed upstairs).
Lunch was brilliant in spite of a small misunderstanding about who was supposed to be cooking the potatoes.
And then we all went to the pub where there is a wonderful old tree in the garden which has been clambered over for many years by generations of very small children. "That tree" said Youngest "has been looking after small children for as long as I've been alive".
Then somebody landed a little yellow helicopter in the field at the back which caused a small crowd of people to gather with cameras and open mouths. (Also caused a number of young cattle to run backwards and forwards in a rather sheep-like manner).
And then Grandad juggled with fire (which was one reason why StepGB was prepared to abandon Grandma to the upstairs room on the occasion of the missed birthday tea). This also caused a gathering of open mouthed camera waving people and children.
At some point during the afternoon, several dogs had a barking match which was very exciting.
So the birthday got an extension and we all had a good time and the sun shone for enough of the afternoon that the old tree saw a great many small children.
Eventually it got cold and we all went our separate ways (I was very glad I'd had the forethought to change into a cashmere jumper, a thick fleece, woollie trousers and socks before coming out) and now we are preparing for an extraordinarily early bed time as we both seem to be really quite exhausted :)

Black lightning

2008-05-17T10:31:00.005+01:00

Oh dear I must have been knackered last night. And spaced out!
Well there you are, it just goes to show I think about the vest of the world even when I have absolutely nothing of any interest to say!
(Not sure if that's good for the rest of the world or not - maybe it would have been better if I'd gone straight to bed and then I could have told you all about my dreams. Er, right. Um which dreams. Hmm)

Aah! the vest of the world. Not only little to say but vulgar with it :)

A couple of things I forgot to mention - how could I have forgotten Barney offering to cut my toenails! the nice Doctor happens to have a skin disease interest and happened to notice on my notes that I had sad toenails. Unwell toenails even. (No photos available). So she asked if she could have a look at them. Should I feel flattered or something.? Will they appear in a text book some day? Anyway on pointing out that I couldn't easily reach them these days and couldn't always be bothered, Barney leapt in with his noble offer. Greater love hath no man! Er, or should it be 'greater love hath no woman' than to allow her partner to cut her toenails. Not to mention trust.

And then, how could I have forgotten that on Monday I am to have a tooth extracted and then until the following afternoon, I have to go around without my plate since it will be at the lab being fitted with a 'cover'. The thing being that the current plate is for a front tooth. My teeth will in fact be displaying full frontal nudity. (Again, no photos available).

I feel decrepit! Is there no end to the humiliations to be heaped upon me? Should I perhaps get me to a nunnery? Should that be 'are there no ends' to the (plural) humiliations?

Ok ok, only two humiliations so far, assuming I can avoid everyone in the world for a whole day and a half. I could always take a vow of silence or carry a sign saying 'my lips are sealed'. Perhaps I could take a veil for a day. Barney will have to drive me so I can cover my head and duck out of sight if we meet anyone we know!

Or, wait!!! I could wear a pointy hat and some warts and a long black wig and say I'm going to a halloween party!

Or, wait wait. I could get me some sponsors and go toothless for charity! In fact I could combine the witchy outfit and the charity bowl. box. thing.

I shall pick flowers.

Flowers outnumber humiliations by several. got a few flowers to spare. You can have them :)

2008-05-16T13:23:00.003+01:00

We've got a gig tonight and I'm wondering how much inactivity I can get away with. I can read music slowly and I know a good few of the tunes by heart - though it's easier to use music all the time but still, playing from 8 to 11.30 will be quite tiring. We''re pretty flexible and there's two of us to carry the tune (not something I like to do by myself as I like to wander away from the tune occasionally and embellish it with harmony and pretty twiddles. Also to have someone else covering up my fluffing - it's a mutual support thing). So I will be able to stop playing now and then and just look as though I have something important to add in a minute or so :)

Yep. It was ok. I couldn't read more than half the music so I made up the rest and as far as I could tell it was fine :)

Going to bed now

Sleep well :)

Busy bunny

2008-05-14T11:21:00.003+01:00

Also contented, pleased, and LET OUT bunny!!!!!*
We went to get more pills, from our own surgery. We saw the nice Doctor (Very nice doctor :). I told her all about everything (well, no not everything, we'd waited 45 minutes to see her so that would have been silly. Just everything I thought she needed to know and everything she thought she needed to know).
And just before leaving, I threw in the burning question - since the pills do not make me drowsy, CAN I DRIVE???
Oh that's no problem she said cheerfully, the pills won't affect your driving at all. Then realising that she might have been a little indiscriminate, she added that of course I shouldn't drive if I was feeling spaced out or dizzy or anything like that.

Lovely doctor. Excellent pills.

The thing is, sitting in the car is the least spaced out place I can find. Walking, computer, stairs, talking and shopping all require a good bit of planning and careful balancing but sitting in the car - no problem. It's almost as good as lying down.
Don't worry, I tested myself out very carefully. Drove up and down the drive and turned the car round several times with looking over shoulder and in mirrors and then pootled very gently down the road 100 yards and did some more turning round and peering in all directions, quickly, slowly, even reflexively when someone drove past. Brilliant!

No more than fifteen minutes at a time. I really am being careful but the reflexes all work and the dizziness stays off till I get out. Then, well, it's so GOOD to be out :) And if I can cope with a little bit of cooking and tidying and washing, I think I should be allowed to cope with a gentle wobbly amble in the woods and half an hour propped against a gatepost taking pictures of kites following the harvesters :)It may be raining tomorrow - today - but remember, the sun shines somewhen :) Hold that thought :)

*Sorry, only a metaphorical bunny :)

The Sun Also Rises

2008-05-12T13:47:00.005+01:00

I never could get into Scot Fitzgerald but he certainly did a good line in novel titles. So although I've never read the book, the above title came into my head the other morning and stuck. Suspecting that anyone more literate than me (I'm a dyed in the wool sci fi and fantasy addict though I'll read almost any type that passes before my eyes, quite indiscriminately - words are so clever, beautiful, wound through the fabric of human awareness, how can you not) would know what it meant and wonder how on earth it could apply to my pleasant, meandering and generally quite mundane blog. So I looked it up and discovered its provenance. Much too literary and intellectual for me but good old Wikipedia provided me with the following quote* which I'm happy to adopt. This is one of the themes of my life and experience.

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever."

And what it's all about is simply that Saturday night I didn't do any sleeping to mention. Having abandoned poor old snoring bear (at 3am) I settled down in the spare (/Fran's/Grandad's/Gorgeous Babe's) room and bounced up and down for the rest of the night, enjoying the balmy night air, the peace and soft night sounds, then grumbling about how this was going to make me feel next day and then peering into the dark and seeing mist, gathering across the fields and promising gorgeous sights in the morning, wandering around on tiptoe (metaphoric tip-toe since flat-footed and yawing** slightly to the left, is the only way I can get around at the moment) to make tea, collect camera, tidy the table, read, stop reading, arrange things on the bedside thingie...you know, all the daft, trivial things you do when sleep eludes you.
So the dawn chorus awoke me from a fitful doze (that's good literary stuff isn't it :)***and the camera was to hand and Yay! The sun also rose :) I only took about 197 pictures. But it's going to be awfully hard to throw any away!

I'm sorry there are such a lot, but at least they're all of pretty much the same thing :)

Otherwise, we had friends round to be BBQ'ed yesterday and John was so, so funny. Had the best laugh I've had for ages (fortunately he doesn't mind being the centre of affectionate amusement over his tractor collection and his opinions on the price of mars bars and how things were in the colonial days in Kenya -such a darling). And everyone did all the work, since Barney made an unscheduled pub stop (to collect more lemons - really) and I was veering quite a lot :) Oh well all right, some of the blokes spent some of the time sitting in the garden, providing a centre to which to bring things. Very important task that :) As long as there's at least one person by the table waiting with a drink and a meditative expression, all's well with the world I think.
Oh and between us, we made Lemon (Orange, Lime) Sherbet. This was my thoughtful contribution to the non-alcohol drinkers among us. Mostly me! Huh! not that I'm bitter and twisted about it or anything or that I whinged at all that I didn't get to try the delicious looking wine Scarlett and Joe Brown brought - thinking this would be a nice treat for me to share. Oh no :{
Anyway the sherbet was very nice. And good for me. (The juice of 3 lemons and 1 lime: a couple of desert spoons of caster sugar: two pinches of salt: top up with water and ice and adjust salt and sugar to taste: orange juice optional. Good vitamin C laden stuff).

Oh my Goodness! Isn't the sun absolutely wonderful!
Wishing you green and growing loveliness wherever you are.

*which I shall now look up ~ Ecclesiastes. 1: 4
**yachting term I think, implying a tendency to veer without warning. I have that!
***You know it's really true about cock crow - they do it, all over the view, just before dawn!

Secret places

2008-05-10T23:32:00.003+01:00

blogout

2008-05-10T20:47:00.004+01:00

Any one else getting odd and unwelcome messages from blogger about cookies and illegal tracking?
(I didn't do anything honest!)

Oh and IT ARRIVED!!!!My new lens. *
I am now the proud owner of a complete camera :) (well two complete cameras really but I expect a new home will have to be found for the old one. Or can I justify keeping it 'just in case'?)
Meanwhile, zoomed cat considering a leapAnd hugely zoomed rook flying home halfway across the field (with jackdaw in attendance)You can see feathers! (if you look at it larger anyway)

I'll try not to go on about it any more, honest :)

:)

It's a balmy evening, warm breezes are blowing through the open windows and owls are calling just outside. The scent of wallflowers and apple blossom are drifting in with the owl calls and I really hope you're all having a lovely evening too :)

*The relief! It's the first thing I've ever bought on ebay and the whole business of sending money out into the aether without having a clue where it was going was quite scary. Especially as the bank rang Barney just as I was in the middle of doing it and told him someone might be fraudulently attempting to buy stuff with our credit card!

Swings and oooh not them other things!

2008-05-08T10:47:00.005+01:00

Still on the grumpygoround!
As well as the possible drowsiness (no sign of that) these pills 'may have side effects such as difficulty in sleeping'.
Right so the plan is to get up early (my sort of early, not everyone else's) and then be really tired and ready for bed by everyone else's normal sort of bedtime. Only from about midday onwards, I seem to get more and more lively and stable and wideawake. Habit? Possibly.
Still, last night, I got myself by the scruff and dragged myself, protesting all the way, that I could just do this that or the other before settling down. Uh uh, I said to myself (actually I swore at myself but you don't need the colourful details) you get into bed and relax and you'll sleep like a baby till tomorrow morning early and then take two pills and be allllll ready for a nice sunny day doing not very much.
Only as it happened, Barney was not sleeping like any baby. He was doing his full night time repertoire from loud, irregular snoring with snorts and huffs and long silent pauses, to muttering and sighing, to singing three notes of an arpeggio (in tune and in time but with poor tone production), to exclamations and fragments of sentences which sounded very interesting but didn't contain quite enough consonant to actually make sense. A fair bit of tossing and turning and occasional accusatory sounding mmphs and uurghs.
It was a warm night. I gave up on which bits of quilt I was going to keep for myself.
I wondered if I would have slept through this without the side effect! Wondered if they just forgot to mention that the side effect comes from the other side of the bed!
Wondered if avoiding alcohol was really really necessary (yes I know alcohol doesn't actually help you sleep, it just feels as though it is doing).
Wondered if my breathing was getting long and shallow (contact your doctor immediately if this happens) or if I was losing control of any muscles (contact your etc etc) attempted to play a whole piece of music by Ten Have in my head (no you don't have to contact your doctor if this happens and anyway I couldn't get past the first fifteen bars so it didn't happen), thought soothingly about how at least I was lying down, resting my body (mostly), keeping my eyes shut (immediately opened them to check that this was true), and began to think yearningly of the computer, a cup of tea, a fag, a good book, the camera......
Thought 'consider water'. Did. Got up and went to the loo. It was 2 am. My usual bedtime.

I went downstairs, made a cup of tea, rolled a fag and found I'd left the book upstairs so sneered my way through the Radio Times Reader Offers from 2008 (which seemed to be mostly about bedding and pillows and mattresses* and soft sleepy things which certainly enhanced the sneering experience) then moved on to articles about how nice the Duke of Edinburgh and Gordon Ramsay are really (which encouraged me to swear a lot and feel I was in some sort of kindred company; not that I feel any other kind of kinship with either of them).

Went back to bed and covered the phone charger light with a pot. Barney was breathing softly and deeply and peacefully. I resisted the urge to knee him (accidentally) in a tender place. After a while, he paused in his peaceful sleeping and uttered a long, deeply felt Hhhhaaaaaaah----aaaah! (I felt it deeply through the pillow and the mattress, it must have been really satisfying for him).

Well eventually I must have gone to sleep because this morning I definitely was asleep just before I woke up bright and early.
I think a little pill management (two in the morning and none at bedtime - it's ok I checked with the pharmacist that this was going to be acceptable and safe) and relocation is going to be in order. Meanwhile, you will understand why I don't mind Barney going off for the night:)

On the swings side, avoiding alcohol has reduced my heartburn, allowing myself only one cup of coffee makes me appreciate the coffee a lot and it's been the most gorgeously warm sunny heavenly weather for the last four (?) days. Yesterday, wonderful, kind Thursday took me shopping so I got OUT!!!! and got to buy a lot of quite unnecessary foods to keep me going till Barney gets back. I've photographed everything in the garden, in next door's garden, up the road (only 50 yards up the road) and I've just made a cup of ginger and lemongrass tea which is quite delicious and a nice change from tea. And I'm wearing a teeshirt, cotton trousers and a cotton jacket which feels WONDERFUL. (After woolly tops and trousers and socks!).
Oh and the camera!!!!

Well there was a kite and the camera allowed me to take ooh, twenty pictures as it soared overhead

And even to catch it being chased off by two rooks

And here's a mended heart for I

And a bit of spare time for Mel
And a little tulip for Thursday's garden

*Why is mattresses spelt with two tt's?**
**I only ask because I would hve thought the word might have come from 'mat' and 'rest'. Maybe not . So how do you do a shrug emoti-thing?

Whoops.

2008-05-05T15:58:00.004+01:00

Well I am just not the put up,with it type. Two days of uncertainty, followed by one day horizontal and NO EATING, SMOKING or DRINKING was enough. We rang the emergency doctors and we took me down to see them and we returned (via the supermarket) with a diagnosis of 'Labyrinthitis' and a prescription to 'quieten things down'. I think it's a seasickness kind of pill, though I was a bit taken aback to find that it's also a schizophrenia kind of pill. I'm fairly sure I haven't got that though so I'll assume we're taking it for vertigo and dizziness.
Anyway, it has quietened things down. They (things) have stopped going round and round and eating seems to have become safe again and I even tried a cig. No problem.
And I suppose an added bonus is that I probably won't get schizophrenia :) On the other hand I may get drowsiness. In which case I mustn't operate machinery or drive. Well I haven't got drowsiness so it's safe to operate the camera but I think driving will have to wait a bit longer.

Still an' all it's a jolly weird experience. I can tell that behind the quietening down curtain the thing is still there. The feet aren't quite sure that they agree with me when I say things aren't going round and round any more and occasionally the head says are you sure about this?
So you can tell a labyrinthinitus patient by their odd, wide legged gait and a tendency to hold onto things as they go past. (Including the dog's ear if it happens to be the nearest thing. He looked puzzled but acquiescent).

I am about to add sleep to the cure - and another pill. Unheard of at 9.50 in the evening.
You all sleep well, probably a bit later :)

Going for a whirl?

2008-05-03T19:32:00.001+01:00

Oh dear I hope not.
A while ago I had an ear virus (so my doctor told me). It made me dizzy and she said Oh it could take several weeks to go away.
Which it seemed to have done. But since the recent tooth events it's been creeping back and the last two days, I've been wandering around in circles. And standing still in them and even sitting down in them.
Pooh.
Well as long as I'm sure it's just an ear virus, brought on by tooth unwellness*, I'm assuming it'll go away as soon as the extraction of said tooth has been duly performed. Not till 19th May though.
I notice that I can play the fiddle and take pics without any danger of falling over. But walking the dog and stopping to talk to the neighbours is not on. I never realised how much head waving and gesturing I do when I'm talking to people! Shopping isn't a great idea either, all those head turning goodies around - and around - and around -

And sadly, this machine doesn't help much since long hours bending towards the screen results in seized up parts, straightening and stretching of which results in head rush. And guess what happens next! Whoosh! Away we go round the mulberry bush.

Well never mind, tomorrow I shall hand over lots of cash to lovely 4tographer and his camera will officially become mineallmine. Some time in the next week or two, my lens (better than his I hope, though his is very good) will arrive. (I bought it on ebay!!! So scary! I shan't relax until it comes and I think the stress of bidding and paying was what brought on the ear thing!)

Meanwhile, I hope you'll forgive a less frequent attendance here and at all your places. I always knew I needed a little more sleep and maybe a little less square eyed time. Now it seems my body has noticed this too and is letting me know!

Here are some pics I prepared earlier. I have to say that to see this view nearly every day when I go into town is much much more than I deserve and to have seen it in this light just convinces me that somebody must be on my side.

And then to catch the stormy sky above the rape seed field surely means I must have done something right.

Even if it was only to make an unscheduled detour and get home late to make dinner.

Love all. I shall visit even if I don't get round to saying anything (so watch those lurkers I, one of them will be me :)

*I read somewhere that anyone suffering from repeated ear infections should first have their teeth checked since teeth and ear infections go hand in hand. Canal in socket? root in labyrinth? Lets not even suggest tooth in ear - that's worse than foot in mouth - more like foot and mouth!!! And actually, let's not mention feet.

Gone to a party

2008-05-03T03:01:00.001+01:00

Possibly the best party ever :)

Crashed

2008-05-01T00:30:00.001+01:00

And totally knackered.

I know people have been visiting - not ignoring, just got to go to bed!
xxxx

Confirmed in the good old Roman way.

2008-04-30T00:29:00.008+01:00

On Sunday, we went to see Frangelita being confirmed. It was an interesting experience for me ( now a thoroughly lapsed Catholic) as the Mass was sung - mostly in English but a few of the more beautiful prayers in Latin.
Long ago, as a church-goer, I knew all the responses and all the prayers and hearing them in Latin, I found that I still knew them.
Since those days, the liturgy has all been changed to English and though I attended Mass a few times after the change, the English never 'took' for me. The Latin is beautiful. 'Sanctus', 'Hosannah' and 'Kyrie Eleison' have a lovely flow which 'Holy', and, (what?) 'Hooray' (?!!!) and 'Lord have mercy' just can't match.

On the other hand, the newer 'kiss of peace' (usually just a handclasp) is a nice and meaningful addition in which I still enthusiastically join. I have absolutely no quarrel with saying 'peace be with you' to all the people within reach.
Otherwise, it was pleasant to be among people who were there not to rant about their religious beliefs, but just to witness the affirmation of a number of people to try and live according to a set of beliefs which are at least an attempt to encourage some kind of spiritual responsibility.

And Bill the Bish kindly mentioned that he was available for photo opportunities after the service. Very helpful :)There he is with one of the newest confirmed members of his flock :) Doesn't she look suitably modest and cheerful :) (considering what a glamour-puss she usually is)

Later, we were having lunch in an Italian nearbye and we saw Fr John, in company with Bill the Bish, heading lunchwards we supposed. And a little later still, we saw them returning - maybe a little less steadily. This seemed entirely suitable to us :)

Ah well. Back home, next day, the old oak seemed to be having a spiritual moment all to itself :)
Some cherry blossom for I - I thought it might be nice to have some flowers for the new flat...it's a little tree and might live in a pot on the roof terrace

Some ducks for Mel (I know you couldn't ever have enough duckies Mel and I have reason to believe that these two would bring a half dozen ducklings with them)

And a sky moment to share with Sorrow:)
In a day or two there may be news about the camera :) I am an excited bunny!
Also a knackered bunny. Had three early mornings in a row and Oh look! It's quite a late night already.
I shall go and emulate a log. Peace be with you one and all :)

Decisions decisions

2008-04-27T18:56:00.004+01:00

Ok, I'll buy it.
If lovely 4tographer will sell it to me and if I can check that different lenses will do the things I want. (got lovely other photographer friend coming over next week and I hope she'll bring all her stuff and give me lots of useful advice)
Right. got to get on with dinner now or we won't be eating till tomorrow morning :)

Been a bit preoccupied

2008-04-27T01:06:00.001+01:00

It's getting there though.

Happy Sunday :)

Todays mission, should I choose to accept it

2008-04-23T16:20:00.003+01:00

Was the hand washing.
Among my many pet hates, the hand washing of large woollen items (usually belonging to Barney) ranks very highly indeed. So, we have between us, nearly enough woollies of the hand washing variety to last a whole winter. And come Spring, I suddenly feel guilty about the big heaps of apparently abandoned old woollies, to accept that it has to be done, TODAY! No! not later today, not before I do anything else tomorrow but NOW!
So I did. It's unbelievable how much water there is in a heap of wet woollies (a whole winter's worth anyway). So as a by product, the utility floor gets washed, the spin dryer gets an airing and the washing baskets, the spare washing up bowl and most of the area around the washing machine (and also around the bath because the bath is the only place in the house big enough for the washing of one woollie, never mind lots) get cleaned too.
I expect there are washing machines that don't do whatever it is to woollies that mine does and which makes them slightly too short and somehow changes the texture from nice to nasty. Mine is not one of those and so some of our woollies aren't as nice as they used to be.
The whole exercise is yet another way of reminding me about stitches in time (but we don't mention those around here). I do have a gadget on which to dry woollies flat. Two of them. So another by product of the hated hand washing day is a festooning of the house with draped woollies. And since a lot of them were discovered at various times my my wicked little black and white cat, as they dry, cat hair floats around the house, catching the light and getting in my mouth.
Anyway, as I knelt beside the bath, squeezing the first twenty gallons of water out of the soggy things, I thought about mangles. (Wringers to you Mel :).
I thought, I wonder who invented them. Was it a woman, pissed off with the whole business of squeezing (not wringing) and hauling wet wool around? Was it a kindly husband, concerned for his wife's struggles? Or a fisherman! Unmarried and with no Mum to do it for him. Or a person with a curious and inventive mind who suddenly saw a different way of doing the job without, themselves being involved.

Perhaps a shepherd?

I googled mangle and got no answer. But it was invented 'some time in the 18th Century'.
That's a huge lot of water and wool being squeezed and shovelled around and hauled before anyone found an easier way to do the job!
Come to think of it, I expect the washing of woollens always got done at the end of winter. By whole households all heaving bowls of water and big heaps of wet wool and hanging it all in the wind and then jumping out of the way of the spray!
Oh but then I don't suppose they had so many woollies as we do. On the other hand, the families would be bigger so there might be a minimum of anything up to ten or twelve even at the rate of one woollie each.
Well there you go. I've run out of thoughts about hand washing and I'm hungry. Also slightly satisfied, though I wish I'd done it a week or three ago when I needed the turquoise and blue woollie. (to wear with the turquoise and blue earrings with pearls on the ends)
Better make tea.
I wish you all a very productive and enjoyable Wednesday evening - the sun's shining again here, hope yours is too :)

A farewell to tooth

2008-04-23T11:46:00.002+01:00

But not apparently to any arms!
I went to the dentist yesterday - just a check up. He wobbled my poor semi detached tooth and declared it officially unattached and ready for demolition.
Oh! Well ok. I've treated it ever so carefully and it still rattles about like ....Actually I can't think of anything that rattles quite like a detached tooth. And every so often I inadvertently bite something hard and it lets me know exactly how detached it was until it made contact under pressure. Ouch!
And I can have a 'cover' fitted to my existing plate. And it'll only cost £44 (about the same price as a nikon battery then). So no loss of arms or legs.

And he cheerfully assured me that all the pain and misery and terror and MONEY invested in the dreaded, unmentionable treatment from she who cleans and polishes with unholy glee and unnatural thoroughness was well spent. He says he can see no reason why I should ever lose another tooth. As long as I keep this up.
I think mutinous thoughts about quality of life and wonder whether the damned things wouldn't all be better off, out! And then I could have a nice set of falsies and whip them out and terrorise people with them when I get even older and grouchier and more eccentric (As I plan to do).

(no photos, it wouldn't be respectful)

I hope you can teach an old brain new camera

2008-04-22T19:27:00.003+01:00

Dogs and tricks - couldn't care less.
Grandmothers and eggs - no problem, I cook mine. (Eggs, not grandmothers).

But buttons and functions and stuff! Ooh dear me that's hard. I got very cross today - Why, why wasn't it doing three different exposures????? Oh! because I told it to do something incompatible that's why. And I can't remember how to stop it.
And why won't it do the press button, focus, reframe and take picture with original focus thingie? It refocuses so quickly I can't stop it!
And where is the colour menu?
??????

S'ok. I did my brain training game yesterday. I'll get my head round it any minute!
Barney bear phoned me to say there are foals in the fiekd by his barn :) that turned out to be an interesting subject to practice on! And the sun's out and it's getting warm. hot even! Golly!
Fast babe with Mum
Slightly less fast babe
Just like Dad babe (both mares are grey Arabians and both babes are this wonderful bright chestnut -I imagine two sisters and the same Sire)
Tired babe (no wonder after all the rushing about :)

O. K. !

2008-04-21T18:35:00.004+01:00

Today I can play with it :)

It's a bit different! For a start, I didn't fit the lens properly (no I did read the manual, it's just that I didn't want to force anything so I didn't click it into place properly)
So I took a lot of pictures under the impression that the lens didn't have the function that makes it work on auto focus and therefore became convinced that I'm just no good without the antishake thingie!
Also, it's been a grey, flat, day with no sun to speak of so there's nothing much to take pictures of.
After a bit. I read the other manual and thought "Oh, the lens does have an auto thingie".
Refitted it and suddenly we've got Whirrrr! Click!! Zooom!
:)

But it will be a while before I can work out how to make it do more of what I want.

We played for a wedding barn dance the other day and the Groom was Barney's ex apprentice so we were invited to the whole thing. I have to say that eating a wedding breakfast* at four in the afternoon (What is that all about?) and then doing toasts and then playing with the band makes for a very long day.
They were a lovely couple though and there was a delightful baby and balloons and a strange piano that played all alone and by itself - the ultimate lonely image I thought - and the food was great, though I wish I'd refrained from finishing the enormous syrup pudding!
I'm not really a weddingey person but Aaaaw :) They were sweet and the best of good luck to them :)

*Breakfast? At four in the afternoon??? Just as well we had a real one at ten in the morning is all I can say!

Zoom, click, snap, whirr

2008-04-20T14:52:00.004+01:00

Well not quite yet.
I've collected the beautiful camera (so clean and shiny and in the box you wonder if it's actually been used - certainly it doesn't look as though the manual has been read). I've got the battery on charge, I've studied the parts of the camera in the manual and I've fitted the neck strap!
Right. Well a flat battery really ought to be recharged overnight. So maybe I'd better practice putting the camera back in its box. Or maybe I could just have a go at fitting the lens and then find the bag I've got earmarked for the camera. And read a bit more of the manual. and practice putting the camera in the bag and getting it out and.....
Goodness! the excitement is almost too much already!
I hope the lens comes with a cap. I'd better go and look.
***
Unbelievable! It's 10.15 pm and I still can't play with the camera!
***

Well, during the battery charging I went to the pub (to join Barney, who had gone earlier) and on the way home I had to stop for a few minutes. then I got an indignant call from Barney who'd gone out without his keys and wanted to know why I wasn't back yet.*

And if you know where to look, you can see our house :)
I noticed it the other day, just over there :)
And after all that, it still wasn't time to play!!!

*Well actually he knew exactly why I wasn't back yet :)

WTF????? - !+%!!*

2008-04-18T11:37:00.005+01:00

But really, WTF'nH do they think they're playing at?

Target practice, that's what. The b****y army playing war games.

Nothing lives on the picturesquely named Cape Wrath, somewhere so far north of the border that most of us don't know where it is.* Well if anything ever did, it won't be doing now.
Cape Wrath, according to Nicholas crane (Coast) is currently being used by the army, navy and air force to get together and practice their live bombing techniques on the rocks. All together see, there isn't anywhere else on the British Isles where they can all play together.
So last night we were treated to the sight of lots of aircraft, boats and people all pointing weaponry at a large (fairly unprepossessing ) rock and attempting to blast it to bits. (POW! POW! KABOOM! BIG SPLOSH! oops, missed BOING!)
This, despite the fact that the innocent rock remains in one place and presumably doesn't fire back, is supposed to be giving the military the edge it needs should we ever have another Falklands type war. And gives the boys an unparalleled opportunity to hone their skills and all that. Oh and it's really hard and testing and punishing for them because of the inhospitable weather.

Well, let's not mention coastal erosion, carbon footprints or the war (any of the wars). Let's not consider that these days, it seems more likely that the lads will be needing to hone skills in very different climes.
Let's just...Oh I can't be bothered any more. I resort to effing and blinding and spluttering. and having turned the air blue, I shall now go and seek warm water since we are being blasted by cold winds and my person is blue from the knees down (cat flap is letting in the wind).

***

What time do you call this? I've been waiting for hours!

View from my (clean) kitchen window
Gorgeousness :)

*It's at the far northern tip of the Scottish Mainland and used to be a major stopping point for Vikings, on their way from Scandinavia to everywhere else.**
**What with global warming and rising seas, it's possible it may be needed again by travellers - if there's any of it left that is.

GOOD MORNING :)

2008-04-17T00:17:00.002+01:00

Time to come out and play!

Up and Down day

2008-04-15T20:09:00.006+01:00

So, for the next four or five or forty days, you may get nothing from me but a litany of woe and a diary of how the computer is doing with my backing up of photos. And some alarming typos as I get more and more bored and irritated.
But I do have news, all very mememe but very exciting for me nonetheless :)

One of the lovely Newbury Flickr group has a spare DSLR camera. You know how I was saying a while ago how I needed one to play with to see if I really want to spend money on one? Well this lovely, kind and understanding person offered to lend me his old Nikon D80 to try out.
Coo! And Wow!!! And what a generous person :)

So you may also get a flood of photos from the window next to the computer.
Meanwhile, as I said, I cleaned windows yesterday. It's a measure of how rarely I do this that I've got aches in new places (in a good way though). But what with the clean windows, they ought to be very, er, clean photos! I'm constantly stopping in my tracks to look through them. The windows that is. It's quite an enlightening experience :)
But this morning the water was off. Fortunately, Barney Bear discovered this just before using it all up so there is enough for my coffee :)
On the other hand I have to make my second visit to the Hygienist this afternoon. (Of that I will say nothing except GaaaH!)
I wonder when the water will come back. I wonder if there's enough left upstairs to clean my teeth (GaaaH!). I wonder if I have time to clean another window or two :) I wonder when the lovely photyographer will contact me about hi camera :) ))

And look what I found in my clean window! A ripple :)
I don't know what the bee found but he wasn't a very patient model :) Buzzing about all over the place he was!

(I let him out quite quickly though) I just realised what he found though! A big smear. I shall have to go an remove it!

One should never get confident where machinery is concerned

2008-04-15T19:11:00.004+01:00

Yesterday it was making promises it clearly had no intention of keeping. 4 days??? Huh! More like twenty.
It's taken to informing me that "the file is no longer there". Lies, all lies. the files are all there, waiting to be copied. the machine is just pretending it can't see them. I'm tempted to offer it binoculars so it can't keep doing this Nelson "I see no files" thing at me.
The only way to sharpen up its perceptions seems to be to disconnect the new drive and reconnect it and then suggest, ever so politely, that it tries again. It's behaving like a small, square, obstinate child. As long as I keep holding its hand and copy/pasting folders one by one it keeps doing it. If I suggest that it might like to copy/paste four or five files or maybe a whole folder full of folders full of files it suddenly says Oh look! a chicken! Or at any rate "I see no ships I mean files"
Heaven save me from semi educated computers.
Well in order to stay close to it and keep connecting and disconnecting, I've resorted to doing housework. I've cleaned windows, done the rest of the kitchen and dashed upstairs with washing. I've nearly copied all of January 2007's photos onto the new drive.
The dog has been tied up outside all day since I can't be doing with pathetic dog faces as well as obstinate computer messages.
Oops! In 2 minutes 10 seconds I need to be back, holding it's hand.
Did I mention it's been a glorious April day?

It may be time to see my helpful computer man again. Can he find out how to make this system work sensibly I wonder? Is it worth 30 quid to find out?

Later you may get a pic of what I saw when I'd cleaned the windows (not as interesting as anything the Butler might have seen I'm afraid)
Meanwhile, it occurs that Picasa isn't being used by the bits of the machine that are doing the copying. So, slowly, (cos it's not too good at multi-tasking if the truth were known) I can send you a picture.
1 minute and 35 seconds to the next copy/paste.
More later - maybe :)

10 days and 14 hours

2008-04-14T13:00:00.006+01:00

until the computer has finished copying all of H drive to the new hard drive.

Oh, now it's 7 days and 3 hours - oops, 4 days and 20 hours- -oops - 5 days and 20 hours -
oh no, just a mere 4 days and 18 hours - 23 hours - 17 hours - 20 hours - 18 hours.
I wonder sometimes if this machine really knows what it's doing or if it's just trying to confuse me. Both maybe :) It seems to be getting through roughly one hour every five minutes now it's settled down to a steady rate of - whatever it thinks it's doing. This works out at about 9 hours!*
So some time tomorrow I may have all my pics duplicated on two hard drives. Meanwhile, I am getting a lesson in the wisdom of 'doing a bit of it now' instead of 'doing it all at once, some other time when it's more convenient'.
A good lesson. (please don't mention stitches in time - I still hate sewing. some time I'm going to get to grips with my sewing machine and spend time making, mending and generally being adventurous with left over clothes. Which reminds me, Elder Sister and I discussed clothes we couldn't quite bear to throw away even though we can't wear them either any more. She beat me on skirts over silk shirts by a good margin** :)

Meanwhile, over on the other machine, Norton has nearly run out so I'm seriously considering getting AVG instead. Which has the huge virtue of being free and also (I'm told) doesn't slow the computer down so much.
So I've saved the uninstall instructions and looked up AVG and bookmarked it all ready to embark :) But is it a good idea to have both computers doing large and mysterious things, very slowly, at the same time?

Hmm. I think I'll go and hang the washing up. That's something I can understand easily.
Of curse, while the machine is doing its thing - or not doing it (still stuck at 4 hours 13 minutes) I can't access any pictures. Let's hope it does a quick spurt.

*except that now it seems to have got stuck on 4 hours 13 minutes. Oh well. At this rate, Norton will have run out before this machine has finished so I'll have to do both things at once anyway.
**Which is to say, she has more unwearable skirts in her cupboards than I have unwearable silk shirts in mine :)

Immoderation

2008-04-12T22:03:00.002+01:00

No, not 'in moderation'
I don't really do 'in moderation'.

Either too much or not enough, that's me.

So there was a new rubbish bin to be fixed and therefore a cupboard to be cleaned out and somehow this led halfway round the kitchen so I didn't practice my fiddle at all and then the Bear cooked so I looked at photos and ate too much and drank too much and now I've got back ache.
Question is, have I got time to hang up the washing before I fall asleep. Bleh!
I'd better go and hang the washing up.

By the way, the moon is out :)

Maybe I won't get the washing dried tonight. Or maybe it's too cold to go and look at the moon.

*shrug*
More stars:) The Scilla were out.
Grizedale Forest, wet, late and beautiful as the sun went down :)
An unexpected valley on the way home from somewhere - the long way home :)
And while I was considering which way to go next, it thundered and lightened and went all stormy. I love weather.
Later, nearly home, there were raindrops on a feather.
Who cares about moderation :)
Sleep beautifully. The cats, the dog and the Bear are. Now I will too :)