Monthly Archives: January 2018

20 Questions

I was just catching up on my reading when a mish-mash of followed links took me here. I thought it seemed interesting so I decided to have a go at it myself.

Do you have a nickname? No. I’m sometimes the target for abuse from family members, particularly my wife and children, but have no permanent alternative name.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would you be? I like the Fens, but they can be a bit breezy and the windchill factor is no joke in winter. I’d still like to live in the Fens from April to October, because I like the large skies and the flatness, but would like to live somewhere warmer for the rest of the year.

What is one thing most people don’t know about you? If I told you that then it wouldn’t be one thing most people don’t know about me.

If you could have dinner with one person living or dead who would it be? I’d quite like to have dinner with Siegfried Sassoon, but I’m not certain he’d care to have dinner with me. The Honourable Galahad Threepwood would be a suitable alternative.

What is the one food you will always order when you go out to eat? Scampi. I like scampi. Not exactly sure what it is, but I like it. I also like calamari. It’s possible that I just like fried food with lemon juice.

I’m also very fond of Little Chef Olympic Breakfasts, but they will become extinct this year as the last Little Chefs closes so I’m going to settle for scampi.

Olympic Breakfast

If your mother could cook for you again what do you wish she would make? Roast dinners – mine never come close to tasting as good as hers did.

Do you have any regrets? Yes, but I try not to waste time thinking about it. Learn from it. Move on.

What is the one possession you would grab in a fire? My trousers. After that I would, of course, ensure that Julia was safe.

Do you work? I’ve just started the new job, working in a shop full of collectables. It’s so much fun it hardly counts as work.

Can you play a musical instrument? No, I have no musical talent whatsoever. I have abused the piano, trumpet, euphonium, mouth organ and ukulele at various times but never produced anything approximating to music.

What would your children be named if they didn’t have the names they have now? I’d go for a simple numbering system. So much easier, and no need to worry about fashion or family names.

Do you have pets? We had two cats. They lived to be 20 years old then died a year apart. For three months after that I still kept seeing cat shaped things out of the corner of my eye.

What is your major fear? A world shortage of cheese.

Do you have a life motto? No. I’m too boring.

What is one thing on your bucket list in life that seems the furthest stretch for you? I don’t have a bucket list. See above.

What would be your perfect day? A day out with Julia watching Puffins at Bempton Cliffs, followed by prawn sandwiches and cake at Mrs Botham’s tea shop in Whitby. We’ve done it several times and it can’t be bettered.

Puffin – Bempton Cliffs

If you were an animal what would you be? A cat. It’s not a big stretch as I sleep a lot and can’t be trusted around unguarded food.

Is there something you would not eat under any circumstances? Beetroot. This isn’t a preference, for some reason it activates my gag reflex and I literally can’t eat it.

Favorite dessert? Syrup sponge with custard (often wrongly called treacle sponge), though it’s hard to ignore the comedy potential of spotted dick.

Anything else you want to say? For a look at the original post visit koolaidmoms at this link. Have a go yourself!

A Very Senior Moment

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Subtitle: An idiot and his phone are soon parted

I lost my phone today.

On the way back from the shop I thought of stopping off at the local Sainsbury’s and ringing Julia to see if she wanted anything taking back home. That was when I noticed that the pocket by my left knee was gaping open, instead of being zipped securely. I’d had a couple of phone calls in the

morning, and remembered putting my phone on the counter after I’d finished.

After that I had no memory of it, apart from having a vague thought that I mustn’t forget it as I packed my stuff.

I decided that the best course of action, as the Ring Road is always crowded at that time of day, was to carry on and go home. Once there I would ask Julia to ring, double check if the phone was concealed in my bag, and, if not, I would, talk to whoever answered and make suitable arrangements.

The other choice was to turn round and return to the shop in traffic, to see if I’d left the phone on the counter. That seemed like a lot of hassle when I wasn’t actually sure if I’d picked it up or not.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I got home and looked through my bag. No phone.

Julia rang it (which was a welcome break from doing her tax and muttering at the computer) and it rang. I went through my bag again. I checked my camera case. No phone. We tried again. The ringing wasn’t coming from my bag. It was coming from my trousers.

For some reason I’d put it in a different pocket and it had, to all intents, disappeared. In terms of senior moments this is one up from entering a room and forgetting why.

Street Furniture

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I’ve not taken many pictures recently, so, rather than do another post with no photographs I thought I’d do a quick post using photographs I already have. They aren’t, strictly speaking, all street furniture, some are just things I saw whilst walking down the street with a camera.

Jubilee horse trough at Slaidburn (1887)

Hark to Bounty Inn sign – Slaidburn

Door at Slaidburn

There’s plenty to see when walking down the street, but I don’t often take the chance to picture it because I’m always worried about photographing people as they walk past. People can be very strange in their ideas about the internet and photography. I know, from seeking photo permission for various children’s events, that parents worry about you making money from it (I wish I knew how) or worry about strangers seeing them (crediting the internet with a power I’m not sure it possesses). I suppose these fears are the lineal descendents of the fear that cameras steal souls.

Fotheringhay – cottage and phone box with library and defibrillator

Phone box with defibrillator – Heckington

Double pillar box – Bakewell

Most phone boxes are now out of use (mobiles having made them redundant) and are now in use as homes for defibrillators, community libraries or spiders.

Patress plate – Snape Maltings

Fyffes old warehouse – Nottingham

Bench and Greengrocer – Heckington

The bananas are from the old Fyffes warehouse in Sneinton Market in Nottingham, the bench is from Heckington and the round plate, which you may recognise from the Snape Maltings post, is known as a patress plate. I didn’t know that until I looked it up. Education and blogging, once again, go hand in hand.

Patagonian Pumas and Penguins

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We were talking about big cats in the shop during the week, specifically the definition of “big cat”. The current TV programme is called Big Cats but includes a lot of small cats. Specifically, it includes the Rusty Spotted Cat, which is a very cute cat (which is something you can’t say about a lion or tiger) and rather on the small side. In fact, at 14 to 19 inches long (excluding tail) it is Asia’s smallest cat and a contender for being the world’s smallest cat. (The rival is Africa’s Black-footed cat).

The dictionary tells me that the Big Cats are Tigers, Lions, Jaguars and Leopards. These are all able to roar (apart from Snow Leopards). Sometimes Pumas/Cougars and Cheetahs are allowed in. Unless, as we have seen, you are producing a documentary titled “Big Cats”, when you allow everything in.

It’s a relief to find it’s just sloppy journalism, because I was beginning to think I was going mad.

By coincidence the Sunday repeat came on as I started to write this. They have just shown pumas in Patagonia that prey on penguins. I don’t like their choice of prey, but you have to admire their instinct for alliteration.

There is probably a joke in there somewhere, but it may fall flat in countries where a Penguin isn’t an easily available chocolate biscuit.

Now they are trekking in the Himalayas, tracking a Snow Leopard. Despite the snow and altitude it seems to lead a life that, just like a domestic cat, involves a lot of sleeping. However, as we’ve already established, I’m not one to take the moral high ground in matters related to sleeping.

I had been wondering what you needed to do at school to end up as a wildlife photographer. However, having seen what they had to do in the Himalayas I’m finding that my enthusiasm is fading. I really don’t like all that snow.

Given a choice I would like to specialise in wildlife that lives around the Mediterranean within easy reach of shops.

Though after reading this article I may well settle for life as a travel journalist, as you only have to go for a few weeks.

Saturday

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I prepared Julia’s day this morning and laid it all out within arm’s length of her chair.

Remote control, Kindle, newspaper, flask of green tea, cereal, milk, sandwiches for lunch…

Then I slipped out to work and left her sleeping. Sleep is a greatly underrated as a curative measure and she generally resists it as she thinks it’s being lazy. She also believes that the best way to deal with a bad back is to work it off, and we all know how that worked out.

I think it comes from being a mother. Mothers, like ideas and the Pinkerton Detective Agency, never sleep.

Me, I have no problem with sleeping, and often take a preventive nap in front of the TV. Sometimes I take several, because you can’t be too careful with your health.

In fact I’m going to go to sleep now.

Henry Ford said: “I never stand if I can sit and I never sit if I can lie down.”

I tend to agree with this as a philosophy, though I’m not going to adopt all his ideas.

Thinking of Summer

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I’m looking forward to summer now. Autumn is all well and good, with plenty of interesting leaves and migrant birds and I like Spring, though it’s always a sad time as you know it won’t last.

Teasel at Rufford Abbey

Winter, to be fair, offers a few frost-rimed photo opportunities but little else. In the English midlands we don’t have much to offer in the way of scenery or snowfall.

Calendula at Wilford

So that leaves Summer. Summer is easy – plenty of flowers and plenty of insects, including butterflies. There’s a lack of birds because they mainly hide behind leaves, but you can’t have everything.

I was speaking to Eddiethebugman earlier today. You may remember his guinea pig shots from an earlier post. He takes a lot of photos of insects (as you may guess from the name) and employs a technique called focus stacking, which produces brilliant images of insects.

As I understand it you bracket the focus settings and use a computer to put together a very sharp image using the best bits from all the shots.

Angle Shades moth

It’s beyond my technical capabilities, but I’m a great admirer of anyone who can do it.

He was telling me that he was once criticised for using the technique, as it isn’t “proper photography”. It’s a bit like the list of words you shouldn’t use in poems – there’s always someone ready to tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing. I even read a poetry competition judge recently saying that you shouldn’t write poems about butterflies.

Small Copper in the garden

Who wants to live in a world without butterfly poems?

The same goes for photographs. I’m always happy to see good close-ups of insects, no matter how they are produced. If someone wants to spend hours over producing one perfect image I’m prepared to admire both the photograph and the craftsmanship.

My photos, as you can see, are more of a point and shoot affair with a large helping of luck and hit and miss. I’ve added a few to liven up the post.

Comedy carrot

Trouble and Strife

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We were having a laugh about Julia’s bad back and the “in sickness and in health” part of the wedding vows a couple of days ago (bearing in mind that she spent six months running round after me last year).

You should never tempt fate.

On Thursday, after overdoing things in the garden she went to her second job in the Leisure Centre, but had to ring for a lift home as she was unable to sit at her desk due to the back pain.

We spent the evening applying hot water bottles and anti-inflammatories, but it was just as bad this morning.

The doctor fitted her in this morning and I took time off from the new job to take her down and bring her back (I am not a model employee). She is currently furnished with painkillers and muscle relaxants, and I am in charge of providing a constant supply of hot water bottles.

I’m back from work now and she is catching up on her sleep.

I’ll be back later, but for now I’m off to boil a kettle…

Blood Test Day

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I cut out the middle man this week and went straight to the Phlebotomy Department at City Hospital. They looked at my veins, stuck a needle in the more promising one, drew the blood and sent me away.

It only took nineteen minutes from entering the car park to leaving.

I know this because it says so on my car parking receipt. If I’d been there fifteen minutes the parking would have been free.Instead, I paid £2 to park for four minutes.

So, am I happy because they took the sample first time? Am I glad I was seen free of charge, quickly and efficiently? Am I pleased that I was able to get the test done and still get to work on time?

Of course not. I’m complaining that it all took four minutes too long and cost me £2.

That’s life.

Books, Blue John and Bakewell Pudding

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I had a bad night last night, waking up in the early hours with a pain in the elbow. I couldn’t lie on my back and I couldn’t lie on my side, and, most irritatingly, I couldn’t work out what I’d done to cause the problem.

Eventually I dropped off, but I slept a disturbed sleep and kept dreaming about having a painful elbow. I’m not sure what this signifies in the lore of the meaning of dreams, but suspect it might mean I have a pain in the elbow.

Finally I got up and started preparing for the big day out. We had to drop a prescription off at the surgery first, then set off for Derbyshire. We’ve been a few times recently, but we like it, and we wanted to get out rather than frittering the day away. That’s what normally happens if we stay at home – a few errands here, a few chores there and suddenly the day has gone. I’m an expert at wasting time, so you can believe me on this subject.

We stopped on the way to take a few views, including the tower of the Crich Memorial.

View of Derbyshire

Derbyshire landscape

Hills near Matlock, Derbyshire

Crich Memorial, Derbyshire

Wall and bracken, near Matlock

Crich Memorial, Sherwood Foresters

Apart from being a memorial to the dead of the Sherwood Foresters, the hill has been the scene of Roman settlement, an Armada beacon and an 1813 steam locomotive experiment. Today the village of Crich houses a Tramway Museum.

In the years leading up to 2002, Rolls Royce used the quarry at the back of the hill for dumping low level radioactive waste. The words “low level” aren’t much comfort in this context.

Florence Nightingale lived in the village of Lea, which is round the back of the memorial, so it’s been quite a busy place in historical terms.

Our main visit was to Bakewell, where I photographed the padlock bridge again, toured charity shops (the Air Ambulance shop is probably the pick of the bunch – much better than the one at Carsington). I bought some interesting books, which will be reviewed later and we looked at traditional Derbyshire Blue John jewellery in shop windows. It seems to be making a comeback.

I found a rotting tree stump covered in fungus near the car park, a Julia-sized jumper in the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and a Bakewell Pudding in a tea room.

Fungus at Bakewell

Bakewell Pudding with ice cream. It didn’t need the ice cream, but they insisted.

The pudding was excellent.

I also took a few other photos, including on of a dog’s footprint in cement. I bet that was a popular dog.

Dog’s footprint, immortalised in cement at Bakewell

After that we went home, photographing a sunset on the way and buying white gloss paint for a project in the Mencap Garden.

Chasing a Sunset

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We went to Derbyshire today and had a productive time – plenty of photographs, a couple of books, a Bakewell pudding and a new work bag for Julia (plus a can of white gloss for the new garden table project).

On the way back I was moaning to Julia about the lack of colour in the sky when it suddenly turned blazing red. The only trouble was that it was behind my right shoulder. As we twisted and turned I realised that there was a lay-by ahead and a good view of the sunset on my right. Somebody was already parked with the same purpose, using a phone, which still seems strange to me. I mean, I wouldn’t use a camera to contact Julia and tell her I was going to be late home.

Sunset, Codnor, Notts

Sunset, Langley Mill by-pass

So, here are some of the results. The flare in some of them is due to a finger mark on the lens. Fortunately I realised what it was and was able to correct it by breathing on the lens and applying a quick polish with my handkerchief. Proper photographers are probably wincing at the thought, but I’m a low tech sort of bloke, and it did the job.

Sunset with pylon, near Codnor, Notts

Sunset, Notts

Sunset, Nottinghamshire

One thing I did do right was to put the sunrise/sunset filter on (because I remembered I had that option after Sunday’s sunset). It didn’t add anything – these were the actual colours because it truly was a spectacular sunset – but it did stop the camera “correcting” the colour automatically.

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Life after the Care Farm