The last of Lawrence - Promise

I thought I couldn't leave Lawrence without a picture of his birthpace - which is now the Lawrence Museum. When I first retired I was a part-time curator and, of course, what I didn't know about the old boy I had to find out. Or make up! My mother's father and her brothers were miners and, knowing their home in Stonebroom, I can say that, without doubt the Lawrence family were distinctly posh. Eventually the stairs and my back-problem defeated me and I had to retire from there too.

As you can see, they only had to emerge from their door and look left to have a smashing view. Much better than the dirt-track leading to the pit at Stonebroom. Across the dirt-track were the loos, of the long drop variety with torn up newspaper on a string for toilet paper. Ah! Those were the days. Say some.

I got going fairly early this morning because I wanted this picture before cars spoilt it and I also needed some 'fat balls' and 'niger seed' for the birds. It is becoming important to me to attract the goldfinches for long enough to get a picture. Many men have worse obsessions.

Brian Smith was in his Photographic Shop and I stopped for a chat. He more or less persuaded me to rejoin the photography club. Everybody is into digital now and they obtained a £5,000 lottery grant to buy a digital projector which is apparently ace-ace-pigs-inspace. I used to judge competitions for Brian and others on the circuit and I certainly don't want to be lured into doing that again. Things have moved on far to far for me to have any credibility in assessing the work of others. Serif delivered the Panorama programme which I had ordered. They are always efficient, reliable and quick. This afternoon I had a good look at it and did an experimental panorama of a back-garden view and got there in the end. If Serif programmes were to have a school report the comment would be 'good but difficult to understand'. But, more likely than not, it's me not the programmes.

A warmer day and it feels like Spring is really here. I was up very early - won't bore you with the time - but although the blackbird and the robin did their best the dawn-chorus isn't as awe-inspiring as it used to be.

It was very nice of Pete (Manxislander) to add such kind comments. I'd done a 'sticky' to remind me to email him at the weekend but I did it today instead. I must remember to recover the 'sticky' and close it or it will go off sometime tomorrow and scare me to death. They are very good though (they were a Madeline contribution) and I think I prefer them to their rival 'post it' notes. Good online chats with Ray (who has been grandaddying again) and Bob with whom I exchanged reminiscences of Mansfield and local characters. Best not to go into details because I'm absolutely sure that the laws of libel extend to Blogs.