Long Eaton - Minton Tiles - Soup

I thoroughly enjoyed my Long Eaton visit and managed to arrive just as Brooke was leaving for her party. And Helen was soon back from dropping her off, as she was confident enough to be there by herself.

She has 'emerged' so much since starting School. Her reading is so good - Stage 8 and soon to be a 'free reader' which means she can be allowed to read anything rather than the prescribed level books. Some of her classmates are only Stage 2. Wow ! They are both voracious readers and Sky is a competent e-mail person too. She told me how well the 'sculptures' project had gone.

I wanted to 'blog' a picture of a section of their hall-floor with its gorgeous Victorian tiles. Not being an expert on the Minton pattern book I can't really utter but if anyone is.......... ??? They shout 'genuine' and 'quality' at you and it would be awful to cover them up.

Thank God Y wasn't with me because I was then introduced to Molly and Laura (lets just hope it isn't Laurence) and they seemed happy c0ntented mice.

Picture 2 shows them out to play on Helen's lap, sensibly covered with a tea-towel. I have some of them with Sky but they are a little blurry. Not gaussian though !

Again, it was a lovely Spring morning and the hedgerows and everything seem to be changing by the hour let alone the day. Spreading green and hosts of golden daffodils, Wordsworth would be pleased to note. I really need to publish 6 pictures a day rather than my statutory 2, to keep uptodate with sunrises/sunsets iunteresting events etc.. It would actually be possible now that Google have increased one's blogger capacity. That firm never stand still. All one's blogged pictures are now stored automatically in a folder in one's Picasa Web Albums (which also has had its storage capacity increased). It's good to know that the pictures one has uploaded are stored online in Google's big computer up there in the sky, so you don't lose them via a system failure of your own.

Talking of which I had to tell Sky how stupid Grandads can be. I'd opened a link from somewhere quite reputable, bbc.co.uk., I think and there was a flashing ad. saying that, as I was the 100,000th visitor, I had won a Toshiba Laptop and yes, I clicked, and entered my e-mail address. Then I found that to qualify I had to join loads of book-clubs whereupon I decided to leave it and withdraw. But it wouldn't go away. In the end I did a 'system restore' to yesterday which seems to have settled it. When I've finished my blog I aim to do a thorough Spyware sweep and quarantine any nasty cookies I may have acquired. Sky was one jump ahead throughout the story and I picked up the clear impression that she would have sussed it way before I did.

One learns something every day. Until I saw it in my online Etymology Dictionary I hadn't stopped to realise that Magna Carta means 'great charter'. So obvious I suppose but I had never thought it. A bit like 'wildfire' which until a few years ago I always took just to mean very fast; I hadn't worked out that it meant that something spread like 'wild fire'. Strange thing the human brain - or lack of it !

Just a note about the barometer. I 'wiki-ed' the question and discovered that the average pressure at sea-level is 1013.25 millibars or 29.921 inches; so our 30.2 yesterday was a little high but nothing excessive.

This evening I plan to make some leftover veg. soup. And, would you believe, I've found a recipe which uses parsnip, sweet potato, and celery............. You will be kept informed.

.....Catch you tomorrow.