Monday, November 10, 2008

Moist Monday - Virgin sorted out - Hobby pictures

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Picture 1 is a '4 ticks' watercolour of Lumsdale, at this time of year. Often described as one of Derbyshire's little 'secrets' because it gets little publicity. Please click here to read about the derelict mills.

The painting does the place justice, lovely that it is, and too many visitor's boots would soon cause damage. If you remember, both anonymousrob and incy wincy have produced some good pictures there. So have others of course, but I remember publishing theirs.

Picture 2 on the right is Jill's 'mystery' blanket. Members of her group are provided with wools and ideas (I hope I've got this right) and they then knit a square/squares and send it on - it just grows and grows - I love the long-haired sheep second row down, 2 in from the left ! But don't worry fellas - I'm not looking for my wellingtons !








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Picture 3 on the left is from David's mobile phone and shows the Remembrance Day Parade at Long Eaton. The girls were involved in their separate ways although you can't actually see either of them.

David liked the two WW1 soldiers nearly at the front. Long Eaton seems very much in favour of parades and carnivals and things - and very nice too. they contribute so much to small town, English village life, so long as 'elf and safety can restrain itself from strangling them.

Picture 4 on the right is from John taken during their continental camper holiday. In boyhood we just called these 'little blue butterflies' but I haven't seen one for decades. Thanks John.

I've had a productive day. Virgin Media visited to fix our fault - couldn't ! So we now have a brand new set-top box only slightly larger than a hard-back book. More importantly it seems to work and. compared with the old one, it is fast. So at least I can watch Claudia and Strictly 'it takes two' this evening. John Sergeant stayed in, against all the odds and poor Heather went out. It annoys the judges that 'the public' keeping voting for John - because he is hopeless. But the judges don't seem to realise that their constant chivvying causes a backlash and people ring up and vote because they don't like being told not to. Do you think I ought to get out more ...........?

My car has been in for service but they haven't returned it yet. And I want to do a little shopping before it gets dark. I've registered Elements 7 and I've been researching the programme. A nice touch is a 'guided edit' . Effectively you tell the programme what you want to achieve and you are guided through it. Open this, click that etc., with an example at the side ! Very user friendly for photoshop thickos like me.

I hope this 'earlier blog' approach isn't too disorientating for everybody because it suits me better. No more head dropping onto keyboard etc. And I feel sharper !

Comments

Jill ..... Sorry the early blog caught you unawares but please see my remarks above.

The Telegraph supplements seem good at the moment. I like the tabloid Digital Life one and I try to explain to Y that it isn't just IT stuff. but she isn't keen.

I'm not watching Little Dorrit. Like Rob costume drama rarely appeals. I find it hard to 'suspend my disbelief' to the extent necessary for enjoyment.

Thrilled that your girls get-together was such a success. I've spoken to Y and she says you looked really well and were on top form.

I think that, at the sausage-fest a toast to 'absent friends' will be appropriate.

4 ticks ..... My word ! Haven't you been busy. Do I understand you correctly that you are now running a blog, and people are 'commenting'. If so - congratulations - please let me have the address and I shall enjoy reading it.

I'm sorry Reg is having unpleasant side-effects from his 'flu jab. Well worth it though because I understand that the strain due to assail us this winter is particularly virulent.

bungus ...... Alamy is a website of free images for people to use. You can only use it for ID purposes by sort of backing into it. If you think a bird is a red-kite for imstance. type it in and check the resultant images against the bird you have seen.

Don't be self-critical for reading your own prose with pleasure ! You are in good company. Wilde said he kept his Diary with him because "One should always have something sensational to read on the train"

I can find very little to disagree with you about this evening. Summats amiss.

Lanayana ....... I am confused. You have left a 'comment' on my blog-post of Thursday October 25th 2007 . It simply says "People should read this" which appeared in my gmail inbox at 15.01 today.

anonymousrob ...... I think it is an 'ethocardiogram' or something you pull on over your 'ethos' if is chilly due to the winter weather. Jill would probably knit you one !

The haiku is much appreciated.



Quotation time .......

"You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave"


























5 comments:

Anonymous said...

WHAT A SURPRISE, to finish writing the recipe on the previous post, to see this one had appeared. I was going to send a photo of Lumsdale, yes I went WOWing last week, but I don't have to bother now. I hope my pic. is appreciated instead.

BUNGUS....
LOOK ON THE PREVIOUS POST FOR THE RECIPE YOU ASKED FOR.

JILL....

The blanket is amazing. Nearly finished the back of my winter cardi.

RG....

Our TV has had nothing but Remeberance Day Parades on since Friday night.
The little blue butterflies are still to be found in good numbers on the hills around Somerset. My sister Marcia lives in Clevedon and we've seen them whilst walking in meadows thereabouts.

REALLY gotta go now. Bye again.

Anonymous said...

That is such a beautiful painting, especially when you click on it and enlarge it. I thought it was a photo at first glance - and I mean that as a compliment! The colours are superb, it may give me inspiration for a sweater.....

You nearly got it right, G.we get charts/instructions/yarns/beads etc. on the lst of every month - all the 80 or so people who are doing it. No passing them on. The designer is Debbie Abrahams, she lives in Nottingham and used to be a Rowan consultant (that's a yarn manufacturer) in Jessops.

I completely follow your reasoning about voting for John Sargent - I don't actually vote, I believe these things are manipulated anyway (cynic that I am).

Will e-mail Y tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

This early blogposting has got me in a tiswas.
I am now having to go back two days for comments and am become the last to comment instead of the first!

Sandra got a call yesterday (Monday) to go for her carpal tunnel op tomorrow. She has to be at King’s Mill by 7.30 am! Fortunately a friend has volunteered to take her (she took him at a similar time some months ago for a cataract op – very successful, if anyone should be worried about his driving).

BLOG COMMENT
Thanks for a good variety of interesting and enjoyable pictures.

Serendipitously I am just about to cut David’s parade picture (from my Word doc) as I break off to turn up my radio, the better to hear the 2 minutes silence on my dad’s birthday).

The little butterfly is probably a ’Common Blue’ (Polyommatus icarus). Still plenty on Ollerton Pit Woods (the old Pit Tip, now a nature park) at Boughton in May/Jun and Aug/Sep although I didn’t see any this year as I wasn’t there.

We are still having constant trouble with digital TV – jumping from one station to another and sometimes just going off altogether or unobtainable. Progress my a**e.
And, after I had heard the silence on radio, I went downstairs and watched it ‘live’ on TV!

As I have already said, the 'earlier blog' is disorientating for ME as well as Jill. But we shall no doubt adapt in time.
Perhaps I shall have to go back to making my comments in the middle of the night?

I continue to be impressed with the plagiaristic This Week which I can manage to read in a couple of days as opposed to the week-and-a-day it takes me to get through (most of) The Observer.
re This Week: They always reprint at least one Matt cartoon although not, in my view, the probable best one of the week.
Outstanding item for me, this week, was a tribute to the late Studs Terkel built around extracts from The Guardian, The Chicago Tribune and The Times.

Hearing of Reg’s suffering makes me now feel even more pleased that I turned down the flu jab yet again. The practice nurse hinted that she agreed with me. Apart from anything else, the chances that it will be the right antidote to the particular strain that strikes are not all that good.
And I have managed to avoid hearing the warnings of which our blogmeister speaks (which means 'they don't apply to me' if your looking for 'last words').

I think that is what I thought Alamy is. Not, therefore, a reliable guide to fungi and it seems you need to have a good idea of what it might be to start with.

I hope I have managed to be a bit more controversial today! Or perhaps you should sharpen your judgments by going back to making them when you are tired and grizzly?

Quotation time Sydney Smith gets it right again.

COMMENTS:
Anonymousrob:
An echocardiogram sounds rather like a message concerning the apparel worn by a married couple in that Richard Briars sitcom where his wife liked the new neighbour and therefore he didn’t. RB was a pillar of the community who organised meetings and the couple always wore hand-knitted matching Arran sweaters.

Personally I prefer a cheese omelette sandwich (with apple chutney or brown sauce) to a chip cob, anytime. A lot quicker to prepare if you are doing it yourself too. Fast food perfection.

Jill:
I suspect I may not be the only one to complain to the BBC about the (in effect) unannounced rescheduling of Jo Brand’s programme about Vera Brittain’s tragic losses in the Great War. I can only hope that it is repeated.

Pleased to hear that you and Yvonne had a successful and enjoyable meet. Do the rail services not like you?

It looks unlikely that Sandra will get to Brinsley on Saturday, what with one thing on top of another. And that could govern whether or not I get there.

4 TICKS;
Many thanks for the recipe and the lead to a simpler version. I’ll try it as soon as I don’t feel obliged to use as many apples as possible.
In theory I DO like amaretti but they are a bit powerful. I might try it your way first.

Brandy added to recipe. With pleasure.

QUOTE:
“Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing.” Aristotle

Anonymous said...

Bungus:
(1) Our blogmeister slightly, unwittingly and unknowlingly (I guess), misleads you. Alamy does have lots of royalty-free photos but is so much more. It is, I believe, the leading online photographic library. Which means I need to find time to work hard at producing good digital images so they will accept them and sell them on my behalf and that might help me give up work. If I can afford to give up work I'm sure I would have the time to produce images of the required quality. It's a Catch 22 situation for me.
(2) Ever Decreasing Circles
(3) Cheese omelette sandwich
Apple chutney or brown sauce
Fast food perfection

The world is full of unintended haikus.
(4) If the butterfly is a Common Blue shouldn't they be everywhere? Or does common in this sense mean the same as common sense, ie not common at all?

I like the Lumsdale watercolour, especially for it's slightly impressionistic look. All landscapes look black and white to me. At our Gamma photography meeting the Sunday before last, the speaker said that people had accused her of cheating by using Photoshop and Painter to manipulate her photos. Her view was that it wasn't cheating because "people do landscapes in black and white but, really, they are in colour, aren't they?" "No", said I and the bloke next to me. Some photographers have really strange ideas.

I forgot it was Remembrance Sunday.

I saw Strictly for the first and only time in this series. I think people vote for John Sargeant because he's fun, he knows he's useless and plays on it, and he's got a life. Could the same be said about the judges? I guess they have to take it seriously. But haven't we British always loved glorious failures and supported them to the hilt? Eddie the Eagle springs to mind. And Mansfield Town. We always root for the underdog, don't we?

Who cares what time the blog is posted as long as it's there to read.

Rob

Anonymous said...

Bungus, RB in that series worked for Mole Valley Valves - and the neighbours next door wore intarsia sweaters too - with things like reindeer on. They got knitwear a bad name!
I went to a lecture once by a lady who had started up a business knitting vintage things for tv series, she started off with the James Herriot series about the vets, then moved on to 'Ever Decreasing Circles' - she said she hated doing the knitwear for it.... The husband then went on to play Judi Dench's brother in law in 'As Time goes By' (well, he was married to her husband's sister...)

Sabdra's op - I have several friends who have had the same op, very successfully, hope all goes well for her.