Saturday, March 21, 2009

Lovely Weather - Thanks Tim - 51F - NW at 6 mph

.

A collage of the kitchen-window sill this afternoon, mainly to show a 'Basil rooting For Helen' in the centre. We had a lovely morning at Long Eaton and it was so rewarding to see Sky and Brooke. Both seem likely to develop into formidable young ladies but 'nice with it' if you know what I mean. With our coffee we had some irresistable (home-made Brooke and Mum) chocolate cake, light and moist and full of flavour with some great soft chocolate icing which I could have eaten spoonsfull of. I could hear the 'obesity-clinic' moaning pitifully in the background....... This time I have succeeded in copying some of Sky's poetry onto my Asus, and onto a stick, so when we arrived home we transferred it onto Y's laptop too. n.b.Can't share any of it with you yet because it is embargoed until published poet Andy has seen it.


The Doll's House continues to delight, and I was pleased Y has now managed to see the Cornish Pasties and things. This picture though, is of the main house, rather than the bakery annexe. It really is beautiful - I could sit and look at it for hours. Such care and so exquisitely arranged.

I forgot to tell you, yesterday we uploaded more music onto Y's Zen MP4 player and she still has around half of its 4GB capacity to fill. The technology is wonderful. While playing, it shows the CD cover in the display, in addition to the track information. Things have moved on since our old Dansette record-players. Mine was just like the one shown in the link but more of a brown colour.

Apparently Thrushes aren't doing too well nationally. They are 'endangered'. So here is a snap of our resident song thush who sings lustily and does a fine job with the eradication of garden snails. I wish we had more thrushes because we could happily keep them in snails, with enough for to send elsewhere to family and friends.

Inset in the shot is a picture of the special place where they break open the snail shells. I've actually seen the male (I believe) doing the 'bashing' on the concrete.

Needless to say I've never been quick enough with a camera.

The mysterious 'Thanks Tim' in the title follows an informative e-mail from him about the Wind direction and Wind speed 'thread' we have discussed.

As I mentioned in Wednesday's blog-post Tim works at the local Met. Station and knows about these things. Here is a link, please click, to the relevant piece of his e-mail. If you read this Tim, you would be more than welcome in the 'comments' columns.

Speaking of blog-matters we celebrated a blog-anniversary on March 2nd. Radiogandy's 3rd year of publication. I s'pose I should have done a special edition with bells & whistles and flashing lights. But I forgot !


My responses to your previous comments

Jill... Re the 'night' photo. It was indeed misty, but not a pea-souper. If Forsythia wasn't Moses's burning bush, it should have been. I had a quick google but it didn't seem keen on the notion.

A meal-ready Hollandaise kept in the fridge sounds first-rate. Like you, I like me sauces, and gravy, but 'obesity-clinic' .........

Thanks for the explanation re the panoramic cameras. And you are wrong about the attitudes of 'proper' photographers. For most it is the picture that matters, and the spotting of potential, rather than the type of camera it was taken on.

Reg .... You are 100% about Aquaducts and Viaducts.

Wiktionary says -

Viaduct - A bridge with several spans that carries road or rail traffic over a valley or other obstacles.

Wordnet says -

Aqueduct - A conduit that resembles a bridge but carries water over a valley.

n.b. Please see JBW's comment which has just arrived.



Bob .... I fear you are right re the 'night' picture. So we'll call it a record-shot. Which it was. It was on my Casio as I said and, if you set it to 'night scene' it takes the ISO right down to 50 which is real handy. Can't explain the red.

Thanks for the 'I Love' Marmite picture which looks fun. It's got champagne in it then. Still dunna like it, even if it had non-alcoholic Becks in it.

Glad the hedge-saga seems 'all-over-bar-the shouting' etc....

You could always 'whittle' another walking stick if you are feeling the need of whittling.

I still think that you and Twitter are potential soul-mates. Our old friend Doug (from Trent Poly days) wants us to be his friends on Twitter. He is very IT with-it and if he approves, it is for us, quite a recommendation. I'll keep you informed.


Yvonne .... The comment precedes the blog. ! Nothing wrong with that. As you know I love your comments, whatever.

And I'm so pleased you liked your Long Eaton 'Mothers Day' card. What a lovely thought, and such moving words.

JBW .... Thank you for your 'authorative' contribution to the 'viaduct/aqueduct' thread. It arrived just as my index finger was poised over the 'publish' button. So your comment is a sort of 'Stop Press'.

...........................

Quotation time ........ This should be learnt off by heart by all would-be artists, photographers and writers .....

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail"


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never owned a record player (my parents had a splendid 4ft tall rosewood wind-up gramophone that I sold to a schoolmate for £5 - Layton and Johnson’s ‘Rio Rita’ and ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ among the records).
First record I bought was a present for a friend in the 60s - Sidney Bechet’s ‘Les Oignons’ (and ‘Peanut Vendor’?).

I think thrushes call it an ‘anvil’.
I haven’t seen, or heard, a thrush this year (think blackbird but sweeter?). Nor yet snail shells.

To celebrate blog anniversary why not ‘Caps’n’Bells’ fancy dress?

For perplexed foreigners, I used ‘whittle’ as a non-dictionary colloquialism for ‘fret’.

Reg (and JBW):
You are right about ‘aqueduct’; well done to pick it up!
Famous Roman one – ‘Pont du Gard’ at Nimes - is both aqueduct and viaduct.

Anonymous said...

Re Bob - Yes the Pont du Gard is a combination of both, but also it does not fit the standard definition. The top layer, the aqueduct, is not level as the outlet end is some feet lower than the inlet end and the 'road' is arched just like a normal bridge. It is still much larger than the impression given by photographs.

Anonymous said...

Well, now we all know about aquaducts and viaducts...we did a boat trip in Llangollen on an aquaduct over the River Dee some years ago, can't remember the details, but I know it was 'special'.

Bob, you are right, it was a Kodak Instamatic camera. Why won't you consider joining Twitter, think it may be your spiritual home?

The doll's house looks like a magical box of delights, how lovely.

Haven't seen a song thrush round here for some years, nor a house sparrow, and only occasional starling. We do have collared doves (which are quite recent arrivals) and more goldfinches and some years siskins. We have this resident missel thrush, sings early morning and again sunset, from the topmost twig on tall conifer.