How do they do that?

11°C, some clouds, the rest was sun. 

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Amazing special effects looking left while riding to work this morning. I really wanted a pocket camera to record that. The nearest is the shot below of sunset, taken about 15 mins ago. The sky had some culmulous clouds light from below with a deep burgandy – which picked off the lowest spikes of cloud like an upside-down mountain range.

I remarked on it on arriving at school, but no-one else had noticed the magic.

Recently, I have been using Flickr too for its excellent quality photographs. Naturally, I then considered taking out membership, but it turns out that I can use my Yahoo logon anyway. So as I write, I upload to my new Fickr account. The selected pictures are rather large ( as files) so I bet I have to cut them down. Let’s see how that goes

grey, or is it gray?

7.5°C, grey overcast

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Mixing it (BBC r3)is ending next week. Shame! My favourite radio show since it started in 1990. Tis bad news indeed; don’t know what I’ll do without them- they have been a majour source of ideas for new additions to my LP/CD collection.

 

Today’s mood is lead by the weather, it’s a black & white day, ideal for cycling – getting my normal speed back already which is surprising when I have been off the bike feeling ill as long as that. The roads are dry, grip on two wheels good and journeys to work light by some light from the clouds.

Catholicism and gays

9°C, thin cloud.

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Interesting news thread: the argument between church and state is on the fron pages again. Here on the BBC is a brief summary.

Basically, the church are objecting to the requirement for anti-discrimination in the new Equality act. They want to carry on discriminating on the basis of some old anthology of short stories written by long lost authors. There are quite a few religions opposing this new law, none of them value equal rights- at least not in their leadership.

So far, the govt’ have been admirable on this issue.

 

To contrast- here’s a chuckle:
Woman gets 75,000 bank statements.

Yesterday

6°C, (yesterday=1°C);clear.

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This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but had the oddest connection problem: most pages wouldn’t open, only a few obscure shopping sites, not even Amazon.

Do you ever enter a room only to forget why you went there? I did that yesterday, I went in the house just before riding to work to get something, only to forget what it was. Retracing your steps usually works, only this time it didn’t, the thought was lost.
That was only the second ride of the year, oh well.. feeling better now.

The ride was icy, but not unsteady, even looking at the fearsomely glass-like pavements. Just as I was slowing down for Muckly-corner roundabout, I had a fast blowing puncture. That was it! I went back in the house 15′ earlier to get a spare inner-tube but didn’t.

Today, that ice has all gone.

 

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Painting: work resumed. This is about an hour’s worth, I noticed a pale blue colour cast in the forehead, so decided to make something of it. I do like ceruleum blue.

I’m alive….I’m alive!

-2°C, clear, winter has arrived.

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Finally, recovery is here. Yesterday was the first time I felt alive again after over 2 weeks. That, was a long haul.

Now I can get on with it all. Even managed to finish that stubborn level in Company of Heroes. Wow.

this all, of course, means that I have only been cycling once this year. Thus explaining the blog-drought this last month. The rivers are still high.

Plucky duck

4°C, sunny spells, getting colder.

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I’m getting worse as I get older, these lil’ animal stories. Look here, a duck with shotgun wounds that survived a couple of days in the fridge.

Still ill

9°C, clear.

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Dog experience: imagine playing with your mates in the park, running about and having a generally exciting time. Made more so by no having not seen a particular friend for nearly six months. Eventually you get out of breath and you take a moment to have a little sit down. Moments later your long lost friend decides to pee on you. That’s what happened to my dog this morning, in fact he did it again to the other dog too. You just wouldn’t accept that in social circles would you?

No?- well i suppose you just aren’t as cool as my two poodles are you.

 

They did get a wash-down when we got home.

McNaught: nought

9°C, clear & sunny

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No ride today: walking in Derbyshire instead. The rivers are deep- near to overflowing, and the mud thick black stuff. Deceptively – it’s not as deep as it looks, there are limestone rocks near the surface. Those new walking boots are superb.

 

McNaught: With the first day of clear sunset, I really hoped to see the new wonder-comet, just as the sun went down. It’s too late by a few days- and when it was higher- we had cloudy skies here in England.

Coming back to life

12°C, cloudy.

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Slowly recovering from a very snotty cold, the vacuum cleaner is all working now, and floors -clean. What a roller-coaster thrilling life I lead.

 

Turpentine: It’s been a while, but this time of year is always herder to get going. Only 7 hours of daylight- not very encouraging. I need to do a bad weather image to support teaching. Let’s see how that goes; I’ve seen a few good ones recently- mind you I have seen lots of very bad ones too!

 

Shipping Forcast: a superb film which came at just the right time for the mood I was in. Based on the book by Lasse Hallström, filmed in a Newfoundland landscape that looks like Siberia. It’s a story of fear, mythology and self-discovery. there are planty of ugly characters to colour the film, and the lead character’s voyage of self-discovery amid some tragic, bizarre are pulled through by optimism and hauting nightmares. Stunning.

 

It’s now just after midnight- and the birds are singing outside.

Propellors

6°C, clear.

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Drawing: must be feeling better, now I’m looking ahead to new paintings. the rather rough sketch may turn out to be a propellorhead thing. Much depends on workload at the place that gives me monies. Hopefully on Saturday, I will frame the last two & put them up. Doing that is usually quite encouraging.

We have Wrens at school!