Midnight Apothecary - Funky pop-up bar

http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/events/midnight-apothecary-2/

                                Alfresco bar -       MIDNIGHT APOTHECARY -          link above



We'd just been to see the Brunel Museum as part of Open House London (you can go either on-line  http://www.openhouselondon.org.uk   or read through the printed directory of all sorts of buildings and spaces in London that are 'open to the public' for one weekend in September each year, and then go and look around, wander all over the place inside and outside, ask all sorts of questions of the guides, and generally be as nosy as you want. Even No 10 Downing Street - Theresa May's new gaff- were open to the public last weekend).

We went up onto the roof of the caisson that was Brunel's engineering gift to the world (no-one had made one before)  and there it was - a perfectly-formed alfresco bar. Lottie Muir from Saskatchewan (same place as Joni Mitchell) had this idea to grow her own fruit and veg on otherwise not-used land, and then make bar drinks using the organic result.

The garden is quite secluded even though it's in the middle of the former Docklands, on the south bank of the Thames between Tower Bridge and  Greenwich. Brunel's Museum is at the end of the first tunnel under a river in the world, opened in about 1845, and now used for the London Overground train. The museum itself is open throughout the year, but we saw it for the first time last Saturday.

garden on top of Brunel museum

Lottie's book

Looks fabulous, but we were too early for the evening bar (opens 5:30 pm) . . .

in praise of small green urban spaces

Recently we’ve been to a range of parks and here’s our take on what we found . . .

We’ve been hearing about Secret Park for a while now, and so we drove to Friern Bridge Retail Park on Sunday afternoon, where we met our friend Lynnsey. It’s very civilized with McDonalds and Costa and this park has its own Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Secret-Park-behind-Friern-Bridge-Retail-Park/265867573438213

Secret Park, in Scott’s photo above, has many advantages. It is green, it is local for people in Barnet, it is an oasis for people who don’t have much time to spare to get to a larger park, and it is landscaped and it is looked after by the local Council.

The photo shows it in its best light, green and park-like with an avenue to a hidden space beyond in your prospect.

This photo shows Woodberry Wetlands. This is near Manor House in London, a new RSPB bird sanctuary with a café opened this Spring. No dogs are allowed as the park is so small and it is intended to be a resting place for wild migratory birds but entry is free and it is well-served by bus and Underground. 

A fantasic amount of hard work went into creating just the right environment to attract wild birds and it has paid dividends, as there were many nesting birds this spring and summer. It is s stunning place to visit and it has a range of plants and views to soothe the urban stress away.

Regent’s Park is an old park, created by designer John Nash in 1811 as part of the beautification of central London. The park has undergone many changes since it was created, but the almost quiet inner ring roads and the water features of both the spectacular boating lake as well as the Grand Union Canal passing through have made this into a special place for birds and water-fowl, as well as for people who live or work or visit near Regent Street and Oxford Street, just a short bus ride away. 

There’s a fantastic variety of mature trees along the paths and in copses, great formal gardens having a whole range of fragrant plantings, an agricultural college Capel Manor, an International college campus and of course London Zoo with the Childrens’ Zoo and the Aviary. 

When you are in this park you feel quite remote from the hurly-burly of London, which is only a quarter-mile distant. You can also choose to walk the towpath on the Grand Union Canal back to Camden, the local zeitgeist, sharing with narrow-boats (no horses today on the path, but cycles galore).

This photo show an ultimate park destination within England, North York Moors National Park. This is not near anywhere large and apart from the recent tree plantations, the farms and the heather from the grouse farming, this is the lay of the land from The Stone Age and the Iron Age. Glaciers passed through here 15,000 years ago, but they were the last major agent to change the landscape and it is still very fresh and windswept today. At night you really can see a million stars in the Milky Way.

Paths here include prehistoric ways across the moors going past tumuli enclosing the remains of ancient inhabitants, Roman roads and modern footpaths from mediaeval times, including well-maintained but nearly-deserted unclassified roads which are very picturesque with their meandering gait across and around the moorland fells and glens. Just the place to take our 1988 camper van . . .

http://www.northyorkmoors.org.uk

I forgot to mention the steam railway that passes through it, from Pickering to Whitby . . .

This afternoon we’re going to London Olympic Park in Stratford, home to the 2012 Games. We’ve been there before and it’s great for cycling as there’s not too many cars (not much for cars to drive to in this park, even though it’s huge, as the shops are in the mall over to one side) and the River Lea runs down to the Thames through the park. The landscaping is fabulous and there are some innovative venues, like the VeloDrome, the Copper Box, the Aquatic Centre, and on and on.

London Cycling Campaign have a website on cycling and getting around the park, at

http://lcc.org.uk/pages/olympic-park

come along one day and surprise yourself, go up the lovely Arcellor Mittal Tower and down their super-slide, have a swim at the Aquatic centre or chill at the local eco-park

http://r-urban-wick.net/blog/r-urban-wick-blog/757/planning-for-protest

(there until December, when it moves on again.)


POSTSCRIPT - Yes, we did make it to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park this afternoon. It was VERY busy, lots of families with lots of children from babies through teenagers, all striding purposely around from one attraction to the next one in the brilliant hot summer sunshine.

This is the new SuperSlide down the Arcellor tower, what looks like a snake on the right. It's a lovely stainless steel vehicle about one metre across, but no windows, just a jet-propelled ride straight down the tube from the very top . . .

A number of people were abseiling down Arcellor tower this afternoon. This chap was slowly descending and he was about half of the way down, ratcheting his brake to propel himself. It looked quite safe but a wee bit vertigo-inducing. it costs an eye-watering £ 80 to book a place.

Much cheaper to go up in the lift, as Annette and I did, and then you can walk down the stairs, which is the light-coloured rectangular tube in front of our abseillor . . .

Our Olympic VeloDrome looks remarkably like the one in Rio. We went and had a boo inside. You can come here and use it yourself inside on a Wednesday. We saw a group learning to use the fixed-wheel track bikes here this afternoon.

I acquired a new tyre for my old red touring bike - did you know it is nearly impossible to buy a 27-inch tyre anymore, now that all the specifications have changed ?

They also have an outside track at the VeloDrome, and you can use your own bike on that for a small fee.

We carried on cycling through Hackney and ended up at our front door about 45 minutes later.

On the way we stopped so that I could have an ice-cream at our local and much-loved park, Clissold Park. Ten minutes on a bench soaking up the ambience of our new-ish Victorian parish church adjacent the St Mary's parish church listed in the Domesday Book, but which is just across the street

http://www.londongardensonline.org.uk/gardens-online-record.asp?ID=HAC044

and we were ready to move on. This last photo is a short panorama shot using the swanky new iPhone SE.

Back home now and I'm changing the tyre on the old faithful touring bike. Should be good as new again soon . . .

Woodberry Wetlands opens on 01 May . . .

Wet wild land just around the corner from Finsbury Park . . .

We went here just a couple of months ago. We cycled one Sunday and it was cold but magical. brand-new routes from behind the water-sport pavilion at the reservoir, parallel route along Green Lanes and over to Stoke Newington. This part of the old filter beds was still fenced off but we could see it across the reservoir.
Apparently David Attenborough has opened it this week and it's officially open from 01 May.
Maybe see you there . . .
http://www.woodberrywetlands.org.uk

Xochipilli, Flower God from Aztec days . . .

Xochipilii, on a good day

I had a half hour to spare yesterday while Pany recovered photos from a  re-formatted camera card, and so I went to Rooms 26 (Mexico) and 27 (North America) and marvelled at the indigenous peoples' technology, crafts and lifestyle, all as on display in this repository of all things foreign.

More on him in the photo at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=209072

I only had a half-hour to spare, but was instantly transported back home to British Columbia when I saw the carved cedar entrance statues for a village lodge, as I entered the North America room.

These were 'borrowed' from the Vancouver Island village in about 1810 where they held up the entrance to the communal lodge, and taken by Royal Navy to London.

I note that today, back in British Coumbia where these artefacts are from, the museums there are returning the feather headdresses, the canoes, the totem poles and everything else back to the tribes from where they were taken, but it's sometimes difficult to identify exactly which tribe or geographical area these cultural treasures came from. Some are below.

Potlatch goods at University of British Columbia Anthropological Museum.

This may be due to everyone having oral tradition, prior to the coming of the Europeans, and so when the villages and village life disappeared with new peoples' arrival, no-one could later be sure exactly which sub-tribe or geographical location was the origin of these canoes, head-dresses, and so on.

Lovely First Nation artefacts. Some are now especially made by First Nation artists and craftspersons for this museum.

You will be happy to hear that a number of people in Canada are working on finding out and getting these things back when there are tribal people still living; some tribes have been completely assimilated or died off in previous decades, but anthropologists are still working on it. It will take a while to redress past imperialist actions.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/visiting/galleries/americas/room_26_north_america.aspx

A very good hint on who lived where before the Europeans turned north-west North America into British Columbia is the work of Emily Carr. She was the spinster daughter of English immigrants and she took up drawing and painting as a life-long exercise.

https://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/collection_and_research/emily_carr.html

She didn't just do portraits and work in town. She actually did what very few white women did, she travelled alone to live in remote First Nation villages and drew and painted what she found, the collapsing totem poles, the decimated inhabitants (measles and smallpox, brought by Europeans, had killed 90 % of the indigenous peoples by the time Emily started recording them in late 1800's and early 1900's) and the Potlatch ceremonies which had been outlawed by the Canadian government.

Emily is one of my heroes, and I went twice to her retrospective exhibition here last year

http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/2014/nov/from-the-forest-to-the-sea-emily-carr-in-british-columbia/

Some would say the anthropology on view at the British Museum in Bloomsbury is not as comprehensive as what you can see at the Horniman museum in south London

http://horniman.ac.uk/collections/browse-our-collections/keyword/north%20american%20indians

and they've got about 2,500 artefacts on North American indigenous persons online to indicate what's on their site in SE22.

The eternal question - to whom do the artefacts belong - to the people who made them and used them, or to the people who either confiscated them or paid small amounts of cash for them at the time ?

Perhaps that's something to think about the next time you buy a brass platter in Africa or a wooden bowl in South America . . . and what happened to all those Mesopotamian treasures that were formerly in the Tigris and Euphrates area once ISIL took over ? Who bought them and will they ever get back to the Middle East ? What do you think ?

An elephant amongst the Camellias . . .

Topiary Sadie keeping warm with the camellias in Chiswick House conservatory

Camellia blooms in February and is stupendous

Chiswick House Camellia Festival and Magic Lantern festival - go to link below

http://www.chgt.org.uk/?PageID=545

True Love on a park bench . . .T

True love on a park bench . . .

Magic Lantern Festival at Chiswick . . .

Dad's Army

Translucent Swan

It's behind you !

Guardian Sphinx

Little Gold Taurus the Bull

A Comprehensive Cover motor policy £ 100 CHEAPER than Third party. Why ?

 Motor car insurance is a rip-off ... My car is nineteen years old, and as comprehensive cover costs over £ 400 per year, I thought I'd get a quote from my (national) insurers for just 'the basics', third party, fire and theft. Ten years ago this was about half the cost of a comprehensive policy; the drawback was that if you damaged your own car, you'd have to pay for the repairs yourself, yes ? Fair enough, and it worked.

Yesterday my insurance company said 'that'll cost you A HUNDRED POUNDS MORE A YEAR, for LESS cover (no windscreen cover, no ability to drive a friend's car, no 'no-claim-discount' protection, and so on). AND £ 100 MORE per year.
The nice man at the call centre said this was now 'common policy' at his company. When I went to the 'go*******' site to check their competition, about 75 other insurers also all gave me a quote for the same outrageous INCREASE in fee for LESS cover.

BTW, that's a quote for a year's motor insurance, when you leave your car parked in a bay on the road in central London, and it is very competitive. It just seems a rip-off if you have an old motor, already blessed with dents and scratches, to have to pay a premium that reflects a shiny new car with a perfect finish.

The company I've been with for maybe fifteen years has small print that says "Our current administration fee to cancel your policy is £47.40 . . . . " I guess you'd have to find a much better deal than the one you're on at present, to make up for that hefty cancellation fee, eh ?

Euro NCAP -how safe is your car ?

How safe is your car ? Click on the title to find out . . .



It was 6.00 am. I was going back home after giving Annette a lift to work across London. Dark and raining. Stopped at the traffic lights, a London bus to the left (in the turning-only lane) and another big red bus to the right. As we all moved off something odd happened : the bus on my left moved into my lane. No signal. No warning. I'm in a tiny Skoda Felica. I become anxious in a milli-second. This is because the bus to my right is moving ahead at the same speed as me, and the two buses are moving towards each other. There's no space for my car. What would you do, because there's a big truck right behind you ?

Crunch . . . the bus on my right squished into the car. It makes a REALLY loud noise, when you've not got the radio on. The bus on the left carried on into my lane and sped off. The bus which hit me pulled over clear of the junction and we did what you always should do, exchange names and addresses and insurance details. His bus had no marks on the paint-work. Pristine and shiny. My car wasn't all bashed up. All we could find was a cracked side-light and a scrape on the wheel arch. The rear-view wing mirror folded flat and survived, so that's another fifty quid I don't have to spend replacing it.
It took me a half-hour to get over the shock. I cannot believe that my first accident ever, trapped between two big buses and I walked away, and the car is drive-able.
Strangely, no-one else stopped to help. There were, even at six in the morning, about fifteen other vehicles at that junction when they saw my car being squished. The police did ask whether I needed an ambulance, but I declined in favour of a cup of tea when I returned home. It's only ten am. what else could happen today ?
Oh yes, my car is about four out of five stars. Reassuring to know.

Best lunch in Bloomsbury

Click on the title to go to the link for this restaurant inside the British Museum in Bloomsbury.

It was January. Don and I went to a camera shop nearby [ http://www.yorkcameras.co.uk/ ] looking at long telephoto lenses (we've both since acquired one or two) and decided to check out somewhere to eat.

We weren't ready for the superbly presented dishes. He had a Thai curry and I had something simple like a Caesar salad. Our palates were very pleasantly assaulted by the range of delicate flavours chasing each other around. We both agreed that it was a very good lunch indeed, and would recommend it to anyone. It's not the least expensive place around, but the glamour of being up at roof level in the new Great Court and the very good food will make it a memorable day for you too.

EXPOSED - Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera

EXPOSED VOYEURISM, SURVEILLANCE & THE CAMERA

Tate Modern 28 May – 3 October 2010

I'm going to see it one Saturday soon. The reviews (click on the blog-post title above, to go straight to the Tate Modern link) make it sound a bit creepy, photographers shooting images of people in public places without asking permission. You do get great un-made-up-faces, but it raises the question 'Should that photographer have asked permission first ?' It is a chance to see close up the originals of seminal images which litter the coffee table books all around us.

What do you think ?

I asked them to turn the volume down . . .

Click on the blog-post title and it whisks you off to 'Etiquette on the Underground'. The two guys I asked to please turn down their music when we were all waiting for the Victoria line Underground train on Friday morning hadn't read about how to deal positively with a polite request.

One of them came over and gave me a shove when he grabbed my arm. He said 'How far away are you ?' (I was about two metres distant, and their 'rap' was up to no 10 on the scale.)

I walked away and turned my back, hoping that they would leave me alone. They came towards me again, so I pressed the big GREEN button on the platform-edge intercom marked 'Emergency'. I was explaining the situation (dangerous for me) to the control room guy - I left him as I said I wanted to get to work, and would be getting on the train which was just arriving.

This train terminated at the next station, a combined Underground and Overground (Railway) station. My usual journey was up an escalator and two flights of stairs, and only went to the Overground railway platform. I kept looking back to see if those two guys were following me (I was a little scared, to be honest, even though there were hundreds of people in the station.)

I walked to the very end of the platform (opposite the exit stairs at my destination). Usually there's no-one else there. And there wasn't on Friday morning. I took a deep breath and felt relieved that I'd got away from the two angry young dudes who'd not wanted to hear me ask them to turn down the music. I rang my partner to say how silly I'd been to start the whole thing off by asking perfect strangers to think of my well-being and adjust their volume. Just then, out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the guys. Standing right next to me on the platform edge. Smiling at me. No-one else there. S***.

I stayed on the 'phone, but she got very upset when I explained that I had those two angry guys for company. I told her that I'd try and move back down the platform, where I'd noticed a railway office. And I did. Somehow, and by shouting to the scores of people waiting for their train that I was being stalked by two guys behind me, I walked easily down the 50 metres to where a guard came out to see me. He went to talk to the two guys who seemed to want to teach me a lesson. They stayed up at the far end of the platform. I stayed down by the railway office. The railway guard came with me to my station up the line. No-one came to hurt me (those two guys didn't know where I intended to get off).

I was a nervous wreck for the next hour. Everyone was very nice to me at work. Offers of cups of tea came thick and fast. I got to hear everyone's stories about how their father/ brother/ sister was harassed by someone on a train platform. I had a normal day after that. It's in the past now.

So, what do I do next time ? Do I ignore the awful racket squawking out of a tiny mobile 'phone speaker ? Do I whip out my 'phone and put on The Grimethorpe Colliery band ( http://www.last.fm/music/Grimethorpe+Colliery+Band ) at no. ten ?

Well, on Friday afternoon I was reading upstairs on a no 279 bus. Two loud school-boys sat down opposite. One asked the other 'Put on some music ?' When he did, it was really loud, the usual volume. I looked them in the eye and said 'I'm trying to read my book.' They turned the volume down by half. I went back to reading (Andrew Marr on politics at Westminster, as reported by lobby correspondents over the past few decades, since you ask).

So, what have you done in that situation ? Do tell me, as I'm not sure what the correct thing is for all parties to do, when someone plays very loud music, etcetera . . .

POST-SCRIPT - I went to work again on Monday. I went down the stairs and stood again on the platform. I looked around. There were even fewer people sitting and standing today than on Friday. I was s***-scared, but no-one came to get me. I got on the train. I got off at the next station. I went up to the Overground platform. Nothing happened. I got on the Overground train and went to work. I came home. it's really finished. I can sleep soundly tonight. It's just my dreams which will be disturbed for a few weeks, but then the memory of being stalked will disappear, like a chimera. A happy ending, really . . .

Condolences should never be a chore . .

Simon Callow has written a fabulous obituary in The Sunday Times today, for one of his heroines Lynn Redgrave. Old people like me will remember her as the lead in Georgy Girl, the film which put insouciance on the map in the '60's. Click on the blog title to see his write-up.

On the Bank Holiday my friend Peter passed away. I met him at St John Ambulance, and we fell into a habit of idle chit-chat, as you do. He was a cyclist and photographer, same as me. He used to cycle from central London to work in west London via a detour to Waltham Abbey, an extra thirty miles, just to keep in training. It was a bit easier for him in those days, the 1930's, as there were fewer cars about.

He'd had a really exciting life, in the War he'd served in the Ambulance Corps, been a POW, and returned to civvy street afterwards. His enviable job was as a bio-medical person, seconded to The Met assisting as a photographer to the forensic pathologist on occasion. When I first met him about three years ago he was then about 85 years old. He still drove his car all over Britain, attended the St John Ambulance meetings every week, and could talk about whatever you like for hours . . . He was a joy to know. Sending a condolence card to his family seems somehow less than what's required.

Peter was REALLY enthusiastic when he found out I'd bought a Bronica medium-format film camera, and was actually using it to shoot projects, in preference to just doing it digitally . . .

He did like this 35 mm. transparency of Canada Water, one I shot just after meeting him for the first time.

It's the little things which make life good . . .

Gosh, how easy it is.

I have been agonising for weeks, trying this and that to write metadata (you know, copyright, who took the shot, where it was taken, etcetera.) to multiple images simultaneously.

I have just copyrighted 330 jpegs, in ten seconds. MUCH quicker than doing them one at a time . . . and it seems to imprint the metadata and then automatically save the new information all in one go. So simple. Click on the blog-post title, and Peach-Pit will show you in a few super-easy steps, using Adobe Photoshop CS4. Open one image from that folder of 330 due to have the same metadata (copyright, etcetera), write the info you want to include, export as a template.

Opening Adobe Bridge (Browser in Photoshop CS2) I opened a folder (the 330 jpegs I processed from that recent shoot), selected ALL images (easy to do), found the 'Import' tab, and there it was, 'Template X'. 'Hey voila' and there it was, embedded into all 300 images in a flash. No need to save each image, it was all done automatically.

Now, back to work . . .

Gosh, I am getting near the end of this task . . .

Clicking on the title gets you to a link about outdoor living; the cycling, the camping, stuff I used to do before being very busy took over . . .

My goodness me, the past six months has been a Sisyphean task (the guy pushing the large person-sized rock uphill, written about in Greek mythology).

It starts (on my photography course) when you get a little behind (the negatives don't process or print well, it rains for two weeks when you want to shoot outdoors), you cannot make a set of images which 'go together' well enough to complement each other and tell a story (which is what the brief has asked you to do).

Then personal matters intrude - you know they shouldn't, but life doesn't seem to observe etiquette in this way - you spend days sorting through complicated personal finance and getting legal advice when someone else is trying to make you liable for a HUGE amount of money they have taken, which you are supposed to ensure is safely looked after.

You work part-time on a peripatetic basis, and are always on the end of a telephone or sending e-mails, looking for the next day's work . . .

You spend weeks and months trying to organise a Photography Final Project, which you've always wanted to do and now you have a reason to carry it out - photographs of the Labour Party on the hustings just before the British General Election (later this week). None of your many letters and e-mails and phone calls are returned.

So you give up. But still needing a Final Project, you try on several old ones, and something gells.

Now, the 'American Football in London' project was NOT a piece of cake. A very steep learning curve was overcome, in terms of shooting crisp and well-composed imagery which they wanted, and which I could use for my project. That's done now.

I no longer have to go out four days a week and shoot the training and the games at football pitches in London and elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, it has been lots of fun, and just like being a professional. I still have the opportunity to shoot at future fixtures, and look forward to doing so. it is challenging to anticipate the 'decisive moment' in oppositional pitch-based team sport; pressing the shutter button just as the players collide, or the pass is thrown, or the touchdown is kicked over the bar; that is almost all you need to do.

As well as remembering to keep the shutter speed at 1/500th of a second, the aperture small enough to keep the depth of field you envisage for that shot, and the ISO low enough to give 'smooth-grained' digital prints A-2 sized or larger. You're shooting in daylight in a temperate-zone spring-time location, so every time a shadow falls on the playing field, the exposure changes too.

And, I've been run over by players sliding off the field at my feet, once at each football game. . . you have to leap fast to scoot out of the way . . . difficult to see the problem rushing towards you at very high speed, if you're following the action through a telephoto lens . . .

But I've got a week or two of sifting through 6,000 digital images to find the 'Top 50' which might be exhibition quality. And, I've got to cram scores of pages in a virgin workbook chock-fill of the ideas I've had and discarded about shooting this major piece of work.

But, I now feel this task is within my grasp. There's the printing and mounting of the chosen mages, ready for the Degree Exhibition in June. Expensive, but I am certain I'll get it there and on time.

And, before I forget, there were a couple of other pieces of college work which fell by the wayside. I'd better get them written up (today would be ideal, wouldn't it ?) and handed in. Then I can sleep the sleep of the innocent once more , don't you think ?

How are you going to vote ??

This title links to a blog about voting, candidates, etcetera. They say young people won't vote, because the process is " . . . nothing to do with me, mate."

A frightening demographic is that this (British) election on Thursday will be decided by the 'over-55's'; there's lots more of them than the 'under-25's', and they DO get out and vote.

Apparently many of us are reported as confused about which party manifesto says exactly what on various policy topics. And, we've all been bamboozled by the charisma or not of the leaders in the televised debates.

it's easy for me - I'm in one of those mainstream parties, and have been for decades.

I was chatting to a university student yesterday; he asked 'Well, why don't you vote Lib-Dem, then ?" I said I'd have to resign from my party. I can instead only hope that they get back to the policies they used to have in the good old days . . . he is un-decided, but he thinks he'll vote Lib-Dem. I said "Please vote, it does matter."

As easy as falling off a . . .

You know how it is : you're cleaning the gutters and you just want to get it done (mucky hands, wet leaves on head, you can picture it . . .) I was on a little ladder just like the one in the picture, and was just twisting 'round to get down off the top.

One second you're fine, the next you're free-falling. In my case it was only less than 2.0 metres. I Ianded on my feet. I didn't bang my head. I was winded, but that was it.

Except for the past three weeks it FEELS LIKE I landed on my arms (I didn't). It is like having had both arms twisted around past the point where they usually don't go - the fall lasted one second, and three weeks later my arms are nearly pain-free. Click on the title for an H + S advert . . .

What do you suggest I do next time ? I did get right back on the ladder, and I finished cleaning the guttering.

Geoff Holt - Quadraplegic sails Atlantic

Geoff wrote an article in The Sunday Times about his single-handed sail across the Atlantic. Feel inspired; read a similar article about him by clicking on my blog-post title.
Photo by Phil Yeomans. Post created using the iPhone. It took 300 seconds to complete the post; can you do it quicker ?

Snow, snow and a bit more to come . . .

My road at mid-morning today. It is 0 degrees Celcius, but with the 28 mph (46 kph for the Canadians) gusts from the north-east, it will feel like -5 or so. As you can see there's lots of ice. Snow is fluffy and you have trouble slipping on it. Ice is super-slippery, and even more so when it's about freezing and there's melted ice-water lying on top. I put grit on the pavement (sidewalk for the Canadians) down my side of the road, and that is great for getting up to the top of the road, where the Council has gritted the road and pavement.
I am writing this particular blog as my sister Mad (who lives in Fort St John in Canada, about ten miles from the Arctic Circle. It gets down to - 50 Celcius there in the winter, but warms up in the summer.) rang and left a message that she'd seen horrendous reports on TV, of people marooned in the countryside, pregnant mums unable to get out of the house to the maternity ward, etcetera. She was ringing to find out if we were coping.
Mad, we are fine. The central heating is getting a good workout, and our cat Pixie hasn't been out in the garden for a few weeks now. There's lots of grub in the shops, and anytime I want a bottle of whiskey, it's just next door. I am waiting for a thaw, as I'd like to get back on my bicycle. One downside is that there's no supply work for me as a teacher, because 1,000 secondary schools in London are shut. Something about the playgrounds being too slippery.
it is snowing gently outside my window as I write this blog. Unusually for central London, it is staying when it hits the ground. We are due for a BIG fall later today (click on my post title for the official Met Weather forecast for my area); as we have no idea how to control a motor vehicle in the snow over here, it is safest if they keep all the cars off the road until the snow is cleared, but no-one seems to care.
The man on the radio said it was warmer in Antarctica than in London yesterday. By the way, Happy Birthday for tomorrow Mad. Will you be doing a spot of ice-fishing through the river ice ?





















Postscript : six of us in my road (there's ninety front doors here) got out and scraped the compressed snow (turns into slick ice, doesn't it !) from the pavement in front of our shop or house. We got a little carried away, and the next thing you know, half the pavement down the north side is cleared (our little road is 300 m long, each house-front is five metres wide). The guys who go to the gym bashed away at the ice on the end of the road, where the cars are sliding about.

Tip - use a six kg. hammer with a one metre long handle; drop it from a height of 300 mm (watch out for your toes). This makes a shock wave which disrupts the molecules, and then you can sweep the ice bits out of the way. Cheaper than grit and salt, as well. There's sixty thousand Arsenal football fans in Finsbury Park this afternoon, and I'm sure those coming down our road will appreciate our efforts.