Flora and fauna

See this bush? It looks like any yellow flowering bush doesn't it? Infact it is SAFFRON WALDEN HOUSE SPARROW CENTRAL!!
They absolutely love it. It is always a cauldron of high pitched excitable twittering. Sometime a few of them will come flying out while involved in some arguments. On several occasions I have almost had them collide with me when I am hanging out the washing as they ae rushing to this bush. Who knows what makes it so attractive. They like it in winter when there is no foliage and in summer when there is plenty. Last year a blackbird nested there - I'm surprised she could cope with the noise.
All in all it is a very entertaing bit of foliage to have in the garden.

Madinat al Zahra

Here are my pics of Madinat al Zahra

That didn't work

The pictures aren't there , but might be here

Pictures of Cordoba

There are pictures of Cordoba here

Lovely holiday in Cordoba

 This is the most famous thing in Cordoba.  It is the Mezquita - it was once the mosque until the Christians put a cathedral in the middle of it.  It is extraordinary.  The mosque could have 40,000 people worshipping at the same time - it is huge.  One of the guide books said that if you got there before 10am you could go in for free so we did that.  You have to be quiet because there was a mass   in progress in the cathedral which was actually really quite moving.   There was an old lady having confession - the confessional was in the middle of the building which was odd and quite open in some ways - and she must have been really sinful because she was there for ages!

 This is another bit of the Mezquita.

 Brian in the garden of the Alcazar which was lovely.  They are doing huge amounts of work everywhere you look in Cordoba because they are a nominated city for the City of Culture in 2016.  They were doing huge amounts of work in the gardens

 This is a city outside Cordoba called Madinat al Zahra.  It was built by the Caliph in the 10th century (I think) and was used for 80 years before it was left.  The museum for it was one of the best I have ever seen because the film showed you ruins, and then showed you an animated look at what it would have looked like and told you a lot about how the place worked.  They have only excavated 12% of it till now, and what they have done so far is fascinating.  We happily spent hours pottering round it.

 This is a very typical little alley which make up most of the old part of Cordoba.  There is a modern city as well, but that isn't so interesting.  These areas are very easy to get lost in and you can spend a lot of time wandering round trying to get to a specific place.  However it is a very felicitous place to wander round because all the alleys are different and have lovely little features, or flowers, or something interesting to see.
 We were lucky with the weather as it was sunny and pleasant all week and we were in short sleeves and sandals by the end of the week.  Three days is probably a bit too long for Cordoba in some ways, but it meant that we had a lovely pottering sort of time, not feeling at all rushed.  Though we didn't see everything by any manner of means.

This is us on Malaga beach.  The flight was 7pm so we had all afternoon to mooch on the beach which was only about 10 mins from the airport.  Brian managed to get a bit sunburnt. 

I will put more pictures onto Picassa and add a link when I have done that if people want to see them.

We went to see a Spanish riding school show on the Wednesday night which we both enjoyed.  Here is one of the horses doing a levade.  I filmed some of these, so need to work out how to edit them now.

A week in March

Last week was my 53rd birthday and to celebrate the fact Trev and I went to Whipsnade Zoo. It was a really lovely day. Warm enough to have a picnic.
The animals seemed to be really appreciating the weather too and were all outside and active. Here is a ring tailed lemur sunning itself

And here is a peacock that was lurking around the cafe on the lookout for crumbs. It looks like it is having a cup of tea at this picnic bench.

Last weekend we went down to Southampton to go to a performance of Alice's orchestra at a tiny arts centre which is a converted barn. Linda came too. It was a lovely concert inspite of the annoying woman behind me who kept talking and fiddling around with her handbag right down my ear. The final piece was Hayden's Farewell Symphony. The tradition of this is at the end for the orchestra members to leave one by one. We didn't know this and Alice was the first member to leave. We looked at each other in concern incase she had been taken ill. However, Kieran was remarkably calm about it and as other members left we realised what was happening.
It was a lovely weekend of meals out and walks on the common and taking in the sights of Southampton. H

ere we all are outside Southampton Art Gallery which has a remarkably good collection.

Plumbing the Library Knowledge... if you please!

Some of you know and some of you don't, that I jumped on the Librarian bandwaggon some 18 months ago and am intrepidly making my way in my second library role as Senior Learning Centre Assistant for Curriculum Liaison (I plan to try telling people my job title after a few drinks one day, just to see what happens!) at an FE college in Southampton. I am thrilled to have this job, as I can be creative and do all kinds of things that really excite me about library work. I am currently trying to arrange for a guest speaker to come visit the library. I have had many a conversation and email exchanges with charming authors of fine fiction, but sadly still no confirmation or success in booking someone. Target audience is Adult Learners who for various reasons are learning to read/write in English and the plan is that the visit will drum up enthusiasm for reading and literacy in general. Have any amongst you marvelous relatives-in-law had any success with organising this kind of thing? And can you give your Niece/Daughter/Cousin-Law some advice?

That's dinner sorted

On Saturday we popped into Cambridge after visiting the family in Newmarket.  Driving along the dual carriageway a very silly pheasant - and lets face it they are the silliest of all birds - decided to cross the road in front of us.   It did not live to tell the tale.
We thought no more about it and arrived in Cambridge, parked the car by a meter in the lovely collegy area called the backs and went off to do our shopping. It was only when we got back to the car an hour or so later that we realised that the dead pheasant had somehow remained attached to the front of the car and it was stuck in the front like a trophy! A little emabarrasing to say the least. Anyway, Trev, managed to kick the corpse off so infact some fox or cat will probably have a delicious dinner.

Pointless

Well, as all of you know my friend Jill and I successfully auditioned for the show Pointless.  They are recording at the end of February and some of you will come and see it being recorded and if it's not too awful I may even let you know when it's on TV.
Here is it's wikipedia entry which explains it in detail.  Basically they ask general knowledge questions.  They have already surveyed 100 people and you win by choosing the least popular, or even better, the answer  not chosen by the survey  (the pointless answer in fact).  For example if they were to say landlocked countries in Europe Switzerland would be the most popular but the chances are few or hopefully nobody would have said Andorra.
I am a mine of useless information at the moment as I am trying to learn obscure American sports teams and the flags and capitals of little known countries.  My mind is full of menomics such as "Bleat me in St Louis" to remind me of the St Louis rams!  I must learn some facts about Canada.  Everybody always thinks I know about the land of my birth and it will be shameful if we fail because of my ignorance.
Jill and I have both received a large email with instruction mostly about what we can wear.  We have to think Smartie colours but not brown or red.  Not pastel colours, grey, black, white, busy patterns, polka dots, logos.  Nearly all Jill's clothes have got logos so I think she will be hitting the internet soon!  What's more we have to bring 5 outfits from this limited repetoire of colours!  I have just about managed it and am popping into Marks and Spencer this weekend to take care of the under clothes.  I feel I need to dye out the grey routes, bleach the moustache etc.  I don't think I put this much effort into Kieran and Alice's wedding (or even my own!).
The young researcher (and they are all young - the place is like Logan's Run) rang me yesterday to go through my biography.  I think I have got jobs with less information then they know about me.  She was trying to find out unusual information about me and I let slip that I find dressing up dogs  amusing.  That is certainly going to come back to haunt me.  Gromit will be in heaven laughing at me as he finally gets his revenge.  I also mentioned that I enjoyed playing Scrabble so she concluded that meant I was a good team player.  Clearly she has never entered the cutthroat world of the small plastic tiles.
Anyway, it should be fun.  As it's on during the day I'm hoping that the good and the great at work won't even be aware of my appearence.
Wish us luck and pray that we don't have a performance like this one!

Web site - well page really

I have started a web site to promote me.  The only reason to blog about it is to add a link which may then get picked up by google.  Anyone else who'd like to add a link to their sites/blogs/facebook please do. 

www.trevormartinconsulting.com

Very boring to start with unless someone needs the exact skills described! 

Chinese statues

The National Museum in Cardiff has an exhibition of Buddhist statues from Dazu in China, which we went to see this morning - see here

Having missed the terracotta warriors (still sad about that) I was determined to see these.

They are really quite extraordinary because they are so old, and in such good condition. You can see the paint still on some of them, which gives an idea of how bright they must have been when they were new (1000 years ago or so).



The numbers of them in China are extraordinary too.


Here are a couple of photos from another website.

An attempt to get my 15 minutes

  Because of the weather and the fact that I realised that I had a bit more holiday then I had calculated I decided to take some leave on the week before Christmas. Also because of the weather we didn't wander far from home.  Slipping and sliding into tow n and slipping and sliding home again.  We were home by 4 every evening and infront of the telly. I think  I was beginning to lose touch with the outside world. During this time we became rather addicted to a quiz show called Pointless.  It's quite funny and requires both general knowledge and a little bit of psychology.

 After Xmas my friend Jill came for a visit and we discussed the quiz show and she quite liked it too.  She suggested that she and I apply for it.  As by this time I had existed in a winter wonderland for over a week and the outside world seemed a dim memory so  I agreed.  The application  form was enormous - 5 pages!  Anyway, we sent them off not thinking that we would hear anything further. The snow went and we all went back to work and forgot about it.

However  we received phone calls last week and we got called to an audition yesterday

The production company was in a rather unprepossessing office block in west London.  They had glammed up the reception area.  However when we ventured out of that area into the kitchen we discovered that the it resembled a student flat with dirty dishes piled in the sink!  Still it's not surprising as the employees all seemed to be about 15 years old.  Still not quite the glamour I had imagined.

 While we were waiting in reception Jimmy Carr and Charlie Brooker, who are reasonably famous in the UK.  I showed how I took it in my stride by texting all the family.  At least I didn't take a photo or ask for their autograph.

The audition was in a board room.  There were 7 other couples.  We had to do a tiny little dummy run of the show including making all ooing and aahing noises at appropriate times.  We acquitted ourselves fairly well.  Then we had to wait again in reception to see if they wanted us back for a screen test which they did!  That involved us talking about ourselves infront of the camera.  Not too sure how that went.

Anyway, we shall see in the next few days.  They auditioned 500 people for 150 places so I'm not holding out too much hope.

All in all it was great fun and a good way to cheer up a dull January evening

I do like to be beside the seaside

One thing I'll say about this inclement weather we've been having is that you really appreciate good weather when you get it.  Yesterday we had been planning to have a trip up to London and take in an exhibition but when the sun came up and it was as clear as can be we decided to go to the coast.  It was still a cold day but lovely and sunny.
We went to Walton on the Naze on the Essex Coast.  It is rather a kiss me quick kind of a resort. It actually has some fantastic architecture but it's a little neglected these days.  Here are some of the beach huts.  I love them.   They look a bit like a shanty town but they're bright and cheerful.

 The big attraction of Walton for us however is not the pier and the sticks of rock but the Naze.  It is a peninsula of a about 3 miles that has cliffs and salt marshes.  It is scientifically very important as some of the first fossils ever discovered were from the cliffs and as well it is a fantastic place for bird watching.
Brent geese overwinter there in their thousands.  I suspect they have nothing to do with the London Borough of Brent as when Trev spoke to them in a cockney accent they looked at him with cool disdain.

We were particularly taken by Sanderlings.  They can fly and swim but they choose to run up and down.  They feed from the water's edge and when an extra large wave comes they all run away from it.  Most amusing.
We finished up after our walk having a cup of tea underneath Walton Tower.  Here it is casting huge shadows.  It looks particularly Middle Earthish blocking the sun

Unfortunately the Naze seems to have a desire to become sea.  The cliffs are tumbling away as you can see and there are marshes within  the sea wall so who know what will happen to it.  But for now it is a lovely place to spend a winter's afternoon

Merry Christmas

This is the exciting game we got with the box of crackers this year. Instead of a token we got a wind up reindeer in our cracker, and the box had a race track on the back, so after dinner we wound up our reindeer and had races. It was actually quite good fun, though Nic's reindeer had a distinct steer to port, so anyone to the left of it got barged into which led to some corrections.

The picture below is Saffy looking very fetching in her Christmas scarf and leggings.



Poor hard done by doggy.

Happy New Year everyone

Christmas food shopping

I have done most of Xmas food shopping but went into Waitrose at lunchtime today to get some things that had been forgotten. It was really busy! Our Waitrose is never busy except at Christmas and today it was busy. There were lots of people queueing for the tills, but they had got it well organised. There were staff at the end of every aisle organising people into neat queues and then sending them on to the tills, and rewarding you for your patience by giving you a chocolate when you got to the top of the queue.

It made queueing almost enjoyable!

Glad tidings

Supermarket shopping with young children is seldom a pleasure really.  Shopping with young children at this time of year is HELL.  Luckily we are way past that.  This morning we needed to pop to our supermarket to get victuals for a quickly(due to weather) rearranged lunch with Trev's sister.  The place was heaving.  Not surprisingly given that it is two days before Xmas and the roads are the clearest they've been of snow since Saturday.  Waitrose, our supermaket gives you the chance to self scan what you buy and then check it out yourself.  You carry a hand held device and scan each bar code as you read it.  We got round to the far end of the shop and there was a very harrassed mother trying to be reasonable with her  5 year old who was holding the scanner.  Suddenly she snapped, a voice that sounded like the girl from the excorsist suddenly issued forth: GIVE ME THE SCANNER.  To be honest, I don't know if that was succesful as Trev and I made a hasty retreat to giggle unobserved.
Hey ho!  Sometimes I can really appreciate my kids being in their 20s

More Frosty Pictures

Another sub zero day plus the end of yesterday produced more picture taking opportunities, so here they are:

Yesterday the Cow Parsley made a great frame for the late afternoon light

We also had our own entrance to Narnia:

And even the bins were decorated

Cold weather not all bad after all.  But it would be nice to be able to drive off without spending 10 minutes defrosting.

What do "experts" know?

 David Quarmby, chairman of the RAC foundation and co-author of the Winter Resilience Review, is quoted on the BBC saying: "This is a very early onset of winter but it is also a bit different from what we are used to - although temperatures are not particularly cold..."

Well I don't know where he hangs out, but I maintain it is ******* cold, particular or not!  Just look at this Willow tree.............

A particularly cold Willow tree

Minus 6 degrees - Narnia in Saffron Walden

A cool start to the day, so a couple of pictures of the scene 100 metres from our door.

Never has a recycling centre looked so festive

Cold but pretty

Nicky takes flight

This is a picture of Nicola taken by a bystander at the races in the spring sometime. The horse, called No More Whispers, was acting up - as you can see - and she rashly hung on.

The owner has used the picture as his Christmas card, so Nic will be on all his cards!

She is glad she has her back to the camera because she says she was probably pulling a really daft face.

What is lovely is that the person who took the picture took the trouble to send it to Evan, just because he liked it, and thought other people would as well.

Kindness of strangers.