If a movie was made of my life

Well it's been a long time since anyone blogged and I'm not sure anyone reads this anymore but I shall carry on anyway.

The library in which I work is being moved.  The whole area of the building is being restructured.   An architect is involved in all this, obviously, but that seems to mean that we can't take the perfectly good furniture we already have with us but have to buy new.  As they are spending so much money on a snazzy green glass front and a bespoke carpet they are cutting corners on furniture. So last weekend we had a meeting with the architect, Bruce, his wife, Izzy, who is also the colour consultant, the furniture guy and..  THE CARPET GUY!

Anyway we discussed things and realised that we didn't really have a say in anything but afterwards we were all impressed by THE CARPET GUY.    He was like a cross between Bill Nighy and James May but with more of the former's attitude to life.  That led us to cast the whole meeting as if there was going to be a film of it.  THE CARPET GUY would obviously be played by Bill Nighy.  The architect was Timothy Spall and his wife Liv Tyler (yes - he was definitely punching above his weight so we think he is making lots of money!).  The furniture guy would be Hugh Grant as he was rather posh and a bit pleased with himself.  My boss Ian would be played by Richard Griffiths as we can't think of anyone else suitably corpulent (needless to say he wasn't part of this conversation).  Jenny, our archivist, would be played by Carrie Fisher as she is quite feisty.   My colleague Andrew chose to be played by James Stewart and I chose Sigourney Weaver to play me.  She is an idealised me.  Rather tall with curly hair.  Tom Stoppard was going write the script and then to liven things up we would get Quentin Tarantino to direct it.

The upshot of it all is that we are still rather unsatisfied with the finishing touches to the library but we feel we had revenge in a quiet way!

Lulu

We went to see Lulu performed by the Welsh National Opera last night.  It is by Alban Berg and although we had seen Wozzeck when the Millenium Centre opened I didn't know much about it.  I read up the plot which is fairly nonsensical when read out.  However the pre concert talk was interesting because the libretto is based on a play which is part of the Theatre of the Absurd, and the plot was fairly absurd.

Oddly they all left out what I thought was the most interesting part of the story.  They concentrated Lulu being a femme fatale who has lots of lovers and gets through 3 husbands during the course of the opera, everyone who meets her falls in love with her.  Her husbands die - usually because she is being unfaithful to them - and in the end she is murdered when they have fallen on hard times and she has had to resort to prostitution.  However a man who is called her father pops up although later on it seems he isn't her father.  The man she most loves, rescued her when she was 12, and although he is now her lover he is also clearly a father figure.  She later marries him, and he dies, then she marries the son.  This opera is based in the 1920's and I can't believe everyone seems to have ignored the whole Freudian aspect of the story.  If you read it in Wikipedia and some other things Freud doesn't get a mention, but it was screaming Freud to me when I saw it.

The director had gone for the idea of a circus which is where the opera opens, with the characters wearing animal heads and being animals in the circus.  But again, you can put Freud into that with animal prototypes, as well as incest, etc etc.

Why has everyone seemed to ignore this?

The singing was fabulous, and the orchestra was faultless.  The costumes had a colour theme for different scenes and different husbands which worked really well.  The set didnt work very well as it was a sort of combination circus ring come birdcage which was quite constricting, and singers climbing up ladders is always distracting I find.  The music was lovely actually, especially if you stopped reading the surtitles and closed your eyes to just listen.  I do find surtitles make you concentrate on the words and don't pay enough attention to the whole music and theatrical effect of the opera.  However without them I would have no idea what was happening so I wouldn't be without them.

Technology

I have borrowed our work I pad for the weekend to see if I would prefer another laptop lor net book for my birthday or a tablet.  As it happens it is remarkably locked down and I didn't think to get the apple password. From my boss so. I can't update flash and play games so I have decided to do a blog entry to try it out.   Here's the thing.  I can,t  see the point of them.  What do they do that you can't do on an old school machine and I am not a fan of touch screens.   I think I will probably stick with Trevor.s discarded laptop.  I think my mothers make do and mend attitude and inner Luddite comes to to the fore.  Reading this back I can see I have managed to put random full stops everywhere.  Anyway all you tablet lovers tell me what I am missing!

Knots landing

On Friday I had seen the forecast for the weekend and it was set to be mild and clear and I had a hankering to go to the coast.   Usually we go to the Essex Coast but I had seen that in Norfolk at high tides in winter there is a spectacular flight of thousands of knots and other waders like this.

I actually didn't read the RSPB website properly or I would have realised that this only happens at very high tide when there is nothing left for the birds to stand on.   I enthused Trev with the idea and before you know it we had booked a hotel and were set  for a weekend away.

Very glad that I did misread it because we had a lovely time and we wouldn't have gone otherwise.

strange colouring of cliffs in Hunstanton

On the way up we stopped  in Hunstanton.  A walk along the prom of sunny Hunny was excellent.  We got some sunshine, some fresh air, we could look at the birds and as we headed south towards Heacham we d ogle at the extraordinary buildings along the coast.  Clearly planning permission isn't an issue.  Some looked like scout huts and some looked like public toilets.  People had got hold of some land and built whatever was cheapest but, bless them, they were all called things like Waikiki or Copacabana!

Our hotel was The White Horse in Brancaster Staithe further up the coast.  To get there we drove through Thornham were we used to have a caravan in the 60s.  My goodness it has become gentrified.  The newsagent and grocery have disappeared  and been replaced by the Village Deli.  The pub which owned our caravan park has stopped being called the Chequers and is now called the The Old Coaching Inn and the other pub in the village has gone from being the Cherry Tree to being the Orange Tree.  The entire village had gone through enough Farrow and Ball paint to drown a diplodocus.   Very different from when Mum and Dad considered buying a cottage there for £300!

The hotel was lovely.  Backing on to the salt marshes with lovely views and the haunting sound of the birds and  huge flocks of geese flying overhead.  The food was lovely too.  Thoroughly recommend it.

Trev outside our room

On Sunday we set off for Stretesham beach where we were going to see this bird spectacular.  The day started out like this.

View from hotel

But by the time we got to the nature reserve it looked like this!

The fog!

We kept expecting Magwitch to appear from the salt marshes.

  We had a very nice walk anyway and then wended our way home.

Happy New Year

As I haven't posted anything on here for ages I thought I would start the new year off with an effort.

2012 provided quite a lot of variety.

Dogs - we had 3 extra over the year.

Minnie and Jeeves were trainee guide dogs, both yellow lab/retriever crosses, and are now both working as guide dogs, one in St Davids and one in Llanelli.  It was very rewarding to be part of their training and I felt quite proud when they went off to take up their jobs.

Fudge is a Jack Russell with (probably) corgi in there, who has been visiting over Christmas.  He is a very good natured and affectionate little dog who goes home at the end of this week and we will miss him when he goes.

All three moulted like blazes and had I realised when I bought the dark rug in the tv room that I was going to have 3 pale coated dogs moulting on it I would have bought a beige one!

We probably won't get more guide dogs because the local trainers have moved to New Zealand!

Holidays.

We had a great short break with Chris and Xavier in the spring, and that was the sunniest period we had all year.  We had another short break in Pennal (it rained most of the time) and a few months later saw the whole area under water with serious flooding.  Boo, Trev, Brian and I had 2 weeks walking along Hadrian's wall (it rained) and while we were there the A1 was closed because of flooding and Morpeth also flooded.  Christmas holidays were lovely (it rained) and the office flooded.  I am spotting a certain trend here which is a bit alarming.  Maybe Peggy's rainmaking genius is transferring itself down a generation. (I really really hope not!)

Music

Brian had a piece workshopped by the BBC Orchestra of Wales in the Welsh Composers's forum in February though sadly it wasn't performed because it is too long.  However he got an email from the BBC to say they have accepted another piece for the Composer's forum coming up in March which is excellent and exciting news.  Parma - the recording company - have got the recording of Shadows of Memory and are discussing with Brian what else to put onto the cd.  It should be out in 2013 sometime.

Work

Was fairly uneventful until the last week when the office flooded.  We are currently ensconced in the Basement workroom in Barry library and how long we will be there is anyone's guess.  We won't be going back to our old office because this is the 3rd time we have been flooded out, so where we will end up we have no idea.  It is a bit gloomy as there isn't much natural light, and it is very cosy! We have squashed the 3 desks in, but......

I hope everyone has a wonderful year

DNA

Well, as some of you know everyone at work was given the chance to have their genome sequenced with the view of looking for certain traits.  Here is the results

rs2131925 GT
rs2815752 AG
rs10924081 AA
rs984222 CC
rs7522380 AG
rs141282873 TT
rs12566888 GG
rs2814778 TT
rs1704745 AG
rs1011731 AA
rs73068734 GG
rs1668873 GG
rs4846567 GT
rs4481887 AG
rs2058754 AC
rs4971516 TT
rs1367117 AG
rs713586 CT
rs77703766 AA
rs4299376 GT
rs17045941 CG
rs2192015 CT
rs1596930 GG
rs56324656 AT
rs34149969 AC
rs142238274 GT
rs922452 CC
rs149528480 TT
rs1530559 GG
rs7570971 AC
rs3940549 AG
rs4988235 AG
rs12986776 CC
rs1649569 CT
rs6737672 AA
rs560887 CT
rs73082223 TT
rs7603279 AA
rs17279437 GG
rs1354034 CC
rs34266487 CC
rs6779741 CT
rs58827274 CC
rs10938397 AG
rs1458038 CT
rs75958653 AG
rs16891982 GG
rs37369 TT
rs12203592 CT
rs1294421 GG
rs28757581 AG
rs9295791 AA
rs6905288 GG
rs2479987 CT
rs7764454 GT
rs4896067 CC
rs2191349 TT
rs6968865 AT
rs1055144 CT
rs4607517 GG
rs114511432 AC
rs342293 CG
rs713598 GG
rs3958991 GG
rs4921914 TT
rs12678919 AA
rs1451240 AG
rs60855925 GG
rs1871534 GG
rs1408799 CT
rs10966900 TT
rs8176719 -C
rs4590817 GG
rs2393967 AC
rs3964382 AG
rs1329650 GG
rs932764 AG
rs11191548 TT
rs6578434 CT
rs12274304 GG
rs10767664 AA
rs9667766 AA
rs189303654 GG
rs7944584 TT
rs1815739 CT
rs1393350 GG
rs1387153 CC
rs11223548 CC
rs1558324 AG
rs7300229 CG
rs11051289 TT
rs10772420 GG
rs7960970 AC
rs4931618 CC
rs4766578 AA
rs2074356 GG
rs830124 GG
rs9507502 TT
rs4349012 CT
rs9518951 CC
rs28477704 AC
rs1953558 TT
rs12896399 GT
rs28771143 AG
rs12147642 TT
rs12913832 GG
rs1834640 AA
rs1426654 AA
rs12903208 AA
rs2472297 CT
rs1378942 AC
rs1051730 GG
rs8029083 CT
rs61420932 TT
rs186934484 TT
rs1558902 TT
rs4238771 GG
rs1864163 AG
rs4782395 CT
rs2138852 CC
rs9894429 CT
rs9675595 CT
rs571312 AC
rs5020278 GG
rs6511720 GT
rs8101881 CC
rs10421769 TT
rs4105144 CT
rs601338 GG
rs6038189 CC
rs6118441 AC
rs2180439 CT
rs4812748 AA
rs6014096 AA
rs6015450 AA
rs6061352 GG
rs2827021 AA
rs1003719 AG
rs3747226 AA
rs6625163 AG
rs2497938 CT
MT-G3010A A
MT-T3027C T
MT-T4336C T
MT-G4580A G
MT-A4833G A
MT-T5004C T
MT-C5178a C
MT-A5390G A
MT-C6371T C
MT-T6776C T
MT-T7028C C
MT-T8200C T
MT-G8697A G
MT-G9477A G
MT-G10310A G
MT-A10550G A
MT-C10873T T
MT-C11332T C
MT-A11947G A
MT-A12308G A
MT-A12612G A
MT-T14318C T
MT-T14766C C
MT-T14783C T
MT-C14872T C

A little bit tricky to interpret.  We have got more information on our own personal web page so when I have a bit more time I will study it and see what I can find.  The trouble is it is written by geneticists for geneticists so on a quick glance the only thing I established was that I had blood group B and blue eyes.  I was pretty confident on that knowledge anyway.

So hopefully next week I will get a bit more time to study it and if I still can't understand it I will trap a friendly scientists to explain it!  

Autumnal walk

Here is my monthly entry into the blog. Once again I seem to be including the Olympics into it!I am almost over my obsession, honestly We, together with Jill are making an effort to do the Lee Valley walk. We already did a bit of it earlier in the year from Tottenham Hale to the Olympic park. We have realised that a lot of it is parallel to the railway line so we can do a lot of linear walks. Today, however, we did a circular walk from Cheshunt which took in the Lee Valley White water centre know to the world as the venue for the white water canoeing during the Olympics. It is now open to the public. I think to actually canoe you have to be experienced but they do white water rafting down it.

White water rafting

Man overboard

It was a great spectator sport! Especially when somebody got tipped out. There was nobody drownded to quote Stanley Holloway, you will be pleased to know There was a lot of shouting and he was fished out by the many helpers standing nearby.It was actually almost as entertaining as the Olympics themselves. There are still little bits of Olympic paraphernalia about but I gather it all has to go by next January.

Salmon impersonators

Little bit of Olympic memorabilia

We went on to Waltham Abbey. This is the sort of town that has excellent bone structure but has let itself go a bit. We walked around the Abbey grounds and saw where King Harold (of 1066 and all that) is buried.

Jill and Trev leaning on Harold's grave

After that we went back along the other side of the valley admiring the lovely autumn colours.

Swan admiring the autumn colours

Northumberland (again)

There are more pictures on a Picassa album here

This is the view from the cottage - with fabulous windows

Sitting on a convenient bit of ancient momunent

The height of the escarpment along which the wall runs

Here we are at the highest point of the wall

We had a fabulous holiday - as Boo has said.  We did about a third of the wall - from Birdoswald to Chesters, and walked west to east so that the prevailing wind was behind us.  Oddly most people go east to west but we were advised by our landlord so followed his advice.

As we had 2 cars we left car 1 at the destination car park, then all drove to the starting car part in car 2, and that worked very well because there are are car parks conveniently placed most of the time.  We did one long walk of 9 miles ( Chris - it was long by our standards) but mostly were 5 or 6 and covered about a third of the wall, certainly we did all the interesting bits because there is no wall to see for most of the rest of the route.  Some of the rocky bits were dry but other bits, especially in week 2 after the heavy rain, were very boggy.  At times we were doing huge zig zags round ponds, leaping from tussock to tussock.  We had a variety of stiles - lots of ladder stiles, most with cricket bat handles which were pretty easy to climb, though as they often had bogs at the foot on both sides they could pose their own challenges.

We also went to Vindolanda and the Roman Army Museum, both of which were fantastic.  The Roman army museum had a 3d film of the army and how they built the wall, along with a story of how the individuals were affected. Vindolanda is a site of international importance because they have discovered lots of items buried in peat, which has preserved it all completely.  There are leather shoes for adults and children, and the really unusual thing is small very thin wooden postcards, which have invitations to a birthday party, or little letters to say thank you for a present, small everyday things which normally do not survive.  It is such a domestic collection of information and makes them seem much more everyday.  It is fascinating.

We also fitted in a bit of touring by car on a wet day, Carlisle and Newcastle or Durham on other wet days, but generally we were really lucky with the weather.

It was a fab holiday and my tummy is complaining about the absence of cake and wine in too generous amounts now I am back on the straight and narrow!

Northumberland

Salve! We have just returned from Northumberland in an epic trek along Hadrian's Wall with Helen and Brian. When I say epic I mean the 30 or so miles in the middle which are pretty and have more of the wall in tact then the rather duller outer parts. It snakes up hill, down dell and through bogs and we snaked with it. Most of us covered in mud apart from Brian who has some weird, but useful superpower that enables him to stay mud free. Helen is going to post in greater detail and with pictures (my Picassa account is now full so I must do something constructive about it) In the interim here is what I learned! Reivers were like the Mafia in the late Medieval, early tudor period and somebody should make a TV series about them. 10% of the Roman army were stationed at Hadrian's wall. The wall's contsruction consisted of something called a berm. Say it outloud in a Clousseau way and it will make you laugh (well it made us laugh!) I really don't like wet rooms. Northumberland does excellent cakes. In Northumberland a sunny interval usually involves rain! A lovely holiday with lovely family is just what you need to get over post Olympic blues!

Paralympics

Well, the Paralympics have now finished and I found them as good if not better then the Olympics. I have never really got into the Paralympics before. I suppose if the games are in a different time zone you have to make a more concerted effort to watch. However, as we had tickets to several events this year I made a conscious effort to understand the different classifications of difficulties. Channel 4 did a number of programmes before the games which were very informative if rather bizarely hosted by news anchor John Snow. So glad I made the effort. These athletes are remarkable. The adversities many have had to face just living their lives and then they have all the adversities an athlete has to face on top of that. There was many a moment of teariness. Jonnie Peacock our local 100 metre gold winning sprinter lost his leg through meningitis. Apparently when he in hospital with it the doctors told his mother that she should say goodbye. However she bent down and whispered - you keep on fighting son. And he has been doing it ever since. Look at this lovely hug he gave his mum.

One of the swimmers we saw at the Aquatic Centre only had half an arm but he went like a rocket and got the gold. It was just extraordinary. We also watched some Bocchia. The athletes mostly have cerebral palsy and some have no use of any limbs and they were controlling the balls using their mouths or sticks strapped to their heads. But you kind of forgot their disabilities and got caught up in the sport. Going to the Paralympic events was fantastic. I have never been anywhere so good natured. It is true the crowd was partisan but they cheered everyone, especially the people who got left behind. And they cheered so loudly. The noise in the Aquatics centre was quite deafening. I have to say the commentators at these venues do their best to whip everyone into a frenzy. The man in the Aquatics centre was relentlessy cheery. We were speculating if he was like that all the time so when he had breakfast he went. "Now let's give it up for the cornflakes! Make some noise for the cup of tea!" After three outings to the Paralympics I was quite exhausted from all this giving it up and making noises. And finally a heart warming story about the whole magical summer that shows Essex people are actually the best. The young man sent to meet the Burkino Faso team discovered that they didn't have anywhere to go. So he took the to his parents house and arranged for the women to stay in a convent in Brentwood. He sorted out training facilities and equipment. Essex people are great!

Oop North

In the spirit of contributing to the blog - but not being bothered to upload all my photos again - here is a link to a round up of mine and Carl's recent camping trip. I have to say, if you haven't been to Northumberland, you must go, it is fabulous. And those of you going to Hadrian's Wall have some real hills to tackle! Link to Kate's blog Kate xxxx

Olympics

I feel this blog has been overtaken by Facebook which, to be honest is quicker and simpler. However, I feel that something should go on it once a month so I am just going to have a quick blog about how much I enjoyed the Olympics. I think everyone in the UK and especially those who experience public transport in the South East on a regular basis were kind of dreading it. Also the weather had been insanely wet this spring. However, once the opening ceremony started it was as if we were all enchanted including the elements. Nearly everyone entered into the spirit of the games with enthusiasm. Throughout the 2 weeks everyone was talking about it. You could chat to shopkeepers, workmates, friends and family and almost everyone was loving it. Usually, dry witty people I follow on Twitter were blubbering sentimental fans. On the tube the driver announced results passengers were cheering and smiling at each other. London felt like a different place! It was fantastic that you could go to Hyde Park and there was the Olympics in front of you for free! Before it started I thought the logo was rubbish and we all laughed at the outfit my friend Julie, who is a volunteer, had to wear. Now I feel a pang of nostalgia when I see them Since it has finished I feel the sort of sadness I feel when I have finished reading Harry Potter novels. Still, we have the Paralympics to come and we have tickets for 3 different events so lets hope we can do as well a second time. Here are some BBC montages to bring it all back Mind you however sentimetal I have become I still think the mascot was rubbish!

Holidays

 We have had a varied couple of weeks off, with mixed weather but we did manage to get out and about a lot.  Here we are a Rhos y Gylwen which had opened the gardens as part of the National Gardens scheme

 This was a coot feeding her baby at Slimbridge wetlands centre. 

 One of 4 stained glass windows in Hereford Cathedral which are stunning.  The commemorate A E Houseman

 Hereford cathedral has lots of icon type art up - here is a Madonna and child

 This is Ludlow - we didn't see much because it was late when we got there but we had a very nice dinner after a very nice cup of tea, so we were impressed

 This is Capel y Ffin which is tiny.  It probably holds about 20 people. It is on a back road (about an F road) between Hay and Abergavenny.  Eric Gill lived here for about 4 years, in a sort of monastry place nearby.  The chapel is still in use.

 Llanthony Prior.  Same road as Capel y Ffin, and was an Augustine priory up to the reformation.  It remimded us both of Strata Florida.  Lovely place.

 This is Tretower Court.  There was a castle here but in the 16th century they built a manor house.  As you can see CADW have done a brilliant job on presenting it. They could show Hampton Court a thing or two, especially in the kitchen.  They have had the painted backdrop done specially and it is scenes from the family history.  There was food set out, with all the cutlery etc, and the hangings have been done specially too.  It was absolutely brilliant.

 This is a shot of the kitchen, where they have had new oak cupboards made as they would have been at the time.  Where they have repaired some of the woodwork with new beams etc they have used oak and copied the way exactly as the originals

This is one of many loos.  This place had an en suite in all the major rooms.  They clearly decided on comfort when they built it as the main bedrooms have en suites as well as the downstairs rooms.

Back to work tomorrow, but we have Hadrian's wall to look forward to

Slip sliding along

 This is the beginning of today's walk at Strumble Head.  Behind Brian is a light house, which you can't see through the mist.  They did say it would be cloudy, but didn't mention that the clouds would want to come along the walk with us.

 Here I am dressed for the lovely summer weather with boots, gaiters, cagoul and hat.

 However by lunchtime it had cleared up a bit , and I had got a great deal warmer.  This is the memorial to the last invasion of the British Isles.  The French landed here in 1797 but were captured by the locals.  You can here more about it here. The cliff face here is very steep so we thought they were nuts to even try. There is a very good tapestry in Fishguard showing the whole story, done by locals to commemorate the event

 Here is Brian in a very pretty little valley.

 This is nearing the end and fatigue is setting in.

Here is one of the seals we saw on the way - not a great picture because they were too far away.  We also saw a curlew and lots of stonechats, as well as lots of gulls, oystercatchers, and cormorants.

The official distance is 6 miles according to the book.  The pedometer on the phone said it was 8.1 miles, so we are going for 7 miles.  I'm not sure how much the official distance takes in all the ups and downs, or whether they just measure it flat on the map.  There were a LOT  of ups and downs.  It was also REALLY REALLY MUDDY!  There were a few stretches where we could walk normally, but an awful lot of it was slipping along, or waddling along with feet either side of the very muddy path, plus it was really overgrown.  Using the Helen system it is a 4 goat path with an added slide mark for the mud.  We met a couple of American ladies and did actually get them to turn back because they asked if it was very muddy ahead, and we said, yes, it certainly was.

When we got to the tea shop in Goodwick I was ready for a good sit down!

However it didn't actually rain, and we did finish the whole distance, so we are weary, but very pleased with ourselves.

Yorkshire

We have just returned from an excellent weekend in Yorkshire. First stop was Hebden Bridge to spend a little time with Sue. Sue's mum has just moved to a nursing home Sue is clearing out her house. However she arrived with some trepidation as on Friday 22nd June there was bad flash flooding in the town. Apparently the river was rising 2 feet every 15 minutes. Luckily nobody was killed but a lot of people have had their homes and businesses ruined. A week later and the town has bounced back in an extraordinary way. A lot of businesses up and running again and people all pulling together. There are signs for help for flood victims and it would seem that Mrs Crabtree's house clearance couldn't have come at a better time as a lot of her stuff, like washing machine, cooker, bed linen can help people who have lost so much. Anyway on the Saturday the town's art festival started and there was a surprisingly good parade by the local people with Stomp like drummers, Jazz bands, amazing stilt walkers and brilliant costumes. It was really good and I think was a credit to the town. Anyway after that we went across the moors to Ripon. Which is really lovely. A beautiful cathederal and is famous for both Wilfred Owen and Lewis Carrol. It has 3 excellent museums. The Workhouse, the Police and the courtroom. We visited all three and were able to don silly hats so that is a result! In Ripon a hornman is appointed and he has to blow the town's horn every night at 9pm. This is a tradition that has gone on, unbroken, since Alfred the Great gave the town a charter. We went home via Burghley House which has an excellent Sculpture garden and a garden of surprises. I would highly recommend a visit to either!. Lovely weekend. Makes me proud to be half Yorkshire (OK a bit tenous, really) Picassa has decided I have had my full share of photos so if you want to see any you will have to go to Facebook

Busy Holiday

 We decided to build a wind break in my back garden, because it does get a lot of sea breezes.  In summers when we have sunshine I go out to sit in the garden, and then retreat indoors because it is sunny, but the wind makes it cold.  Hence the need for a wind break.  We started on the Saturday of my  holiday but unfortunately it was a bit wet.  Not as wet as promised but still wet.  Here is Brian on the frame of the new decking.  Below is the electric saw sheltering under the sun umbrella which worked very well as a rain umbrella and kept the saw and the extension lead nice and dry.  Unlike me and Brian.

 However Sunday and Monday were fine, so we did get it finished and here we are on Monday evening sitting out.  It wasn't actually windy but, had it been, I'm sure we would have been nice and snug.  It uses a pretty useless corner of the garden too, so makes more sense all round.  We have also bought what Ikea call a sail but is really an awning which you can attach and detach to use as a roof.  That has yet to be fitted.

 In return for Brian's labours over the wind break I have made new curtains for the cottage downstairs. The old ones were lovely but getting tatty. The photo doesn't do them justice as they look nicer than that really (she said with due modesty)  The lining is purple and there is a light clear voile with gold and white stripes on top which does look quite classy.

 Having finished our labours we grabbed the not wet afternoon today and went off to a garden near the Preseli mountains.  Here is Brian sitting in a little bower.  There were lots of benches and a very nice summer house to sit in to admire the garden

This is a baby wren we saw in the garden.  It was doing a good job of looking like the path so we ignored it and hope the parents went back to it.  Fingers crossed.

Back to work next week, but only 2 weeks in work and then I get another 2 weeks off.  There are some advantages to leaving holidays to the end of the year.

Twitter

I work at a shiny high Tech place and I sometime feel as if I am in the film Logan's Run but have somehow managed to dodge the bullet and make it to my 50s. Most of the people are under 35. Most of the people are also extremely clever. I am one of the stupider people and I have post graduate qualifications. Because they are young and clever it has been occuring me that a good means of selling the library services would be through Twitter. However, when I set up an account for home use a couple of years ago it seemed to be just people talking about what they had eaten for dinner. And so much of it! It was anarchy! But I am aware that many people are finding out work related things very quickly through Twitter. I knew I had to get to grips with it. Then I was talking to one of the young PR people who was grateful to me for going above and beyond with some bibliometric work I did for her (don't ask). She asked if I was on Twitter and when I replied no, that I needed to get to grips with it she announced that she would give me a Twitter lesson! Huzzah! I will become part of the Twitterati and have some chance of keeping up with the bright young things!

Night at the musuem

Erin has been living the Bridget Jones life in London for over a year.  She regales us with
stories of all the fun that can be had in our nations capital.  Most of it falls into the category of interesting but I would rather not ie hip hop karoake, cocktails that are on fire and clubbing, to - name a few.  However one thing that caught our attention was museum lates.  Once a month many of the museums have an adults only evening.  The Science museum's is on the last Wednesday of the month and yesterday Trev, me and Jill decided to go.  Erin had assured us that there were older people there and although it was mostly 20 somethings there were many 40 and 50 somethings.  There is all manner of things to do.   There were brass bands, Science talks, a quiz, cockroach tours flight simulators and for yournger people speed dating, drinking, eating and a silent disco.  It is such fun and such a good humoured atmosphere.
As it was our first time we just wandered around the museum and pressed buttons with no meddling under 10 year olds to spoil the fun!  They have a different theme each month and this month was Music and Science.  We went to the Universe of Sound exhibition where there was a virtual orchestra playing  the Planets by Holst.  They had filmed each member of the Orchestra and you went throught the exhibit listening to different sections of the orchestra and it explained how the instruments worked.  In the percussion section you could have a go with a Wii like interactive tutorial.  I got caught with a tamborine in my hand by one of the enthusiastic young members of staff who herded me over to the tubular bells.  I gave it a good go but Trev informed me that I was ahead in most of it.  I was also slightly deaf.  I wonder if most percussionist get a bit hard of hearing.  You could also have a go at conducting.
The staff are amazing.  Universally enthusiastic and as I am sure they only earn a pittance is admirable
Basically, it was a really fun evening.  Highly reccommended.  We intend to do a Zoo late next but probably leave the Natural History Museum until after the Olympics.

Hampton Court

We had a lot of fun on Saturday at Hampton Court, and here are some pictures of the day - mostly us rather than the arty farty building pictures - and the link to Picassa is here

Thanks to everyone who made it such a lovely day.

A few days in mid Wales

 Here we are outside the cottage on the very sunny last morning, just to prove that the sun did come out while we were away.  It had a lovely view over the fields in a charming and very historic village near Machynlleth called Pennal.  Owain Glyndwr wrote his letter to the Pope from there.

 Here is Brian enjoying very, very nice ice cream in Aberdyfi despite the winter coat and hat.

 The is the beach in Aberdyfi which is acres of sand and dunes.

 We went to the RSPB reserve at Ynys Hir where they filmed Springwatch last year and are going to be back there in a couple of weeks.  It is a beautiful spot on the Dyfi estuary with views for miles, and as the bluebells were out in the woods that was lovely too.  We went to the Dyfi Osprey Project (link is here) which has nesting ospreys and full 24 HD film cover and we saw Norah (mother bird) sitting on the nest and it is just amazing!  We also saw what must have been Monty (daddy bird) flying around too.

 This is Aberdyfi in the sunshine, which we got by  late Friday.  We were there Wednesday till Saturday, and it was pretty damp most of the time.  Cold as well, but we had a really good time.  We went to the Centre for Alternative Technology which was really interesting.  However for normal people all these saving the planet things do come in very expensive so I can't see me installing solar power or wind pumps anytime soon. 

We went for a walk to somewhere called Llyn Barfog which was uphill over a few walls with these ladder stiles but was lovely when we got there.

We had a real problem finding decent coffee for some reason.  Lots of cafes but the best coffee sadly was out of a machine in the Bird reserve.  So although we got 5 stars for ice cream, it got 1 star for coffee.