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Hadrian's Wall

 
    

Some of my favourites from Cumbria. 

It is hard to miss, but note the green green grass. One of the advantages of living in the land of rain. Down here in the South, whilst we have somewhat less rain, our grass is all yellow. 

One of the things I love about London, is the history. Whilst there are less buildings in the Lakes, you can find the history if you look. 

You can feel the history deep beneath your toes. 

Such as Hadrian's Wall, which is 1800 years old. Housesteads Roman Fort is so well preserved you can almost see the paths the solider's walked.

With all the hills, the views are majestic and I doubt they have changed much since the romans looked upon them which is quite amazing.

Note also the viaduct, for some odd reason I do love viaducts. They are too bridges what chocolate is to strawberries, or a necklace to a nice dress - they just make them so much more exciting!

The flowers are from my godmother's lovely garden, which is entirely on a steep slope and a little bit unnerving to walk around, trying to be careful you don't fall down it. 

 

Narrow Boating Weekend

Should you find yourself with a weekend free, Narrowboating is definitely a good way to spend it. Which is what I did with some of the ladies from Guides this weekend.

We got our boat on friday evening, 70 feet long and with 12 beds, the Angel 2 is definitely narrow. Get used to breathing in when passing in the aisle... But what a wonderful way to see London by the Regents Canal.

I don't know how many times I have stopped on the top of this bridge to photograph this scene, so it gave me great pleasure to get a photo from under the bridge looking towards Hoxton.

 

One of many locks... Each lock involved people getting out, using a windlass to wind up the paddles, let water in the middle and then when the water was at the same level - open the gates and steer the boat in. 

On the second day we all had a go at steering the boat into the locks which was a little nerve wracking!

 

We saw these Oast Houses when we stopped for Tesco's (on the opposite side of the street), funny top have old and new so near each other!

 

Around the corner from where we were moored this was the scene....

 

On Saturday night we were moored in Limehouse Basin, a little bit more rocky than the previous night as the water is semi-tidal and only 2 locks away from the River Thames. My bed was about half way down on the other side so it was a strange feeling banging in to the wall all night.

 

 

Guitars, London South Bank: August 2007

Eiffel Tower in Fog, Paris 200

This is where I'll be in about a month's time, who can believe how the time has flown? Hopefully though unlike the photo, I'll have lovely weather (not to hot, not too cold) and just the right colour sky.

Taking off the heel's and an update

Monday's wedding was scorching hot (although not as hot as the rest of the week would turn out to be) and for the guests and the bride it was a liberating moment to take off the shoes...

Update on this week:

It's hot hot hot! With the met office having declared a heat wave, and me not being a fan of hot hot hot is struggling and looking forward to it being 25 again! The worst bit is the afternoon when the sun makes it over the nursery roof and lights up the playground. I have spent most of the time chasing children with water, hats and suntan lotion which has been largely successful as I also tell them they will have to go and sit inside if they don't do all three... Having seen a child having a fit from high temperatures I can tell you it is well worth the 

effort.

Tomorrow we are hoping to take the kids to the local park for the day so I am hoping it will be a little 

cooler for that (fingers crossed!)

Me and the mac struggle on, last night Aperture refused to open and needed to be reinstalled twice 

before finally working which took over an hour. It seems to be working now and all backed up okay 

although my brother tells me instead of external harddrives to backup I should use memory sticks 

(which don't have moving parts which could break as easily) and wouldn't lose so much work in one go.

There is lots of advice out there on backing up so I might just have to think about that and see which works best for me). The idea of lots of little memory sticks lying around doesn't fill my heart with joy though, sounds like an organisational nightmare.

Anyway thanks to the help section and to mac101 online and apple discussions I am learning lots about how to use the computer and Aperture and that is  good thing. Yesterday I learnt not to do a software update on Aperture as that is what is screwing up the vaults (its way of backing things up), thank goodness for geeks who have figured this all out!

FOX UPDATE: 

You will remember my recent post on the Fox we saw in the garden, two of my neighbours also called the RSPCA which spurred them into action and they came without us having to catch the fox, apparently when he came the fox was just lying in the garden and let itself be caught. I am very glad as I think this heat would have been slow torture for the poor animal...

Fox Gloves, Forty Hall, London 2009

As I try and deal with several big projects of processing photos including the ones from a wedding yesterday (where the bride wore the most beautiful dress - ever!) it is little ones like these that give me a relaxing diversion.

Happily today I have achieved the following things...

8 hours with the lovely lovely children and survived the hot weather

Bought bananas (you would think that we have to do it every week would make it a habit it isn't, every week it is like a surprise, 'oh, we need bananas, again?!' Maybe one day....

Formatted a hard drive and turned it in to a backup for the computer (and praying hard I didn't lose any important stuff when I formatted!) Presently it is half way through the back up and it has taken about an hour I think. Only another hour to go. Sigh!

Processing wedding photos, weeding out the rubbish ones. Still doing it, but I am more than half way through that, then will come editing stage. 

Managed not to go completely crazy trying to figure out why my other external hard drive has only 12 gb free space when I calculated it has 120 gbs used on it (250 gb drive) can anyone advise??? Please!

Ah well back to the deleting

The Flight of the Wasp: Karoo Desert National Botanical Gardens, South Africa 2008

Well at least I think it was Karoo, having forgotten the name and depended on google this is the only possible conclusion but I stand to be corrected if anyone remembers the proper location...

The thing about South Africa is you don't actually have to go to Botanical Gardens to see amazing photos because there are so so many everywhere. This is one of my favourite ever wasp photos as it is just so sharp which is not so always easy to acheive.

Play and Focus: Guadeloupe 2009

Holding on to the Hammock, Jojo is in business - what is trying to get to though?

CassCass reflecting on the finer points of life...

LissaLou trying to prove that a skirt really is intended to be worn over one's head...

and of course their patient, patient cousin who puts up with this madness and plays with them day after day...

Tropical Beach, Guadeloupe

My nursery that I am working at right now, is made up of tarmac, surrounded by a 7 foot high green metal fence and beyond that is a housing estate. In between us and the houses right now is builders who for reasons known only to themselves have removed a red wall and replaced it with a grey wall. Every day subjecting us to the noise of drilling and banging, the dust and their smoking. Thanks! So at times like that I like to think about times like this...

PS whats this beach called again Mum / Heather??

Counting down: Return from Gwada...

Well in about 17 days I hit the big 30 and then exactly a month after that I get the best birthday present possible, this lovely family come back to the UK. Woohoo! And if by some miracle - they have a place to live, sadly not in my local area but happily still in North London and fairly easy transport access to. 

Things I am looking forward to...

1. Taking Lissy Lou and Cass Cass to the Cinema (I think they are about the right age and will provide me good cover to see children's movies:)

2. My sister's cooking and hanging out in the evenings. (It's been a year sis, expect to see lots of me:)

3. My sister's home made yoghurt.

4. Great conversations and advice.

5. Of course - taking photos of my niece and nephew, and editing them on my cool new laptop.