Tales of the Sinar Family

Books for Christmas??

2011-12-13T01:38:00.000-08:00

Why not encourage your friends to read a book over the holidays?

City on a Hill - God of Wonders

2011-11-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

Forgotten this was a Third Day offering ... wow!

Picking songs

2011-11-10T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well I'm picking songs again for Sunday. Songs of Fellowship book 5 on order! There are so many great worship songs we just don't get time to learn ... anyone know any really brilliant ones we should look at???

The Sally Gardens

2011-09-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

The Trees They Do Grow High - my try

2011-09-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Pentangle - Hunting Song

2011-09-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

Jethro Tull - Greensleeves

2011-09-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

... contrast this?

Greensleeves (with lyrics)

2011-09-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

FAIRPORT CONVENTION - Crazy Man Michael (2010)

2011-09-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

Misty Moisty Morning - Steeleye Span

2011-09-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

I think this must have been a practice!

Steeleye Span - All Around My Hat (Crackerjack, 1976)

2011-09-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

It's crackerjack!!!

Scarborough Fair (Arrang.:John Renbourn)

2011-09-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

John Renbourn teaches "Lord Franklin"

2011-09-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

Medieval Harvest is coming up!

2011-09-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

Well the harvest supper is approaching once more and this year the Church has decided we're going medieval! Medieval banquets are fiine but I've been tasked with finding the music once more and this time I'm looking for music that is both entertaining funny clean and has something of a 'Hey nonny nonny' feel.

It's not that simple.

We don't have that many medieval instruments knocking around - I suppose de-stringing the guitar slightly to give that weird 'is it out of tune?' lute sound, is one possibility. We do have some recorders including a tenor recorder if I can find where we put them.

Lute music isn't that exciting though for an hour and a half unless you're passionate about lutes music and I doubt it's to everyone's taste, so I'm thinking of spicing it up a bit with some folk rock!

Well, team, ready for some youtube links to start us thinking? We've only got a week!

Rich Mullins - Awesome God - Live

2011-09-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

Rich Mullins: All the way my Savior leads me

2011-09-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

September seas

2011-09-07T12:52:00.001-07:00

Seagulls - will you fly or swim?

Sixpence None The Richer - Angels We Have Heard On High [Official Music ...

2010-12-13T11:55:00.000-08:00

Yay! Christmas!

Salvation's Song - Stuart Townend - Live Worship UK

2010-12-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

Cold!

2010-12-08T11:50:00.001-08:00

Is it me or is it cold?

'an unchanging landscape'?

2010-11-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

I suppose if you're looking for peace there's no need to change things if you have a landscape like these?

Tim Hughes - Never Lose The Wonder

2010-11-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

Vicky Beeching- Turn your eyes

2010-10-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

Tim Hughes - Here I Am To Worship (Live)

2010-10-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Keeping the blog up to date

2010-10-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

Keep your blogs up to date because you only want to post videos and pictures to an up to date site that everyone wants to use - nobody wants to look at an unchanging landscape

I never knew seabirds were so fascinating

2010-04-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Found ourselves in the RSPB visitor centre last week at Bempton Cliffs near Flamborough Head. We only went to find a picnic bench to have lunch (which we had bought in Tescos in Bridlington) and having paid the car park fees for all day, thought we might as well look round the sanctuary. Not expecting much to see (I keep trying to bird spot in woodland but although I listen to their songs I can never find out where they are!) the enthusiastic young person who greeted us and handed us the relevant leaflet explained that we would probably see Gannets, Gulls and Kittiwakes and Guillemots and perhaps razorbills and even puffins, so we headed off along the trail more optimistically and were not disappointed. There are five lookout points but until you reach them you can't see much and hear even less - the cliffs absorb the sound or it's reflected out to sea. Only when we reached the view points did the wall of bird calls hit us and I now want to go back - with the binoculars next time because I never did see the puffin that the woman with the two small children insisted (to her son) was there 'just below where the rock turns green, in a hole the shape of a church window with its yellow feet sticking out'! I didn't even take my glasses!

In praise of jigsaw puzzles

2010-03-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

There is something wonderful about doing a jigsaw. You start out with a box and you have some idea that inside is eventually going to be a large version of the picture on the box, but sometimes bits are covered up by the title and sometimes there isn't a picture.

I usually start with the edge pieces and once the framework is complete putting the content inside it is the idea. There are usually prominent parts that are easier to put together and then other areas where you really have to examine the pieces closely because you're not really sure until you get down close whether they fit and if they are the right ones.

Then eventually you get left with just the really tough part where everything actually seems the same (like the sky) and you just creep on putting in piece after piece in a monotonous effort that stretches sanity. At this point I sometimes lay the pieces out systematically and try every piece in turn every way round in each space until the right one is found. The smart way of course is to look for the notches and grooves and match the notches to the grooves, there is always a perfect match.

As you near completion and have maybe a hundred pieces on the table it is easy to think that along the way some have gone missing.

If you have been careful though, kept the puzzle together and followed through then you get to the last part where there are maybe thirty pieces left, they all go in so easily and then the fight over who puts in the last piece!

It's so amazing when it goes in and everything is perfect.

Only then can you look at the jigsaw and see the whole picture, and bits that seemed unfathomably strange make up the most beautiful bits of the picture.

I think that's a bit like life. And maybe the Church?

Footnote:

Once all the pieces are in and you've stared at the perfect, completed picture for a wee while, there is that humbling moment that you realise you can no longer justify hogging the dining room table any more and you crumple it all up and replace it in the box! I think that's a shame so I have started photographing my jigsaws so I can look back on them because in reality you're never going to do that same 3000 piece puzzle again, now are you?

Pass them on to someone else, donate them to your library or a worthy cause! A completed jigsaw is like a sign of the end times.

Anyway there go a couple of my memories...

He speaks

2009-04-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

How could I ever think that God doesn't speak?
I've listened to his voice in songs, in the sea, in the scenery I pass through in the car.

I passed by a grey stone wall tonight. Dead and lifeless.

Then further along green plants, growing between the stones had taken over the surface of the rock, and gave life to what was dead.

Rocky, stony beds made alive by living waters

Even the street names talk of Him ... Riverside Way (in a part of town that's nowhere near the river!)

Strange, that.

God speaks.

Listen.

Red Squirrels and Snow and things

2008-06-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

Well here we were back in Scotland... a delightful trip and a beautiful setting for a week where we had no contact (well very little - including a mobile phone call from Simon at the top of Cairn Gorm) from the outside world ... no TV, no phone signal at the cottage, no computer or internet ... back to nature.

Here are a few well chosen pictures of the week's 'events'!

Toeses and Noses

2008-04-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Anne thinks she may have broken a toe. (Oh no, she didn't do it on the City Tour bus - that was last week! Actually it's a good job she didn't break it last week, we did an awful lot of walking round Glasgow and she has been looking forward to that trip.) Fell down a hole apparently, we went up to A and E but the whole of Blackpool were there and the walk in centre (perhaps it should be renamed the 'hobble in centre' as everyone else seemed to be doing the same tonight) seemed a better option.

* I'm sorry but if you are going to become a regular reader of this blog you'd better get used to my long sentences and sub clauses and split infinitives. (If I ever get my novel completed it will definitely be full of this style of thing and it will be easier for you to read if you get into the hang of this now)

Well apparently they wouldn't have done anything for the toe at A&E anyway so we saved ourselves the long wait, just plenty of rest and elevation - they don't even strap it up now because it's better to splay the toes! (I've probably got that wrong, but anyway I'm not a medical expert) so here we are back at home. I seem to remember a friend at school playing football and breaking his nose, and they said much the same to him apparently (well I think it had already been splayed but that's not really what I meant.)

I suppose amazingly these injuries will just heal themselves. Never be quite the same again, noses just don't go back exactly after being broken, and probably toes don't either. There are a few well known football managers with distinctive faces to prove it. But we carry on. Interesting, though, isn't it, the wonder of the power of healing???

Well, I'd better go and make another coffee!

3 Days in Edinburgh - day 1: Dalkeith Park

2008-02-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

Dalkeith woodland

Highland cows

Adventure playground

Snowdrops

Tramway repairs in Blackpool

2008-02-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

The intention was to go for a walk and see the beached cargo ship off the sands at Norbreck, and the camera had to come as well as it doesn't get as much exercise nowadays since its accident.

So when we reached the promenade the realisation dawned that I still hadn't taken any pictures of the tramtrack without any tracks or trams!

Progress has obviously been slow due to the weather which also accounted for the unexpected tourist attraction off Norbreck - the stranded ferry!

The uprights carrying the cables appeared incongruously with their concrete bases hovering above the earth.

Strange to see the little JCB parked where the trams would usually be racing past, and the black drainage pipes half submerged in mud!

Rather pointless sign at this point, mainly because nothing is running very fast at the moment!

Ewoks and Onesimus

2008-01-25T12:23:00.000-08:00

Why does everything good always have to be serious too?

This morning listening to the radio on my way to work I heard someone complaining about the Ewoks in The Return of the Jedi. Getting in the way of our enjoyment of the grand climax to the first trilogy of Star Wars films! And Jar Jar Binks doing the same thing for the second trilogy (except that I remember him having his main role in the first film, so it hardly ruined the climax!)

Well I liked the Ewoks. What’s wrong with having little comic characters in an epic film as a bit of light relief? These weird but cuddly creatures were only following in the same tradition as those mysterious people in the first film who wobbled across the sand in their cloaks and hoods and you only ever saw their eyes.

If God had meant everything to be serious he wouldn’t have given us comedy.

There is laughter and comedy throughout history and throughout the Bible. What’s more comic than Balaam’s surprise when his ass has a go at him for being so stupid that he couldn’t see the angel of death blocking his road? Or the irony in Paul returning the formerly useless slave, Onesimus to his Christian master, in the letter to Philemon, because in turning and giving his life to God, his name is finally accurate.

It’s good to know that God has a sense of humour, because he invented it. So when sometimes when disaster strikes or we feel neglected or at the end of our tether it seems God is laughing at us, be reassured. He cries with us in these times.

And when things go amazingly well, God shares our joy. God laughs with us, but never at us. Because he loves us.

What to do after Heroes ?

2007-12-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

Not really sure how to react to the ending? Having spent the first twenty-five minutes of episode one thinking 'this is drivel - why are we watching this?' the Sinar family became hooked on Heroes and the last twenty-one weeks have been a roller-coaster ride of twists and turns!

Apparently this was a series that captured the imagination across the world! Yet the rest of the family have been untouched by it, and nobody I talk to knows what it's all about.

It seems to me that Web 2.0 is a bit like that. Tune in and you soon find thousands of examples of innovative practice, and yet a good part of the population don't get it at all or don't know it exists.

And that really applies to knowing God just as well.

Now I've just discovered that the next series has already finished in the US - oops I nearly just read the ending ...

Heroes Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_(TV_series)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/heroes/

http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/

Second Life and learning to fly

2007-11-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

Well I've tried but I haven't got a licence! I'm not sure it was a good idea trying to give myself a blonde pony tail when I'd chosen the dark hippy type and now I'm stuck with a frizzy black beard and a yellow pony tail stuck on the back.

I''m not too hot on the controls either (any tips you can give me on how I get the little chap to sit down on the benches provided and not try to walk all over them - this would be appreciated.) I seem to alternate between hovering in mid-air and swimming underwater - moving an avatar is worse than learning to drive a tank! Not that I've ever driven a tank.

I did have flying lessons once - quite enjoyed this after the first half hour given over to the rudiments of flight. I was getting to grips with trimming out and quite used to inspecting all the little rivets before climbing in, I had even learnt to land and steer with my feet, but then the dream put paid to it all!

Well, when I'd dreamt that I'd had to land halfway up Blackpool Tower after mislaying a pair of wings, managed it quite well but been censured by the passengers for making them climb down seventy four flights of stairs, the confidence just went and on my next lesson I couldn't get the trim wheel right at all!

Looking back, I think I handled the aviation better than controlling the avatar!

Top Hats and Spats

2007-10-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

Do the two have to go together?

I just realised I've never worn spats!

Does anyone still wear them as a regular item of clothing?

In Fusion?

2007-10-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Well I had forgotten how many people in Britain enjoy queueing at theme parks and especially how nice it is joining a queue in Blackpool Pleasure Beach!

Me, James, the best man, a Norwegian plumber and the stag boy himself, set foot in various parts of the PB early on Saturday morning and immediately joined a queue for that most institutional of white knuckle rides, the Grand National. It's not the big dips that get you, it's the very deceptive little ones near the end when you're sure you're going to smack your head on the bridge!

We lost our Norwegian friend from Wales after lunch in the aptly named Star (you need style to break a plastic fork on fish and chips!) so four of us chased steeples and were revolutionised by Irn bru before James, SB and his dad indulged in 13 holes of golf while BM Stu took some air.

The Space Invader 2 was opened by Doctor Who on the same day as Matthew was born, coincidentally, and then again according to one of the signs, exactly five years later, again by Doctor Who! Was he engaging in some clever kind of time travel and is that why it's called Space Invader 2? The queue started outside the log flume ride and half an hour later we were barcoding ourselves in - only to realise that the queue proceeded for another half hour inside up a series of inclined ramps and steps until we were faced with a sign saying '60 seconds to launch' and ten minutes later by another one saying 'thirty seconds to launch' - proving that Doctor Who was not the only one to indulge in a bit of time travel here!

But the best queue of all was the one for In Fusion (not good for Dads, I'll take some pictures, I thought, but then remembered I'd got a new card in the camera with over 1Gb so decided to take some video instead.) That queue disappeared out of site and assuming that we'd spot him on the way up because of the red hoody, waited till he came in site and took loads of video footage from the prime vantage point the two of us had taken up. Then we waited for him and the NP and BM to reappear - waited and waited - and in the end went to look for them in the shop.

'Where r u?' I ttxtd him.

'About to go on - in the front' came the rply.

Quickly James and I hared back to find our prime position still free and set cameras to repeat the exercise - only they're a little shorter than the first lot as I was worried the batteries were giving out.

Pictures are here and on facebook, the video clips on Daily Motion.

Regional Government?

2007-05-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

I'm all in favour of Independence for Scotland, actually. And Wales. In fact I think the Government should scrap plans for regional assemblies in England (I think they have, really) and instead start a campaign to revert to the ancient kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex and Kent. Wessex should probably not include Cornwall - Kernow of course is a separate country with its own Celtic language!

I'm not so sure of the impact economically, politically or legislatively but it might mean we would have a chance again in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Why doesn't the Isle of Man enter?

Scenes round Edinburgh

2007-04-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

Had a few days in the Scottish capital before Easter. I thought you might like to see some of the pictures taken while we were there.

Edinburgh Castle
The Camera Obscura
View over the city and river Forth
Greyfriars Bobby!
...couldn't leave without a view of the National Library

Edinburgh is a warm place to visit - even when it's cold! The people of Scotland make it very warm. (and the whiskey)

... so where was I at Noon today after all?

2007-03-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Well, in the end I was sitting in a meeting discussing fire risk assessment training and SMS messaging (what does the last S stand for?) and wondering when the lunch would arrive, before or after my Springboard presentation (which in the end lasted about 2 minutes). No I didn't do it from a springboard, it's hard to explain...

I was hoping to tell you that I'd been out for a walk in Avenham park or down by the Ribble following the track of the ancient tramway that originally connected the Lancaster Canal to the Leeds & Liverpool, by means of a rickety bridge over the river... centuries before the fantastic Millenium link that now locks down to the Ribble Estuary and back up the River Douglas to the L&L ... and regale you with the state of the weather and the daffodils now blooming all along the verges of Tom Benson way (although I would have been nowhere near there at noon anyway, it's just the thoughts of the Ribble link and the Lancaster canal which the road goes over.

Or about how dangerous it is walking down Fishergate or any other city centre street, not from traffic but from the number of other people intent on keeping on track and ready to barge you against the litter bins or pillar boxes or squash you against the wall or just run over you with their pram wheels or smash your knees with their bags of shopping.

Or how the prices of CDs don't seem to have been adjusted in any way to truly reflect the growing competition from downloads, in fact just going the other way (unless you really want the greatest hits bargains or a re-release of Tunes from the Edinburgh Tattoo - which I really enjoyed)

But there I was with my laptop on the desk wondering when the battery was going to run out (it didn't) making plans for the future of the library service, and my lunch.

Felts and Popups

2007-01-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

So the wind blew again and the world came to a standstill.

It was the brakes on the car I had to have done this time, and so I got the train to work in the morning. The wind blew the roof off the station so I had to get a coach home, it took two hours. Lovely!

Well it was a pleasant green coach so that's not bad.

I arrived home only to find that the wind had blown the felt roof off the bay window of our house. This is at the back of the house and years ago I built a section of the model railway into a window seat under the bay, this is normally covered with an upholstered seat. It is now completely ruined by the rain - you see we don't normally see this felt roof and it was only when our nice neighbours from round the back of the house came round to tell us that we knew something was wrong - 24 hours after the wind blew it off! Moral - always check your back room as well as the front room!

Hopefully I'll be able to post this to my blog. We went wireless last month and new security software on the PC and XP and all that and even though I've allowed popups at two levels of security there is obviously another layer still blocking the preview popups !!! Grrr!!!!

Blessed or lost?

2006-12-07T14:52:00.000-08:00

Overheard at a Church Worship Team Practice. They were checking through the song list for the morning service (or was it the evening service?)

‘after Communion it’s ‘Hope of the world’, ‘I believe there is a God in heaven’, ‘Jesus how I love Your name’, then it’s a prayer.

Then it’s the last hymn ‘ Lo he comes with clouds descending’.

Last of all it’s the final blessing and then ‘Into the darkness’

I hope not!

Locking Nuts

2006-12-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

It was flat.

Completely. The tyre wasn’t on the rim but it was obvious there wasn’t much air left in it. So down to the nearest garage armed with my twenty-p’s I went. Another garage – another air and water machine. Took the top off the valve, put it away safe, put the twenty-p in the slot. The air wasn’t even going in.

Forgot the ‘completely flat tyre’ button – so I pressed that, put in another 20p. It still wasn’t going in. Have to change the wheel. Got out the jack, the little lever for removing the wheel nuts, (oh and by the way it is pouring with rain again and I’m in my suit. So sacrificing two road atlases to kneel on, I set to, searching for the groove for the jack (doesn’t seem to be one on my car) then jacking up the car and remembering to stop just short of lifting the wheel off the floor so it’s possible to loosen the nuts.

Except they’re alloy wheels. Meaning - they have locking nuts (to stop people nicking them). So a special 'key' is required to undo the locking nuts. It’s very pretty, with a star pattern that just matches the pattern on the nuts and is apparently unique to my car. And it’s useless! As soon as any pressure is put on the spannery thing the key falls off. Who invented these locking nuts? They want dealing with.

So when the RAC man came and loosened the nut in 10 seconds, he suggested I replace them with ordinary nuts – ‘Alloy wheels are 10 a penny – who wants to steal them nowadays?’
So here is my big decision – do I go to the dealer and ask if they can supply me with a new set of locking nuts and a new key, or risk it and put ordinary nuts on the wheels?

Under Pressure

2006-12-05T16:21:00.000-08:00

I think I have a puncture.

In one of the tyres on my car, of course. I don’t think I personally have a puncture, at least I hope not.

It’s one of the front ones, but on the near side so the car wobbles towards the kerb and not the middle of the road. Still dangerous though. I will get it pumped up with some more air tomorrow and see if it goes down again.

Why do these problems with tyres have to occur when it’s bad weather? When it’s hot and sunny they all run straight and true for months, fully inflated like blimps - but then as soon as the temperature drops or it blows a gale or the wind starts to come down in stairrods, the tyre goes flat! I think my car likes practical jokes.

It happened yesterday, I was early for work so I thought, I’ve got time to call at Tesco’s and check the pressures. They’ve got a convenient ‘air and water’ bit at the Tesco garage. I get there and notice a sign with the words in red “FREE AIR”. Oh good. That’s why there’s already a transit van and a new mini in front of me in the queue for air, but I’m there now, so I’ll wait. Transit vans’ tyres must hold a lot of air.

I’ll be organised, I thought. While I’m waiting, I’ll take all the little tops off the tyre valves. So I did, and got back into the car wondering where to put them where they wouldn’t get lost. In the little pocket between the seats, that’ll do.

Of course, by the time it’s my turn, the air pressure gauge isn’t working. Maybe it wasn’t working for all the others, perhaps that’s why it took the transit van so long. It took me a long time, you’re supposed to set the numbers to the right pressure and then hold it against the valve until the machine bleeps three times, so I’ve set it to 32 and pressed the button and yet it doesn’t bleep at all. Maybe I’m not holding the gauge properly.

Well, it isn’t working, there are no bleeps. I don’t think there’s air going in this tyre. Unless it bleeped and I didn’t hear it, or the tyre is already full. The number is showing 32, which is right. I move on to the next wheel and start again. No bleeps. Move round to the third wheel. This time it’s at the far side of the car and the tube is at a funny angle. I move, go back towards the machine and pull out the tube to ensure it’s not snagged under the wheels. Now I can’t see the gauge either through the car window, so I move again until I can peer through under the driver’s mirror and the corner window. No joy. Try the last tyre.

Why is it you have to go all the way round the car to the fourth wheel, the tube never stretches far enough? I now realise that I’ve actually been taking air out of the tyres and one is definitely flat now. I try again with this wheel, pressing extra hard and foregoing trying to see the gauge as I’m too low down and if I try to look up the gauge comes out and the tube hisses angrily at me. And I can’t read the numbers from here now because I’ve left my driving glasses in the car. No it’s not bleeping and the air has now almost all been taken out of the tyre. Their gauge is broken. So much for ‘free air’.

There’s nothing for it, I’ll have to put all the little tops back on the tyres and go and find another garage with one that works. By this time of course two of the little tops have buried themselves underneath a pile of car parking tickets and petrol receipts and refuse to come out. Eventually I’ve got four little tops and my hands are black from the dirt on the rubber, and I go round and put them back on. (It’s usually at this point that I drop one and it rolls down the grid that they always put next to the air and water thingy, but on this occasion it doesn’t happen.)

I get back in the car and then of course realise that it was a rather foolish thing in this ridiculously cold wind, to get out of the car to check the air in just my shirt sleeves. I had a jacket and a coat sitting there on the back seat. Shaking and feeling a little ill, I drive off trying to think where the next garage is, and whether the tyres will be on the rim before I get there, when I realise there is another garage across the road.

The air is not free here but at least the gauge works, for twenty pence. Only I’ve not got any change. I decide to put some petrol in the car and pay on my credit card, and ask the nice man behind the counter to add an extra forty pence to the bill so I can put 2 twenty pences in the machine. “I’m sorry I can’t do that. I’m personally accountable for everything in the till. We don’t give cash back”

So looking round I grab the first bar of chocolate I can see and present my twenty pound note. The chocolate of course is 89p but the man feels sorry for me and gives me a tenner, eight pound coins, a ten pence, a penny and five shiny twenty-pences.

This time I remembered to put my coat on before putting the money in the machine and checking the tyres. Of course it takes much longer than expected because I’m now putting back all the air that I took out of the tyres at the last garage!

I was a bit late for work and one of the tyres has already gone down again.

So now I will have to find a garage and go through the whole rigmarole again tomorrow. And see if the tyre goes down again. I suppose if it does I’ll then have to change the wheel and drop it off at a tyre repairers for repair. They’ll probably try and persuade me that the tyre has had it and needs replacing, and probably the one on the other side to match – that’s what they usually do, isn’t it? Well it’s only a few months since the last time and I let them replace all four then because they said they were on special offer.

Perhaps it’s time to invest in a train ticket.

Cyffordd Dyfi

2006-11-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

They may be going to add other stretches too! Does this mean I’ll get to spend retirement ambling through Newtown and Welshpool and – joy of joys – stand on the platform at
Dovey Junction and wait for the connection to Barmouth?

The one thing about the railways of rural Wales I remember from college days was that they always arranged for the trains to go particularly slowly through the most scenic parts. Great for geography students but also for the would-be romantic poet among us!

Dash it! I’ve just realised the snag – I don’t live in Wales any more.

Conwy Valley Railway

2006-11-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

One thing about growing older to look forward to is the possibility of travelling completely free on those out of the way stretches of railway that go through parts of the British countryside that are vanishing from memory.

I spent several holidays during growing up, accompanying my Dad round the goods yards and sidings along the banks of the River Conwy estuary, taking photos not of the engines and wagons (though I still have a few of those) but of the details of points and signal gantries, the inside of engine sheds and turntables and buffers.

The grand scheme of my youth was to complete a complex layout in Hornby 00 gauge of the Conwy Valley, featuring Glanconway and Deganwy stations, the piece de resistance being the town and castle. The question was where. Firstly it was going to be in the attic but then into the garden; we got as far as building the shed and the first 8 by 4 section which would eventually lead to Llandudno Junction. Then we took up golf.

Now at least the dream lives on through the prospect of riding endlessly around those lines I never got to model in 00 – all thanks to the Welsh assembly. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6180746.stm

Around Alnwick

2006-11-25T06:27:00.000-08:00

Last month we visited Northumberland and paid a first visit to the Alnwick Garden ...

... here are some images from our day there.

It was October so not much in blossom, but the crab apple trees were pretty impressive!

This Blogging Business

2006-11-14T14:43:00.000-08:00

It's like DIY really, this blogging thingy.

Once I get started I can build a shed, tile the whole house, (well that's an exaggeration but I think I'm allowed poetic licence here) knock down the air-raid shelter to build a rockery, demolish the rockery and put in a fish-pond, move an electric plug, mend the back gate, lay a laminate floor ...

... sorry that last bit got a bit out of hand, but the point is, it takes me years to get round to this stuff, but if someone else comes round to my house and cuts a couple of tiles, bashes a hole in one of the walls, buys me some bricks for my birthday (HUMM!!) or kicks over the old shed, well, spurred into action and I can do it.

So the biggest problem with blogging is what I'm going to call myself that's not going to be too embarrassing and I'll regret it in two weeks' time, and what to call the Blog!

So for those who didn't know me back in 1964, and therefore don't have a clue who the Sploot family were, well, it's just a name.

But they do exist (somewhere in my imagination, along with Algy Jolly and the Mucklethwaite Jugglers, the Penguin who wanted to sail round the world, Bert Lacey and his bi-plane, and Jampot Joe.)

However I'm not sure how often any of them will appear in this Blog since it is meant for you - well more of a means for me to talk about the things that I think about, the things that happen or may have happened, and just sometimes, the things that really matter...

To me...

Or not to me?

That is the question!!!

Hey, well, not a bad start?