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Saturday 1st August 2009
A quick walk around Clougha
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Sunday 2nd August 2009
Hest Bank
      
As usual my camera kind of let me down here. There were some seriously weird looking clouds going on, that kind of resembled spectral, winged creatures (well, in my head anyway). In the last picture there was a kind of rainbow-like arc going through that cloud but it doesn't really come across too well in the photo. I seem to remember this was a sunny weekend surrounded by some hideously grey, cloudy, rainy weekdays.
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Saturday 8th August 2009
JC Country
   
After a bit of a false start (involving traffic jams and such-like), we met up with Rob, Rosie and Freddie at that JC Country place again.
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. . . and here are the chilli pepper plants. Flowers have just started appearing. Yippee! I'm amazed at how well these things have been growing recently. I've had to re-pot them three or four times now (I'm starting to lose track). Kind of sad to think that the fruit of all this effort are a quantity of jalapeños that could easily be consumed on a single pizza. Next year: habaneros.
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Sunday 9th August 2009
Should the rules by which a desert cactus lives be adopted by a sycamore as well?
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Today is my dad's birthday. I'll probably change this entry once I get all the pictures taken off my camera but, for the time being, a lyric heard in a Clouddead song ('And all you can do is laugh') serves as an interesting title for this entry. I often listen to this self-titled album and think the rather ridiculous thought, "You know, there's probably more original ideas in this album then the entirety of the current top 40." Of course, there's no way of ascertaining such a thing. Yep.
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Well, yeah, but why change an entry, when you can just add to it? Hence, here are loads of photos from my dad's birthday.
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Tuesday 11th August 2009
Nicky Nook
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This seems like such a long time ago. We're over in Scorton somewhere. I wonder if that's classed as the Forest (or Trough?!) of Bowland? Anyway, that penultimate picture freaks me out a bit. It's almost as if A****** has just pushed R****** over and R******'s looking up at me, pleading, "Daddy, aren't you going to save me from this brute?" and there's A******, about to go in for the kill. Of course, the reality is, erm, very, very far from that . . .
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Thursday 13th August 2009
Perseids?
Well, according to Wikipedia, those stupid Perseid meteors peek on 12th August and, even then, you wanna be watching just before dawn but then the light from the moon will probably ruin everything anyway. Thus, I wasted about half an hour tonight checking the very clear skies, hoping to see 'something'.  Complete waste of time. Instead I experimented with various bizarre modes on my camera (64 second exposure anyone?) before realising that a cheap camera cannot be expected to take decent pictures of the night sky. It just ain't gonna happen. I could also rant about Freecycle, although it's not really a rant . . . loads of our stuff has recently been taken away via Freecycle. I woke up at 4am in the morning the other day and spent the next two hours going over the details of a web-based, database-driven version of Freecycle. But then I started thinking about feedback and it got very confusing. I think I fell asleep at that point. I only say this as the next thing I could remember was a dream that wasn't there before. A dream that wasn't there before?! Well, you know what I mean. I had the memory of a dream that wasn't there before, which had nothing to do with Freecycle.  Anyway . . . So strange people turn up at our door, saying things like, "Hello. I've come to collect [whatever]. From Freecycle?!" then there's usually a pause and then I state their name, with a question mark at the end. They go, "YES!" and I hand over some bag of rubbish that they usually get all excited about. Christ, you could write a Dave Gorman style of book about all this, although you would probably need rules set out from the outset, which I haven't done. Hell, it's not like I can be bothered to write said book anyway. It's just a thought really. What am I doing? It's gone midnight. I should be asleep. Hello?
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Saturday 15th August 2009
A new word learnt - velocipede
So . . . nothing much happened today. I reattached the bathroom door (it had previously been in the garage, being re-painted) and loads of tidying up and general de-cluttering was done. Late in the afternoon, a quick walk around Arnside. A couple of Freecyclers turned up in the evening to take away more of our rubbish. And then, at some point, I spotted this strange message lying on our doormat, having been hand-delivered to our house. I've obscured the name of the sender but nowadays every man and his dog seems to be on some wretched 'social' network, be it Facebook, Myspace or something else . . . god knows. So I guess I only partially obscured their identity. Ah well, not to worry. The thing is, though, we read the message and were both like, "What disturbance?" You see, when a party gets out of hand with people turning up that you don't know, then . . . well, that conjures up images of hundreds of drunk teenagers fighting in the street, urinating in your garden, shouting, swearing and vomitting until sun-rise or whenever the drink/drugs run out, whichever comes first. Perhaps that did happen but, nonetheless, we slept through it all. But then, perhaps (and far more likely) nothing of the sort happened but then why the note? It's all very strange but kind of sweet, in a way. M**** and I would like to reassure the writer of this missive, "Hey. It's cool. We weren't disturbed, nor were our children. Don't worry about it."
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Sunday 16th August 2009
Holker Hall (and gardens)
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Wednesday 19th August 2009
Clive Owen
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I quite liked Clive Owen in Sin City (hey, and he was okay in that Bourne Identity film) but the rest . . . blimey, such rubbish. I dunno why, but for a similiar reason for sitting through King Arthur, tonight I did sit through 'The International'. These are the kinds of films you watch and have nothing to show for. To offset this, I also watched 'Gran Torino', which was a good film. I enjoyed that one. |
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Saturday 22nd August 2009
Silverdale?!
    
Well, we could be pretty much anywhere, looking at these pictures, but I think we were somewhere round about Silverdale, near Jack Scout.
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Tuesday 25th August 2009
Book at bedtime (must think of more imaginative titles for these things)
    
This is pretty much how every day ends for A****** and R****** these days - a story in bed together. As you can see, A****** will usually pay attention (despite having heard the story dozens of times) whilst R******'s attention kind of comes and goes, but he sits largely still, which is the main thing. Recently, R****** likes to join in the reading, shouting out random sounds here and there.
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Beard removed in stages
 
Whilst this probably all seems very narcissistic, I wanted to capture the removal of my beard and the various different facial hair combinations that were possible in the course of removing said beard. This was really more for my sake than anything else. What man has never wondered, "What would I look like with a moustache?" Thus, in the above two pictures, this is me with full beard - nothing removed yet.
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Then, to the right there, I've removed all the neck hair but this was a bit boring, so what could I tackle next . . . ?
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So next I removed an odd strip from my cheeks, leaving just some massive side-burns and the chin area. Hmmmmm.
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Next off were the side-burns, leaving just a goatee thingy and a moustache. You know, I think next time I would like to remove the moustache first or perhaps remove everything from just one side of my face or something, so that I could be bearded or not-bearded, depending upon the viewing angle. Yes.
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Last to go was the goatee. R****** was a bit freaked out by just the moustache. So, yes, that too had to go.
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Saturday 29th August 2009
My mobile phone contract isn't even in my own name
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God, I can't stand Radio 4. In fact, I'm starting to despise all television and radio. Maybe I'm turning into Victor Meldrew already. After all, M**** and I have been watching quite a bit of 'One Foot in the Grave' recently. I'm not sure why we've been watching this; it's only funny about 2% of the time. But, erm . . . no, you see . . . the title of this entry is something I heard on Radio 4. Some guy had recently turned deaf and, well, christ, I would imagine that introduces all manner of problems for a person who has been able to hear throughout their life. But, to cap it all, to really rub salt into the wounds, his god damn mobile phone company wouldn't even let him have a contract in his own name. It was that bad. In this situation, the ordinary man would take his business elsewhere, to a mobile phone provider who was slightly more flexible, more understanding. To quote one of my favourite sayings, "Better to light a candle than curse the darkness," which, conversely, is something I can't imagine ever coming out of Victor's mouth. Margaret, maybe, but not Victor.
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Monday 31st August 2009
Warton Crag . . . horses and sheep
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August 2009
other months
other years
navigation
friends
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Complete waste of time. Instead I experimented with various bizarre modes on my camera (64 second exposure anyone?) before realising that a cheap camera cannot be expected to take decent pictures of the night sky. It just ain't gonna happen. I could also rant about Freecycle, although it's not really a rant . . . loads of our stuff has recently been taken away via Freecycle. I woke up at 4am in the morning the other day and spent the next two hours going over the details of a web-based, database-driven version of Freecycle. But then I started thinking about feedback and it got very confusing. I think I fell asleep at that point. I only say this as the next thing I could remember was a dream that wasn't there before. A dream that wasn't there before?! Well, you know what I mean. I had the memory of a dream that wasn't there before, which had nothing to do with Freecycle. 
Anyway . . . So strange people turn up at our door, saying things like, "Hello. I've come to collect [whatever]. From Freecycle?!" then there's usually a pause and then I state their name, with a question mark at the end. They go, "YES!" and I hand over some bag of rubbish that they usually get all excited about. Christ, you could write a Dave Gorman style of book about all this, although you would probably need rules set out from the outset, which I haven't done. Hell, it's not like I can be bothered to write said book anyway. It's just a thought really. What am I doing? It's gone midnight. I should be asleep. Hello?
