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Monday 2nd February 2009
I think we've been here before . . . have we?
  
Yes, we have. 31st March 2006 and A****** would have been about the same age. Marvellous.
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Tuesday 3rd February 2009
more pictures
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Then I have these videos of R****** and A****** (well, okay, mainly R******). Sorry one of them is sideways. Can someone rotate it please? HELP!
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Friday 6th February 2009
This might come in useful . . .
I'm kinda thinking when that future girlfriend comes round one day - "Hey, d'ya wanna see this real cute video of A****** when he was three years old?" or perhaps as part of a best man's speech, that kinda thing. I think we've got a few of these . . .
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Sunday 8th February 2009
Biting the hand that feeds, again
  
Over in Halton, feeding the ducks . . . and then a brief walk to work off some of the excesses of lunch. Some of the ducks get a bit carried away, snatching (or trying) bread from A******'s hand. Not good.
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Saturday 14th February 2009
A soliton is a localized field configuration that is stable - it cannot spread out and dissipate.
    
Yes. It looks like we went for a walk along the front at Grange, then went to a playground and then fed yet more ducks. I see patterns emerging. The title of this entry comes from the Wikipedia entry for a Q-Ball, referenced by Brian Cox in the film Sunshine . . . I think.
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Sunday 15th February 2009
Warton Cragg
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Today we went for a walk around Warton Cragg, where a gorgeously atmospheric mist had descended. However, the whole area acquired a new significance in light of the (fairly) recent purchase of the wood-burning stove. Looking around, it became clear that there was enough wood lying around on the ground (in various forms: massive trees that had recently fallen; trees that had fallen and been vaguely cut up; neat little piles of logs, pegged down to stop them rolling away) to keep my wood-burner going for the rest of my life . . . and beyond. But to enter the main area of woodland, we had to pass a sign that read (amongst other things), "No collection without permission" (or something to that effect). Exactly who we ask permission from remains a mystery. I've contacted the council about this but am still awaiting a response. I'm wondering about the logistics of transporting wood from inaccessible woodland (well, inaccessible in the sense of vehicles) back to somewhere accessible. Hmmmm. |
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Friday 20th February 2009
Ethan's birthday
   
Today was Ethan's birthday (Ethan's the one trying to blow out the auto re-lighting candles in the first picture there), and my parents had arranged a get-together at their house, so we all gathered at about 5pm, or near enough. After food, the children (all six of them, not counting those unable to walk or too young to navigate stairs safely) were left to play upstairs, whilst everyone else kind of hung around the kitchen. I remember at one point the smell of deodorant kind of drifted downstairs (images of children chasing each other with an aerosol can full of the stuff), but exactly what was going on, involving whom, wasn't entirely clear, and probably never will be. But it was all good.
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Sunday 22nd February 2009
Clougha, dogs, guns, sheep, etc.
    
After lunch, we went for a walk somewhere around Clougha. As you might be able to make out in some of these pictures, A****** was starting to get a bit of a gammy eye, so we thought, "Well, he just needs some fresh air." Is this a bit of a Victorian attitude? Well, it's not like we took him to seaside or anything (although the sea is visible from parts of Clougha). Erm . . .but yeah. The fresh air didn't really help, but nor did it necessarily do any harm. I like the second picture along here - A****** looks like some kind strange wild animal, creaping through the undergrowth.
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These pictures to the right are dull; they're here for my sake more than anything else. See, we thought we were following a path, a designated right-of-way or whatever it was . . . but yeah . . . we got to this point where we could see the stile thing that we needed to cross, but there was a barbed-wire fence blocking the way. Hmmmm. Latitude: 54° 2' 41.18"N. Longitude: 2° 42' 55.88"W.
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Friday 27th February 2009
The tank landing ship departed Southampton during the late afternoon of 5 June 1944 in a convoy bound for Baie de la Seine
 I can't exactly remember when it was . . . I think I had come back from Australia (the second time) and had some change left from the holiday. This would have been . . . erm . . .Rob? Was it 2003? So I thought, "Yes, I will buy myself a Scalextric set. I've wanted one of those for ages." Me and Tom had many hours of fun with that Scalextric set and, currently, it's in A******'s room (just a basic figure-of-eight track design for now, with a chicane and two cross-overs). But back then, I spoke to Tom about the possibility of mounting some kind of wireless camera thingy on one of the Scalextric cars.  Today I partly (very partly) realised this. With A****** climbing on my back (I've no idea what he was playing at) and R****** trying to eat anything resembling Lego, I managed to construct a kind of trailer made out of Lego for my camera. This, of course, was then attached (by a length of string) to one of the Scalextric cars. Unfortunately, my camera is a bit too heavy and my Scalextric car barely managed a half-lap around the track before disaster set it. This is the closest I could find on Youtube. What's A****** doing in the reindeer gear? Well . . . I'm not sure. That stuff was just there on the floor so he decided to dress himself up. Passes the time, I guess.
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Saturday 28th February 2009
Ploughwrights
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There's various stuff going on here . . . dinner, pass-the-parcel, flap-the-fish (using road atlases), trampoline . . . blah, di blah. Stuff like that.
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Today I partly (very partly) realised this. With A****** climbing on my back (I've no idea what he was playing at) and R****** trying to eat anything resembling Lego, I managed to construct a kind of trailer made out of Lego for my camera. This, of course, was then attached (by a length of string) to one of the Scalextric cars. Unfortunately, my camera is a bit too heavy and my Scalextric car barely managed a half-lap around the track before disaster set it. This is the closest I could find on Youtube. What's A****** doing in the reindeer gear? Well . . . I'm not sure. That stuff was just there on the floor so he decided to dress himself up. Passes the time, I guess.
