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Wednesday 1st July 2015
Poor captured lightning
    As the title suggests, these are my poor attempts at capturing the spectacular lightning storm tonight. For the most part, the lightning was miles away to the south . . . or east or maybe even west. Wherever it was, it never quite seemed to be nearby. Ah well. Kind of fun all the same. |
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Saturday 4th July 2015
Settle Football Tournament
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Sunday 5th July 2015
quartz feldspars, olivine, akermannite, Feldspathoids, magnetite
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Monday 6th July 2015
the stable layer of ice might lie under as much as 1 kilometer of material
I think M**** was trying to make a point here. I don't even know if I'm meant to keep this photo. Is anyone reading this? Anyway, the point was . . . that I should tuck my shirts in more (that is, I should engage in more tucking in of the shirts that I'm wearing, not that I should tuck in my shirts regardless of whether I'm wearing them or not . . . how is that even possible?!)?! Or maybe something about ironing shirts? Maybe a combination of all of these. Well, storage is fairly cheap these days, so I'll keep this one until I know any better. |
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Sunday 12th July 2015
A******'s birthday 'party'
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Friday 17th July 2015
timing of the playback is adjusted according to the atomic clock signals
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Saturday 18th July 2015
Bella Pasta and indoor fireworks
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Sunday 19th July 2015
Sizuuuurrrrggghhhh
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Tuesday 21st July 2015
Possibly the first cycle ride (on roads)
So yeah . . . I think this is a bit of a first for me: I went cycling with A****** and R****** and the cycle route took in a few actual roads. Yes, the boys were using the pavement for about 99% of the time but, hey, I still had to have my wits about me. Those are the fluorescent jackets from the Costain / St. John's Hospice Welly Walk thingy, from the end of April. So anyway . . . the route took us through some back alleys towards the main University of Cumbria entrance. Then onto Dale Street, then down to the White Cross and onto the canal. Things got a little more relaxing at that point. We cycled along the canal until we reached the road to Glasson Dock and then I realised how over-cautious I had been with my estimate of timings. Ah well, not to worry. We then cycled towards the cemetery, up through Picadilly, over the train line, and emerged at Booths (Scotforth). Along Lentworth Drive, then Barton Road and then home.
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Wednesday 22nd July 2015
Sugar-free breakfast
Slightly concerned by all these reports about sugar (going off at a tangent slightly, but which sugars? I think that's part of the problem. Apparently large doses of fructose are the culprit here, so when I refer to 'sugar', I'm primarily referring to fructose) being . . . well, basically bad for you . . . I've decided to investigate the possibility of ditching sugar at breakfast. See, I love my breakfast cereal (something high-fibre like All Bran), dried fruit, fruit juice and all that stuff (oh, and what about jam, marmalade, honey?!), so if I ever ditched refined sugar completely, what on earth would I eat at breakfast?! Anyway, it turns out that I only really bother with breakfast on Wednesdays and at the weekends, and then even at the weekend sometimes I just go straight to lunch. So that's like one or two breakfasts a week to think about. So where was I going with this? Oh yeah . . . we probably need to arm ourselves with some science at this point; I've gone for this - "Fat Chance" by Robert Lustig. But whilst waiting for this to arrive . . . today I concocted (what seemed like) a very odd but nonetheless gorgeous breakfast. I wanted to jot it down before I forgot.
Ingredients- Three chilli peppers
- A tomato
- Brown linseeds
- Sunflower seeds
- Pumpkin seeds
- Two eggs
- Knob of butter
- Ham
- Splash of milk
- Salt and pepper (loads of pepper)
- Boiled new potato (one or two)
- Red onion (a few slivers)
So yeah . . . I just cut everything up, bunged it all into a small pan and heated it all up until the eggs were all cooked. Absolutely gorgeous . . . or at least I thought so. R****** thought it stank but then he doesn't like eggs much. I'm kinda writing this note to remind myself: all those ingredients together do actually work (yeah, I know, it's basically a red onion / ham / chilli / tomato / potato omelette, with loads of other stuff thrown in). Christ, maybe I could have topped it all with a bit of grated cheese. Never thought of that.
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Mini football
   
Later on that day . . . well, I was looking after the boys in the morning (their school term now being over) just until M**** returned for school (her school term not being over) . . . so after a fairly leisurely start to the day, we ventured into town with the aim of A****** buying a new football. He was left with the choice of which kind to get, the size, the design, et cetera . . . and opted for this kind of mini-football thing. We took a slightly scenic route back home, going up Park Road and onto the fields at the end of Derwent Road (where it meets Quernmore Road). The boys had a little kick around with the ball and then we went through Williamson Park, back home for lunch.
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Friday 24th July 2015
Strathyre, day 1
  So here we are in our forest lodgey thing in Strathyre. We got here well early (check-in was at 4pm; we arrived about 3pm) and so had a couple of drinks and watched the children play on the playground. All fine. This is me looking down on the ground floor, with the boys playing Bananagrams and all our stuff just kind of scattered around. Upstairs was just our bedroom and an en-suite. Ground floor contained everything else: the boys' bedroom, shower room, toilet, lounge, kitchen, blah blah blah.
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Saturday 25th July 2015
Strathyre, day 2
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Sunday 26th July 2015
Strathyre, day 3
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Monday 27th July 2015
Strathyre, day 4
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Thursday 30th July 2015
Da Moooooon, again
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