The Blog Before Christmas

2011 Dec Blog

Oh! to be able to keep up with a regular blog. I can’t say that updating Facebook has consumed much of my time. I have given time to the New Stapleford Community Centre website http://newscomcen.co.uk/ and have spent some time on my own website and associated gallery http://www.theoaksphotos.com/ and http://gallery.theoaksphotos.com/#home. In fact my website has been radically transformed and is on its way to becoming more like a blog.

The other factor that has reduced blogging is that our outings and photographic expeditions have reduced in number since 22^nd October, as the weather has begun to change and possibly SAD has kicked in. SAD is more probably more accurately spelled CBB (can’t be bothering.)

However, a number of things have happened and some photographs have been taken since the wedding.

On the 25^th October it was Irene’s birthday. Sally sent a very colourful and useful gift. There was a trip to the garden centre and then we celebrated the occasion by an evening meal with Jan and Lawrence at Bartlewood Lodge carvery. It was a dark, wet evening. The queues were long the food was a reasonable price and good.

Our next event was the bonfire. Each year the council allow us to have a bonfire on the allotment. This year it was on bonfire night. We burn the old wood that has been stored throughout the year and Irene adds the branches from the pruning that she does as the fire blazes. The fire was quite small this year, but burned furiously. We left as the fire burned out and the rain came.

Early in December Joni and Fiona returned. They did very well in bringing a largish van load of possessions all the way from Scotland. Most of them are stored in Fiona’s parents’ double garage, but we have a fair amount of them stored in various parts of the house. To celebrate their safe return we took them to Bartlewood; this time we went at lunch, which was quieter. Fiona stayed with her parents for a week, returned to complete some work and returned with their car a little while ago.

During the time Fiona was away we went on an expedition to find a model railway in Cromford. This was because dancing friends said that we should visit. However, what none of us knew was that the exhibition was only open in the summer months. We walked along the Cromford Canal, stopping only to snap the village rugby match, but the growing cold and fading light bought an end to our walk.

On the 24^th we had another visit to Nottingham University. The lighting was good and squirrels were posing.

 

The main purpose of the visit was to see the Lowry exhibition in the Arts Centre Gallery. In case you do not know, Lowry has been accused of only being able to paint matchstick figures. He is however a very skilled draftsman with a good understanding of composition. He portrays the industrial scene of is day with feeling and a degree of accuracy (although this cannot always be trusted as he uses objects as metaphors). It is unlikely that such an exhibition will be staged again in the near future as many works have been loaned from numerous private collections. This was a unique opportunity and gave us much to ponder on. We also learned a word; 'quotidian' which is an adjective meaning 'ordinary, common place...'

By 25^th November I was satisfied that the Bexton sidings were complete and dragged a studio light up to the loft to make a photographic record. The little engine and its livestock wagons do not go far. From the sidings they travel into a tunnel under the back of the main line and out along a bland piece of track to terminate at the abattoir station before reversing back empty for the next load of livestock.

On the 1^st December we braved a trip to Nottingham to do some non-online Christmas shopping and to choose before purchasing some things online. It was cold but the sun was bright with plenty of blue. While taking a photograph to show the brightness of the sky the bottom half of the picture was in shade. I used the computer to convert this part to black and white. I feel that this enhances the contrast.

Having staggered through a couple of shops by 12 o’clock we were about ready for our annual Christmas coffee in ‘Waterstones’. Fortunately they house a ‘Costa’ café which did a beautiful triple chocolate muffin full of rich chocolate sauce. 

We did a very good deal on a book at the same time and selected another book for online shopping. After our break we headed for ‘Market Square’, passed the colourful cabin shops (German Market) and were awed by the high flying, rotating ride.

 

In contrast to the Christmas shopping rush was the ‘Occupy Nottingham’ camp. This was tidily arranged in a corner of the square and occupied by a fair number of anti-capitalist protesters.

From here we headed on up to the Victoria Shopping Centre. On the way, at one spot, autumn colours were still in evidence and I photographed the scene and posterized the image to intensify the colours.

Victoria Centre was busy and decorated for Christmas.

 

They have a good indoor market. I could have spent a fortune on CDs of bygone pop music. Irene did her purchases while I photographed colourful market stall scenes.

From the shops we headed for the ‘Nottingham Contemporary’ 

(http://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/). A German artist called Klaus Weber was exhibiting in all four galleries. We were impressed by his ‘honey pictures’. Yes, true, the media was honey. The two works of art have to be kept perfectly flat and not shaken in transit as the honey would move. The idea of the pictures was to show scenes of cooperative human activity using the product of social honey bees. The artist also had curated two other galleries. He had chosen pieces from the basements of other galleries; in particular, the ‘Science Museum’ and the ‘Tate’. His plan was to exhibit them creatively so that the visitor would have to interact with pieces and look for patterns in the arrangements. We were fascinated by such things as amphora being displayed on red plastic buckets and a bison head being displayed in its wooden packing case. At the end of the last gallery was the artist’s collection of statues of monkeys staring at human skulls or sitting on books. Apparently some artist had created one to mock Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and copies were made, each slightly different. Each object was perched on its own transparent tower and there was a feeling that this was a single act of worship, but we were able to wander amongst them (but not towing the shopping trolley behind us). We were left wondering what Klaus Weber’s view of evolution was. Then it was time to go home.


Two days later, a little later than planned, Irene and I put the allotment to bed. For me this meant emptying the shed. Cleaning it out, cleaning, oiling and replacing our tools to survive the winter until work begins again in March 2012.

It feels distinctly like winter, although we lack the snow of last year. I end this blog with my latest picture, showing storm clouds near the house. I like the contrast between the darkness and the sunlight.

Rachel's Wedding

Saturday 22nd October

One useful function of blogging is that it provides the blogger with a useful record of date, times and circumstances.

The bride and groom were blessed with a beautiful day. There was sunshine and blue sky. It was a little chilly and the wind picked up on the odd occasion. All in all, not a bad day for late October in the UK.

The last wedding that we attended in Hinckley was still fresh in our minds. We set off at the same time as we did last time and arrived at St Peter's Catholic Church at much the same time as before. This gave us good period of time to walk up to a tea shop. It has the charm of a country tea shop, but the view outside is anything but. 

St Peter's is a beautiful, modern church and Father Frank is a lovely man.

It was, altogether, a special service and the bride was truly radiant.

Rachel outside the church

From the church we made our way to Ullesthorpe Court Hotel and Golf Club. This is a very remote but great place for the photographs and the meals. All the food was excellent.

The Hotel

We were able to catch up with our relatives; Anne, Sid and George as well as with Adrian, Veronica and family.

Rachel and Andy arriving at the hotel

Elizabeth, Helen, Veronica, Andy, Rachel, Adrian and Mike

The young people enjoyed the loud music and we left just after 10.00; getting home at about 11:00. This is about as much as we oldies can take. 

Anne and Irene

Many thanks to Rachel and family and to Andy Clayton and family for their kind hospitality.

Wirksworth Model Railway Exhibition

A Fantasy Model with rising balloon, moving buses, octopus, moving canal boat etc

A beautiful diorama

Details on an O Gauge

Roanoke Round House and Turntable

A Working Coal Conveyor

Detail inside a workshop

Coaling and turntable

Sunday 16^th October

We were pleased to see that (Facebook) Sally and Ian had not only seen the Wales v France semi-final, but had also seen The All Black beat the Aussies on the following night. This must be a memorable part of her birthday.

Lawrence rang to say that he was in no fit state to go to Wirksworth and so Irene volunteered to accompany me.

We like going to this little Derbyshire town. It is so countrified, oldie-worldly and peaceful. It is down in the bottom of quite a deep valley.

The exhibition was being held in three main venues. We easily avoided parking in the town’s only pay car park at £5 a day and walked down to the railway station. Here we bought our tickets at a staggering £6 for the two of us, got directions and went up to the ‘Town Hall’ venue. The stewards expressed great pleasure that the lifts were working this year; so up the stairs we went. This was the main event with a number of prize-winning displays. It was a relatively thinly attended event and we were able to speak to number of exhibitors. The ‘Maun Valley’ exhibit caught my eye as this has associations with my childhood in Mans (Maun's) field. I asked him about the reality of the scene and was told that his first model was meant to be a real scene. However, when he displayed it he was immediately greeted by a visitor complaining that a certain tree was not in the right place. He decided that his next exhibit would be more a figment of his imagination. This time when he exhibited it he one of the visitors was absolutely certain that he had crossed the very bridge shown on the model.

Please note that photography at these events is very difficult, as is the photography of any small scale models. In particular at these events I do not feel it proper or even fair on other visitors to use a tripod; and certainly not set up studio lighting. I do not like using high ISO speeds because of noise and am therefore shooting at a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/30^th with a large aperture. You therefore lose depth of field and the ability to freeze movement. Sometimes this latter can be used to good effect.

Tea Rooms

The next venue was the Parish Room which was a little way down from the Town Hall. From here we doubled back to make our way back to the car for our packed lunch and back up the street to our favourite tea shop. Today the shop was much more crowded but we waited patiently as the owner doddered around taking orders. Irene broke the bank. She had a Viennese cake with cream, which made our total bill go up by 50p to £3.50.

Bright Lighting

Z gauge

Continuing to retrace our steps and going further down the street we came to the Memorial Hall. This had the least exhibits, but all three were very interesting. One was a modern layout with powerful station lighting. Another was the Z gauge. This not the smallest gauge that I have seen, but is extremely tiny. The final exhibitor was showing a Trix Twin layout http://www.trix.co.uk/. This system has a third rail in the centre. The reason for this was that the outer wheels were pick up wheels and were connected through a metal axle and so a third pick up was in the centre of the engine. The power supply was 14v AC and so a solenoid was built into the motor and could be activated to switch the engines direction. The makers had come up with other innovations. Well before the advent of fibre optics wherever light was needed it was carried from a bulb through a transparent plastic tube to the output end.

In this venue we also spied some ‘bargain’ bits for stocking fillers. We also studied some less bargain bits; namely materials for constructing model gardens. Irene thinks that she should be able to come up with cheaper alternatives to construct her garden on the layout.

Now was a complete turnaround back to the station. The station is on the private Ecclesbourne Valley Line http://www.e-v-r.com/. It now runs 8 miles to Duffield. It now runs a fairly frequent service between the two ends; the days depending on the time of the year.

It is an interesting place to visit having a large yard for older standard gauge stock and a short section of 2 foot gauge which used to serve the quarry through tunnels under the town.

It was a lovely bright autumn day for the visit. On the way back we called in to see Lawrence and offer sympathy and hope that it is not much longer before he can be fit enough to get back to work.

Milton Keynes

Saturday 15^th October

We made our usual visit to Nan in High Clere. She seemed more settled after her last fall and was able to play a good game of Scrabble.

After this we were able to spend some time with Tim, Isla and the girls. We had a bit of spare time between visits which was enough to be able to walk around Loughton lakes in the brilliant autumn sunshine.

Fisherman

Swan Family

We had our lunch with the family and had a walk around Shenley Wood with them. The girls found their ‘Fairy’ tree and had a climb up it; giving some concern to the grown-ups. Iona is very agile and was under instructions to go so far, but no further.

Grass Throwing

That's Far Enough

Izzie Up

High-ona

The path through the woods was littered with acorns and many berries adorned the bushes.

Sloe Berries

We said our goodbyes and toddled off for our usual Saturday evening.

Before this I rang my friend Lawrence to confirm arrangements for our visit to the model railway exhibition in Wirksworth. Unfortunately, due to getting in and out of cars (this is a favourite activity which they do in a local showroom); his painful back had flared up.

Serendipity and Garage

Serendipity is when someone finds something that they weren't expecting to find. The word has been voted as one of the ten English words that were hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company. However, due to its sociological use, the word has been exported into many other languages. In the simplest of word, it means "happy accident" or a "pleasant surprise". (Wikipedia)


The picture below is neither. Perhaps a different word is needed to describe such an arrangement as it certainly did happen by accident, but serves no useful purpose other than being an oddity.

Serendipity (?)

Garage

I have spent sometime working on the garage. It was perhaps the dirtiest part of the house and I am sure still is; this being the nature of garages.

As you can see, the walls and ceiling are white emulsion, the down pipe is white gloss. A once hollow ceiling has been boarded in, but best of all, the floor has a coating of floor paint. The floor will no longer be a source of dust.

To finish off, a gloss black border has been painted around the edges of the wall.

The bench extends across the back, giving more work top space (currently piled with boxes of produce) and giving cover to the freezer and washing machines.

I am pleased with the result.

The current occupant is the car. 

GARAGE FLOOR, NEW SHOES AND ATTENBOROUGH

5^th October 2011

This morning the work on the garage got closer to completion. We were able to move the machines on to the newly painted floor and then I was able to put the undercoat on half of the remainder of the floor.

After lunch the main journey was to buy new shoes for me. 

As this was done quickly we had time for a quick walk around Attenborough. This was the shortest walk of the season. It is still warm, but the sky was almost overcast and the wind was a continuous howl in the trees.

The vapour on the chimney was very bright.

Vapour

 We had not seen waves on the lakes until today.

Waves

Nor had we seen the lakes so dry.

Dry Lake Bed

New Shore

A new feature had been created. This was a large field that had been ridge and furrowed. There seems to be a wooden structure to control the water flow from a higher lake.

Wooden Dam?

Ridge and Furrow

 And so, over the very windswept bridge from where there is the usual iconic view of Attenborough church and then to the car and home.

Attenborough Church

Nan then Flower Show

 Saturday 1^st October 2011

Today was our regular visit to Nan in Milton Keynes. It was October, but it was still hot and sunny. We joined the motorway to find ourselves in a procession of dozens of bikers. They were on their way to Donnington. I have to say that they were behaving very responsibly, driving at steady speed, keeping out of the fast lane to allow motorists, like ourselves the opportunity to make good progress. Further down on the north bound side it was not such pleasant story. There was a group of bikers, police cars and an ambulance. Perhaps it was just an unfortunate rather than a silly accident.

We arrived at High Clere in good time. Although she is physically frail she still has a sharp mind and was able to play a good game of ‘Scrabble’. She is still very occupied with her knitting. She is quite sad that she cannot see colours anymore and has had to get rid of her painting materials. We left her relatively cheerful. She really does appreciate the company of her family. I am proud to be in that grouping.

We made two stops on the way home. The first was at RBS in Long Eaton. It is becoming a better time to call in. This week it was for a small bag of fine grey ballast and some fencing.

After this we called in to St Michaels parish church, Bramcote. It is their 150^th anniversary and they had put on a flower show. They should be congratulated on this. It was colourful, dramatic and very creative.

Immediately after tea we had the unexpected pleasure of a visit from Jan and Lawrence.

Link to photos https://picasaweb.google.com/104631083841966481165/20111001Jpg?authkey=Gv1sRgCNn527bi8qiEXg