weather station

Autumn sunset over the city

2008-11-07T15:48:00.003Z

Every autumn the sun sets along the corridor in our office. Today was the first day it's done it this autumn when it hasn't been raining or grey.

Looking out over Nottingham and the sun's reflected brightly off two of the glass buildings.

Ratcliffe power station in the distance, lamps for the cricket ground in the foreground.

Sunset over Sneinton, and Greens Mill.

Love notes

2008-11-03T08:30:00.001Z

Carved in the top of a prominent stone boulder, with a great view, are messages to lovers going back years.

the way up

near Stanton Moor, Derbyshire.

click images to view larger

Here comes the rain

2008-10-31T08:30:00.001Z

Stormy weather making its way towards me.

click image to view larger

Derbyshire

2008-10-30T08:30:00.001Z

More photos from the climbing trip last weekend. The first couple came about while playing with manual focus and various camera settings.

click images to view larger

Before the rain

2008-10-29T08:30:00.001Z

I went into Derbyshire this weekend to go climbing, but the weather was against us.

click images to view larger

Birdwatching

2008-10-28T11:15:00.003Z

House sparrows, conveniently located outside my house. According to the RSPB they are becoming rare, and even appear on the 'red list' of declining species.

They chirp and flit about my garden, accompanied by magpies, pigeons and collard doves.

click images to view larger

Autumn walk

2008-10-17T14:33:00.002Z

Out in the countryside north of Newark, the horse chestnuts are ripe.

The shoots you can see growing up in this field are a crop of grass, when you look down it just looks like a muddy field, but look along the perfectly seeded lines and you can see the green of grass.

Scarborough by night

2008-10-08T09:00:00.000Z

A small amount of camera shake!
The sea front up in lights
Putting the boards away
Of course, it was raining.

Summer holidays down south

2008-10-06T09:00:00.000Z

Can you guess where we went?

We recently went to Cornwall, and visited the Eden project for the first time. All I could think about was Biodome.
In the gardens
My camera steamed up in the rainforest biome

Bananas!It was cold in the Mediterranean biome, well, in comparison to the rainforest one anyway...
There was a bank of fridges and fridge magnets in the education building, my boyfriend spotted the names of our two guinea pigs up there...

Scarborough by day

2008-10-03T09:00:00.000Z

The pier
It was a bit cloudy and cold - I did go in the sea, but only for about an hour.
Paddle boarding in the crowded surf.
Yay! They let dogs on that section of beach. Dogs love the beach.

Slacklining this weekend

2008-10-01T12:23:00.003Z

Hot air balloon - Sunday was the best day for ballooning for ages
A grass roller
Autumn colours as the leaves start to turn
Slacklining in the late afternoon sun

Pink sky at night as the sun went down.
Testing out a new Norwegian slackline, many thanks to Alexander.

The Ham national

2008-08-27T09:00:00.000Z

Pig racing at Moorgreen Show - in technicolour photos and video.

County Show

2008-08-26T11:20:00.006Z

This weekend was Moorgreen County Show, held near Watnall in Nottinghamshire.

there were knitted farmyard scenes, complete with ducks, rabbits, chickens pigs and farmers.
birds of prey, including my favourite, the Merlin.heavy horses and heavy men with moustaches
prize winning cattle
steam engines
and vintage ambulances.

Light fantastic

2008-08-25T09:00:00.000Z

Poi, on fire and with LED lights inside.
Flail them around (precision and skill required so as not to burn oneself) and make pretty pictures with slow shutter speeds.

Kudos Josh, Ant and Kate for braving the flame.

Red

2008-08-22T09:00:00.000Z

Ireland's west coast 2

2008-08-19T09:00:00.000Z

Me under a gigantic tree
underwater arches, wish it was warm enough to swim
All taken in Kilarney National Park

Ireland's west coast

2008-08-16T09:00:00.001Z

Our first night, camping by the roadside because everywhere was full and we had nowhere else to go.
The view from our second campsite, much more civilised.
An old church and graveyard overlooking a beautiful clear blue bay.
Playing pixies in a botanical garden
After the rain.

(Un)Seasonal weather

2008-08-13T13:23:00.002Z

this platform jutted out above a gorge, at the bottom of which was a waterfall
not very inspiring weather for long walks
all photos: nr Ullapool, Scotland, in April.

The nack of the door

2008-08-01T09:00:00.000Z

The bedroom door is a great place to hang a mish-mash collection of jackets, dressing gowns and hoodies.

"keeping tooth decay at ba..."

2008-07-31T09:07:00.001Z

This chest of drawers has been around longer than me, but I was the one that ruined it by sticking Super Ted stickers on it when I was about 6.

This weekend - arboretum

2008-07-29T09:12:00.001Z

On Sunday we went to the arboretum

there's an aviary full of budgies and cockatiels

it was like being on holiday, wandering about gardens, being super hot, smelling of suntan lotion, carrying liters of water.

the slackline was over 6ft high, and about 15ft long - I didn't get to go on it though since I've killed off my knees.

The weekend - more boating

2008-07-29T09:00:00.000Z

Thanks to Gem, more photos of boating. Including - proof that I did some rowing

scraggly heron

geese in a row

This weekend - the watersports centre

2008-07-28T09:03:00.001Z

This weekend - Boating at Highfields

2008-07-28T08:49:00.004Z

This Saturday me and Gem went to the summer exhibition at the Djanolgly centre, then we went boating at Highfields.

the fish in the pond at the Djanogly arts centre.

we took the other route to avoid the traffic jam
under the bridge
polly washup on the bridge

refreshments after a hard hour of rowing

Daily outfit

2008-07-26T09:30:00.000Z

brown belt from ebay - I think it's 70s
home made octopuses pocket watch (a shell with a bit of chain threaded through the hole left where the join to the other half of the shell used to be)
DIY french manicure - eg white eyeliner pencil scibbled onto fingernail tips, coat of varnish, some smearing and chips - ready to go!
wrap around skirt with massive birds on it - vintage, probably 70s

Living proof

2008-07-25T09:27:00.000Z

People who kill spider plants* can still grow vegetables.

chillies
tomatoes

courgettes
spinachblueberries

*they're not actually dead, just went a little peaky looking and very pale for a while...

Daily outfit

2008-07-24T09:24:00.002Z

halterneck dress - vintage

black tshirt - people tree

grey cardigan - monsoon

yellow belt - parcel ribbon off a chrsitmas present

butterfuly - clip on from Sherwood Forest visitors Centre

shoes - Doc Martens, second hand off ebay

Courgettes for tea

2008-07-24T09:01:00.003Z

Courgettes are in season now, and there seems to be a lot of them flooding in from the allotments of colleagues at work (one of the bought in a courgette cake he made yesterday based on this recipie - it was yum).

I happily took a free courgette, and combined it with two of my own to make a huge amount of stuffed courgette for dinner.

First you have to boil the courgettes for 4 minutes - then scoop out the flesh and fry it along with onion, mushroom and garlic.
add some breadcrumbs, feta cheese, an egg, fresh mint and tarragon and mix it all together.
fill scooped out courettes with you mixture and bake them in the over for 15 minutes at 200oC
we had ours with bugar wheat and salad - there was way too much.

the recipie I used, I modified it slightly.

Flock

2008-07-22T10:28:00.007Z

I'm in a really cranky mood today, my knees are aching so much for some reason - it's painful to walk. So bad that I might have to cancel my caving trip tomorrow (sob).

Often when I'm cycling home from work a flock of pigeons zooms back and forth over head - every time it passes I feel so happy and uplifted.

Photo by The Pack, from Flickr. Click the image to be taken to the photographer's page.

Video of flocking parrots on the BBC

Whole Flickr group of bird videos

Strikingly similar

2008-07-18T14:57:00.003Z

The new Trent riverside development looks an awful lot like my old uni

Mid morning snacking

2008-07-17T10:48:00.002Z

Samosa
Originally uploaded by Transparent Reality

This morning I couldn't get out of bed; I tried but there were some disconcerting stabbing pains going on in my stomach.

I bundled myself back under the covers and my boyfriend brought me a piping hot water bottle (my proven cure-all for stomach problems). He then popped out for an hour - during which I slept, waking occasionally to find my arms and legs were really heavy and a kind of numb.

By the time he'd got home I'd decided to drag myself to work, and was justting getting up when he came in through the door, paper bag clutched in his hands, with two hot samosas inside from a nearby shop called the Tall Frog.

We sat on the bed, tucking into our freshly made samosas, before both dashing off to work.

Property crush

2008-07-16T14:26:00.007Z

Sometimes it's nice to run off to a fantasy world in which you can afford to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on 1970s properties.

Like this one in Gloucestershire:

Or this one in London:

Or this one in Kent:

This would be your theme tune.

Whitby weekend part 2

2008-07-15T09:00:00.000Z

After getting up early to go surfing we went to Scarborough on the Sunday afternoon. The sun was shinning for a change and it was crammed. We couldn't find anywhere to park near where we wanted to surf so decided to have some lunch and a mooch around the town and wait for some parking spaces to free up.

From experience vegetarianism is not well supported up North; we ended up going to Ask, the chain-restaurant and ordering one of two veggie pizzas on the menu.

We walked down a little street just of the front to get there. Past these massive murals - the work of 4 (I think...) artists over 7 days.

Giving up on Scarborough altogether we headed to Cayton bay where I beach combed for glass that had been rounded off by the tides.

My haul filled both my jacket pockets.

Whitby weekend part 1.

Weekend in Whitby

2008-07-14T12:38:00.003Z

I went on an impromptu camping trip to Whitby over the weekend - the town inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula. The Abbey at the top of this picture forms part of the story.

Once when my partner's parents were visiting, looking around the church yard, they were asked by two young goths where Dracula's grave was.

Checking out the surf from the top of the cliffs over Whitby sands.

There was a lot of white water, and some strong currents. Knackering trying to get out, not much success when you were out.

There's a lift down to the beach, but it'll set you back 60p.

part 2 tomorrow.

A little message

2008-07-11T08:49:00.000Z

Today's lunch

2008-07-10T08:50:00.001Z

Avacado salad with mixed seeds and strawberries for a snack.

Day in the life

2008-07-10T08:35:00.002Z

I went on a training course at a nature reserve in Doncaster called Potterics Car yesterday. At lunch time I went for a walk about the reserve, there was a wetland area full of Canada Geese - these one's were playing hide and seek in the long grass - if you look closely (click on the image for a larger version) you can see some of their heads bobbing about in the grass.

This cat was sat in our front garden in the rain - looking in at us a bit forlornly.

A cup of tea and some banana cake while watching Mighty Boosh on DVD. A friend from uni gave me this cup and saucer set for my birthday.

Me making notes on grant funding ideas for Subtext - sometimes your mind works best right before bed.

Some patterns I bought recently from John Lewis (I think I might have bought the wrong size), and my note book.

My bedside table - an old luggage trunk from the railways, with two rocks on it from Ana Purna base cap - a friend recently went out to Nepal and brought them back for us - one for me and one for my boyfriend.

Down at the bottom of the garden...

2008-07-08T09:00:00.000Z

... among the birds and the bees, a little lot of composters, some trees and a spade. A work in progress, no Poddington Peas.

Daily outfit

2008-07-07T09:28:00.003Z

Today I'm wearing a 70s seersucker cotton skirt from eBay, shoes from the closing down sale at Ravel (wish I'd bought another pair in green) and a fair trade cotton vest I bought from M&S.

Bike ride along the canal

2008-07-07T09:20:00.004Z

I decided to go out for a bike ride on Saturday after spending the bulk of the day indoors waiting for the rain the weather forecasters had promised. The sun kept on shining and eventually I gave in to temptation and went for a bike ride down the canal.

Not long after I reached the canal the rains came - of course! Here's a heron I spotted.

This old bunker (set between the two trees) was the centre of operations one night out when I was about 16 or 17 on a bike ride with some friends. We spelt rude words in the crop (sorry to the farmer for that) and probably drank some scum like MD20/20.

Low flying aircraft coming into land at the little airport at Tollerton.

Desk with a view

2008-07-01T13:09:00.002Z

We're having our windows replaced at work, and I've been displaced for a couple of days while my desk was out of action. Back in the hot seat today, and my plants are back on the window ledge.
We can see Greens Mill from our office, but it's a bit obscured since we're wrapped in yellow netting while the windows are being replaced.
New blinds.

The haul

2008-06-25T09:00:00.001Z

Charity shop tourism: Monday's haul in Retford, north Nottinghamshire

An old embroidered bedcover with cutwork, probably linen.

makes a good chair cover

2 1/2 meters of stripey cotton fabric: thin, good for making summer dresses.

Two poison bottles! One's already being utilised as a vase for a poppy.

It's a shame that I got a parking ticket while I was there.

Day in the life

2008-06-24T09:00:00.000Z

I'm growing some veg, from left to right: potatoes, blueberries, lemon balm, tomatoes, courgettes, mint, more tomatoes, some weeds that have moved into my grown bag.

my tea, morrocan veg with black eyed beans, wholegrain cous cous and garlic bread.

We went out for a practive drive (my boyfriend is learning, and I'm 'teaching') and saw a field full of poppies.

So we stopped and he picked one to go on the kitchen table.

Summer in the country

2008-06-23T10:00:00.000Z

first we laid down and looked up at the trees
then we released some seeds to the wind
then we found some crickets in a graveyard.

Coventry summer 06.

Bike ride

2008-06-22T13:40:00.004Z

my bike ride home from work

Hospital Property

2008-06-20T14:30:00.001Z

This shot came out of looking too hard and too long at my plate of beans on toast.