Miscellany – Page 16 – Neil Baldwin's blog : Warning contains walking, technology, photography, holidays.

My week commuting to London

Euston Station with Learning Tree building

This week I am commuting to London for four straight days to attend a course in London a at the Learning Tree training centre just outside Euston, which means the travel should be really easy. I purchased 4 return tickets but latest wondered if it might have been cheaper to get a 7 day season ticket, which I’d what I did for the parking. Registration for the course on the first day was between 0800 and 0845 so I aimed for the 0728 train from Tring which takes 37 minutes. There were plenty of parking spaces, I was unsure what to do about displaying a parking ticket, the booking said they recognised.number plates but to be on the safe side I left the receipt on the dash board. I was disappointed I could not get a paper at the station, there’s an opportunity of someone there. The train arrived on time and pretty empty, I find my style a window seat. What is the course you ask? The title is something like SQL server business intelligence, it covers the use of SQL in a BI and the user of all the things that come worth it that have confusing acronyms, such as SSAS, MDX, SSRS etc etc.

The train arrived on time I bought a paper and took the short walk to the training centre. Registration was easy I was given a name tag and a folded cards with my name on it for the desk. Next stop was the code lounge for a leisurely coffee. They have fancy machines capable of doing most things a barista could dream up, I chose the latte machiato.

The course stayed slowly by explaining all the usual house keeping stiff and a summary of what the whole course would be about, then we got into the nitty gritty, which for me was covering some old ground but it was a good importantly to cover all the terms involved. Later on there were practical exercises convert the stuff we had covered. Breaks and lunch we followed by more of the same. Timing was very precise and I was able to get away at the scheduled 1630, my train was at 1654, so I hung around and dealt with some emails. I got a window on the train and selected in once it left on time.

I was home before 1800 and had found the commute quite relaxing. OK it was a longer than normal day (2hrs longer) but I had had an opportunity to read the paper, and listened to some podcasts. So first impressions are I would much rather have a local job but if it came to it it would not be the end of the world. Lets see what tomorrow has to bring.

Day two I left a little later before leaving the house, through Tring a passed a fellow commuter on his Brompton folding bicycle. I had noticed him the day before on the platform folding his bike like he had done it a thousand times before, today I thought maybe he was leaving it a bit too late. He arrived on the station platform 5 with coffee in hand about 30 seconds before the train, just enough time to do the folding routine. I am actually surprised at the number of people turning up on the train in bicycle gear sometimes with and sometimes without a bike. Clearly many of them park a bike at Euston and use it for the transit from the station to the office.

I thought I would try out the wifi hot spot features of my HTC Desire X, and was pleasantly surprised. You just select the program set the SSID name and a password then start the hotspot. As I write I have uploaded this post to the server. A speedtest from the moving train revealed 1.23Mb down but 0 up i will do some more testing throughout the day and share the results. I will need to keep an eye on the battery usage, as yesterday I had run out of batteries by the time I got to Tring. Last night I uninstalled a data monitor program that had used 20% of the battery power that day, I want to check my data usage but not at the price of battery, had it been in the 1-2% range then fair enough. I also invested in one of those battery packs that allow you to charge your phone a few times, I think it will come in really useful. It is a far better idea to get one of those than extended batteries to fit a phone because one they will charge any device and two they hold far more juice Han an extended battery the one I chose was an 8000mAh which is over four times the power of my phones battery.

Arrived in London on time and headed over to the training centre. I was there by 0810 which gave me plenety of time to sit around and drink coffee and chat with the other students on the course.

Day three weather much warmer the snow that had been lying around is melting. Got the usual 0728 from Tring my timing was better this morning only a five minute wait, I guess you get better the more you do it. I imagine that it is quite a popular rain as it is quick 37 minutes, and it is not crowded, I have only seen the odd individual having to stand, that is odd as in number not odd as in peculiar. The course got far more difficult today we were doing MDX queries and KPIs which involve more than just dragging and dropping stuff about, it is a bit like SQL queries but different and it takes a while to get your head round it all.

I have learnt the hard way that when you commute you need to have everything you need with you when you leave the house, this morning I had a flat phone because the charger has failed, so I put a USB lead in my bag an would grab the charger bit on the way out, but forgot. I had to buy a charger at Euston at £14.99, and charge when I could out in the coffee area. I also managed to forget half my lunch, if it was at the office I could have just popped home and sorted it out but today I will just have to have more biscuits to keep me going!

I managed to get on the 1634 again, the course usually finishes with a practical exercise and if you get it right first time you can get away a couple of minutes before 1630, then you have about 6 minutes to get to platform 7, for the train. I must say that the trains are as smooth as you would want, but the seats are a bit squashed up, if you have someone sat next to you, but the journey is at most 40 minutes so not such a hardship.

I have been inspired by our trip to Japan, and have regularly been making bowls of Japanese noodles. They are really quick to make, just boil some water and chop up some vegetables. Then fry the vegetables as you cook the noodles (5 minutes one noodle wrap per person) add in some Japanese sauces and some chilli. I optionally add reconstituted mushrooms and some prawns. Once the noodles are cooked add some Miso to the water and pour into the bowls, top off with the vegetables, mushrooms, prawns, and some sliced spring onions. It takes all of 15 minutes to make, but is a bit messy as you have to do it all quick, so the clearing out takes a bit longer than normal.

Day four and final day, got up a little later and left the house just a smidgen later, but still had a 10 minute wait before the train arrived. I think the ideal would be to get there after the 0722 and before the 0728. Today we finish the course by covering off odd topics that do not fit in to the other main topics so far covered, such as data mining forecasting, tabular models, etc. At 1500 we review and then there is an opportunity to take a multiple choice question exam, they call it free but you essentially pay for it when you pay for the course. With any luck I will be away early enough to get the train before the 1634.

The course was all done by 1500 a couple who were not taking the exam left, we had a quick break before the exam. There were three different exams handed out to stop cheating, and the answers were filled in on a sheet, which had blobs to fill in like on a lottery card. It is a very American thing I believe, when I was at a school with a American curriculum I remember having to fill out similar forms for what. I think they we’re describes as SAT tests, and when we got the results they were compared to the whole of the USA, I would love to know how I faired, perhaps my parents still have the results in a box in the attic?

The exam was quite tough, because it expected to answer quite a few questions asking for very specific technical terms, rather than testing your judgement about what we had learnt. Back in the office if i did not know the technical name for something I would just google it, does to matter that I don’t know the name for something the important thing is that I know that a feature exists and that I can use it. I got through the 40 questions fairly quickly, but not as fast as some I guess I was average. There was then nothing else to do than get the train, I managed to get the 1524 to Milton Keynes, which was a fairly fast one calling at no stations before Watford junction, so I would be home before 1700, which would be a bonus as I have some more travelling to do later.

Tommy Cooper walk

It was not raining so only one thing to do, make the most of it and go for a walk. We picked up the inlaws and headed up to Swan Bottom, and parked up at the Swan inn, then headed out for the usual circular walk.

The weather was grey but no rain, temperature was about 10 degrees. The ground was quite soft under foot on places. The whole walk took about 2 hours and looped round towards The Lee and back.

At the pub we all had sandwiches and shared a couple of bowls of chips. There were plenty of locals at the bar one of then thought he was a comedian and decided to test out some of his jokes, ready for his performance at the local talent show. Some of them were good and he did a good Tommy Cooper impression. Turns out he was a skier, had a German mother and was born in Australia, quite some ancestry.

The food was duly washed down with a pint then we headed back home for some Raspberry Pi hacking. The plan was to get one up and running on a wireless LAN with a static IP.

Cats & dogs to Brighton

We were up fairly early to prepare for the annual London to Brighton veteran car run, but not as early as the rest of the crew who we would be joining at Crawley, they would be getting up at 04:30 to leave the village at 05:00. We made sandwiches and some hot honey and lemon for Neil who had woken up with a cold. However the torrential rain dampened our enthusiasm and it required some effort to leave the house. Sheets of rain across the A41 & M25 but the skies are now lightening a little. Feeling very sorry for everyone who went up to the start at Hyde Park at 5am and who would have spent 3 soggy hours in an open top car. We took the lazy option this year and opted to meet the cars at Crawley.

Steady progress around the M25, lots of standing water as we pass under the “give peas a chance” viaduct. Checked in with the frog whisperer to see how the car posse were progressing. They had reached the Little Chef and left before we were in the environ so we continue to Crawley as we might have time to get to the main street to film the Humberette arriving. The leaden skies persisted but the rain a little lighter as we pass the Chertsey exit. Best wishes to T who is in New York and should have been running the marathon there today, being cheered on by my lil sis. Lots of spray but sun shining as we join the M23. As we approached Crawley we started to spot some of the veteran cars.

We got to Crawley before the car and found a seat in the window seat overlooking the area where the car park up for a tea stop. We kept a lookout for the car with a half in the warm pub. Helen was perplexed about the the complicated parking ticket dispensers which required us to enter the last three digits of the car registration. The weather become more overcast for a while! Met up with R, K & J who had had a very damp journey as evidenced by R’s trousers. K said his sailing waterproofs had been very useful. Time for a quick bacon roll then down the A23 in pursuit oh the old car. Neil enjoyed practising his pursuit driving style and we found the Humberette just after Staplefield. We also linked up with the others and and J is in the car, e are officially a convoy!

You see some funny things on the London to Brighton, lots of different car clubs by the side of the road, people with picnic tables complete with champagne, by far the best thing this year was a old 1920/30 coach like car all done out for a safari, complete with a leopard skin on the bonnet, the owner was in kilt and pith helmet complete with arrow and enjoying a pint.

As we approached Brighton we peeled off and headed in to the town centre, making sure we were west of the railway so that we avoided the traffic and got to our hotel. We parked up checked in then headed down to Madeira Drive to watch the cars coming in. Our timing was perfect as we got to the drive in came the Humbrette, there was a wait before it crossed the finish line as K had been promised a go in the car as it crossed the finish line. We headed to the other side of the finish line and soon found where they had parked up. The weather was now blue skies and sunshine, a perfect way to end the day.

The arrangements for loading the cars up had changed this year, the tender vehicles had to park up at the racecourse then come down to the drive to load the vehicles up but only of the organisers had confirmation that the vintage car had crossed the finish line. I accompanied R and K back up the the racecourse to get the tender vehicle. The new trailer was a dream to load and they people not staying over were soon on their way, we headed back to the hotel. Helen and I went for a quick look round the old lanes, whilst R and L had a rest in anticipation of the evening ahead.

R was adamant that we would go to a non-veggie restaurant as last year he had not enjoyed his meal at Food for Friends, we ended up in Zizzi which was started with the help of The Princes Trust, the portions were massive the Pizzas hung off the side of the ample plates,and R decided that 5 tapas style dishes were in order, and despite us thinking he would never manage to eat it all he did. After we met up with A and A for a quick drink at a pub opposite, where a jazz band was playing, we left the establishment at a reasonable hour and were in bed by 23:00.

The next day was the usual breakfast at Bill’s which I would recommend, the veggie breakfast is very different with it’s humus and guacamole toast, sweet chilli sauce topped off with mushrooms and poached eggs is like nothing I have seen anywhere else, and it really works. Breakfast was followed by some shopping in the Laines then at about 13:00 we headed home but not before dropping on on Helen’s aunt for some lunch.

An Improbable Sunday

My plans for Sunday were pretty simple, get up have some breakfast, take it easy, perhaps a walk somewhere. Things then got a bit more complicated, I checked out twitter and I noticed a tweet from “Ian visits” suggesting that Mark Abrahams was doing a talk in London and there were tickets available. Helen was insistent on the original Sunday plans so I was on my own. Ticket was booked and an additional event was found : the Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival. I had a plan.

Who is Mar Abrhams you ask? You may remember Helen and I went to the Ig Nobels a few months back (see blog post) but if you can’t here is a summary I nicked from the internet : Marc Abrahams is the editor of the parody magazine Annals of Improbable Researchand the founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which honour bizarre, questionable, and downright funny scientific research and are presented at an annual ceremony at Harvard University. Abrahams and the Ig Nobel have been widely covered, including by the Guardian, the New York Times, New Scientist, Scientific American, and newspapers and TV programmes internationally. The author of The Ig Nobel Prizes, published in 2002, Abrahams writes a weekly column for the Guardian. He lives in Massachusetts.

I got the 10:54 from Berkhamsted, which was surprisingly busy, but I managed to get a seat, next to the loo. Better spot than those who had to stand just outside the loo door! I used the journey to finally catch up with the Archers, after holidays, using the podcast app on my phone.

I got the tube to Bank then Google maps guided me to Guildhall. Guildhall has been the City powerhouse since the twelfth century. In an era when the Lord Mayor of London rivalled the monarch for influence and prestige, this was where he and the ruling merchant class held court, fine-tuned the laws and trading regulations that helped create London’s wealth. Today, 800 years on, Guildhall is still home of the City of London Corporation, and acts as a grand setting for glittering banquets in honour of visiting Heads of State and other dignitaries, royal occasions, and receptions for major historical anniversaries.

There were not many people there, as the main event did not start till 14:00, but that mean the Pearlies were easy to photograph and photograph I did. My understanding of the event is that it is a celebration of harvest time and all the Pearly Kings and Queens get together with the mayors of all the boroughs and have a celebration and march in thanks for the harvest. Apart form people in cloths covered in buttons, and people in cloaks with heavy chains around their necks, I saw Morris dancers, Chelsea pensioners, and some donkeys pulling carts. I had to leave just as it was starting, so what really went on who knows.

I jumped on the tube at St Paul’s and walked after alighting at Holborn then walked round the corner to find Conway Hall, to watch “The worlds most improbable event?” by Mark Abrahams. Once I had located the hall I popped round the corner to find something to eat, luck would have it there was a traditional Fish & Chips shop close by so got a bag full, and ate on the run.

Conway Hall is an ethical place according to the sign you see as you enter. According to the website of Conway Hall : Conway Hall is owned by South Place Ethical Society and was first opened in 1929. The name was chosen in honour of Moncure Daniel Conway (1832 – 1907), anti-slavery advocate, out-spoken supporter of free thought and biographer of Thomas Paine. The Hall now hosts a wide variety of lectures, classes, performances, community and social events. It is renowned as a hub for free speech and independent thought. Our Library holds the Ethical Society’s collection, which is the largest and most comprehensive Humanist Research resource of its kind in the United Kingdom.

The talks had a different format to the Ig Nobel one, rather than the authors of wining papers presenting their research, guest speakers were invited to chose from a selection of Ig Nobel and other improbable papers, then present it in two minutes then answer one question from the audience on the subject of the paper.

Amongst the papers presented was : A bra that converted into a gas mask, The colour preferences of people with various mental conditions, and a patent application for a birthing aid based on centrifugal forces. At the end of the presentation was the obligatory recital of a poem by McGonagall about the Tay bridge disaster which can be found here. I bought a copy of the Mark Abrahams book as I left and headed back to Euston to catch the train home; Holborn – Piccadilly – Euston.

For dinner I cooked Tumbet using a recipe of my own making. Tumbet is a Spanish/Moroccan dish made with sliced and fried potatoes, aubergine, and red peppers layered with tomato sauce and topped with some hard cheese, then cooked in the oven. I first had it the other week as a Marks and Spencer ready meal and thought I could do that. My version involves roasting rather than frying and it makes it a lot less fiddly. Basically slice the potato and roast in the oven, when done put aside and replace with the peppers and aubergine slices. Whilst all that is happening make the tomato sauce by frying garlic briefly then adding tinned tomatoes (one tin per 2 people) and rosemary and thyme, then let it cook down whilst the roasting happens. Take a baking dish oil it a bit layer the ingredients and intersperse with tomato sauce top with some grated cheese (parmesan works well), cover with tin foil then cook for 30 minutes then uncover and cook for then 10-15. Serve with salad.

Farne islands boat trip part deux

We were up early again in hope of a trip to the Farnes, we had not booked but planned to phone at 08:30 to see what was on. I drove up the road at 08:20 till I got a phone signal and tried phoning. Permanently engaged on both numbers, so I resorted to booking online.

We arrived at Seahorses in good time there was a queue for Billy Shiel’s we queued up I noticed I had a confirmation booking, good news. Once paid up we had a wander and a few pee stops, as we were not sure of the arrangements later.

We headed to the end of the harbour wall to the boat Glad Tidings IV, and got on board, the tide was out so getting on board was a long walk down some steps, then a big step down, onto the vessel.

The boat left the harbour at 10:30 and we headed out to sea, the sun was shining and the sea was pretyy calm. We slowed when there were interesting things to see, both type seals basking on the rocks, guillimots, razorbills, shags, cormorant, and many other sea birds.

After taking a look at the furthest island Longstone, we headed back towards land to land on the Inner Farne. The friendly National Trust volunteers charged us non-members £6.20 landing fee, and told us to keep to the boards walks, and recommended we wear hats, or stand next to a taller person. It soon became clear why, the terns literally nest right next to the board walk, and then aggressively have a go at anyone close by, and had a knack of diving and pecking your head. I am tall and got pecked quite a lot later I noticed blood on my hat where they had draw blood right though the canvas.

We walked round to the light house and had our Heidi pies in the picnic area. After the lovely pies we continued our first circuit of the island. Just past the light house there is a cliff edge where you can get very close to the bird, many of them nesting, you are literally 1m away from Shag nests with young of various ages.

We ran the Arctic Tern gauntlet again as we got towards the National Trust centre, I was pecked a few more times. At the centre there is a church to have a look round, it is pretty basic, but did have a stained glass window. We had managed to while away about and hour and a half, we had 2 and a half hours left for more circuits of the island!

This time round I took the time to try to get some action shots of the Puffins flying in from their hunting forays, out at sea, for sand eels. The puffins were quite good at finding their burrows, and would drop in really close then dash quickly out of sight. If they missed the black headed gulls were hanging around to relieve them of there hard won sand eels.

At about 15:30 we went to join the queue for our 16:00 boat back, the queue was already long, the weather was turning I think everyone had seen enough and wanted to get back to a warm pub with a pint, we did for sure.

All in all we really enjoyed the trip, perhaps would have been better if it had been possible to land on two of the islands as advertised. We were definitely luck with the weather although it turned towards the end of the day, looking at the forecast for the next few days, today was the best.

Why use the the bridge when there is a ford.

Not such an early start this morning, holiday sleeping hours must be kicking in. The breaking news is that Julian Assange has lost his appeal to be extradited, on what seems to be technicality, specifically whether the Swedish court is a Judicial body. His legal council made a very unusual appeal at the judgement, that the legal point that the judges had ruled on was not argued during the case. Strange think the law!

It is much cooler here in The Lakes today, we have clouds over the hills and patches of blue sky, rain is promised later so the poncho may have to make an outing.

We left the hut at 10:00 and headed into the village, past the village store then took the foot path that starts from the road between the Japanese garden, the path takes you to Miterdale, where we turned right up the valley. The walking is up hill but not too much effort. After the last farm Low Place, there is a ford to cross if you don’t bother looking a few yards ahead and notice the foot bridge, we had to laugh.

Heading further up the valley that are harvesting the pine trees and making a right mess, but they are preserving and extending the hazel wood. Just before Black Gill you need to turn right off the main path to Wasdale, it is not sign posted so easy to miss, if you do the walk is going to be much further, you can’t turn back till Burnmoor Tarn. At the top of Black Gill we had a well earned rest the short climb up the hill had been very steep and because of the humidity we were dripping despite that it was much cooler today than it had been over the past few days.

We walked over the moor between White Moss and Brat’s Moss, there are three stone in the saddle between the two. One of them has four burial mounds and the other two just one each. Helen forgot to bring her trowel so I took a picture for studying later. The path is a bit confusing at that point and I had to get my compass out and do some real navigating!

As you descend towards Boot you pass some old agricultural buildings in various states of ruin, they all look they were quite substantial, possibly inhabited at some point in their past. We stopped to eat our sandwiches, on a rock with a view over the Esk Valley, Helen had Marmite (not my mate) and I had Nutella.

At the bottom of the path there is a curious old renovated mill, I had read that the council had renovated it, but it was not like a council run place. Out side was a man chipping at stuff, next to a sign to beware of the cat called Stanley, who was asleep in a box of leaf litter. The entrance area was full of books and junk for sale, all with an honesty box. The guide took us round the workings of the mill after he had been outside to change a setting to make the mill stone spin faster. The mill it turns out is the oldest still workable in the country. After then demo we looked around the rest of the mill buildings which were full of old farm and house hold equipment. A lot of the labels for the exhibits, were quite humorous, for example of next to a broken shoe repair tool was a label “did not last”. Well worth a visit if you up this end of the valley.

After the mill we stopped off for a half and a packet of crisps at the Boot Inn, which was also a welcome opportunity for a comfort break. We had planned to walk back up the hill the way we came so as to take in Blea Tarn on the way back but on examining the map we noticed that there was a more direct route to the Tarn, we don’t like having to go over old ground.

We took a slight detour rather than just walking down the road, it took us in land nearly to St Catherine’s church then back to the road further down. The man building the wall had got what looked like two thirds of the way through the job. We passed close to the river and got some great views of a Dipper. We then had about 500 yards of road before we took the step path up to Blea Tarn. The path was very steep and what with the humidity was not much fun, but we were rewarded with some great views of the valley.

We then got lost which did not go down too well with Helen, we had over shot the Tarn and had to double back a bit to pick up the right path. We just are not used to footpaths without sign posts, something there are plenty of back in the Chilterns. I guess having signs everywhere would spoilt the remoteness and unspoilt nature of the landscape.

Getting back on track revealed that getting back on track had meant we had walked further than was necessary, we had done 270 degrees of a circle when we had only needed to do 90 degrees, any way we were glad to be back on track. The descent was tough on the lower legs and knees after having been out for 6 hours and counting.

It became a bit a chore rather than, a leisurely walk, but on we had to plod. When we reached a cross roads we had take a right turn with a sad heart as it went up hill again, Helen was not amused, then we had to walk up another hilly bit to walk round the edge of the Outdoor Centre stone wall, in order to join the footpath back down to the Post Office, for Helen it was almost the final straw. Eventually thought we got down to the village store and plodded through the village back to the hut, which we reached at 17:10.

Once back we freshened up and Helen put a load of washing on, then we headed out, to a pub we had stopped at on a previous day where the beer was really well kept and the choice was varied. We went to the Brook House Inn up in Boot, an establishment I would not hesitate to recommend. My first choice had unfortunately run out, with Fennel and Asparagus Gratin with Brie, so I went for the Salmon and Prawn fettuccine, but then notice that the Gratin was being replaced with a Wild Mushroom and Basil Fettuccine. Helen went fpor a Goats Cheese Tart with a portion of chips. Both meals were really good, staff were excellent, really happy and obliging. As the the beer it was top notch as clear as a bell, and a choice of 6, I tried a half of the Hawkshead Brewery Windermere Pale, which I followed by a Half of the Yates Golden Ale. both were superb. We may be back tomorrow.

Keeping it local

After a very busy weekend last weekend we are having a quiet one. The plan get up not too early have some breakfast (reading the paper?), a bit of a tinker with the blog, a short local walk, then see if we can catch the Queens Jubilee fly past over Halton, finally cook pasta for Helen’s parents, and watch the Chelsea v Munich match.

Things got off to a great start, Helen was up first and then as I came down stairs at about 08:00 she was walking in the door with the papers. I usually have toast and expresso for breakfast at the weekend, and save my home made muesli for weekdays. Today was not exception I finished off the Bonne Maman cherry jam I have been working my way through for some weeks.

I have tweaked the blog a bit, by moving all the panoramas about as the menu they were on is getting a bit long. I also noticed that http://neilbaldwin.com was getting more Google juice than the blog, even though it is more or less just a holding page for a Drupal site. So I fixed it once and for all, it now redirects to the blog address at http://neilbaldwin.net so that will fix that small issue. I think as the blog is the site than changes the most will not keep the two domains separate, and if I do want a content sites then I will just create sub-domains for them which should keep things much simpler.

The fly past was due soon after 12:30 so we headed about of the house at about 10:30, and drove up to the BBOWT reserve at Dancersend which is in the hills sort of between Tring and Aston Clinton. It is between two valleys and can be a really nice place to just sit, relax and take everything in, as the hills shelter it from noise apart from the odd aircraft.

There were plenty of birds singing when we got there, the usual suspects Tits and Chaffinch but also a couple of Warblers we thought most likely Blackcaps from the song. It was a bit early for orchids but there were a few early Butterfly Orchids just starting to bloom, and the usual Pyramid orchids could be identified by their black spotted leaves. We wandered around and Helen took control of the camera with the big lens and I scouted round from some bugs and plants to photo with the LX3. We heard some tawny owl calls in the distance.

WARNING RANT — As we entered the reserve from the “pond on the bend entrance” we noticed that there was a lot of dog shit on the path in, it was pretty obvious that one dog was regularly walked up the path and the owner could not be bothered to clear up after their dog or make sure the dog did it business away from the path. Helen described it as “playing dog shit hopscotch”. Helen and discussed putting up a “there is not such thing as a dog poo fairy poster” next time we go up there. — RANT OVER

At about 12:10 we headed back down to the village park to watch the fly past. Basically as part of the Queen’s Jubilee celebration today was the armed forces day to show off, and a fly past of about 60 aircraft had been arranged to fly over Windsor park and as is usual when these things happen many of the aircraft get routed to and from the event over RAF airfields. Halton being fairly close to London often gets a fly past, today was no exception.

Down at the park there were other people who had obviously come to see the spectacle, as well as Helen’s uncle who turned up soon after we did. We did not have to wait long after 12:30 for the flypast, in all probably about 15-20 planes passed over. At first we thought we were at the wrong end of the air field as we say some jets pass over the other end in the distance, but they were followed by three groups of fight looking jets, blue in colour. I had the setting on my lens not quite appropriate for the shot so did not get any decent pictures but I have included the one you can see here, as you can tell the light was pretty crap and it was very hazy.

After it was obvious that the rest of the fly past was not coming we wished Helen’s uncle farewell and headed home for a light lunch. I spent the rest of the after noon tinkering with Bigshot VR which I have not given up on yet, but which I sill can’t get to the panorama thing. I can get it to display basic Deep Zoom format pictures, but that is about it. I also took some pictures of the wildlife in the garden.

Later on we will be preparing pasta and garlic bread to eat before the football. I’ll spare you the details and end the blog post here.

Miscellany or musings

If you read the last post you will know I am travelling today, and I am obviously inspired to write as this is the second one and it is only 08:26 in the morning. I am sat on an easyjet flight.

The trip to the airport was full of surprises. I missed the parking bus so walked to the terminal. I noticed in the verge what looked like an orchid but it was blue, I must investigate. The priority lane has become popular and I ended up queuing, but still had time for and express and a pain au raisin.

The flight was called on time departing from gate 18 the closest one to the terminal building. I am definitely convinced that speedy boarding is a waste of time. I was at the front of the queue and got a window seat near the back, with little effort, and none of the rush you have when you have Speedy boarding and feel you must be at the front to get the seats you have a right to because you paid extra.

The plane was at 2/3 to 3/4 full. The rain had cleared the atmosphere and the views from the window of the aircraft were great. The Irish sea still looked a bit choppy and we hit some turbulent air as we left the west coast over Liverpool. I also noticed that the Rape crops are starting to flower, it is surprising haw much of the English country side is taken up with it. Does it go to human consumption or animal? I have had cold pressed oil but I prefer the flavour of olive oil.

Arrived only 10 minutes late, and picked up the hire car. The weather in Northern ireland was similar to the mainland typical spring blueskies with big cumulus clouds threatening, a down pour.

Meetings went well, and it was soon time to head back, I left a bit later than I would have liked, so did not bother to fill the car up, luckily for me the petrol gauge was the LCD block type and had not registered any usage so I got away with it. No sooner had I got through security the flight was called to gate 18, don’t you just love it when things run smoothly, (that comment may have been a bad mistake!).

Easyjet plane from gate 18 Belfast International

The flight was quite crowded, more than 95% full, they were looking for volunteers to put baggage in the hold free of charge, to ensure enough room in the overhead lockers. You could tell we were running to capacity because the steward was making announcements to the effect “hurry up and stow you baggage, then sit down so we can take off” but using the politeness only air stewards are capable of.

Despite no speedy boarding I got a decent window seat near the back. I managed to drop my pen twice whilst seated, it can be very difficult to retrieve anything from the aircraft floor once seated. If you lean forward hand have long enough arms then you can just about reach the floor, if the item is any where other that where you feet go forget it, the item is lost. I was lucky twice I dropped my pen and twice I was able to retrieve it.

Apparently we flew over Liverpool at 37,000 feet which compared to Everest nearly 30,000 feet is pretty high, the sun was shining we were way above the clouds, I could see some bubbling up into storms but nothing really very big, so I guess the weather below was probably quite pleasant. The captain announced that we were 20 minutes ahead of schedule, they day just got better and better.
If I was a real writer I would now have to turn this post in to a story where everything was going well then… But I won’t.

A productive if wet weekend at home

Luton Airport Monday 07:50 it must be EZY181 to Belfast, and just because it has become a tradition here is a blog post.

The weekend was a real wash out, but we did manage to get some stuff done round the house.

We went to the pictures on Friday to see Salmon fishing in the Yemen, which was not a cinematic great but an excellent film with a great story line, well worth watching. On the way home we went to Tesco for the ingredients for a Korma curry paste.

On Saturday I was up early and gave the kitchen a quick wipe, then once helen was up I put up two roller blinds, one at top of stairs the other in the back bedroom. Two more windows and we will be 100% blinds.

Then it was off to Wendover for me to get a haircut and Helen some shopping therapy. Luckily for the bank balance there was no queue at the barbers so Helen’s spend time was kept to a minimum. It was still lashing down with rain.

Once home I got out my laptop with the aim of finding a way to present my panorama tours on the web. The method needed to have an HTML5 option as I want it to work on ipads and iphones. I found a project on google code called Bigshot http://code.google.com/p/bigshot/ it looked promising. It used the Microsoft deepzoom format, but also came with a wrapper that allowed the directory structure to be stored in a single file with a php script to serve the images out on demand. It was interesting to see such an approach.

Tried as I might I could not get the thing to work, my javascript knowledge is just not good enough, I did however learn a lot about debugging js using chrome and firefox, so the hours were not wasted. In the end I have reverted back to using the utility that comes with ptgui http://www.ptgui.com/which produces a set of images and page with html5 and flash options, it is also gyro scope aware which means you can move around with a device and the panorama moves with you. My plan is to develop a php script to display a panorama directory based on parameters passed to it. As for Bigshot I might have to revisit it someday.

Helen made the most of the day by putting the stuff in the garage that belonged in the dining room back where it belonged, and sorting out a couple of the kitchen draws that have become draws of small stuff we can’t be bothered to put away in the right place. Later in the after noon I made the curry paste, a massive two large Bonne Maman jam jars full. I got the recipe from Jamie Olivers website but used it as a guide. So in summary despite the continuous torrential rain we got quite a lot done.

We watched a film whilst eating home made Pizza, which this time we left to rise rolled out for a more puffed up base, it was called The Ides of March staring George Clooney. We were not very impressed, the story was a bit difficult to follow and I think you needed to have an interest in American politics.

On Sunday we had booked up for dawn chorus walk at Dancersend NR, but the organiser phoned up the Saturday evening and cancelled, the reason was weather and the slight risk of falling branches, but the main thing was that we would not really be able to hear anything with the appalling weather.

I dropped Helen and Gladys off at church then continued with the panorama project. The rest of the day was spent at home relaxing, and making tea for a couple of visitors. Abida (arriving with an excellent homemade banana cake)reported that there were trees down all over the place as she tried to get to Tring station but ended up at Berkhamsted.

Later I made a vegetable korma with the paste I made the night before. I used Cauliflower and baby aubergines as a base, and included green beans and peas at the end. It turned out really well which is good because of the amount of paste I now have! I made enough for 4 portions to be frozen.

In case you missed them

Here is a slide show of the photo’s I took in mark. Bit of a mixed bag some from London, some outside spring is definitely on the way. Enjoy…