abraxas

last minute stay

i've been pondering what to do with abraxas for sometime, as i've not really been happening this year. after looking around i've been quite interested by word press, it having some nice features. then just when i thought i had almost made a call blogger goes all beta and unveils a whole raft of news toys. it's a shame they weren't able to roll them out direct to all users with the beta (i had to set up a new test blog to play with). so now i have a more difficult decision to make. don't expect changes any time soon. probably.

passion flower

view from the garden.

abstract faces

i was stood waiting for the dlr the other day and my eye caught on some of the railway lines that looked like faces. it was one of those days i wished i'd taken my camera with me. true to form there is a flickr group for just about anything you could possibly conjour up. the abstract faces group just makes me smile.

must keep my camera handy and see if i can add to it.

there seem to be a lot of entertaining instructional videos cropping up on youtube, including, how to refresh 5 hours old sour coffee and how to make your fleece like brand new, more here.

flaming sheep

a rather menacing looking sheep shilouetted against the sunset on a welsh mountainside. haven't got round to albumising (?) our scottish photos yet and already have another holiday to document.

had a lovely time in wales. it was very hot. went walking and to portmeirion, amonst other things.

just a taster

more to come, but here is a taster photo from our recent visit to the west coast of scotland. scotland was as ever, wonderful, beautiful and a little bit wet. the view is from the very well-preserved ruin, castle tioram.

this most recent visit north of the border was made particularly special as we travelled up there on the caledonian sleeper, the best train in the world.

another highlight was the pine marten that visited to rummage through the bin. it took a bit of debate to narrow it down to a pine marten, not surprising given they are one of the rarest mammals in the country.

>>update>> mandy got a good picture of the pine marten.

aww for the baby animals

there's not many things get described as being as big (or as small) as a raspberry.

catch up

been to the rather enchanting sheffield cemetery, where apparently 87,000 people are buried. there aren't that many gravestones but those that are there are wonderfully overgrown, ivy clad or just slightly askew.

simple pleasures on saturday

- waking up and lying in bed with a cup of tea listening to radio 4 for an hour and a half. not normally one of my favourite programmes but excess baggage was good this morning, all about people going on pilgrimages of sorts, including the new long march 2; an incredible journey through china.
- eating a lovely meal that wasn't slaved over for hours, ta nigel.
- tidying up my bookmarks. a satisfying task.
- currently liking netvibes. started using it a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden there is a bumper load of new things to fiddle with.

back

from a lovely week in scotland, where the mountains were topped with snow.

angry wimmin

caught bbc four's angry wimmin last night. it was a very watchable documentary about far left revolutionary feminism from the 70's/80's based around interviews with women who were very active in the area at the time. they were all, for the most part, still angry but looking back, sometimes with humour, at the political landscape they were a part of.