It snowed again. A lot. Enough to make it kind of enjoyable, and that’s why I like this picture — the look of pleasure on Clare’s face. OK, let’s self-criticse about the tree growing out of her shoulder, but hey.
The Watchtower is the magazine with the largest print run in the whole world, some 53,000.000 copies each month, apparently. All distributed for free. (Though it seems even the servants of God’s kingdom on Earth are not immune from having to adapt to the Internet, with the magazine having gone down to 16 pages and more emphasis placed on the digital edition these days.) I guess you need a large and voluntary distribution network to handle a publication like that. And so without addressing irrelevant questions of ‘faith’ — that’s what the Witnesses are: unpaid labour. They have to put in timesheets like the rest of us, but instead of getting pay now, they believe their redemption will come when the world finally ends (which according to them has been about to take place since 1914).
None of this persuades a great many people to stop and take a copy.
At 8 months old Ellie is not the youngest person to appear on the blog (I make her the 3rd youngest) but she is the youngest house guest we have ever had. She and parents Caroline and Loyd (who appeared on the blog in happy circumstances on 24/8/13) visited this weekend. I chose this shot just because it is different but still displays her fundamental cuteness.
Egad, it’s cold and wintry at the moment — at least by British standards — but it won’t go the whole hog and snow, which would at least give something outside to photograph other than this chilly gloom. The ‘fire room’ at the Railway is one of the warmest places I know which is why many of us congregate there after doing whatever it is we’ve done in the day. Like Navvy here, a regular visitor.
Clare had an exam today and on return home celebrated with a bottle of champagne we got for Christmas. Not that she knows whether or not she’s passed or not, but who needs such a specific excuse. This shot is taken from underneath, looking out our front door, through which the cork has just flown. I tried to get the truly decisive action shot, but that one didn’t work, this one is OK though.
It’s a small digital clock powered by two zinc and two copper rods stuck into two potatoes. Hence, a potato clock. Well, the run of landscape shots had to come to an end at some point, but I guess we can still call this ‘nature’?
It would be lovely if I had been able to head off to some dramatic windswept coastal spot or gone up a mountain or made some other such photogenic opportunity. But I did tell you it wasn’t going to be an exciting weekend. So, courtesy of the self-timer, here’s me making dinner again. And yes, I can do pasta from scratch, it’s not that difficult.
So, this is Peter Hook. Bass player with Joy Division (who then became New Order), the greatest rock band ever to walk the surface of the Earth. Playing in my home town. I could walk home afterwards. it was….. worth seeing.
The 21st century child passes his time… Sunday afternoon in the pub. Joe on iPad duty.
The Raspberry Pi is a small computer which one can buy for £25 and is targeted at kids who can use it to learn programming. That’s it visible bottom right of centre, with all the wires connecting it up to the keyboard and monitor so you can see what you are doing on it — Mandy and Sarah Jane here were using it to compose a version of ‘Jingle Bells’ as it happens. It’s nice to get a shot of people being this engaged in a class…
