linda_joyce: (Default)
Just too tired to post, Beth had knee replacement surgery at the beginning of March and I have been walking the dogs every day instead of every other. She was able to take over her share for the first time last Tuesday. It is amazing how more awake I feel.

And it was this is what kicked me into posting

 photo oldmansnow.jpg

Iam a member of a knitting forum called Knitting Paradise and this picture has just been posted in the general conversation section of the forum. I have no idea where it was taken or when just that the poster lives in Ohio and it was sent to her by a friend.
linda_joyce: (Default)
I hope my friends in the North and East are coping with the snow we had last night. I can't complain as we have only had a sugar coating which is melting fast and making the roads very slippery but in the news this morning I heard that Northumberland has 15 foot snow drifts in places. I know [profile] inyadreams, [personal profile] reapermum and [profile] mizz_history live only a little way south of that county. The forecast weather maps show [personal profile] quarryquest's area is under thick snow clouds too. Three days after the spring equinox and it's still winter, although I did manage to get a small branch of catkins and one of pussy willows when I was out walking on Equinox day to bring back for cousin Jill.
linda_joyce: (Default)
Thank you for your comments on yesterday's post I think I have calmed down now but it took a long time to fall asleep last night. I would just be dropping off and my brain would jerk me awake to check that Kandi was still there, as a result I feel like one of the living dead today. Kandi has been the perfect little dog today, she came when she was called , was almost never more than 5 yards from me when we were on our walk this morning. The only time she was further away was when she and Saffron were playing King of the Castle and she was defending the high ground. She lost because she was taking her eyes off Saffy to make sure I was still around. Tonight when we go for their toilet walk Kandi will not be let off the lead , which will upset her mightly but I am not risking another night like last night.
linda_joyce: (Default)
I have just had the worst 2 hours of my life so far. I took the girls up to the girls behind the village for late night toilets, normally we walk into the first field , I take their lead off, they do what is necessary, snuffle a round a bit then come back to me the leads go on and we come home. I have to take Saffron out as she will not use the garden, Kandi does but she comes as well. Tonight was not normal, we got up up to the filed , I took the leads off and Kandi was off like a greyhound from the gate, over into the next field but by the time we got there she was no where in sight, not that I could see very far just to the end of my torch light. Well I've spent the time since then(8:30 pm)wandering round the streets calling her quietly and asking every god I knew the name of to bring her back then coming back home in the hope she would be sitting on the doorstep. Half an hour ago I started out on what would have been my last circuit and this time I took Saffron with me in the hope she might scent her. And she did, As we passed gate to the house next door to Beth's Saffron pulled me towards it. And sitting behind the gate was Kandi. She was so delighted to see us I hope she will not go chasing off again. What puzzled me then was how did she get into the garden. The front gate was shut, there is about 6 feet deep bramble patch on the field side of the fence behind the house. The only way she could have done it would be if Beth's gate at the back of the house up to the field was open and she had come down into the back garden and jumped the gate between the two houses That gate wouldn't be open as it has a strong spring on it to make sure the young nephews and nieces couldn't get into the neighbouring garden when the were visiting. I know she is a good jumper but I didn't think she was that good.
Kandi will still be coming for late night walkies but until it is full daylight at 9:00pm she will be kept on the lead.
linda_joyce: (Default)
This is very much an experiment, I was given a digital movie camera for Christmas and I have been playing with it since then, My still camera was, and still is, out of action during our snow but I did manage to get a very short but good video of my girls in the snow. I am now going to try to link it into this entry. If it works once the screen goes white stop watching as it then goes black for 4 minutes.

http://s499.photobucket.com/albums/rr356/bartlebee_01/?action=view¤t=SUNP0018.mp4
linda_joyce: (Default)
Photobucket

I'm not sure that some of my newer friends have ever seen this photo so I thought I would post it again. This is my home village shot from an angle that makes it look deserving of its original name Celenyn which means the beautiful place. I live in the last house you can see of the row running diagonally from left to right, that is running steeply up hill, there are two more houses above me. We are not as isolated as we look as we are surrounded by two housing estates built in the 50s on to the left and out of the picture and one to the right. If you look carefully you can make out the shape of one of those houses just a little up hill and across the road from me.

The field behind the top most row of houses was a play park with swings roundabouts see saws and rocking horses when I was a child here but more often than not we played on the remains of an old oak that had had to be felled because it was in danger of falling on us. That was our space ship,sailing ship, Conestoga wagon, stage coach and much much more. the swings and every thing else were removed in the 70s because they were considered dangerous because there was no soft landing only soil and grass and the old tree trunk had rotted away by then. It is now a dog walking area and ATM a sleigh run. To it's left is the local cemetery started about 1860.

At the bottom left is the local elementary school (4-11 year olds) and behind it is the only remaining building left of Abercarn House the home hove the 'Lords of the Manor' of Abercarn. The village was built by Sir Benjamin Hall(a Lord of the Manor) and his wife Lady Augusta to house their estate workers some time between 1820 and 1840. It is the coach house but had been converted into a human hose before I was borne.

Unusually for the Welsh valleys we have a small space between my village and the the ones below and above it in the valley. Normally the villages run into each other so you need to be a local to know when you have passed from one to another.

I wish I could get over to the point I took this photo from and take an other while the snow is down but while it might be possible to get my car down the hill and by a cicuitous route over to the other side of the valley I don't I could get back up again so I'm not even going to try
linda_joyce: (Default)
The Met Office has been warning Wales about blizzards heading in from the north west since last weekend. We will not be having the depth some of you in the colder parts of the world have. In normal snow weather we are unlucky to have more then a couple of inches. We, here in the valleys of South Wales have been on an amber warning, up to six inches, for this week. Tonight it changes we are now on red alert a foot or more. We haven't seen that much since 1963 and that was the worst winter of the 20 th century for the UK. So I am going to go stir crazy if it lasts more than a few days. I won't be able to drive any where and the dogs will be jumping out of their skins with the need for a good walk. I'm not at all sure Kandi has ever seen more than a few millimetres of snow she is only 2.75 years old and her birthplace they haven't had any proper snow for over 3 years. Saffron did see a few centimetres last year and loved it.

Beth gave me a digital movie camera for Christmas, I will have to take it out with us on our short walks and learn to up load any thing that they do that is interesting.
linda_joyce: (Default)
Sue and Anne, wh are co owners of Katie and Alice have taken them and Sue's adult male Daily to Edinburgh for a show this week end, I am left with my two Cas,Hugo,Dyllis and Solo. Solo being a 16 week old tricoloured Sheltie somehow related to both of mine. Meet Solo playing with his Aunts we think, Kandi and Saffron. All pictures will be thumbnails as I haven't mastered the new photobucket yet, just click on the pictures to enlarge.

100_0683

This one was taken today.100_0746

We know he has grown in one week though it doesn't show here. Sue's garden door is one step above the garden and Solo used to get ahead of everyone else by walking under the door to get to the opening whileall the others had to walk around the door, hw had no problems walking upright under it a week ago he now has to duck his head.

Today he learned that he could jump on to the chairs in the living room, here he is on for the first time
Photobucket
And here he is jumping off

Photobucket

He's better than TV.

Tomorrow I will try to make a story as photbucket calls it and post them.
linda_joyce: (Default)
On the way back from taking the close up I realised I had a lovely view of my house, it's the one with the wooden over door shelter with black tiles.

100_0676
Read more... )
linda_joyce: (Default)
At least it has in bits and pieces, some trees think it is still summer, a very few are confused enough to think it is spring and are putting out new leaves, some think autumn has started and are just turning and one glorious Ash knows it is Autumn.

100_0667

She, for the Ash is a lady in this part of the world has thrown off her dark green summer colours and put on her golden gown, There is a Beech on her left and a sycamore on ther right. The beech is just beginning to change into his russett suit.

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Dawn,or at least the first view of the sun that day, ove the Nevern esturay Newport Beach.

Photobucket
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linda_joyce: (Default)
Just 3 photos click to make larger.
Before Photobucket After Photobucket Why, what the fire did to my hair Photobucket
linda_joyce: (Default)
I have been away for my annual week in West Wales. We had mixed weather but managed to get the dogs, my 2 and Sue's 5,walked well at least once a day on even the worst day,Tuesday,But it was a holiday that could have ended in disaster.
We stay in a little cottage roughly in the middle of the village of Moylegrove, which is mostly holliday accomidation theses days but still has some some residents, if only the people we rent the cottage from. Between my freind and I we have 7 dogs, dogs who all know about Newport beach and as soon as their people get dressed are barking madly with anticipation. SO we feed them while in our nightclothes Sue goes up stairs to dress while I prepare our breakfast and lunch to be eaten at the beach, this one,
Photobucket.
Breakfast is always the same for the humans, bacon butties(wenglish for sandwiches)cooked on a camp stove in the back of the van in a space between the dog cages and the passenger/driver bench. It is cooked after we take the dogs for a walk along the beach to the left of the picture turn left around the end of the dunes, up this estuary Photobucket as far as the white house and back. As they sit and dry out in their cages we sit and have breakfast looking out at the sea, in deck chairs if warm in the front of the van if not. Last week it was van weather. The gas bottle we were using was grtting low so Sue had bought a new one, which I installed on the Thursday. We should have known something was wrong with it by the ammount of gas that escaped when I put it in but it cooked our bacon with no trouble. I swithced it offclosed the side door of the van leaving it too cool down in the van where I was cooking. We had finished eating and I had made us both a cup of coffee when suddenly thee was a flash of light and a flash of heat and we saw flames surging along the roof of the van, we both fell out of our respective doors. sue to the back to get the dogs out, me to the side to get the still burning camping stove out before it did any more damage. Sue was grabbing the dogs and almost throwing them behind her and niether of us noticed until everything that mattered was safe that 4 people from other cars in the car park were catching them and putting them in their cars so they wouldn't run off, one couple had dogs of their own but the other didn't and had an immaculate car in side but they didn't care thewy took care of our fur babies. Kandi managed to geta way from eveery body though and it took her about half an hour to come back but at least she di come back. We were so lucky that Sue ahd fixed the back doors so that air could get thrrough to thr dogs, the draft coming throughthe crack blew the flame forward and away from the cages, Hugo, Cas and Daily who were on the bottom cages were hardly touched, but the girls, Kandi, Saffron,Katie and Dyllis have all lost their whiskers and have some singeing on the back of their necks. Thankfully they are all full coated Shelties and the under hair seems fire proof as it was only the long guard hairs that got caught. The high seats of the van protected me and Sue but the cooker was the passenger side of the van so I caught the worst of it, I got a very small burn on my scalp and burns on my right nuckles where the dog blanket I grabbed to move the cooker left them bare, Sue's short hair was singed on the left hand side where the back of the seat dips slightly. We were very lucky that everything we had in the back of the van were all 21st century buys, nothing flared but my cool bag, wet weather coat and cold weather coat melted as did two of Sue's body warmers and her wet weather coat. All were right offs as was the cooker. The van stank of burned plastic(the coats etc) but being a basic van it was metaled floor and roof so no damage there. Sue made me go and see the local doctor and he gave me a cream that cleared up my burns withing 24 hours and took my blood pressure which was a near perfect 80/110, though I was crying by that time, mostly with relief that Kandi was back. I got an appointment with the hairdresser near the surgery and got rid og the singed hair, I will put up before and after pictures soon. The pictures are from last year but that is what we like about Newport Beach it never changes.
linda_joyce: (silver queen)
Good news about the computer it was only a glitch, the fan was working normally when Sue's tame computer tech came to look at it. He put ccleaner and an anti- malware program on for me and ran them both, he has even lent me the plug into the wall bit for my charger as I had left mine behind . And all he asked for was his petrol money which he said was £5. I was so thrilled I gave him a ten pound note and refused change.

Now to the bad news and the not so bad news about the car. Some where on one of the 4 motorways I have to use to get here, M42 I think, there was a god almighty Crack as something hit my wind screen to wards th passenger side just on the top of the glass. Nothing seemed wrong so I didn't stop until I got to Sue.

There wasn't a mark on the windscreen and it looked as if I had got away with it. The car sat there over the weekend and Monday as we all went out in Sues dogmobile A small van with built in cages for the dogs to travel in. So it wasn't until Tuesday I got in it again to go look for mosquito repellent in Ramsey. I was driving slowly through some road works when I went over a bump and my windscreen cracked in two places. On getting back I phoned my insurance company to see if it was covered, it wasn't. It's a cheap company and one of the reasons it's cheap is that it doesn't cover the windows. Auto glass quoted me £465 to replace the windscreen with £20 pounds off for payment in advance. Reluctantly I accepted, Oh and we can't do it until next Tuesday. Well I'm my own master and Sue didn't mind if I stayed an extra day so In payed and put the phone down. No sooner had I done so than the phone rang, a friend of Sue's from Obedience school who worked for a delivery firm. Sue was telling her the story and when she said how much Autoglass wanted D said a local firm had replaced a windscreen in one of her firms vans only last week and the bill had been £156 So get in touch with Silver Shield and ask them. So we did. I got a quote of £115 plus tax. I grabbed it. When could they call Tomorrow between 8:30 and 3:00( that was Wednesday.
The man turned up at 8:45 and would have finished by 9:30 had the rubber seal on my old windscreen not broken as he was taking it off and he hadn't got a replacement on the van. He would go ba back to base and get one then to his next appointment the he would be back around 11:30. As good as his word he was back 11:45 and was finished in an hour with tax and the new seal I paid £156. So gentle Beings if you ever need a glass repair and you are in Cambridge remember their name I would recommend them to any one as foolish as I was and does not read the small print.

Needless to say I canceled the appointment with Autoglass and asked for my money back to which they agreed. However the money went into their bank account half an hour after I gave them by details, it is yet to be returned. If I don't get it back by the end of the month I'll set my barrister cousin on them, our Jane writes an evil letter of complaint.
linda_joyce: (Default)
We were walking around the local sports field which is bordered on one side by the river Ebbw. Which can look beautiful.
100_0512photoshop

Then you push through some bushes and see this, a remnant of our heavily industrialised past.

Photobucket

Read more... )

QI

May. 10th, 2012 09:53 pm
linda_joyce: (Default)
I've been watching an old episode of QI on satallite, I must have missed it first time round because the answer to the question
Why do people sniff books
explained why I loved working in the stack amongst our old newspapers, some dating back to the beginning of the 19th century and IIRC one or two to the end of the 18th century.

The answer is to get high. Disintegrating printed paper gives off inert gasses and hallucinogenic fungal spores. So any of my friends who are still librarians demand gas masks before going into the stacks.
linda_joyce: (Default)
For those who haven't known me for very long after my dogs my main hobby is knitting and has been for avery long time, ever since I was 5 years old and my grandmother taught me. I indulge myself every month by buying a Knitting magazine. Not the same one every month just one that takes my eye. This month the magazine I bought had a small pattern book as a give away that might just get me knitting something I actually hate nto make, knitted toys. This booklet is called May Mice and has patterns for mice in what people consider Mayday Acivities. The activity that took my eye was the Mice Morrismen. When I have time ie when I get back from my trip, I will scanthe pictures and post them, they are so cute.

An other thing that provided a fun five minutes was a book recomended for Knitters with a leaning towards SiFi Called knits for nerds by Toni Carr. I looked it up on Amazon and I might just buy it for two Patterns, Hobbit Feet Socks and a hat wich is Princess Leias hair style. They may end up as Christmas presents for my FriendsJenny and Sue as we have known each other for so long we've stopped giving 'real' presents(except for gormet foods) and make or buy joke gifts. All I have to decide is which to give to whom.
linda_joyce: (Default)
I've given you a break from my photos as the last two days can be put on to one entry. Thursday we spengt a very lazy extremely hot summer day sitting by a picnic table on the edge of the Severn estuary at a tiny little hamlet called Swanbridge. It consists of half a dozen houses, a very popular Gastro pub,and a craravan park surrounding the old manor house which was converted to holiday flats 60 years ago.(You can see this house behind the round tower in the second picyure.

This is the pub, it's so long even on panarama I couldn't get it all in

Photobucket

Here is the bit I couldn't get in
Photobucket

The pub is called the Captain's Wife as the original bulidings belonged to a sea captain whose wife kept watch from the tower rat the end to see his ship sailing up the channel to harbour in Cardiff.
Read more... )
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You have already seen the panorama of the Llangors Lake, meet a few of the natives. These are two of many very tame wild swans, the tourists feed them. From their behaviour over the ten minute I observed them, the one in front is a female probably too young to mate but old enough to attract the male . He was chasing her all over the place and she was running away not running to be caught.

Photobucket.

Under the cut are the cut are the other natives.
Read more... )
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We went to Brecon first for a look round. The main branch of the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal ends there and that is the most photogenic area of the town.

I have no real idea what this is but it is part of the original buildings around the canal basin, it's now a boat hire place.

Photobucket
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