Tuesday, June 27, 2006

stuck indoors

so I reach for the zoom lens

half size sportsmen at Bennetts Well school

the new owner is clearing weeds with a noisy strimmer and the dog is barking, but the last owners were less than thorough when they painted the fence

I could not see what this pretty pantechnicon was here for

Weird Words: Pantechnicon
The story behind the Weird Word 'pantechnicon'. ... Alas, the scholarship of the Pantechnicon’s proprietor was not matched by his business acumen


I uderwatered these tomatoes to make their roots grow and they survived

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

milk before dawn

I got up at 4:15 am and saw the milkman delivering to the doorsteps of just a few houses. I have wanted to blog this for a while as a bit of old England fast disappearing

I love this light and tend to get up at this time before sunrise


the moon above Alcott Wood and the new Solihull College

zooming in to the new northern campus

not my best moon shot

seven floors below me, roses in the Merton House garden

I am in the spare room and looking north past my bedroom window flung open to ventilate the flat and my bed clothes

this milkman's round is very very wide spread and thin most of us get our milk at supermarkets these days and on saturday's he will come later to collect the money for the weekly accounts.


first bus driving out to its start position

from my kitchen window looking left, the back door of the next block

behind the shops no deliveries yet

milk float

milkman at work he will also have bread butter, bacon and eggs.

cleaning up at the doctors'

and on to the next customer - I remember horse drawn deliveries, then electric milk floats and this is a diesel

accident at home

I saw the milk float at 4:20 am and rushed to grab my Sony DCR PC100 handicam from 1999

the camera was on the blue cushion


and I caught the middle toe of my left foot on the steel chair frame

I had grabbed the camera in my left hand and its battery with my right and rushed towards the window









I stubbed my toe here began to fall and let go camera and battery

I got both arms out and broke my fall with my forearms so neither banged my face nor hurt my wrists

but my right knee hit hard





this is my eye view as I laid on the carpet

with my 350 lbs and sore knees (the left has an old injury from falling on ice in Frederiksberg Allé in Copenhagen and previously in about 1957 in the Haymarket , London, it is difficult to get up again.






My eye fell on this radio table of oak from the panelling of Trostrey Court

(My granny had it made and a 1930ies radio on it)
so left hand there








and with my right hand I grabbbed this cupboard door handle








heave ho and getting my feet under me








I use this for drying sheets and towels


ow my right knee

I used a pain reducing trick I learned from the Scientologists when I took a student hat to learn what it was all about

In the fifties Ron Hubbard was a respected science fiction writer in the same class as Asimov and Arthur C Clark, and after I met danish journalists in Bobbi Bar who had only bad things to say, awoke a wish to find out for myself what it was all about


an "assist" touching this bruised knee to the cold radiator

at first gave a sensation like a mild electric shock, which when repeated some how signals to ones nervous system to reduce the ache from the bruise

Ron may have picked it up from a faith healer somewhere but it works
I got it by reading a book in their Copenhagen bookshop (I could not afford to buy it)

I wear rubber (now plastic) stockings to reduce water retention in my legs


the camera ended on the floor behind the radiator but still works





giving my sore toe an "assist"
reduced the pain but not the swelling which is still quite colourful

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/cooper-scandal.txt
the negative views
http://www.lermanet.com/edgard-negron/index.htm

Scientology is essentially a pyramid sales organisation distributing books and services - very american I fear


composition

http://www.bridgepub.com/index.html

dawn desktop

the view at 4:47 am when sitting on the bed in the guest room (with sore toe and bruised knee)

hawk looking for breakfast

looking towards Coleshill, North Warwickshire

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old vapour trail

my current desk top image

Thursday, June 15, 2006

my plants this morning on the balcony

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tomato lycopersicon mermanda transplanted last week

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transpalnted 3 days ago and not yet settled

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only two lettuce any good lactuca sativa Atraktion

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suffering from the heat 30 degrees and transpalntation - but with wet feet

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cucumber restina just flowered today

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I found some very old darning wool to tie it to the five bamboos,
next time I will put the rods in from the start

never seen cucumber in a greenhouse before



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now should I take a brush and pollinate them?? HELP!!!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

monday at home

4:40 am


playing with the zoom lens

AND much later

dustman at work


loaded up

and emptying the tub to await pick up

Merton House garden


on my balcony before I started some gardening amd replanting and thinning out















cress gone to seed and I found that I could manually focus for a close up

where I will plant out my tomato plants when I go on holiday

blossom over and all green

Solihull College North Campus is nearly complete

Alcott Wood mostly oak trees

Bosworth Drive
you can hardly see the Macdonalds at Chelmsley Wood shopping centre


oops 12:05 pm false colour because in the rush I hit the back light button

loading the dust cart

one minute later

car with two flags which increase fuel consumption and frighten the horses (reported by riding schools)

square bins from under the rubbish chutes

of MertonHouse

exit to Crabtree Drive

skip and building rubble behind the shops

tow truck with a dead red car

late evening light

on Bosworth Drive

8:05 pm

sunset and time to take down the flag

St George's Cross - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The standard of St George only recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity fuelled partly by football-inspired nationalism, but also by the devolution movements in Scotland and Wales asserting a separate identity. Until the mid-90s, it was the Union Jack which was used to support the English football team - even bizzarely at games against Scotland where it was literally the flag of both nations.

The Standard of St. George was adopted by King Edward III who declared St. George patron saint of England and his banner as the English flag FOTW