My new toy

I have finally given in to temptation and bought my myself an iMac (OK, so my PC dying on me may have given me the final push I needed). It's lovely! I was told I would never want to go back to a Windows PC...I need no further convincing.

It's funny thinking back to the first computer I had and how much they have changed since. My parents bought a Commodore Vic 20 for me and my brother when I was 7 back in 1982 (yes, that is giving my age away)- I can remember thinking that it was the best present ever...looking back now, it was so basic as to be untrue! Yet, we spent many a happy hour playing Jelly Monsters (a version of Pac Man) and Adventureland, which was a very annoying text adventure game that you could never complete.

Our next computer was a ZX Spectrum 48k, followed by a Spectrum +2. What I remember most about these computers was how you had to wait for ages for games to load from the tape player only for them to fail at the last minute...so annoying. We also spent hours following instructions on how to write your own basic computer program. Typing line after line of commands with the final excitement of typing 'run' usually resulted in a series of random sounds or a screen that flashed different colours. Why did we bother?! Our favourite game of the Spectrum era was 'Chuckie Egg', another basic platform game that was highly addictive. I also quite liked 'The Hobbit' adventure game but you invariably ended up in the room with a high window from which escape was never found.

I first used a computer at school when I was about 10 when the first BBC computers were starting to find their way into classrooms. I can't remember much about how we used them so I am guessing they weren't that interesting! We had basic IT lessons at high school, and the introduction of an intranet email system when I was in the 6th form created much excitement- we would spend our lunchtimes in the computer room messaging people who were sitting only a couple of seats away from us! University introduced me to early Apple Macs, but it wasn't until I started to work full time that I first used a Windows PC and later had my own home computer. Now it seems strange to think of life without a computer and access to the internet.

I love my new iMac!

100 years ago today

My Grandad would have been 100 years old today. He would not have been impressed! He lived to the age of 94 which is a fantastic age in anyone's book, and he was fiercely independent to the end...probably too independent at times.

So, other than the birth of my Grandad, what else happened in 1911?

International Women's Day was celebrated for the first time.

The presence of the German warship 'Panther' in the Moroccan port of Agadir triggered the Agadir Crisis.

The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre.

Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

Roald Amundsen's expedition reached the South Pole.

The first Monte Carlo races were held.

What historical events happened in the year of your birth?

Look what we found in the garden

Well, Barney found it actually- it must have prickled his nose because he was standing barking at it!

We had to move it so Barney didn't try using it as a new toy!

Wanderings in Cheshire

Vole came to stay this weekend. We made the most of the fine weather (we managed to dodge the rain) and went for a couple of drives into the Cheshire countryside. On Saturday we stopped off at Little Moreton Hall, a 15th century timber-framed moated manor house. It is a mad piece of architecture which now buckles and tilts under the weight of the impressive long gallery- it is so lopsided in places that I am amazed it is still standing! Some photos are below with the rest here.

The long gallery

Victorian dog kennel

Sunday took us to Tatton Park. We didn't have enough time to walk all round the huge gardens or the farm, but we had a leisurely stroll through the Italian Garden and part of the woodland before looking round the mansion. The mansion is spectacular and Vole was left drooling over the library! A couple of photos below, with the rest here- there aren't many as no photography is allowed in the mansion.

On our way out of the park we drove past a herd of deer, a couple of which kindly posed for the camera

All in all, a lovely weekend (and I reign victorious at scrabble!).

End of an era

I have to admit to being somewhat gutted that R.E.M have called it a day. I first started following them when I was in the 6th form at school, around the time of 'Out of Time' and then 'Automatic for the People'- since then I have bought all their previous albums and waited with anticipation for each of their new albums to be released. I have been to see them live a couple of times and they have not disappointed- Michael Stipe is a fantastic performer and I have always found him an intriguing personality. What am I to do now? It was suggested to me the other day that perhaps I should start following Take That- it never happened first time round and I am certainly not going to start now, I'd rather stick needles.....









There are way too many to post!

Never smile at a crocodile

Well, it's been a while. How's your summer been? Mine's been busy. Now the summer holidays are over I have another week at work before a well-earned week off.

Just thought I would post a few photos taken at Chester Zoo from our trip a few weeks ago. The quality of the pictures isn't as good as I would have hoped, but fiddling with camera settings isn't the easiest thing to do when you are trying to keep track of a large group of children and teenagers!

Menacing

I could have spent ages in the butterfly house, some of the butterflies were spectacular, but unfortunately one of my ward was terrified so I had to make a speedy exit!

Waterfall in the butterfly house

Inside the bat cave, my favourite part of the zoo. I quite like the effect of this photo....if you look really closely you can actually see some bats!

I also organised a visit last week for our young people from the Animal Man. I didn't get up that morning expecting to have a boa constrictor round my neck, a tarantula in my hand and a coatimundi on my back! We had a fab morning. Only a couple of photos as all the rest have children and young people on so I can't post them.

The leopard gecko

...and the bearded dragon.

Juvenile I know.....but funny

Back to reality

It's been back to the grindstone for me today after having a week off work. A whole ten days off, over in the bat of an eyelid. It's been good though. I wouldn't say I was ready to go back to work, but I was certainly feeling a little more relaxed and refreshed than I did.....until I saw the mound of paperwork on my desk this morning. Depressing.
So what did I do with my week? Lots of walking with Barney, I went fruit-picking with my mum and then made 28 jars of strawberry jam (I was a little bored of that one by the final batch, but it tastes fab), had some retail therapy in Manchester (bargains were found!), went to a 70th birthday party and ended it all in style in the company of Voley. We went to see Harry Potter in Birmingham followed by dinner...all most enjoyable. Harry Potter was excellent, though the individuals chomping on popcorn, rustling crisp packets and opening cans of pop all rather loudly for the first half an hour were somewhat annoying; I thought at one point that Voley was going to turn green and start bursting out of his clothes! He was not amused.
I'm now counting down the days till my next week off.......

Last night I dreamt....

I have really vivid dreams. I am sure that if I put as much imagination and effort into writing as I do dreaming, I would be a bestselling novelist!
What is preferable though, waking in a cold sweat from a nightmare but then feeling the relief that it was only a dream, or waking from the perfect dream to the realisation that it was little more than fantasy?
I am lucky that I don't have that many awful dreams these days, although I do dream a lot which probably means my mind finds it difficult to switch off. My dreams are quite often a bit jumbled with people from different times in my life all popping up together at places where they would never in reality meet. I think a dream analyst would have a field day with me...they would most likely deem me a little mad, and probably wouldn't be too far from the truth!
When I was young I went through a phase, as most children do, of having a lot of nightmares, it was horrible. I also used to have these other really weird experiences that were half-dream and half consciousness- in these semi-dreams I would have to perform some impossible task, a recurring one being having to make a fruitcake the size of the house and then eat it (I wonder if the fruitcake was some kind of symbol of my mental state?!). I usually was conscious enough to get to my parents and come out with some drivel like "I can't eat it, it's too big", at which point I usually woke up. All very strange.

Memories

It is five years today since my Grandad, my last surviving grandparent, died. He would have been 100 now and, were he still alive, would probably still be as fiercely independent as he always was. I still remember the morning I drove to work past my grandparents' house, only to see Grandad at the top of a set of 6-foot ladders that were placed at the edge of the road, cutting the back of his garden hedge...he was 90 at the time! Needless to say I didn't peep my horn as I went past.
My grandparents were always a huge part of my life as I grew up and for the last few years of my paternal grandparents' lives they lived nextdoor to us, so I saw them on a daily basis. Whenever our dog, Ben, went missing, we knew Grandad had stolen him and was secretly feeding him biscuits or toffees! He always swore blind that he hadn't, but Ben trying to get toffee unstuck from round his teeth usually gave the game away.
Before we moved more locally to our grandparents, we used to visit them at weekends. I have fond memories of staying with my paternal grandparents on Saturday nights and having Sunday lunch cooked by Nanny (we never let her forget the time she forgot to make the Yorkshire puddings), and then going a few miles up the road to see my maternal grandparents. My Nana used to spoil us rotten and I used to love rooting through a suitcase in which she stored lots of old toys and random bits and bobs from my Mum's and Auntie's childhood. Grandad often took us walking and in September we always went blackberry-picking with him.
Nanny used to babysit us a lot when we were young and my brother and I loved her reading stories to us at bedtime. We were mean though. We used to make her read the first chapter of Roald Dahl's 'George's Marvellous Medicine' just so she had to read the line, "She had pale brown teeth and a small, puckered-up mouth like a dog’s bottom"- we were children, we thought it was funny hearing that coming from our Nanny's mouth! She also hated the story of the Teeny Tiny Woman which appeared in my Richard Scarry Storybook so we used to get her to read that too. It was a really boring story that went on and on and on- again, we were children and we thought it was funny because Nanny hated it! Years later I got my comeuppance though when a child brought a book to me and asked me to read them a story...and guess what the story was?!
In recent years I have done some research with my parents into our family history and have managed to trace back quite a few generations on both sides of the family. I first started to chart our family tree whilst my paternal grandad was still alive; he developed dementia in the last few years of his life and whilst his short-term memory was pretty non-existent, his long-term memory was still fairly good and he would talk for hours about members of his family that I never knew...drawing up a family tree was the only way of keeping track of who he was talking about! It was fascinating learning about my ancestors, especially as both my Nanny and Grandad had unusual starts to their lives...my Nanny was orphaned at 8 years old and my Grandad was brought up by his grandparents from the age of 8 after his father died.

I loved spending time with my grandparents, though as I got older and life got busier I didn't see as much of them as I did as a child, and that I regret. I miss them very much and one thing that makes me sad is that were I ever to get married or have children (the likelihood of either is getting increasingly slim) they won't be there.

Nana and Grandad with my mum, 1948

Nanny and Grandad, c.1938

A trip down memory lane

Last weekend I spent a couple of days in Snowdonia. As I was going to be climbing Snowdon on the Sunday, we decided to travel on the Saturday and come back on Monday to make the most of the weekend. It's years (I feel ashamed) since I was last in Wales and I didn't realise just how much I had missed it till I returned. We (my Mum and Auntie came with me) stayed in Betws-y-Coed, which is itself a beautiful town set in the heart of Snowdonia, but travelled out to Beddgelert on the Saturday- having spent the majority of my childhood holidaying there, it is like a second home to me. The village itself hasn't changed much, except for the re-opened stretch of the Welsh Highland Railway which now runs again through the mountains and alongside the river. I was quite excited at the prospect of seeing one of the trains come past, not to satisfy some long-repressed urge to become a trainspotter, but because I have walked the stretch so many times over the years. Part of me felt a little disappointed that I could no longer walk through the tunnels that carve their way through the mountain above the Aberglaslyn Pass- I remember the thrill as a child of walking through the longest tunnel and not being able to see light at either end when the halfway point was reached- but it was great hearing the whistle of the train as it emerged from the mountainside.We didn't have that much time to spend in Beddgelert but we had a good stroll down the river and I even had a paddle (had to for old time's sake!)...it was freezing! We then walked back up to the new train station to see the diesel train collecting its next passengers- I felt a bit like I was on the set of Thomas the Tank Engine!I've posted a couple of photos of Beddgelert below, the rest are here, and a few of Betws-y-Coed are here.

I can climb any mountain....

.....well, maybe I won't be attempting Everest any time soon, but I have certainly conquered Snowdon. Last Sunday fifty of us faced the elements and battled through rain and strong winds (very strong winds!) to raise money for the North Staffs Special Adventure Playground (I won't start raving again about what a fantastic charity it is). Despite having spent the majority of my childhood holidaying in North Wales and spending three years at university in Bangor, I had never climbed Snowdon before so was really loooking forward to it. I love walking and can go for miles on the flat, but I have never been very good on hills (and Snowdon is definitely a very big hill!) so found the steeper stretches a challenge, especially when also trying to contend with gusts of wind which were determined to set you off balance. One thing I had been really hoping for was that we would be able to see from the summit, but from all the years of driving past Snowdon and it more often than not being covered in cloud, I knew we would be exceedingly lucky to be afforded these views; and starting our ascent on Sunday, with thick cloud coverage from about half way up, I resigned myself to the fact that we weren't going to see very much at all. When we reached the summit, which was bitingly cold and, as expected, completely hidden in the cloud, our first port of call had to be the loos! The summit cafe is a stunning building from the outside (I can't really comment on the inside as it was so packed you could hardly move); I find it amazing how they managed to build it at the top of the highest mountain in Wales, especially considering the extreme weather conditions they would have faced.
I can't pretend that, although I had a great sense of achievement from having successfuly climbed Snowdon, I wasn't just a little disappointed that we couldn't see anything from the summit, so imagine my excitement (I was a bit like a child at Christmas) when we emerged from the cafe half an hour later to find that the cloud had lifted and we could see for miles. It was breathtaking. It wasn't the clearest of views, it was still very hazy, but after seeing nothing but cloud for the previous couple of hours I was elated! I still can't believe how lucky we were as an hour later when we were on our way down the cloud started to come back over again. We certainly experienced the full wrath of Snowdon and just how changeable the conditions can be.
I had a fantastic day, I would love to do it again (maybe without the rain!); I just hope now that we have raised a good amount of money for our charity.

A few photos from the day are below, you can view the rest here.

The team ready for the off

Clouds on the way up

I made it! The summit once the cloud had cleared.

Views from the summit- the photos really do not do justice to how stunningly beautiful it was.

Looking back at the summit on our descent

The Highland Railway train- my mum and Auntie took the easy route!

Soaked

I’m drenched. I thought the storm had passed so decided to take Barney out….I was wrong, it absolutely poured. At least Barney found it entertaining, he was trying to catch the rain!

We were a little more lucky with the weather this weekend. I spent a lovely couple of days in the company of Voley and we managed quite successfully to dodge the showers for long enough to go for two afternoon strolls with our cameras. On Saturday we drove to Nantwich and followed the Riverside Loop, a circular walk which takes you along the River Weaver and the Shropshire Union Canal. I was feeling a little lazy with my camera so I don’t really have any good pictures of the walk, but you can view Voley’s photos here.

Sunday saw us drive further into Cheshire to Capesthorne Hall and Gardens where we ambled through bluebell woods and around the lake before looking around the Hall and then having the compulsory afternoon tea and huge slab of cake! Some photos are below, with the rest here. It was rather amusing seeing a cat being turned on and chased by a flock of sheep- Voley has some better action shots here.

The Gardens

The Bluebell Woods

The Lake

Pet Cemetery

Watchful sheep

Sheep turn on cat

(Sorry about the formatting, blogger doesn't seem to want to let me move things around today)

Getting in training

I thought it was about time I got in some training for my fast-approaching climb of Snowdon, so last Monday I spent the day walking around Cannock Chase and Shugborough with Jill (and her dogs which, being significantly smaller than Barney, I kept tripping over). It was a beautiful day, though a little hot for my liking at times, and I even spotted deer in the woods. A few photos are below, the rest are here.

Through the woods above Milford Common

I love all the different shades of green

Grazing deer

This tree trunk looks like it has a face in it

Looking back along the canal from Shugborough

What happened to the slightly more delicately phrased 'Mind the child'?

School dinners

Last week I went on a training course. It's a standing joke at work that we judge the quality of a course by the quality of the lunch provided. Lately though, with all the funding cuts, there have been no lunches, so how excited were we when we discovered that on this occasion we were going to get fed?! However, imagine our disappointment when on approaching the 'restaurant' we realised that we weren't getting a nice buffet lunch, but what smelled suspiciously like school dinners.... and to my horror I realised that the two options for our cooked lunch were cottage pie or cheese and brocolli quiche. I can't stand potatoes, haven't eaten them in any form since I was about two (I know, I'm very odd), and I remain traumatised by the mere sight of quiche or flan from when I was at primary school.
What were your school dinners like? I have vivid memories of being on last sitting for lunch (which meant you had no choice of what to eat, you had what was left) and being fed cold cheese flan that tasted of vomit (hence my ongoing hatred of quiche and flan), cold soggy chips (don't eat potatoes, so don't like chips) and cold mushy peas...vile. If you were lucky, there may have been a semi-edible dessert left which was most often served with a bizarrely coloured custard (why did they serve it green or pink?). I also remember a teacher sittting with us, pratically forcing us to eat what was on our plates and not letting us leave the table until we did. It was awful. Needless to say, once I went to high school, I took a packed lunch...soggy Ryvitas and cheese were so much more appetising.
I'm back for the second part of my training course this week. Should I brave the dinner options or just take my own sandwiches? You never know, we might get green custard.

Is Spring finally here?

All the signs would suggest so. The first daffodil has come into flower in the garden, buds on the trees are starting to break, frogspawn has appeared in the pond and the sun is shining. I had a lovely walk across the fields with Barney this afternoon (thankfully I did not have to extract a semi-disembowelled rabbit from his jaws today) and watched as five buzzards soared around overhead. I wish I had had my camera with me. Back in the garden the birds were singing and I caught this robin chirping away in the trees.

A couple more photos....

.... and a few more here.