My Dad

Picture from 2001

It is almost two years since my father died, struck down by a heart attack. Hearing the news was unbelievably devastating. Even now with time having passed there is so much I want to show him. We have always had very different interests - he wanting to build and fix things while I was more partial to computer software but these days I am constantly reminded of things he would like to see, and I would enjoy showing him, - a steam train, a vintage car, a construction technique, a documentary or any one of hundreds of small things I think he would like to see.

It always seems like a miracle to me each time I start the lawn mower with a couple of pulls on the starter cord because one of the enduring memories of my childhood includes him replacing points, spark plugs and other bits on the mower before the lawn could be mowed. In fact he would usually build something to "assist" in the fixing of other things. Did he do this because he enjoyed it or did we just not have the money to buy a new one ?

Mom and Dad visited us on two occasions while we were in Florida but I wish he could have visited us here in the UK - I am sure he would have really enjoyed it - the shared history and the fact that the UK is littered with people with similar interests as him. They spend hours in the rain noting passing trains, they build and drive model trains, full size trains and historical railways.

Bizarrely I find myself drawn to things just because I can remember the affection he had for them - am I turning into my father ? I wonder what emotions moulded his interests stretching back before I was even born.

His ashes were scattered on the site of this model railway.

Miss you dad.

Spare screws and missing keys

This eveninng my notebook screen went "fuzzy" and then it died. On restart it would run for about 2 minutes before hanging, fuzzying or running really slowly. After cursing it, turning it upside-down and threatening to bin it to no avail and thus proceeded to dismantle it.

Lessons

• Don't use a high powered vacuum cleaning unless you are prepared to rummage through other bits of "stuff" deap in the bowels of said vacuum cleaner in order to retrieve sucked-off keys.
• Pay attention to where the screws all came from - I have two left over.
• A battery can hurt when dropped on your foot.

The good news it has now been running for 10 minutes now - no fuzz, no hang and as a bonus my touch-pad is working for the first time in 2 years. I had thought it was a Linux driver problem and so had not paid any attention to possible hardware causes - in this case a disconnected touch-pad ribbon cable. Ah well explains the "software" in "software engineer".

Bank Holiday

We aborted the planned climbing trip today on account of Annalise's dizziness and instead went into London to see the photo exhibition "how we are - Photographing Britain" at the Tate Britain.

The train was packed with people returning from the Reading Music festival. In fact everyone seemed to be out and about - a result of weeks of rain now broken with some summer weather.

After the exhibition, we picnicked next o the river and then walked the couple of miles to London Bridge.

I tried to stop Annalise taking pictures of the unelected (House of Lords) half of the Houses parliament building but something about balance and composure forced her to add legitimacy to the entire institution by rendering them whole.

The rest of pictures are here

Flying

This afternoon was perfect flying weather. I took my camera and aircraft out to the flying field.

I loved watching this amble around the sky while soaking up the sun.

My first landing was a little rough but I think it was caused a broken nose wheel linkage - or did it work loose as a result of bad landing ?

During my next flight I was practicing landing approaches when I decided to abort a landing so I could go round again. It must have looked quite chaotic from the side lines. A perfect approach and then from less than a metre above the runway I applied full throttle and full up on the elevator, followed by hard down on the elevator to prevent the stall, hit the runway hard, cut the engine, bounced a couple of metres high before "landing" very hard. Only damage was a bent undercarriage and dented ego.

These aircraft were a little harder to catch within the camera viewfinder.

I spent half an hour this evening getting the plane air worthy for either tomorrow or for the Bank holiday Monday. We are also trying get a climbing trip in this weekend as well.

The rest of the pictures are here

Picking Blackberries

This morning we went blackberry picking. For me the blackberries were more of a vehicle to get out outside and tack some pictures. Annalise and Sophie enjoyed the picking though.

It was so good to be in the sun again.

The rest of the pictures are here

5 Billion Slugs

The UK has 5 Billion slugs.

They are on our driveway and they eat our vegetables. Someone described how to get rid of them you need to get up at night, take a touch into the veggie-patch and pick them all up.

There are then two methods of killing them

• Feed them to the chickens
• Cut them in half with a pair of scissors

Seems hopeless 5 billion slugs, snip, 4999 999 999 more, snip, 4999 999 998 .....

Why has evolution not created slug-eaters - mutant cannibalistic slugs that feast on vegetarian slugs ?

Almost won 35 Million Pounds

I had it 35 million and then it was all taken away :-(

I was on my way home from work and listening to the story of a woman who had won 35 million on the lottery. I started thinking what I would spend it on:

• Some to my favourite charities to start with
  
• a farm close by with green fields and space for chickens and wind powered generator
• another farm on the Welsh or Cornish coast with mountains or sea cliffs close by,
  
• a small light air-craft
• a boat to potter around the coast with and to get to the south of France.

Then just as I was getting home I realised and hadn't won it, someone else had. A bit of a downer that.

Lessons of the day

• When coming in to land at the local model flying club use the large oak tree to line up for the final cross-wind turn before landing.
• When making fudge pour the fudge into the tray before it starts to set - it pours easier and sets evenly.

I soloed this morning - ie a take off and landing without assistance. I had three flights Wednesday, another three yesterday afternoon and today I was determined to land without help. Oddly after completing this milestone the world remained much the same as before - the birds still chirped, the clouds continued to drift across sky and there were no choirs of angles nor throngs of groupies wanting an autograph. Was this a hollow goal all along ?

Tonight was my turn to cook as part of the cooking competition. Curry with fudge for desert. Finally I produced fudge that looked like fudge and not pieces of mud scrapped off the ground. The curry is a dish I often make although because recipes are tedious, like "colouring in between the lines" it never tastes quite the same.

Voting is on Monday night after Annalise's dish.

Back at work tomorrow :-(

Bike is pumped, just need to locate my security pass.

Beachy Head

Friday we went to beachy head - it is a "magical place" only marred by the fact that the cliffs are chalk and thus unclimbable, at least by the sane.

Click through for the other pictures

We picnicked above the cliffs and then walked below, discovered rock pools and shady holes to read in and generally spent a lazy afternoon.

Oh and i disturbed a nude sun bather in a very remote corner. He seemed flustered and self conscious but how does one gesture "I don't care that you are naked, I am just minding my own business, pretend I am not here" without making things worse.

Sophie's version

Flying, hearts and happy times

Today I had three flights of about 6 minutes duration each. Very cool. The flying field seems to have grown a bit larger and the trees are now a little lower.

The foot and mouth outbreak makes overflying the surrounding farmland a little more risky as the farmer would be unhappy with people tramping across the fields to effect a recovery. I had only one scary moment when the wind seemed to blow the plane overhead as it approached me with the sun behind it. I recovered but only because I had enough height to recover from the resulting stall. The next fly pass revealed that I had lost a wheel. At this point I handed back control to my instructor who effected a "crash landing" on two of the three wheels. No harm done except that an additional wheel came off in the process. I paid so much attention to the flight controls that the wheels had seemed kind of cosmetic. Ah well we learn from mistakes.

Earlier in the day Annalise and I spent some time at the hospital where she had a ultra-sound of her heart. Now I know hearts, we've all seen them on valentines day cards, and what she had was not in the distinctive heart shape or red colour - it was black and white and rather grainy, almost but not quite like each of our children on their last ultra-sound scan before we met them in person. That the radiologist did not pick up on this alarmed me - she seemed to think everything was normal. We await the doctors opinion as to whether her heart is several sizes to small - like the Grinch.

Tomorrow we, me as the policy holder and Stephen as the dropper, have a telephonic interview with the insurance company over the claim for the broken camera lens.

After this we will likely either walk or drive around the country-side until we find a picturesque pub and them "waste" the lazy afternoon reading the paper or a book and having a drink. Four days of holiday remaining.

Tonight we started the our festival of "five nights, five chefs and five meals". Each member of the family gets 10 pounds to spend in ingredients and prepares a meal of their choice - nutritional constraints apply. We all vote on the best meal at the end of it. Emily produced marinated chicken kebabs with a peanut-butter based sauce and brownies for desert. Yummy. Tomorrow is Sophies turn.

Alternate view of lakes

Sophie's take on the same experience

The lakes

With reference to the previous post - It rained.

The tents held out for 36 hours of continuous rain, sometimes light but oftentimes torrential until they started to admit drops of water that in time accumulated into mini-lakes on the floor until they were absorbed by the sleeping bags.

Stephen slipped on a path, dropping the camera and smashing the zoom lens in the process. The subsequent pictures are all wide-angle although we took precious few pictures in the rain.
On a less overcast note - last week I updated my insurance policy to include the camera - will they be suspicious ?

The climbing involved a one and half hour to two hour hike into the mountain. This was punctuated by periods when the sun shone until we crested a spur or rounded a corner and we presented with wind carrying horizontal rain and storm clouds. The climb itself was a little tame with some exposure but not very much adrenaline. We were clustered on a ledge when the wind strengthened and despite a slab of shared chocolate I realised that no-one except me was particularly enjoying the prospect of the additional pitches required to enable a "walk off" from the summit.

We took a vote, qualified with a "no sulk" condition, that only I would complete the next pitch and we would then abseil back down the route and take a direct descent down the mountain to the valley - about 400 metres below the base of the climb. The climbing was easy, finding a abseil point was not. The best I could do was to use an unlikely looking block way off the line and right at the limit of the rope length.

I knew what would happen before I had even returned to the others. The wet rope would not pull around to block and thus could not be retrieved - apart from the value of the rope, this was our only means of safe descent having left the second rope below. My pre-constructed prusik loop is currently serving as an anchor line for my model air-plane, don't ask!, so the only option was a sling based prusik and an aided climb back up to retrieve the rope. This time I left a sling and a pair of carabiners to ensure the rope could be pulled through.

I hate leaving equipment behind but looking down on the rest of the family below I couldn't help thinking that they were nesting eagles waiting for their next rabbit to be brought to them. What I needed to do was bump them off the cliff and catch them on the wing a few times until they had the confidence to fly.

The direct descent followed a stream straight down the mountain side. Usually one slips when not paying attention but the rocks were green with lichen, the grass over run with running streamlets and the ground was soft and spongy underfoot so that we all fell - frontwards, backwards and sidewards many times. Often we all fell in the same spot even when forewarned.

By the time we reclaimed the car we were filthy dirty and soaking wet but miraculously unhurt and in surprisingly good spirits. Also my GPS that I had forgotten in the excitement of the departure was still sitting on the roof of the car - a happy surprise. A quick change of clothes, another family vote and we broke camp in record time, re-packed the car and headed home to the perfect weather in the south-east. It was a 2:30 AM arrival home but the beds were dry and our roof didn't leak.

The rest of the pictures are here

Packing for trip

So I woke up this morning and could not locate the bicycle pump. Annalise needed the car today but no problem I'll catch the bus. Except no bus arrives. It turns out that due to road-works related to a gas main repair has caused the buses to route around my stop :-( By the time I realised this I had missed my bus. I walked to the next stop and wait. Spend 10 minutes trying to get real-time bus information on my mobile phone before I sheepishly notice that this bus stop has it already displayed on a built in screen - this just as the next bus arrives.

By this time I am so late that I figure I might as well try a "short-cut" for the one mile walk at the the other end of the journey. This involves walking through farm land and public foot paths in ankle deep mud. At least I met some very nice horses who didn't seem to think it at all odd that someone should be dressed for work cutting across their field. Needless to say it was a good deal longer than usual.

I spent the evening packing the car in preparation for the trip tomorrow. Today at work I had more calls for help than usual and so I will need to go into work around 6am tomorrow in order to get my code released. Hopefully things will go so well that I can get away around lunch time - 5 hour trip to lake district. Looking forward to it.

Things that could go wrong

• Rain
• Roof box could blow off, smash on the road, destroy the contents and cause an accident
• We could run out of petrol
• We could crash
• It could rain
  
• We could get injured or killed climbing
• Software might not get released before lunch - if only I was a lumberjack.
• It could rain
  
• Forget any of a million things
• Sophie is still sick
• and oh it could rain