Category Archives: photography

medical, natural history, personal, photography, pleasures, science, thoughts, topographical

What I Done on My Holidays

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At the beginning of June Noreen and I had two weeks holiday (well time off work anyway). For a variety of reasons, not least that we couldn’t get anyone to feed the cats, not even our local cattery, we didn’t go away. As always we intended to have lots of days out but due to basic knackeration and idleness we failed. So here is what I did done on my holidays …

  • Took lots of photographs of the garden and especially the roses
  • Supervised the gardener reconstructing the compost heaps
  • Got a boot-load of old stuff (dead printers, garden shredder) taken to the tip
  • Proofread Anthony Powell Society quarterly Newsletter and sent it to printer
  • Paid loads of bills
  • Turned out the toot from our wardrobes and threw out a load of old shoes, underwear, etc.
  • Reviewed the draft new Anthony Powell Society website (still under development at the time of writing)
  • Got a haircut
  • Tidied up my PC hard disk
  • Photoshopped lots of photos and posted them to Flickr
  • Caught up on the pile of magazines to read by the bed
  • Had some extra sleep
  • Cooked lamb curry, vegetable curry and trout & pasta
  • Decided not to buy a new bike (‘cos I know I’ll end up not using it, like I didn’t use the last one)
  • Attended a charity trustees meeting, and unexpectedly had to chair it
  • Went to London Zoo
  • Went to the garden centre and bought loads of plants (some acers, a rose, a passion flower, lots of small things) and some terracotta pots for the patio
  • Had a major tidy-up and repotted lots of plants on the patio
  • Stayed up late but still got up fairly early (at least on some days)
  • Had several siestas
  • Went to Kew Gardens
  • Spent lots of time pottering in the garden
  • Got slightly sunburnt
  • Wrote several weblog posts
  • Had sex, several times
  • Totally buggered my sleep pattern and failed to get up early on the days I wanted to (which is why we didn’t have as many away-days as planned)
  • Processed a raft of literary society membership renewals and other admin; three afternoons worth!
  • Tried to agree what we should do for an autumn holiday – and failed!

Such is the stuff of doing nothing.

food+drink, memes, photography, thoughts

Friday Five: Drink

We’ve not done a Friday Five for a long time, so here’s this week’s …

1. What drink wakes you up best in the morning?
Tea. It just has to be a pint mug of tea. Strong tea, with very little milk — you have to be able to trot a mouse on it! 🙂

2. During the day, what do you drink to keep going?
Mostly tea and Diet Coke. Sometimes fruit juice.

3. Do you drink the recommended 8 glasses of water per day? Why/why not?
No. Why not? ‘Cos I drink plenty of other liquid (usually at least 4 pints of tea a day, without anything else) and I don’t like plain water — well neither would you if you had to suffer London’s recycled liquid concrete.

4. What are the ingredients of your favorite mixed drink? (Doesn’t have to be alcoholic!)
It has to be Gin and Tonic!

5. Are you a coffee drinker? How do you take your coffee, if so?
I hardly ever drink coffee these days, and haven’t for 6 or 7 years. I used to like on coffee in the office, but a dowser & healer I knew worked out that coffee wasn’t good for me (except possibly in homeopathic quantities) so I stopped drinking it. (And no he wasn’t anti-coffee as many of these people are; asked him and he actually dowsed it there and then.) These days I drink coffee probably about once a month — occasionally I fancy a coffee (has to be strong, like the tea) and I’m almost always left disappointed.

[Brought to you courtesy of Friday Five.]

freedom of speech, medical, memes, nudism, photography, science, thoughts

Full Frontal Mirror Tiles


Full Frontal Mirror Tiles, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 16/52 (2008 week 24).

Yes it’s horrible, and I’m seriously over-weight … but not as much as I was; I’ve lost 28kg (almost 4.5 stone) since October. That’s not fast, but it is fast enough considering I am diabetic and while controlling calories also have to be careful to keep my blood glucose stable. Actually losing the weight has helped a lot with my blood sugar levels and my blood pressure, so although it isn’t easy it is worth doing; I do feel lots better for it. But I really need to get rid of at least that much again if I possibly can.

Oh and yes, the tile effect is a shameless abuse of Photoshop – just to save the worst of the blushes of the innocent. Being nude, anywhere, anytime, bothers me not at all ‘cos I was brought up as a nudist! But I know it does bother others, so out of respect for them there is nothing here that you wouldn’t see in a swimming pool.

natural history, photography, pleasures, science, topographical

Kew Gardens

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On Saturday afternoon we went to Kew Gardens, home of the Royal Botanical Society. And what a contrast with our visit to London Zoo! OK, being Saturday there were no school parties, but there were lots of visitors with young children and lots of young couples, not just tourists. Everyone was there because they were interested – all ages from the suckling child to octogenarians; English, Australian, Japanese; the young and fit to those who needed a wheelchair or an electric buggy.

Kew is vast: over 300 acres; over a mile from end to end; and around half a mile from side to side. The RBS divide the gardens into three areas and reckon that each area is suitable for a 2-3 hour visit. I take leave to doubt this; we spend three hours there and saw about half of one area, tho’ we were taking our time. Essentially Kew is one huge piece of parkland with specialist collections and specialist “greenhouses” between open areas of grass and specimen trees. So you can lose an enormous number of people in it and it doesn’t seem busy. There are good paths, but you can (mostly) walk on the grass too; we even saw one family group who were obviously there to have a birthday party for their 6 year-old; a picnic and games on the grass!

Kew has something botanical for everyone. From the alpine house to the Palm House (excellent free sauna, as is the Water Lily House!); from cacti to aquatic plants; from deciduous woodland to marine algae. Whatever time of year you go there is always something to see. Obviously just now all the roses are in full flower as well as peonies and some irises; we spent quite a lot of time in the rose pergola, looking at the climbing roses. A few weeks ago the gardens would have been alive with Spring bulbs and Azaleas. In the autumn there will be the magnificent colours of the trees.

Every specimen is labelled clearly, so you know not only what it is but what variety it is. More than that each of the specialist areas has large, clear and informative labels – and unlike London Zoo they tell you interesting things; I learnt several things I didn’t know! But there is no prozeletysing about the right way to garden; Kew isn’t a garden show but a zoo for plants. The Palm House and the Temperate House are excellent and in the basement of the former there is a marine display which majors not just on marine plants as we think of them but explains the importance of algae (which includes all seaweeds); as an aquatic display and an exhibition of fishkeeping this knocks spots off the London Zoo Aquarium.

Like London Zoo, Kew also contains a number of important buildings, including the famous Pagoda and Kew Palace. The latter (administered by the Royal Palaces, not RBS) has recently been restored and opened to the public (at an extra charge); we have to go back and make sure we see this. There is a formal lake (with fountain), a few formal flower beds, and several excellent cafés (good cake in decent sized pieces!) and a new tree-top level walkway – again something we have to revisit to get to see.

At £13 for adult admission it still isn’t cheap, but wow!, do you get good value. I reckon you could spend a whole day there and still not do justice to more than half of the gardens.

OK, so what didn’t I like? Kew is under the main flightpath into Heathrow Airport, so the constant noise of aircraft is a pest. And you can’t buy a bottle/can of drink except from one of their cafés (makes note to take drink next time).

If you’re interested in plants, gardens, biology or just a day in the fresh air near central London then this is well worthwhile; it is one of those magical, little-known, places. And like London Zoo the RBS do lots of important conservation work.

Here are the best of my photos of Kew on Flickr.