My youngest sister, Jude, got married on Saturday to her fiancé Liam. I think she looked gorgeous.
The wedding service was at St Chad’s in Hopwas, a small but beautiful little church in a village just outside of Tamworth. Yes, I did shed a tear or two. Thankfully, I was sat next to Mum, who was worse than me and had come armed with a ready supply of tissues.
Over in the students union, where they regularly have various promotions, leaflets, giveaways, and the like, the latest offer is a free drink. Cans of a certain caffeine/taurine energy drink (no, not the bovine one) are stacked up in boxes outside the shop, free for all comers - and of course, students are never ones to turn down a good offer. I squeezed past several people fitting as many cans as they could in bags and pockets to grab one myself (’cool bite stimulation!’, the can announced).
Back in the office, I realised why they’re giving it away. It’s foul. Also, I think they put it in a can to hide the Really. Offensive. Colour. The final ingredient on the can reads, ‘Flavourings, incl. Natural Strawberry’. Does that look like it’s been anywhere near anything even remotely resembling a strawberry to you? Ugh.
I went out this evening with the intention of getting some night shots around the abandoned warehouses. I did get some shots of that, but the more exciting part of the evening was discovering a grass fire.
I was walking down past the stadium when I saw smoke rising from the top of the hill. Ever curious, I headed up there to investigate and found a wide circle of scrub grass on fire, mostly just blackened ash, but in patches here and there flames were still licking away. I heard approaching sirens as I took some cautious pictures, and backed off just in case the firemen didn’t see me in the dark and decided to turn the water hose on to put out the last of the flames. Within a few minutes, three of them came to investigate, and started stomping out what remained of the fire with their boots. They didn’t see me until I called out to ask them if they knew what had started it. They said they assumed it was kids, and asked me if I was the one who’d called it in. I just shrugged, replied that it wasn’t me, and watched from a distance as they made sure nothing was still burning before returning to the fire engine.
I’ll probably go back there tomorrow to see what the damage is in daylight. Perhaps it’s lucky that the ground was damp from the snow we had recently. I shudder to think what the fire could have turned into if we’d had a spate of dry weather instead.
Well, the new site is slowing coming together, thanks to the extremely helpful support, forums and plugins supplied by WordPress and its users. I’ve integrated a photoblog link into the design - you can now see my latest photoblog image from the front page, and see all the other images by clicking on the thumbnail.
It’s been almost 2 weeks since I got back from America; which shows just how much time flies, and how lax I am in keeping this frequent! However, in a blatant advertisement, my photoblog continues to be updated daily!
It was hellishly busy at work last week due to an annual priority project. As a result, I worked enough extra hours for me to be able to take a half day off in lieu today. Taking the opportunity to go out to Meadowhell whilst it’s not quite so busy, and endure the nauseating and repetitive ‘Best of Christmas’ muzak that sears the ears all throughout November and December.
A brief tale of mirth to go with the mood that only comes from knowing that your work hours have been slashed in half due to holiday, if only for half a day. As anyone who knows me will agree, I do like my sci-fi. Whether it’s Star Wars or Star Trek or Doctor Who or Buffy or etc, I’ll happily glue myself to the sofa and watch the TV avidly.
For purposes of this story though, it’s Doctor Who. I’m not the slavish sort of fan who knows every episode by heart, or the kind that debates, for example, who would win in a battle between the Daleks and the Borg*, but I do like it. When I was a kid, I used to have a recurring nightmare about the Daleks. I’d dream that I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs in the house I grew up in, when a Dalek would glide out of my parents’ bedroom door and point its gun at me. I’d run outside, and Daleks would come out of every front door unexpectedly, surrounding me. Scary stuff.
So this morning, I was walking up the cycle path to the tram stop, with my iPod playing away merrily. The music effectively silences all external noise. Great if you want to drown out chatter, not so great if a heavy goods vehicle is bearing down on you when you cross the road and you fail to hear its air horn (thankfully, never yet happened). I have a lot of..well, some might charitably say ‘laughable’ stuff on my iPod. Child of the 80s, in all it’s glam rock and cheesy pop glory. The one that started playing on the way was a piece by the KLF, who, under the pseudonym The Timelords, released a song called “Doctorin’ the Tardis’. It heavily sampled the Doctor Who theme tune, and quotes from the Daleks. Just as a Dalek shouted ‘Exterminate!’ in stereo directly into my ears, a streetsweeper vehicle with it’s roof light flashing passed directly in front of me. I damn near jumped out of my skin. Old nightmares die hard!
* the Borg. Sorry, but they’d adapt. Resistance is futile.
One of the presents I got for my birthday last month was a camera tripod from my sister and her other half. I’ve not really had a chance to use it, apart from taking some moon shots, but it’s been throwing it down with rain all night, and I wanted to see if I could get any interesting pictures in combination with long exposures. I wasn’t sure what (if anything) I was going to end up with, but I quite like these two shots. They are a little grainy, particularly at hi-res, but I like how the colour came out - a result of the low cloud cover and bright orange streetlights.
I’ve been back from Northern Ireland (where I went on holiday with my Dad, sister and her boyfriend) for a few days now, but it seems so much longer. Had a wonderful time, visiting relatives and places like Carrick-a-rede, the Giant’s Causeway, and Dunluce. I’ve uploaded the best of my photos over here on Flickr.
Back in America again for a holiday down in South Carolina/Georgia, enjoying the bee-yoo-tiful weather. I’m the proud owner of a new digital camera - Canon S1 IS - so I’ve been taking advantage of both the weather and the scenery to take and post some photos from the area over on my Flickr page. Why not go take a look? I’ll be adding more whilst I’m still over here.