Fickle Flickerings

Another week nearly gone and not much to show for it. I rejoined Flickr again which was probably a bad move. Nice to share some new photos though and a few old ones from the Leigh Jones Archive. I'll try and get a Flickr widget or whatever they are called at the side here to click on.
Went for walk into town this morning. Very frosty but lovely bright sunshine. I didn't find much just a video of some strange puppet animation with Prof. Stanley Unwin as a vicar who fights evil secret agents and spies. Sadly he doesn't do any of his famous gobbledegook talk - not in the bit I watched anyway. I can see why it never caught on! It's by Gerry Anderson who made Thunderbirds, Super Car, Space 1999 etc.
Made a chilly bean pot crossed with a curry tonight. Also we had chinese vegetable spring rolls that Hazel bought at Morrisons yesterday. It was a weird mixture but seemed to work.

Happy Birthday Wilf!

Its' Wilfred's birthday today, or the anniversary of the day Hazel and Archie bought him from the pet shop - a year ago. He celebrated by dragging a seedy cake topped with a slice of banana down to the slope to his little house.
Otherwise it's been a dreadfully dull, wet and miserable day.

Yesterday was better and we went for a walk to Marbury and fed the ducks. A new bird feeding station had been built nearer to the hide so we got a better view of the robins, tits and finches flying down for the bits of crust Hazel put on the platform.
Afterwards went to LIDL to get some groceries whilst Archie went in the pet supermarket to get hamster treats. Fascinating eh?

Behind With My Doings

This week seems to have whistled by and here it is- Friday again.
Winter really has started this week with very cold frosty starts to the day - mostly in the mornings. Hazel had to scrape ice of the windscreen yesterday but today wasn't so bad. Too cold to point and my efforts to smash a hole in the concrete for a new gate post came to nothing. Really we need a big sledge hammer or a pneumatic drill - throwing large rocks at it was pretty hopeless!
Today I did some shopping in town- found a great Popeye DVD with some really old Fleischer Brothers films. I think we have some of them already but a couple I dont remember. Also Lee & Herrings "Fist Of Fun-Live" on video which isnt as funny as I remember them being in the mid 90's. Alright for 20p though. Got a pile of books and CD's from the Salvation Army shop which was having a sale. From the market book stall got a great old 60's "HOMES" magazine with lots of collage material in - ugly rooms to fill with strange people and perculier objects. I have a head start here!

Discovered , after a few phone calls, that DHL will charge 94 quid to send a parcel to Norway ( door to door ) but only 31 quid at the post office, which I thought was expensive anyway!

Seasonal Artistic Disorder

Hazel took this photo of the woodpecker on our nut feeder. It's a bit blurry but these digital cameras are useless at distance shots through slightly grubby windows. We've not seen him since. The bouncy squirrel came again yesterday and was doing all kinds of acrobatics on the bird feeders- hanging by his tail etc. He managed to chew through a bag of peanuts and they all cascaded to the ground and all the birds swooped down and carried them off! Doh!

Good news about the zombie film we were extras in - will be shown over Christmas at local tiny cinema in Knutsford - a charity premiere no less. I expected it to go straight to video so a chance to see it on the big screen will be a treat ( I think?)

Went for a walk yesterday before lunch to get rid of a bag of mouldy bread rolls at Shackerley. The ducks,geese,swans, and sea gulls were apparently starving and quite a feeding frenzy went on 'til the whole lot went in about 5 minutes - feathers flying everywhere! I think some of those ducks are zombies as they have a funny look in their beady little eyes.

Charity Market

It was the annual charity market in town today. I went with Hazel despite the drizzle. It was a pretty dissapointing affair with mostly ticketed prize stalls ( what the devil are they called? ) and old tat decanted from the charity shops. I bought a CD of music from South Africa. Not sure what Hazel bought. She had her eye on a folding cake stand but I sneered at it -later it had a price label of twenty quid which seemed a bit steep. Hazel went off to get a smaller folder for her photos to send to Norway and I did the rounds of the other shops- Help The Aged, Oxfam, Age Concern, Red Cross, Scope etc..

Hazel took loads of photos of the fireworks in Verdin Park- this is one of the best.
I painted the rest of the bathroom as it was drizzling again when we got home. Will have to do the "pointing" tomorrow if the weather is better.
We are back onto "Grim Fandango" on the PC. Archie is further on than me. I got stuck half way through last time I played it.
Hazel is in her workshop this afternoon - bashing some bits of metal into shape.
Archie said his day at school was dull but not as horrible as he feared. He's off on a school trip to Liverpool tomorrow so hopefully that will be a bit more fun. He's really down on school at the moment. I felt the same when I was his age- couldnt wait to leave.
Time to go and make a fish pie.

24th Anniversary

I can't quite believe it's nearly a quarter of a century that Hazel and I have been together, well since our first date at a bonfire party in Alsager. It was a couple of years later that we actually moved in together and that as we say is history. Archie thinks it was ancient history ofcourse- all those new romantics and the miner's strike - when they still had a thing called conductors on the buses! Those were the days!

Hazel gave me a lovely "string collector" badge/brooch thingy to put on my lapel made by her in her workshop. Its brass or copper or nickel- not sure which and stamped with the words "Bear Feeding" which is what we soppily called our first date for some reason - long forgotten in the mists of time. Hazel will no doubt remind me - silly old duffer that I am!
Also a box of chocs. I made Hazel this card. She said "Are you going to shoot me?" No reason for the target on the head - just a nod towards one of my heroes Joseph Cornell. I also gave Hazel a weird metal gadget I found on the market- a pipe cleaner in its own tubular metal scabbard.
Tony Eve took this nice family portait at my 60th. although I do look rather mad!

Bonfires and Sparklers

It's that time of year again when we re-enact the Somme and the long nights are filled with the barrage of cannon fire and the smell of cordite! Last night it was the Verdin Park spectacular with a big crown gathered in the bonfire light to see 5, 000 quids worth go up in smoke in 15 minutes. It was worth every penny for the guy mister. The addition of some half dozen tiny hot air ballons made it even more charming as they followed each other up into the starry sky and lot lost amid the flashing lights of planes landing or leaving Manchester airport.
We stood a bit further over this year as not to be deafended by the roundabouts and swingthingy fairground ride blasting out drum and bass.

Today we went to Sainsburys to get some stew making stuff and nice poppy seed bread to dip into it. We usually go to tescos or Aldi but Sainsburys made a change of sorts and was very busy. Thud bang whizz fizz! and that was just the items falling off the trolley into the back of the car.

Granma and Audrey came round for another bonfire and smaller display of fireworks at 5 today. they boguht most of them and the bread pudding. I made the stew and the sausage rolls ( from a packet actually ). It was pretty nippy but the rain held off long enough for the roman candles and raindrop clusters etc. were let off and sparklers waved and the guy that archie made got burnt. Poor old Guy. he didn't last 5 minutes. Archie melted a plastic soldier and then we went in for food and hot drinks.

Woodpecker!

There was a woodpecker on the birdfeeders hanging in the garden this morning. Hazel could hardly get the words out as she gazed transfixed out of the window whilst typing something- "It's a a a thingy!" I didnt even know they ate peanuts? Must be a shortage of weevils to peck for- or whatever insects they eat. We see them and mostly hear them in the woods when out walking but never dangling from the garden shed! I tried to take a photo but alas they all turned out blurry in my haste and no tele-photo lens. hazel took some too but she's not uplaoded them yet. Hope she had better luck. I shot out the bathroom window too but they were even worse - atmostpheric glimpses of leaves and twigs.

This is another of Archie's collages from the lovely "Architecture" book he is making for school.
Yesterday I wandered into town for a walk and got a few things including two videos- Clerks and Come back Jimmy Dean by Robert Altman. Hazel borrowed an interesting DVD from a fellow tutor called "Tin Tin Et Moi" by a Danish director about his meeting and taped interview in the 70's with Herge- Tin Tin's inventor/illustrator. The whole film has been constructed around the audio tape with animations, illustrations, photos and interviews with people close to Herge a bit like the film about Ray Johnson.

The Timberwise chap came and looked at the damp patch and said it probably was something to do with the gate post outside that was leeching rain water in- along with poor pointing. He promised to get the skirting board and behind it replaced if we did the poiting and gate post. Not sure if we get our money back for the survey though as it seems to be only partly their fault under the terms of the guarentee. Fingers crossed. We might try and do the jobs ourselves as pointing seems easy enough if rather tedious.