Over 650 pics... more than a few planes, but few meteors.
I'll post separate pics of them later, but for now here's a time-lapse of 60-second frames compiled to play at 2fps.
One Leonid at 02:33:24 and one sporadic at 06:26:04
It's best viewed in full-screen after it has finished buffering.
Canon 1000D, 10-18mm zoom @ 10mm, F5.6, ISO 800, captured with APT v 3.33 (http://www.ideiki.com/astro/)
Post-processing with PS CS3, Irfanview, K3CCDTools3 and VDub.
Not sure that I agree with everything here, but it's a good effort:
I went to Leicester General today for yet another venesection. While I was being bled they gave me my serum ferritin test result for the sample taken prior to the previous venesection performed on 27th April. That result was 427 × 10-6 g/L
Compare that to my serum ferritin test result for the sample taken prior to the outpatient consultation at Leicester Royal only the week before. That result was 366 × 10-6 g/L
That implies an increase of over 16%. With no medication or medical procedure between those tests.
Now, I've taken on board their assertion that they are OK with swings of up to 20% (regardless of whether I'm OK with them), but that applies to things which are supposed to stay fairly constant. In this case, however, we are dealing with something that's supposed to be a reduction protocol. There is no good reason for such an increase, yet I suspect they'll say that it's no cause for concern.
I'm no jerk but I do know the difference between shit and Shinola...
I'll get the result of today's test next Tuesday, and there will be another test prior to next Thursday's out-patient consultation. I reckon that those results will confirm that it's a lab problem rather than anything wrong with me.
It could be an interesting week at University Hospitals of Leicester. If they pin the blame on differences between what goes on at the test labs I'll be lecturing them about calibration, standards, and the like. I'll be on firm ground there. I think that their "swings of up to 20% are OK" assertion is just an arse-covering disclaimer because their labs/tests aren't calibrated against a common standard and hence results from different labs are not comparable.
If I had to put my money on one lab or the other, I'd slap it on the General. They have lots of experience with venesections and associated tests for haemochromatosis patients, and that's why the Royal send me to the General for my bleeds.
But it's the consultants at the Royal who decide on my treatment, and they act on the results of their own tests.
Of course, the usual caveat applies... they can't both be right, but they could both be wrong.
When me and my Dad say goodbye to each other we generally shake hands, it's what we do now that he finds embracing too uncomfortable. It works for us.
During my regular visits to the hospital I usually run into a few of the patients who were fellow inmates a year back, we usually shake hands too, it's a sign not just of friendship but also of us having been through so much shite together. And also because hands are the best bet for contact points due to us all having to do the hygiene routine every time we visit - using the hand-gel dispensers is so ingrained that it's a tad like turning Buddhist prayer-wheels, you can't pass one by without having a go. The one exception is my good friend and fellow patient Nick, A.K.A. "Quaver Nick", he likes to do hugs. Mind you, he does bowl from the pavilion end...
But just lately the hand-shaking thing has gone to a new level. A couple of days ago the postman wanted to shake my hand after delivering a parcel, I thought it was unusual but I went with it. And last night at the posh Italian restaurant in town the head waiter went for the handshake when we arrived... and again on the way out... then the head chef wanted a go... by that time I was in full flow so the junior waiter standing by the door got one too.
What's going on? Has the world gone Über-polite while I've not been paying attention? Have I become an unwitting minor celebrity?
Or am I turning into...
It was a sad day when we had to have the old willow taken out.
We would have liked to have kept it but it was becoming unruly and dangerous, the remains of the middle trunk which we'd had reduced during pollarding back in 2009 had rotted all the way down to ground level and were no longer binding the other three trunks, so the whole tree had to go with dignity instead of being trashed by a storm.
It was much older than anyone thought - before felling it, all opinions were that it was just a bit older than the house, so about 60 years old. When the trunks had been taken down I went to see the stump before they ground it out, even at 2ft high it was 4ft across. I tried to count the growth-rings but lost count at about 80, we now think it was into its 9th or maybe even its 10th decade.
We've saved a few wands to plant elsewhere in the garden, so it stands a chance of regenerating from those, but when the ground has settled we'll be planting a large native Birch in its place.
And the wood wasn't all wasted - we've propped up a couple of huge chunks of cut trunk and have hung bird-feeders on them, and we've used a couple of cut rounds to make a hefty Flintstones-style bird-table. Pics soon!
Anyway, here's a rough & ready time-lapse of its last few hours:
Not much happening in the real world, so here's some semi-sci-fi and a classic ad:
