Jerome's been kind enough to send me copies of his pics taken during our walk around Cwm Idwal back in April this year, when we attended the OM Beddgelert Meet. Mountain-lovers will be impressed by the way he's captured the interplay between crag and cloud above the Idwal Slabs and Glyder Fawr, but my attention has been distracted by the degree of insulation-loss on the head of the beardy bloke in the foreground. No wonder it was a tad chilly on the top!
Thanks for the pics, Jerome!
Merry Christmas, folks!
Here's a little something to get you into the swing of things:
Greetings and Disclaimer
From us (hereinafter called the Wishor) to you (hereinafter called the Wishee) Please accept without obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all...
... and a financially successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects and having regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform or dietary preference of the Wishee.
By accepting this greeting you are bound by these terms:
This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal;
This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the Wishor are acknowledged;
This greeting implies no promise by the Wishor to actually implement any of the wishes;
This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain Wishees in certain jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the Wishor;
This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably may be expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first;
The Wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the Wishor;
Any references in this greeting to The Lord, Father Christmas, Our Saviour, or any other festive figures, whether actual or fictitious, dead or alive, shall not imply any endorsement by or from them in respect of this greeting, and all proprietary rights in any referenced third party names and images are hereby acknowledged.
Thanks to Andy for the above text.
OK, I've given in. I've started using Google Reader.
Yes, I know that I said that I wouldn't, but the number of blogs that I follow has reached a level where visiting each one via a traditional blogroll link is getting too time-consuming. I'll still be blogrolling the sites that I follow, and I'll still visit each site when there's new stuff to see/read, so I'll only be using GR as a finder of new content. I still maintain that relying solely on GR is a way of missing out on the artistic content of a lot of fine blogs out there - some folk go to great lengths to make their spaces on the web into comfy places to spend a few minutes, rather than repositories for text and a few pics.
On the subject of blogroll links, I've added a fair few more to mine over the last couple of weeks - I'm convinced that this whole outdoors-blogging malarkey is snowballing. Recent additions include:
And of course there's the link to the social experimenter's "secret blog"...
Have a mooch around and see if there's anything that piques your interest.
Monday evening was spent at the pub(s) with Nick, putting the world to rights and pretending to be professional bar-billiards players. Among the many topics of conversation, we returned to a couple of old favourites - telescopes and the night sky. We had discussed telescope piers before and had done a bit of research, so we decided that it was time to make our first prototype.
The next morning, with a dog-eared sketch in my hand and a dog-eared pair of steelies on my feet, I went to see the Nick at his business premises - it was time to play with the 5mm steel. Four hours later, after 2 hours of work and several brews, we stood back to admire our handiwork. It's rough-and-ready at the moment, we're not going to get it galved and painted until we're sure that it's up to the job, so after I've concreted it into the garden I've got to do some flexure, resonance and vibration-damping tests on it. This could take some time, so don't expect regular reports, but when we do get it right we'll let you know.
Now, where did I put that spade?
Last time we went shopping I nabbed a small pack of mixed fish from the "nearly out-of-date" shelf at the local supermarket, it seemed just right for knocking out another batch of dried food. The pack contained 4oz each of salmon, cod and smoked haddock, all in good condition. During a spare half-hour this morning I used it to make another variant of fish risotto, I had to adjust the standard recipe as follows:
It's now in the dehydration stage, filling the kitchen with a wonderful hunger-inducing aroma. There should be enough for 4 large meals.
Today I didn't:
