Norfolk (part two)

It seems a long time ago now that W and I were in Norfolk, but I do owe you all another post about the things we got up to.  We crammed a lot in to our time away, whilst still managing to have a few days around the cottage and the local village.  However, we couldn't go that close to the regional capital without spending a day in Norwich, so we took the Park and Ride in to the city centre one day and went visiting the cathedrals.  There are two in Norwich (as there are in many cities) - the Catholic and the Anglican - and we went to the Catholic one first, passing through a lovely park on the way:

Bandstand in the park

Gargoyle on the outside of the Catholic Cathedral

The Nave of the Catholic Cathedral

The south aisle of the Catholic Cathedral

It looks old, doesn't it?  I have to say that I felt a little cheated to find out that it was only built in 1910.  It's still lovely, though, so I don't mind too much.

We had a very pleasant walk then to the Anglican Cathedral, which is simply called Norwich Cathedral.  One of the streets we went along had lots of plaques laid in to the pavement representing different professions.  Here's one of them:

And then we arrived at Norwich Cathedral:

The East end of the Cathedral

Seen from the cloisters

The cloisters

The font is unusually placed along the side of one of the aisles, but it was one that I particularly liked.  There's a sign next to it that explains that it used to be a vat in a chocolate factory, and was donated to the Cathedral by the factory.  I'm not sure if this is when the factory closed, or at some other time.  I love the idea of being baptised in a chocolate vat:

Chocolate pot font

Isn't it fabulous?

Sadly we weren't able to stay for evensong that was just about to start as we left, because we'd have missed the last bus back to the Park and Ride car park.  That was a bit disappointing, but we did have a pleasant walk/trundle back through the city to the bus station.

Where we were staying in Stratton St Michael was only about a half hour drive from a small zoo - Banham Zoo.  W and I both love animals and wildlife so it was a natural thing for us to visit the zoo, especially as we were so close.  There were mixed reviews of it in the cottage's visitors' book, but we really enjoyed it, despite it being the one day when we had torrential rain, although the rest of the country had it much worse.  In fact it was so bad in other parts of the country later in the week that the A1 got flooded and was closed.  We were keeping an eye on this as the A1 was, of course, our route back up North, and it was looking as though we wouldn't be able to get back home.  The week progressed, and although we had pretty good weather, the rain in other parts of England was awful, so much so that the diversion route off the A1 then became flooded.  Although we had a couple of days left before the planned end to our holiday, we had to make a decision - were we going to try getting home on the Saturday with no guarantee of making it, or were we going to see if a couple of extra days would give the road chaos a chance to settle.  In the end we settled for the latter, and after talking with the cottage proprietors (and W clearing it with work), we   arranged to stay until the Monday.  Although we might have managed to get back on the Saturday, I suspect that the goods vehicles that couldn't get through earlier in the week might well have clogged up the A1, and certainly when we were driving back on Monday there was still a lot of evidence of the floods.  By this time the water on the road had been cleared - pumped off by the fire brigade - but there were many, many fields along the way that were still like lakes.  As it was, it still took us eight hours to get back!

So anyway, with our extra time in Norfolk we decided to make the most of it, and on the Saturday when we should have been coming home, instead we went to another zoo - Africa Alive - just outside Lowestoft in Suffolk.  Africa Alive is much bigger than Banham Zoo, but it's owned by the same people.  I have to say that at both places I thought that some of the cages were a little small, but the animals were obviously well cared for, and none of them seemed distressed.  I will leave you this evening with a selection of photos from Banham Zoo and Africa Alive.  I have rather a lot of these photos so I'll try to limit those I put up, but it's going to be hard, and I predict a bit of an animal overload for you ;oP

Enjoy!

Ringtailed Lemurs - Mother and baby.

Baby Lemur sitting on my knee trying to work out how to control the wheelchair.

Meerkats relaxing in the sunshine.

Spiny mice.

Foxes, but I've forgotten what kind.

Cheetah.

Elephants ;oP

'Allo.  You looking for me?

Fighting cattle/bison.

'Zero', the alpha male lion at Africa Alive.

Fighting lions with Zero looking on.

Llama

Larakeet

Spider Monkey

W hand feeding a larakeet

Parakeet

A yawny leopard

Oh, 'ello.  Can I 'elp you?

Snow Leopard

Jackass Penguins

Short-clawed Otter

Snack time for the tiger

Longing for freedom?

Red Panda

Bundles of memory

On a few occasions I've mentioned that my father is ill, but I haven't gone any further. I think that maybe now is the time to tell you that he has Alzheimer's. He was diagnosed about three or four years ago and, as is the case with the disease, he's been declining with time. He's not at the very severe end of the spectrum at the moment - he's still essentially himself, but there are significant differences in him and he's certainly not the same person he has been. I think it's hardest for my step-mum who had to take early retirement in order to care for Dad, and of course with this role she is in the situation most of the time with little respite. I try to do what I can, help out when I can, but as my own health has declined it's been increasingly difficult to do this. I hate that. I want to help out. I want to make the most of Dad while there's as much of him there as there is. It's so hard to see him gradually decline, and know that one day he'll disappear.

Dad and my step-mum, B, are moving from Northumberland where they've lived in a very lovely house for several years back to Newcastle. This is partly to be closer to me, but mainly for increased access to services. Whilst the services for people with Alzheimer's seem to be very joined up in Northumberland, the area is so vast that there just aren't the quantity needed, and Dad and B are hoping that things will be better in this respect in the city. They'd been thinking about the possibility of moving just as global finances collapsed so delayed the move until now, and things have progressed very quickly. It took hardly any time for people to become interested in their house and to find a buyer, and equally little time for them to find a house they like, so all being well it'll progress smoothly, all the paperwork will go through quickly and it won't be long until they're living just a couple of miles from me, rather than the 25 or so miles north that they currently live from me.

Of course, one of the nightmare things of any house sale and move is the sorting, endless tidying, rationalising of belongings, and keeping on top of it once it's been done. They've done a huge amount, but one job that hasn't been done is to sort through a massive box of random photos that Dad inherited from his parents when they died. They're pretty much all of family of one kind or another, and mostly in black and white, and yesterday Dad and I started going through them, sorting them, trying to identify who's who and where. We've only made a tiny dint in the enormous pile protruding from the top of the box so we've a long way to go yet, but it's really interesting. Dad's never really told me all that much about his side of the family - Mum has always been much better about passing on family history - but now, as we've been sorting through the photographs little anecdotes have been coming out, and he's been talking about people in the family I'd never heard of. It's taken a bit of coaxing to get some of the stories out of him, not because of any reluctance, but because he kept forgetting what he was talking about or where he was up to, but then every so often he'd get into a bubble of memory and story would come back to him. Sometimes he'd start on one story, get distracted by a fleeting reference to something else and then start on another story. It didn't matter though. It was interesting. It's a lovely thing to be doing. While we were going through the photos we had B's digital dictaphone on so that we could record any little anecdotes. Most of the recording will be irrelevant and boring, but there'll be snippets that are well-worth hearing again and writing down as a more permanent record. One of the last photos we came across last night before we went downstairs for dinner is, we think, of my great-grandmother with my grandmother (nanny) as very young child - perhaps two or three years old. It took us a while to work it out, so we may be wrong, but I think not, and it feels suprisingly exciting.

Then there's a photo of one of Nanny's Irish cousins - one of those family members I hadn't known existed, although I did know that we had an Irish branch to the family tree. Anyway, the thing that struck me about the photo of this smart young man was how much he resembled my younger brother. This brother, C, was actually my cousin when he was born, but my aunt died when C was two years old and we adopted him. His older, half-brother was already living with his father, but he wasn't exactly what could be called a 'responsible' adult and having C grow up under his 'care' wasn't ever considered ... not that K ever showed any interest in adopting C, so far as I know. So yes, my aunt was my dad's sister, my younger brother was my cousin, and he bears a strong resemblence to this distant relative. It's amazing. I've seen a photo of C's Birth-Father, and I was struck then by the resemblence of C to him, and never really considered that C would have such strong resemblence to anyone else in the family (although he obviously has some features of closer relatives), but at first glance at the photo we came across of my grandmother's cousin (what relative is that to me??? I can never work these things out) I immediately saw C's smile. Weird, isn't it?

I really enjoyed going through those photos, and I'm looking forward to doing more. I'm gathering info about my own family history. I'm discovering the existence of people I never knew existed. I'm seeing resemblences where I never expected to see any. I'm finding out about my dad and his life, and soaking it all up before the memories disappear along with his brain function.

Ups and downs

I'm in Edinburgh, staying with Mum and doing some festival things. I've mainly been to things at the book festival, but I've also been to some things at the fringe. The combination of TLC from Mum, interesting talks at the book festival, and comedy and other distraction at the fringe festival events have been revitalising. Okay, so I'm knacked from doing a bit too much, but it's good to be away and to be doing fun things.

Last night we went to a wonderful ... exhibition ... experience ... thing at the botanic gardens - a sound and light show called Power Plant. We were admitted in groups of about 50, but it was unguided and you could take as much time as you liked to go around so long as you were out by midnight, because that's when they locked the gates. The 'show' consists of various light and sound installations mainly in the glass houses, although one or two of the 'sculptures' are outside, and the audience walk through at their leisure taking whatever time they want. Because it's dark then everyone has to go slowly, which is rather nice as it takes the rush out of life and makes you appreciate what's going on around you. Many of the things are quite ethereal and surreal, and we came out feeling a bit like we'd been in some Dr Who experience, but in a good way, and actually as you progressed through the 'exhibition' (I'm still not sure what to call it) you could see people relaxing and smiling as they wandered around. I took some photos and I'll post some up when I've downloaded them onto my computer so that you get more idea of what it was like.

Earlier in the week I went to see Paul Merton's Improv Chums which was great fun, very funny and impressively clever. I've wanted to see Paul Merton live for years, but never been organised enough to book well enough in advance. This year I had loads of time to plough my way through the Fringe Festival brochure while I was in hospital and mark things I wanted to go to and actually manage to book them from my hospital bed too. I love comedy and Paul Merton was hugely entertaining. It's a shame it was only an hour of unadulterated laughter, because it really picked up my spirits.

Some of the book festival talks I've been to have also been funny, in particular A. L. Kennedy, and to an extent Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, but the book festival is a very different format and, by the nature of the festival, has it's main focus on the writers' new or up-coming books. The format generally taken is discussion/interview between the Chair and the writer, followed by or interspersed with a reading from the book in question, and then comments or questions by the audience. Each talk is an hour and they're usually very different from one another, which provides an interesting variety to the day. Oh, and after each talk the authors almost always do a book signing so I tend to come away from the festival with a whole load of new books I want to read, but also don't want to damage or make look too well-read because they're signed.

I put my foot in it at one of the book signings the other day. I'd been to see Steve Bloom, who's an amazing (and very famous) photographer, primarily of wildlife. His presentation was quite different from any other I've been to at the book festival and largely comprised a slide show of about 150 of his photos while he talked about them and the taking of them. It was wonderful. I've seen some of his photographs before, but have to say that for the most part I haven't known that he'd taken them. Anyway, I thought I recognised a couple of the photos he showed the other day from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition that I went to with Dad the other week, and then thought I recognised his name from that exhibition, and in fact that he'd been the winner. After the talk/show/presentation I went to the book tent, bought a couple of his books (I wanted them all, told myself I could only afford one, and came away with two. Oops.) and queued up to get them signed. When I got to the front I asked him if I was right in thinking that he'd won Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and I was all ready to congratulate him, when he looked very uncertain and said, '... No ... I haven't entered that ...' Not quite knowing what to say now I tried to explain myself by saying that I was sure that I'd recognised some of his photos from the current WPY exhibition, and again he looked unsure and said, ' ... Not unless someone else has submitted my photos.' Hmmm, what to say now? 'Er, well ... hmm ... sorry ... I was ... um ... sorry about that.' Oh, what eloquence! I sloped off with my signed copies of his books feeling rather stupid and embarrassed.

It turns out the photographer I was misremembering as Steve Bloom was actually Steve Winter.

I have to admit that I think I've done rather too much while I've been up here. In a general way it'd be okay, but hot on the heels of having been so poorly, and still being significantly anaemic, I've pushed myself a little too far. This was pretty much confirmed by my passing out in the shower yesterday morning. I was washing my hair when suddenly everthing started to disappear, and then I slithered down the wall, passed out and came too in a heap on the floor. I don't think I was out for the count for long, but I was still fairly lucky not to knock my head on the tiles or succumb to inhalation of water ... er ... drowning. I managed to get up and then tried again to wash off the soap that I'd just slathered all over myself, but the world started to close in on me again so I gave up on that as a bad idea and decided that drying the soap off with a towel was a better option than acquainting myself with the floor again. However, I still found that it would be a good idea to spend a while sitting on the floor before making my way through to the bedroom, but I eventually made it ... and then collapsed onto the bed. This was a considerably softer landing than the shower floor, but still not a great position to find myself in, not least because I was soaking wet and making the bed soaking wet ... not that that kind of thing is in the forefront of one's mind when you're in the middle of passing out ... Anyway, I lay there for a bit, waited for the world to reappear and the noisy rush of fainting to disappear from the inside of my head and proceeded to get ready for the rest of the day. I managed to get through without any more passing out, but I did feel very feak and weeble and shaky all day. Definitely a sign that I've been doing a bit too much though so I've taken things easier today, and only have one event on at the book festival tomorrow and Wednesday (before I drive home). I think I may need to make an appointment with my GP for sometime when I get home though to get my Hb levels checked and make sure that they're not getting stupidly low again. It's probably wiser to do that than keep flaking out all over the place.

Marks

I forgot to tell you that I got the result through for my digital photography course that I finished back in July. The Charge Nurse on the ward gave me a few minutes on his computer last week so that I could log into my OU homepage and see if my result was in, and it was. I passed with 88% ! Hurray! I really enjoyed the course and learnt a huge amount from it, though I have to admit that I haven't had much chance for photography over the past month or so with having needed to concentrate on my other studies at the moment. Hopefully, come 14th October when the exam's out of the way (exam on 13th), I'll get more time for playing with my camera again :o)

Revision for my English Lit course starts in earnest tomorrow. I'm so far behind with it it's stupid, but I haven't been in much of a position to do anything about this. However, I did manage to get myself to the revision tutorial yesterday, which showed me that I've somehow managed to retain more from my initial studies than I thought I had. I'm still worried about the exam, but perhaps a little less terrified than I was. At the tutorial yesterday I also remembered to hand in my one missing assignment from the course - the one I wrote last week when I was in hospital - so hopefully it won't be long till I get that back marked, because it'd be good to know if I was thinking along the right lines and therefore have something to revise from for that - Ibsen's 'A Doll's House', its dramaturgy, and representation of women in a patriarchal society ... kind of. I've learnt a lot on this course too, and continually surprised myself with my assignment marks. All the way through I've thought that my essays have been sparse, because I've only had enough words (damn word limits!) to discuss a fraction of what I would have liked to cover ... they've pretty much all felt like I've only written part of the answer. However, my lowest mark so far (excluding the one I handing in yesterday and am now waiting for) has been 85% so clearly I've been doing something right. Now all I need to do is pre-empt the exam and work out what the essays I'm going to have to write in that are going to be about. Not so easy. Not easy at all. I've never been terribly good at exams - I like to be able to take my time, think through what I want to say, formulate my ideas clearly in my mind before committing them to paper, and produce busy-looking mind maps in the process. No, I've never really got the hang of exams, so it'll be 'interesting' to see how this forthcoming one goes :o/ ................ Nope, sorry, can't convince myself that it'll be interesting, so let me rephrase that ... it'll be bloody frustrating if I fail at the last hurdle when I've done so well so far. Yup, that's more like it ;o)

So, to bed now so that I can revise/get into a panic about revising tomorrow.

Night all.

A bit of this and a bit of that

Well nothing much has happened lung-wise - they're still being rather unpredictable and intermittently unco-operative, but things haven't progressed into a downward spiral towards hospital (yet). I am having to be a bit more careful than usual about what I get up to, because I'm finding things generally more tiring at the moment as a result of lack of continuity in the breathing department, but I'm still getting on with life and making sure that I'm having fun amidst the study and the precarious lung situation.

The past week has been a bit of a mix of things really. I'm not going to bore you with details, but I've done quite a bit of study ... not enough if I'm ever to catch up (which is seeming more and more unlikely), but still a fair amount - about two and a half week's worth in seven days.

On Thursday afternoon I went up to the Woodhorn Centre near Ashington, Northumberland, with my father to see an exhibition of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007 Competition. It was fantastic and well worth seeing if you get a chance. It has made me want to have more time for photography again, but I think I'm going to have to be patient and wait until after this dreaded exam in October. However, wildlife and nature photography generally seems to be what really gets me fired-up so I'm going to make sure that I give myself time to get more practise in for that ... and more opportunity too.

Thursday was also the day when my best friend from sixth form gave birth to her first child - a little girl they've called Eleanor :o) This is a very joyful occasion indeed as Eleanor's mummy has been through some difficult times in the past, and being a mother is something that she's always wanted. Eleanor was in a bit of a rush to be born, and even though it was her mummy's first pregnancy, she arrived into the world only two hours after starting to get here! Born at quarter to four in the morning, Eleanor, mummy and daddy were home by 9am! I haven't met Eleanor yet, because the family don't live locally, so I'm going to have to be patient and wait until I can get down to the Midlands, and it'd probably be wise to leave it until a) mummy and daddy have worked out which end of the baby is which; b) all the grandparents have gone back home; and c) I'm not so inundated with study. How exciting and how lovely though :o)

Most of Friday was spent filling my head with stuff for my English Lit course, but in the evening I went with three friends to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. The guy playing Joseph was the runner up from the 'Any Dream Will Do' TV competition - Craig Chalmers - and I thought he was rather good, but I have to say that I wasn't that impressed with the woman playing the narrator. She - Tara Bethan - was one of the people who'd been knocked out of the 'I'd Do Anything' TV show for the part of Nancy in 'Oliver', and although she was enthusiastic I thought that her voice was actually pretty weak in the upper registers. Having said that, the show was great fun and I enjoyed it very much, even though we were right up in the Gods of the theatre. 'Joseph' is probably one of my favourite musicals, and one that I learnt all the words of when I was very young. I think the first time I saw it was in London and I must have been about four years old. At the time, there was a children's TV programme called 'Watch', which I can't remember anything about now, but I know that I loved it (though it took at least second place in my list of favourites after Bagpuss), and I think one of the things that initially made me so very excited about 'Joseph' was that the man from 'Watch' was playing the part of Joseph. I also have a feeling that Floella Benjamin, who at the time was one of the presenters of 'Play School', was also in it. 'Play School' and 'Watch' together made it for me as a four year old! (Oh, if only life could stay so uncomplicated). Yeah, so where was I? 'Joseph'. It was brilliant fun, and with being up in the Gods there weren't all that many people to disturb so me and my friend K could occasionally hum along quietly to the tunes. Tee hee.

I was going to say that I didn't do anything but study yesterday, but actually I had a rather wonderful and very skilled friend put up some new shelf units in the bedroom. This is tremendously exciting, because the so-called floating shelves I had in there before had always been threatening to either crash on my head as I lay in bed, or smash the computer printer on my desk. They weren't so much 'floating' shelves as 'sagging treacherously and making a bid for the floor' shelves. M has done a fantastic job at putting these new shelves up and making sure that they're perfectly safe, perfectly straight and not likely to land on my head at any time in the foreseeable future - always a bonus! M's rather talented at that kind of thing, which is fortunate, because it's one of the things he does for a living :o) Yes, that was a terribly exciting Saturday event.

Nothing exciting at all has happened today (technically yesterday as it's now gone 2am), but that comes from a great deal of lung grumpiness in the morning that meant that I couldn't actually drag myself from bed until gone three in the afternoon. Most frustrating, but I gave into it and got through by very regular nebbing, listening to the radio (I love Radio 4) and playing lots of games of something I can't remember the name of on my NDS. It's a far cry from the study I felt that I should be getting on with, but it was either that or a probable further slump in breathing ability, which I didn't fancy, funnily enough. Sometimes it's necessary to just give in and do what needs to be done, rather than what ought to be done, even if it's frustrating.

It's probably about time that I took myself back to bed now. That's the trouble with getting up late - it knocks my whole body-clock off kilter. Ho hum, back to the books tomorrow.

Night all.

Distraction

I've been sat in front of my computer all day trying to write my latest essay: 'Compare and contrast the represetation of courtship and marriage in Shakespeare's Henry V and Aphra Behn's The Rover.' It's doing my head in. I've done all the background reading and made all my notes/mind maps, and I have actually started to write the essay, but there's so much I want to include that I'm having to be very careful in how I put my ideas down, because I only have 1500 words to say it all in. It's ridiculous. I'm now a little over half way, with something like 820 words done, and I think I've managed to cram in most of what I want to say about Henry V, even if I've had to be quite economical. I'm leaving doing the bit about The Rover until tomorrow, and am now going to find some brain-numbing activity before I try to sleep.

During the course of trying to write my essay I have come across many a distraction, and I thought I'd share some of them with you, particularly as rather a lot of them are only a mouse click away from my essay, and therefore also from whatever you ought to be doing on your computer (other than reading my blog, of course ;oP ). So here are a few distractions for you:

• First off let me point you towards a site that I recently added to the list of 'Blogs I Read' on the left hand panel, but which you might have missed. La Tartine Gourmande is a foodies delight, and also has some rather wonderful photos on it. Take a peek, but eat before you go there or you'll end up being very hungry indeed.
• If you're feeling stressed out and you don't have any bubblewrap to hand then try this site. It's particularly good on 'manic mode', and more satisfying with the sound on than off. Very silly, but it passes away the time.
• If you want to test your lexical knowledge, and also want to do something useful (in this case donating rice to the UN World Food Program) then visit FreeRice. Be warned though, it's very addictive.
• Do you like cartoons? Take a look at Karrie Fransman's short comic strips. You'll probably have seen them if you read The Guardian, but they're fun.
• Once you've done your essay or written that document then how about putting it into Wordle. This nifty little gadget will make a pretty 'word cloud' with the words you've used in your piece, and then you can play with the colours, fonts, layouts etc. Good fun and gives a sense of satisfaction ... or maybe that's just me ;oP
• Maybe watching a slide show of some wonderful photographs is more your thing. If so, then you need go no further than The Royal Photographic Society's Northern Gallery. There's some stunning stuff there, but then you'd expect that from the RPS.
• For another game try Scrabulous. Due to some legal wrangling with the makers of Scrabble, Scrabulous has recently disappeared from FaceBook :o( but all is not lost (yet), because they have their own site where you can go play :o)

That's all the distraction I can give you for now, but feel free to let me know of others by leaving a message in the comments section.

Have fun!

Getting by

The title says it all really - I'm getting by. My lungs aren't too fantastic right now, though not awful - just the usual daily grind, but meds aren't lasting quite long enough. It's a bit of a pain really, and is limiting what I'm doing, which means that I'm spending rather a lot of time on my own. In theory this means that I can get on with my studies, but in practice it means that I procrastinate and do everything but my studies. Yesterday I sat next to my books for half of the afternoon and most of the evening, glanced at them out of the corner of my eye every now and again, felt guilty for not picking them up and reading them, and then continued to pass the time away with the internet and games of Spider Solitaire. Today has been more productive thankfully, and although I'm yet to open my books for my literature course, I have finished all the reading etc for my photography course. I have the ECA (End of Course Assessment) due in by 9th July so my main task now is to put that together, which consists of a slide show of ten of my best photographs, reflecting different aspects of what I've learnt through the course and a variety of techniques, and then to do a short report (600 words) on them by answering a couple of questions from a short selection. It shouldn't be too bad, and I have ideas for some of the photos.

Other than study and the variability in breathing ability, I guess I'm okay. Things have continued to be somewhat stressful in some areas of life, but I think I'm managing to keep my head above water for the most part, and when I dip under I'm trying to put goggles on so that I can at least see what's around me ;oP

Well I have one or two little jobs to do and then I must do a bit of study on my literature course ... or distract myself from that with selecting my ECA photos for the other course ;o) I leave you with a photo that I took the other day down by the river. It's of the Baltic Flour Mill (now a modern art gallery) and the Millennium Bridge.

Huge apologies

My huge apologies to you all for the extended absence. As I said in my last post I was away in Edinburgh for a while having a bit of a break and some much needed TLC. I'm feeling much better for my trip and I had a lovely time doing a whole host of things. One evening we went to see the Nederland Dans Theatre, which I'd expected to be ballet, but turned out to be modern dance. It was very interesting, very enjoyable and quite thought provoking too. The performance we saw was by the young people's section of the company so all the dancers were between 17 years and 23 years old, and they were amazing. I swear that they were made of elastic! Bodies just shouldn't bend like theirs did!

I had a couple of days where I did some study and managed to get a substantial amount done for an assignment that I had for one of my OU courses. I didn't actually write the assignment until I got home, but I did a lot of the poetry analysis that was needed for the essay, so although it wasn't the most enjoyable thing to be doing while I was away, it was very useful and quite productive. We did plenty of other things though such as visiting the botanic gardens, which were beautiful and so peaceful. It was with surprise, though with great pleasure, that I found that entry was free, and if any of you are up in Edinburgh at any time and you fancy a nice, free day out then I can thoroughly recommend the botanic gardens.

On the Saturday of my stay the three of us (me, Mum and my step-dad) went on a trip to the zoo, which I thoroughly enjoyed and took about 200 photos, although about a third of those have been discarded (the joys of digital photography!). I was slightly disappointed to discover that Edinburgh zoo doesn't have elephants or giraffes, but was consoled by the existence of the UK's only koala bears. Seeing as koalas sleep for around 23 hours a day it wasn't a surprise to find that they were asleep when we saw them, and they did look ever so sweet perched up in their trees, propped up by the branches, and snoozing away.

Since getting home I've been rather busy, first of writing the essay that I mentioned before, and then worrying slightly about still being so far behind with my studies ... and I'm yet to do much about that, having been somewhat paralysed by the panic. I must make a concerted effort this week. Part of the problem at the moment is that the photography course is approaching its final weeks and I have to compile my ECA (End of Course Assessment), which consists of a slideshow of ten of my best photos taken through the course, and then a short commentary (about 600 words). I'm mulling over which photos to include, though I haven't reached any final decisions yet, and the course hasn't actually finished so there may be photos that I haven't yet taken, but will want to include in the ECA. I'm never the worlds best decision maker so it isn't going to be an easy task deciding what to include in my slideshow.

The past couple of days, I have to admit, have contained very little study indeed, but it's been for good reason - I've been looking after my nephew. My brother, sister-in-law and 18-month old nephew came up to stay with my dad and step-mum so that my bro and sil could help dad do a major sort and clear of his study. Dad has always been a hoarder so needed a lot of firm, though sensitive, encouragement to part with things, but it needed to be done, because he and my step-mum are shortly going to put their house on the market and move back into Newcastle from Northumberland. So anyway, while they've all be doing that I've been looking after Oliver. We had a lovely day together on Friday, which was helped by the sun being out so we could spend most of the day out and about. Ollie fell asleep in the car on the half hour journey to mine from Dad's, which was good as he was ready for a nap, but when we got to mine he was a little too bemused by the new surroundings to have a proper afternoon sleep. I took him down to Pets Corner in Jesmond Dene where he had his first encounter with live chickens and cockerals. He was so funny with them, completely enthralled by the wobbly red bits on their faces and then rather startled by the cockerals' crowing. Every time they crowed Ollie would turn and stare at them, and then started to tell them to be quiet by puttin his finger to his lips and saying 'shh', which is something that his daddy does to him when he's being particularly 'vocal'. As we walked away from the cockerals, Ollie would stop and turn, and give them a side-ways glance when they made a noise, but eventually he was distracted by the piglets and goats. We had a lovely wander around in the sunshine and Oliver had a little play in the park area with some other children, who he was most interested in, and then we wandered up to see a friend of mine who has two children aged 4 1/2 and 2. We spent an hour and a bit at their house and then made tracks back towards the car before going to another play area with some swings that was on the way home. Oliver loves swings and slides so he had a great time playing there, but it wasn't that long before it was time to be getting him some dinner, so we came home and I fed Ollie and then took him back to Dad's. He fell asleep in the car almost immediately, and I wasn't surprised as he'd seemed very tired and it was a little after his bedtime already, but I certainly had had a lovely day, and Oliver had seemed to enjoy himself too.

Yesterday I looked after Ollie again, but this time at Dad's so that my bro and sil could see Ollie at times through the day. We played a lot of 'this is the way the lady rides', which he particularly enjoyed when I lay on the floor and he could bounce on my tummy! He also quite liked walking in bare feet on the pebbles on the drive, in the rain. I didn't think this was such a great plan, but as he was happy enough I let him do it for 5 or 10 minutes ... and then I got a bit soggy, let alone Oliver, so I scooped him up and 'encouraged' him inside.

Anyway, despite the weather being utterly miserable yesterday and not being conducive to the short trip to the beach that I'd thought we might have had, we did have another lovely time together. He, my brother and my sister-in-law are on their way back to London now, but they'll be up again in a few weeks time for Dad's birthday, for which he's having a week away and inviting friends and family.

Well, I'd best be off for now, because I'm going to be late for church.

Take care all, and again, sorry for my long absence.

Steady

After my wobble last week I've managed to get myself steadier again this week, although I'm still having great trouble sleeping and I'm only managing to sleep about every other night. This is a perfect way to get absolutely knackered, but despite the exhaustion I'm generally more together than I was, and I'm even managing to do some study. In fact I've caught up on one of the courses, so I'm rather pleased with myself :o)

I think I have to credit my friends for much of my recovery from my wobble - they've been a great support and have kept me doing things. On Wednesday my friend CR came over and we went down to Peppy's for dinner, which was a lovely spur of the moment thing to do, especially as C lives about 45 minutes drive away. Because of the distance we don't manage to get together all that often, so it was great to spend some quality time with her and have a really good natter.

Somehow I managed to while away the back end of last week without doing a huge amount of anything, but on Saturday I went up to Alnwick Castle in Northumberland with my friend K. (Alnwick Castle is used for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, just in case you didn't know).

It was a beautiful day - warm, bright and sunny a fair amount of the time. I was tired as I'd had only 2 1/2 hours sleep, but we had a leisurely wander around and arrived shortly before a birds of prey show. There was a chance to have a closer look at some of the birds before we saw them fly, and amongst these was a tiny grey owl, which can only have been about 6-8" high and was incredibly soft. Here's a close up photo of it

Unfortunately I've already forgotten what kind of owl it is, but I have a vague memory of it being from South America ... though that could be completely wrong. They didn't actually fly this bird in the show, but they did fly a barn owl, a harrier, and a falcon. I didn't get a brilliant photo of the harrier, but here's a slightly blurred one one

The falcon was so incredibly fast that it was difficult to get a decent shot, though I did get one where you can just about see it against the castle.

Just before the flaconer let this one fly he told us to keep relatively still, because the speed that these birds fly at is potentially dangerous, and they head towards movement. Sure enough, after soaring high in the air, it dived in a rush, down towards the arena on the grass, in absolute silence, but then just skimmed past my head with a powerful 'phwoosh' before rising up again towards the castle. It was amazing.

The other bird the falconers flew was a barn owl, which I managed to get a few decent photos of. Here are a couple

So then we continued our wander around the castle and its grounds and generally had an interesting and relaxing time together. The day as a whole helped to restore something in me, despite my tiredness ... I think it's getting out into the countryside and being surrounded by nature that does it.

We had considered going to Barter Books (also in Alnwick) after the castle, but we both needed to get home and have a rest so we didn't make it this time. Barter Books is the most amazing place though, and most definitely a must for anybody who likes books and reading. It's one of the biggest second hand bookshops in Britain and takes up practically all of what had once been Alnwick railway station. It's enormous. It's a warren. It has every kind of book you could ever imagine. It has places to sit and curl up for hours as you peruse the plethera of shelves. It has tea and coffee with an honesty box. It has expensive, rare and antique books. It has multiple copies of previous best-sellers. It has sheet music. It has records and CDS. It has videos and DVDs. It has a computerised catalogue of all that it has. I'm going up to Edinburgh next week, which means driving past Alnwick along the A1. I can already feel the magnetism of Barter Books drawing me towards it on my way.

Urban countryside

I went down into Jesmond Dene today, which is a little patch of countryside in the middle of the city. It's basically a park with a stream (the dene) running through it, but was originially Lord Armstrong's garden before he left it to the people of the city in his will. It's lovely down there, and if you look on at the bottom of this page you'll see that one of my favourite places in Newcastle is the big waterfall by the old mill in Jesmond Dene. I went on a photo mission today in an attempt to catch up with some of my OU digital photography course so here are a few photos that I took.

This is the big waterfall. As you can see, it's not enormous, but it's the biggest one in the dene.

This one is of the old mill, which you can I see I've turned into a black and white image. It's only a small ruin, but I like it, and I like that the mill wheel is still there, even if you can't get to it.

On my wander back towards the car the following little scene caught my attention. It's nothing very special, but I thought it pretty.

And then, before reaching the car, I went for a short mooch around the pets corner, where first of all I saw a very friendly and inquisitive love bird ...

... and yes, it was hanging sideways. Then I saw the most beautiful peacock, who was very helpfully sitting up on a perch with his glorious tail feathers tumbling down towards the ground.

This last photo is probably my favourite of the day. Isn't it beautiful?