Author Archives: Steve

About Steve

Man of leisure.

Herb Garden now completed after several years

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Herb Garden

Raised bed herb garden

The raised bed herb garden has now been constructed on the site of the ex Willow tree.  It is made of 6 railway sleepers and 30 barrow loads of earth and compost. The project has been on my to-do list for several years. The earth / compost was from several years of composting garden refuse.  It has been planted with Chives, Rosemary, Marjoram, Thyme and  Bay. Not sure the rabbits have yet appreciated this project, their home under and in the compost heap has been dug into.  They though may come to appreciate the tasty leaves as the herb project matures.

I have rejoined the The Kingswood Gun Club

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Its been a very long time since my shot gun has seen daylight. After 4 years of nagging by Jennifer on a Friday night at the P&A I rejoined the Kingswood Gun Club and shot for the first time since, I have no idea when.  Amazingly the gun had no rust marks. The skeet jacket appears to have shrunk by a few sizes, looks like I will be needing a new one of those.  I  impressed myself on the first stand, 7 out of 8.  Went downhill after that though.  I have re-joined. Alas will be missing the Welsh trip next Sunday.  Prior engagement, the daughter is coming for lunch.

Some changes since I was last shot.  All automatic traps, and a tea break half way through the shoot.  Nice to see some old regulars and lots of new faces. The club also has a smashing website and forum.

The Namibia picture gallery is now ready.

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It is now well over two months since Rosemary and I were in Namibia.  I have at last processed all the pictures (& you would not believe how many I have discarded) and put a few words together.  I have added maps of where we visited. I tracked our drives and walks on my mobile phone and these have been uploaded to a website.  (Slight misuse of a walking, running and training programme, so ignore the statistics of how much water I should have been drinking and the calories burnt.)

There is one small gallery of the better photographs, so if you are short of time take a look of those.

So get going, and visit Namibia by clicking here.

Ann’s 80th birthday party

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I have put together a small gallery of pictures taken at Ann’s 80th birthday party.  There are some of the people who attended, and a few pictures from around Blakeney.  The blue skies, the sun with its hat on, was too good an opportunity to miss.

Pompeii and Herculaneum holiday.

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It has been a few weeks since our holiday to Italy, and our next holiday is just around the corner.  I have though managed to process and reduce the number of photographs.  Well some might not agree and they are now ready to view.

We had a fabulous time with Andante, and our guides were fabulous company.

Let the Train take the Strain

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Off to Carlisle in the morning, at least this will be on the train most of the way.  This last week has been a bit of a strain.  One day in Doncaster, the next day in Bournemouth, and then back to Doncaster the day after.  Putting a few miles on the old Citroen, hopefully it will see my working days out.

Also had sleepless nights this week.  The A41 was closed for road resurfacing in Waddesdon overnight for the last week.  The sound of silence was a tad disturbing, lay awake at night wondering when the next vehicle would come by, they never came, so couldn’t get to sleep.

I did a little bit of work on the Blasdale website this weekend.  Upgraded to a  version 3.6 of WordPress, and a new version of Nextgen Gallery, 2.0.  Nextgen 2.0 has a new way to implement galleries, and a really quite nifty gallery display which works on mobile phones with the swipe action.  Love it.

No new pictures, but hope to get the Cambridge Society visit to the Malverns online this week.

Larder Envy

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IMG_2824Several months ago, Rosemary had a serious case of larder envy (seems to affect ladies of a certain age) after seeing a friend’s. She came home and sighed at her larder shelves built of fronts of old wardrobes, bits of tongue and grooved, brick supports and even spare end pieces from new kitchen. She wrote a to-do list item and began her search.

She was triumphant and now has the larder of her dreams complete with three roll-out wooden boxes, one of which is a snazzy two drawer vegetable rack. The larder is under the kitchen stairs and the shelves have been designed so you can stand right inside and hence see everything and reach into the full depth.

IMG_2825Designer and maker, in oiled ash, was Mark Williamson of Mark Williamson Furniture.

She’s crossed the “larder shelves” item off her to-do list.

But shelves are an addiction…….

Glastonbury Festival 2013

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Well I made Glastonbury 2013, my sixth Glastonbury, the last four all in a row, This time I arrived on Wednesday evening, driving up from Bournemouth where I had been working. Arrived at 7 to a nice sunny evening, pitched my tent in a quiet spot and met up with Ed for a few pints.

Weather wise it rained on Thursday evening and most of the night, and cleared up for a lovely festival weekend.

Bands I saw all the head lines on the Pyramid stage, Arctic Monkeys, Rolling Stones and Mumford and Sons. Other bands to remember were Nick Cave, and Vampire Weekend. The rest of the weekend was a bit of a haze.

 

Bournemouth, sand, sea and Thai

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2013-06-18 20.03.01Warm evening, the pub was noisy as I walked past it. The raucous conversation, normally held inside, was now outside disturbing those quietly walking by. Down at the beach, it was a clear view to the west, but looking east towards the Isle of Wight you could see mist around the island, rising up from the sea. Yes you can see it, but the picture from the phone is a bit on the crap side. Thunderstorms predicted for tonight.

2013-06-18 20.05.15The evening meal was at a Thai restaurant called Tiien. Smart, seems part of a posh hotel, quite busy. I started with soup, usual Tom Yam something, with prawns. I asked for mine to be hot, and it came hot, very spicy hot. It brought tears to my eyes as I drank. Great stuff. Followed on with a vegetable stir fry. Yes, you read that correctly, no meat, vegetables.

Yes the Tiien Thai restaurant in Bournemouth gets a Blasdale star.