A GLITCH IN THE SYSTEM

When all systems are working life moves along smoothly.  When not, it is a patch up job.  And today was one of those!

After taking friends (Louise and Andrew) to the airport at a comfortable hour this morning I arrived back at the house and drove up the driveway to the garage.  When I reached for the remote control mechanism to activate the up-and-over door ... it was not there in the little dashboard tray where I keep it.  In the short term this was not a problem as we have 2 others in the house.

This is a Back-up mechanism with a green ribbon on it to make it easier to find should it end up in any of 101 places between the house and the inside of the car.

However, I wondered what I had done to mislay my Everyday one.  Then I remembered that I got out of the car at the airport drop-off zone to open the boot/trunk of the car.  I must have replaced it in my lap upon leaving the house and then dropped it on the ground when I got out of the car.

And, indeed, that is what happened.

In situations like this I always operate on the Chappaquiddick Principle, namely, if you've got bad news, get it out in the fullest possible detail and as early as possible.  In this case: go back immediately (1/2 hour drive) and look where you think you dropped it.

It was right where I had stopped but had been run over as the "After" photo above shows.  Now I keep a Jingle Bell type bell on the cord attached but ... the system failed here ... I did not hear it drop.  

When I got home again I stopped in the driveway and thought "I wonder if it still works?"  It did!  And I think the whole mechanism was saved from being totally smashed because I had wrapped yellow and green electrical tape around it.  It is my "system" for seeing things in poorly lit places.

So now I need to find a tame electronic wizard to gently tape it back together so it can function as, at least, a replacement Back-up. 

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*  The Chappaquiddick incident occurred on July 18, 1969, in which Mary Jo Kopechne, a female passenger of U.S. Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, was killed when he accidentally drove his car off a bridge and into a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Kennedy swam free and left the scene, not reporting the accident within nine hours, but Kopechne died in the vehicle.  [Wikipedia]

1000th POST 2: THE GRANDCHILDREN

This post goes with the previous one as it is about a milestone reached in the number of posts done since I started in May 2007 (6 years ago).

I wanted to do as As At position regarding the family so here are the grandchildren ... the rest of us shall be "background" for purposes of this exercise.

Here is Indy, aged 2.5 years who lives in Vancouver.  He is coming along a treat!  We speak every week to him on Skype where we get to see him larking about and chattering.  He continues to maintain good health and for that we are all so very grateful!

Next is Harriet, aged 7.5 months. I took this photo today.  She's on the kitchen floor as I make a Shepherd's Pie for dinner.  She's rolling over and trying to get her legs up under her so she can start crawling.  She's as bright as a button and if she wants something she hollers - no whimpering for this one!

So where are Alastair (aged 6 years old in 2 weeks' time) and Ishie (just turned 7 years old on New Year's Eve)?  Here they are last Sunday when they were all over for Sunday dinner.  They are lining up the ornaments on the living room window ledge while we talked in front of the fire.  

They are both doing very well at school and keep the rest of us on our toes with all their hi-jinks!  

For example, 

Grandma: "Where are the wooden owls from the window ledge?"  Cheeky Monkeys: "Mr Nobody must have hidden them..." 

I'm here to tell you Mr Nobody spends a lot of time in our house!

1000th POST 1: OURSELVES

To mark the fact that the blog-o-meter is about to trip "1000" (i.e. this is the 1000th post) I decided to do an "As At Position" today.  For starters: what's the weather like; what am I doing?  Maybe tomorrow I will get some As At family photos. (The problem is I have some but not a full range at the moment.)  Later:  see 1000th POST 2: THE GRANDCHILDREN

Hey ho... it's cold out. The front window (UK = windscreen / N America = windshield) of Iain's car which sits in the front of the house illustrates the Scottish climate exactly.  The photo shows where I drew 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth.  The eyes are in frost which has reached just above freezing and the nose and mouth are still frozen.  That describes the road surfaces, conditions when you are walking outside or out in the mountains: one bit is water and the next is ice.  Treacherous!

The good news is that we live in a maritime climate and so we have the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream here.  It has been wet, windy, stormy but basically a mild winter so far.  Also the days are starting to get longer.  It is starting to get light at 8 am and is fully light at 9 am.

 The bulbs are starting to peek through under the leaves.  The best sight in the whole growing year!

The parsley is thriving; frosty white in places but still giving green in the garden (helped also by the hardy, healthy rosemary and sage)!

I think this is wintergreen.  The man in the garden nursery recommended this plant and the dozen I planted in a row continue to give colour all through this winter period.

However back indoors .... what's doing?  The CCC Sailing Directions for the North, North-east, Orkney and Shetland.

Iain and I are updating this book for people who sail the waters of Scotland.  So my head is presently in the Pentland Firth.  The photo above is of Cantickhead Lighthouse where we stayed in 2012.  It overlooks the Pentland Firth (the body of water on the north coast of Scotland between the mainland and Orkney Islands). I am going through the text and also assembling photographs to illustrate the harbours, marinas, beacons, hazards etc.  Some are my own taken 2 years ago; others come from various sources including aerial photographs. Iain is checking the charts and re-writing sections.

Today a question occurred to me: can one take photographs from the Google Earth images? I had a long chat about this with another CCC member and have now learned that this, indeed, is possible.  I am so impressed with this technology! Also there are other similar sites to Google Earth which I am learning about.  I had a go at zooming in to a location on Hoy (Orkney) called Lyness then taking a photograph of it taken using my iPad. (It creates a jpg file in the camera roll.) Amazing!  The resulting image is crisp and sharp and can be of a suitable size at high resolution.  However, there are lots of outstanding questions: copyright conditions, how up-to-date are the images etc.

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What is it the kids say nowadays??? .... AWESOME!

CALENDAR QUANDRY

Every new year I recall my father's annual ritual: sharpen the pencils and change the calendars.

Now I am a real fuss-budget about pencils; I only use Canadian Ticonderoga made by Dixon brand.  I buy them in Salmon Arm and do not lend or give away.  I love them! And I like them sharp - always.  I bought this pencil sharpener years ago in USA when we lived there.  My father had one the same screwed to the left hand side of his oak roll top desk where he sat every night going through his Day Book, i.e. the one that fit into his left-hand shirt pocket for making notes.

This is a new calendar from John and it is on the wall to the left of my desk.  I love it! I has 12 of his own photographs - one for each month so this is January to start things off.

Speaking of calendars it reminded me of the Scottish artist Jack Vettriano and the exhibition which is on in Glasgow these days.  I went in the autumn and this is my ticket above: £3.00!  Well done, Glasgow City Council's Kelvingrove Art Gallery!

Now this is an artist that is the subject of much conflicting opinion.  That is one of the main reasons I went along ... just so I could see for myself. The situation is that his paintings sell for megabucks and also he is very popular with "ordinary people". Set against this is the really strong and angry opposing position by art critics and those who tell us what Art IS and IS NOT. 

The following quote from The Guardian critic, October 5, 2005, talking about his most well-known one, gives a flavour:

  The Singing Butler

"The Singing Butler has been criticised for its uneven finishing, inconsistent lighting and treatment of wind, and for the odd position of the dancers (the dancers' pose is reversed from a normal closed dance hold: usually, with the main leading, the man's left hand would hold the woman's right hand, and he would place his right hand on the woman's waist while she holds his shoulder with her left hand; if the woman were leading, her right arm would be around the man's waist)."

Be that as it may .... the original painting was sold at auction in August 2003 for £90,000 and then sold to a private collector in April 2004 for £744,500, a Scottish record at that time.

I had a look at all of the paintings; there were a lot of them brought together for the occasion.  His paintings are very much in evidence on shortbread boxes, calendars, tea towels, postcards, posters and the like and for that reason I was perhaps biased in thinking that they mainly looked like calendar girls (as many are of women with men lurking close by). 

That brings me back to my father's calendars.  The one above is a 1950s calendar and absolutely typical of what every garage had hanging on the wall and his workshop was no exception.  To this day I never stand in a mechanic's garage (waiting for the car to roll of the hoist) without scanning the walls for a girlie calendar!

Bluebird At Bonneville

Yes, I did like one of Vettrino's paintings and it is this one above of a go-fast car of Malcolm Campbell on the Utah flats (I think) and commissioned by Terrance Conran for his Bluebird Club in London.   Apparently it sold at Sotheby's in excess of £600,000 to an unidentified buyer. 

As somebody in the media observed awhile back public galleries had better get moving if they want one because soon they won't be able to afford them! (The point being that galleries steadfastly do not hang his work.)

Last but not least:  here is a really neat calendar on this website here. (It falls into the category of industrial design.)

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Images from Wikipedia