Happy Christmas To Everyone

I was out taking photos of M42 (no no not the blooming motorway, the nebula in Orion!) when I noticed a structure that as far as I know has gone unreported so far.
I was thinking of calling it the Ho ho nebula.....
I present it here for some of my younger readers.

Twunt

Somewhere down below the seventh circle of hell there is a special spot with a name on it. A name I know not in its entirety but the little badge behind which the shiny happy face smiled out at me proclaimed that in began with ….. ah but care ….if he reads this he may go into a religious order and atone. I wouldn’t want him to get away with it.
You see my phone was playing up. I took it along to the smiley happy phone shop assuming that the children that worked there might have some crumb to offer that would have escaped some duffer like me.
After a slight pause for tooth sucking as he had seldom seen such a model as mine outside a museum the scamp pronounced that he would back up my phone, and give me a new memory card which we could unload everything on to and it would then be as right as ever such an antique could be at the cutting edge of the end of the noughties.
He then proceeded to loose my phone contacts.
I didn’t hit him.
Now I am not such a fool that I cant see this sort of thing coming entirely. I do back my phone up to the interwebby thing from time to time. The trouble was that he lost the settings for this as well.
I didn’t hit him.
I am now trying to download a csv file that I can blue tooth to a second pooter and then restore via outlook excressence.
So if you havent heard from me before Christmas......
I may have to go back and hit him.

Yet More Dark Arts

The pairing of Venus and Jupiter in the sky to the west just before sunset has been too good to miss out on. I have been snapping away after dark again.
At the risk of making Trixie even more envious this is just down the road from where I live.
But hey anyone that reads this is welcome to come and see for themselves. There is always a free bed on Hallett's mountain.

More Dark Arts

Now I don’t want you to think that the words are not so important but this is a time of year when I do a lot of looking up and around the sky for a picture.
I noticed this one begging to be taken a few nights ago and hoped it might work. Its not right yet I know. Nevertheless I hope I can give you a flavour of the chase.
There is a photographer working down on the Isle of Purbeck whose combination of landscape and astronomy I have admired for some time (I see he has stopped selling them though, a pity).
I have long felt that there ought to be a chance or two round North Wales to recreate in a modest way some of the drama he seems to extract from the sky.
I sort of imagined that it might be easy to get a suitably dramatic picture of the moon against Snowdon… .
The thing is though you need a lot of time, luck and specialist knowledge to get this sort of thing right and so in over a year of trying seriously I have really only managed a handful of pictures that measure up to scrutiny. Getting the angles right and knowing when they will occur is part of it. Making sure that the light is right, hah, there is a quarter of an hour every day when you can take this picture. Dodging the traffic and the clouds. Making sure your fingers aren’t so numb that you can’t work the buttons in the dark. It all makes for a little bit of a challenge. A certain stoicism is needed to say the least.
I noticed this close pairing of Jupiter and Venus last week as I was driving home from work. On Friday I lugged the camera and tripod to a suitable spot along the Conwy estuary, tied the dog to a post and set to. The sky was clear as a glass of water and the light was just right. The two planets seemed to hang in just the right spot and were polished to perfection. Inevitably the bitter cold made a small plastic part of the tripod quite brittle and it snapped between my fumbling fingers. Then as quick as you like the battery on my camera announced that it needed changing after one wobbly shot. Bugger.
I went back better equipped to the same spot on Sunday and got several shots, one of which you see above but the cloud in the picture muddled it a little. It was only later that I noticed the thin crescent moon just over the right end of the castle had snuck out of the cloud for a moment. There may be a couple more nights to try this one but its gone cloudy again tonight so this is probably the best I will get. Until the next time.
(I stuck a couple of full size ones in the flikr gadget if you fancy)

Mists

Mist in the valley in the early morning

Mist over the valley at night

Snowday

I know I may have mentioned it before but North Wales is one of the corners that the great Moo Moo has favoured.
No large carnivores, nothing very poisonous in the flora or the fauna ( with the possible exception of a couple of mushrooms). A climate that is beneficially regulated by the thermal inertia of the sea. And spectacular scenery.
I forced the Hallett butt down to a cold kitchen early this morning and sorted out some sandwiches, coffee and some mountain gear. Asbo and I set of half an hour later and by nine o’clock we had parked up, tooled up and were off on the path to Marchlyn Mawr and then onwards to an old mountain favourite. Elidir Fawr is in a slightly less fashionable corner of the national park but the views from the top are spectacular. In fact I think it is the only summit from which you can see all the other mountains in Snowdonia, well all the ones over 3000 ft (I apologise for not using metres but somehow the figure holds less appeal).
Anyway when I got to the top the views were second to none.
Have a look here
Tomorrow I shall go and sunbathe on the beach.

Heroes

There is always a sense of trepidation when you see one of your heroes.
In the same way that going back to places you used to live irons out some of the gold from the memory. I remember seeing The Who perform live many years ago and being incredibly let down by how I felt at their performance.
From the moment Leonard Cohen bounded on to the stage ( I don’t exaggerate) I knew that I needn’t have worried at all. From the opening chord, to the long goodbye he blew me away. Old standards were invested with new meanings. Notes and phrases that were learned years ago were folded and painted into something both familiar yet fresh for the first time.
He held our hearts and fears in his word and drew tears of love from deep within.
Incredibly self aware and adjusted he spared us nothing. I have never seen such a spellbinding performance.
If you ever get the chance…ah but you know all that I am sure.

“The last time I stood on this stage was fourteen years ago. I was sixty years old, just a kid with a crazy dream”

In My Secret Life

I have but a moment, the policy that isn’t going to write itself is glaring,full of bale, from the sofa. Well its guidleines are anyway.
But you see, this weekend I have a ticket to see Leonard Cohen in concert at the NEC.
Whoop!

Greek Gift

I only nipped in to get a postcard I swear. I guess that from then on a number of circumstances, circumstances which I am sure dear reader, you will agree leave me entirely exonerated of any possible complicity ( that’s a posh version of ‘its not my fault’, did you like it?).
You see it’s partly about the end of the tourist season. There I was, on the last stage out of Dodge visiting a shop in a little village high up in the Cretan mountains. Several scuttling black clad ladies had reported my progress in towards the town square. By the time I parked my pushbike beside the shop, Alexandros had the hopes and fears of at least three living generations and a goat resting upon his shoulders, as well as Zeus knows how many that had crossed the Styx. And here I was threatening to part with a mere thirty cents. Quite a lot of national pride was involved.
After a negotiation the nature of which I still feel slightly confused about I departed with two bottles. One containing something that his grandfather put together from a secret recipe involving herbs and lots of alcohol. This I vaguely understand to be unobtainable outside the village, there may even have been false versions circulating in inferior shops and bars lower down the street. A sure winner to go with the Christmas dinner. A snip at merely 15 Euros.
The second bottle was thrown, no it wasn’t actually, was lowered gently to my basket as a gift to say thank you for handing over such a ridiculous sum for something unlabelled, unlikely to go through customs scrutiny, and probably poisonous. The second bottle, filled with a strange clea liquid that moved like a viscous oil, was complicitly described as lion’s milk. A form of mountain Raki.
“Very good for the …..”, and here he made a forearm gesture. The shocked look on the face of a passing nun left little doubt as what he felt it might be good for, as events panned out I am sure she need have had no worries.
Well I completed my ride to the Lasithi Plateau and after that it was all downhill ( theres a joke there which I am sure you will all struggle to winkle out…).
The next morning a demon slipped the bottle of Raki in to my daysack and I took the boat to Spinalonga. I had no intention of drinking it you see but…… If the guy serving the orange juice hadn’t had so much spare ice I might have got away with it. If She Of The Townhouse hadn’t been such a wimp and drunk her fair share I might have got away with it. If the day hadn’t been so hot and the shade so inviting I might not have been tempted.
It was everyone else’s fault. I am sure you can see.
I came round several hours later with a raging thirst beside a clear empty bottle, completely unable to explain how I had managed to lose a large chunk of the day and my shorts.

Customary Practice

“And did you pack the bag yourself sir?”

Suddenly I feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights. While the expression on my face betrays not a flicker of the inner turmoil; I suddenly see my fall from grace flashing before my inner eye. What to say.
Would it be foolish to say that on spotting that my toothbrush and surplus undercrackers were well below the weight limit, She Of The Town House had decided to redistribute. Using me as the mule to carry her spare hair straighteners and various packages whose content still eludes me even though we are now back a day.
“You have to be joking mate I haven’t a clue what she put in there.”
“ You look like a man of the world sergeant, she wouldn’t let me near the thing while she was packing.”
Both these reasonable appeals to a potential fellow cross my mind briefly but then…. then I remember that tale that Huw told of how similar jokiness on his way to the foreign led to an extremely unpleasant incident. The one where he was escorted to a darkened room by a man with large latex encased fingers, a man who proceeded to demonstrate a glove puppet routine. I remember how poor old Huw’s eyes watered even at the retelling some years later and how he went off his beer for the rest of the evening.

“Yes I packed it myself”

Later on as my bicycle puncture repair kit sets off the hand luggage scanner I wonder what they might mistakenly make of the pump that I left in the main bag.
(photo above)

I Cant Stay Long.....

Well you know what they say!
It isn’t until you go away on holiday together that you know what its all about.
She Of The Townhouse and I are in Crete at present. Suffice it to say that this is proving quite an eye opener. And not a day too soon I can tell you.
I am limited to how much may reveal here as the interweb thingy is rated at 4 euros an hour but let me tell you folks………

Burgered Up

Me and my big mouth! You would think that after last time I would have learnt a lesson wouldn’t you but no….
It seems that She Of The Town House may have got wind of my last post you see. Well better that than down wind of it but anyway. While The Boy and I were out grinding corn she decided to make an extra special effort and rustle up a surprise for tea.
So she dug up a few spuds and put them on to boil.
After that she got distracted and wandered off up to see a friend, came back an hour or so later to find the Townhouse full of steam.
Then she toasted some burger buns.
Later she prised them out of the toaster and cut the burnt bits off, she avoided electrical accidents by using a plastic spatula. This made the house smell a bit funny but this was later masked by the smell of what came next so it didn’t really matter.
She found some delicious and succulent buffalo burgers yesterday and figured they would be a real treat.
Placing them on ‘high’ she then nipped off to check her e-mail……you can see where this is going cant you…..
I think that a long story ought to be cut short here as I have to make it up to the chip shop in a mo.
When it was all banged down on a plate in front of us I could tell that our reaction was important and that saying the wrong thing might cause upset.
Eventually the boy and I came up with this.

“Darling, I just cant tell you how good that was”.

Tomorrow, dear reader, I am coming round to your house for tea.

Parsnip Surprise

I tell you friends, you have to watch your back as best you can round here when She Of The Town House decides that she is going to cook.
I have to say that her normal culinary standard involves a quick ‘tut’ at the contents of the fridge followed by a bolt for the nearest decent restaurant. Thus she feeds us all pretty well whenever it falls to her to provide.
Every now and then though, a rogue synapse fires and the maternal instinct just can’t be squashed. All very well but, when getting the right setting on the toaster for medium brown has been the culinary highlight of the week so far, I am sure that you will understand what I say when I tell you things can be a bit hit and miss.
The worst of times are when she thinks that it’s time something was used up.
Now that the Axeman has gone to college we ought to buy about half what we used to but in the period of adjustment we are a bit oversupplied from time to time.
Take this evening, I was late back from my travails. I am thanking my lucky stars that I got to the kitchen just as she was peeling the parsnips. I have probably rescued myself from a weekend bout of severe something of other, you know the thing I mean, that stuff that the hospitals are all being ticked off for. In fact from the state of what I saw I may even have rescued Asbo from the same and he has the constitution of a channel ferry.
“I’m just using these up” she said, “ I think they may be on the turn”.
“On the turn woman! They left the turn ten yards back and they are accelerating fast along the straight. It wont be long before they will be signing autographs!!”

Be Mused

The truth is that I haven’t really been sure what to tell you about. Don’t get me wrong, there’s loads happening. The Axeman has hoofed it over Offa’s Dyke to some foreign university, taking his six stringed razor with him. Boy thus moves up the teenage pecking order and grows ever more Kevin. She Of The Townhouse is running amok in a field with her ‘bad mother’ displacement activities. Asbo continues to disgust and amuse with his adolescent doggy antics. I travel roads in the dead of night and continue to enjoy the new position immensely (stop lloking for smut dammit! Hallett's Mountain has no innuendo above 0.001%).
With all this richness though, the seam I need to tap for blogging is elusive.
Perhaps the nifty gadget that Mike gave me? The bat whisperer?
Trials of the telescope user maybe.
Parties of the end of summer.
Dreams of yesteryear.
Old friends.
The trouble is it all seems just out of reach at the moment. Perhaps because I am lucky and am so busy.
I was mulling over Stienbeck’s introduction to Cannery Row the other day. To tell the stories ….. you know I have just spotted that She Of The Townhouse is suffing an advanced case of trench foot…….in telling stories of the 1920’s Monterey community that he so obviously loved, he reflected on the way in which they should emerge on the page. Remembering the marine life collection expeditions that he took part in with Ed Ricketts he likened the tales to fragile nematoad worms. These were creatures that were so delicate that pulling them out of the mud they live in would inevitably lead to their destruction. The only way that they could sensibly be gathered was to allow them to crawl out on to microscope slides by them selves in their own time.
I claim no other affinity with such great writing, but this I do recognise. Tales often cannot be told until their own sweet time arrives.

Line Out

You know a few months ago She Of The Town House’s drying machine packed up. The heater element stopped working and nothing seemed to get dry. Now I mocked at the time, up here on Hallett’s Mountain I use a proper washing line and pegs but you know what. That seems to be broken now as well.
It doesn’t seem to make any difference how long I hang the washing on it nothing dries there either.

Track And Field Events

The unseasonable weather has forced me to work….Oh incidentally, to all those kind souls that have been kind enough to think about me, the new job is brilliant. Early days yet but I am really enjoying it and my new colleagues are kind and supportive. I shall not be able to write much about it as it is in a hospital and I am very wary of confidentiality issues but it has been a terrific first week and I look forward to going to school with an enthusiasm renewed…..anyway….the work which I started to tell you about…
The last half mile to Hallett’s Mountain is a track that belongs to me alone and as such its my own damn fault if I don’t look after it from time to time. More specifically, when the rainy season arrives, I have to make sure that the water doesn’t tear up the ground under the car.
At the crack of dawn this morning, leaving She Of The Townhouse sleeping soundly in her bed, Asbo and I went out to dig ditches.

Busy

I couldnt lay my hands on a suitable photo so here is an old relic from about 1975
Greetings fellow denizens (denizens? Ah well Microsoft seems to have heard of it) of the interweb. I are back.
After my extended and rather damp summer break I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the challenges of what for me represents the new year. As a teacher I regard the onset of September as the start of my cycle through the seasons.
Before that though there are a few challenges to be mopped up along with the August monsoon.
The secret vegetable garden has Pigmies stalking game. The artichokes loom over the whole like razor fanged triffids. Caterpillars will need chemical warfare. She of the townhouse is looking up pickle recipes.
My junk room needs dejunking. Thinks have got to the stage where I need to have a large throw away bonfire on which the top spot will go to the vanities of last years clothing. Some of it last decades indeed. And really I am never going to fit in to ‘those jeans’ again ladies. Honestly I am not, and if I ever show signs that I might wel hell, I will buy a new pair.
Ah yes, then there is the mystery of the medium sized saucepan. If it doesn’t manifest soon I shall be calling upon Ramsay of the yard.
And I need a new school uniform.
The car needs to be certified.
And the Doctor has asked me to help transplant a donated organ.
Then next week I start my first new job in a quarter of a century.
Bloomin heck I don’t know what on earth I am doing talking to you lot!
Must fly, fish to fry…..

A Gentlemans Dilema

Now I am not really a great one for cleaning the car. In fact with this as my opener I can hear various colleagues and sisters going down the snigger and ‘you can say that again’ road. That said I do like to try and empty it before I fill it up again to go on holiday.
My house I like to keep clean and from time to time the garden looks good but my car….well its an agricultural vehicle. Take in to account that She Of The Town House regularly fills it to busting groaning with loads of logs, trees that haven’t been made in to logs yet, scaffolding, tools, cement, spare compost heaps, and second hand anything that takes her fancy. Oh yes, whenever Asbo takes to the road you can bet he will be on top of the pile as well, shedding hair like an Olympic hair shedder preparing for the Olympic hair shedding event in earnest.
So for some weeks now I have been quite pleased that she has promised to give it a good going over. In fact now I think about it, it may even be months since she first dusted off that promise. And there in lies the problem you see. The Hallett annual holiday starts tomorrow with a mad dash to the coast and a ferry connection and so far it is only the promise that has been dusted off and nothing else.
Today I decided, despite loads of important messing about on the net having a list of jobs as long as my arm to sort out, to take the task in hand myself.
Now I hope I haven’t mentioned Augean stables so recently that it is repetitive, but if old Herc had even looked at the state of my car I suspect he would have just shrugged and concluded that walking alone in the desert feeling sorry wasn’t such a bad lot, apologised to the oracle and , told Theseus not to bother looking him up again.
( I see here that Microsoft deems the last sentence unfit and in need of fragmentation. God help PG Wodehouse that’s all I can say)
So I have spent all afternoon hovering, scrubbing and, wiping. Much of it involving over close examination of stuff that may just keep me awake tonight.
Underneath all I have found an earring.
If any of you out there wish to reclaim it before I wave it in front of She Of The Town House I may well be saved a world of trouble. I mean it looks like the one she lost last year…but you never can tell with these things……..

The Holiday? Ah yes, Bordeaux for the next week then a fortnight in Lulworth Cove
Do drop in if you have a mind.
Cheers all.

Red In Tooth And Claw

Every now and then the cats that own me bring me a weasel. This poor chap turned up in the kitchen first thing this morning.
I guess they cant taste very nice as they only ever seem to be killed.
A pity.
My mate Dave always said that carnivores seldom eat other carnivores. I am not sure if this is true?

Cabin Fever

When She Of The Townhouse gets an idea in to her head you had better not stand in the way. All week long I have been suffering from a repetitive strain injury in my right arm.
Ok who sniggered! Don’t jump to mucky conclusions.
The thing is, she has decided that under the trees in the field need an erection.
Right that’s it!
Leave the room if you can’t be sensible. It’s just a word.
Unlike a right thinking and rational being though she has elected to place the aforementioned slap bang in the middle of a swampy patch. Under a tree.
As well as my own lack of firmness.....
Oh look for goodness sake, if you are going to misinterpret everything I say I shall just stop.
...As well as my own lack of demure, I place some of the blame on my little sister. If she hadn’t built a landing stage and a fire pit by the river then I feel sure that the whole shed in a swampy tree thing might have been held in check for a while.
As it is, I have been banging fence posts all weekend (I give in, titter away) and next we are on to the decking.
If she rings you asking for scaffolding planks please say no……