Richards Comments

2010 Photo 52 of 52

2011-01-01T14:07:00.004Z

Christmas Tree Decoration

2010 Photo 51 of 52

2011-01-01T14:05:00.002Z

Even the garden ornaments were cold.

2010 Photo 50 of 52

2010-12-18T10:36:00.001Z

2010 Photo 49 of 52

2010-12-18T10:34:00.004Z

Snow damage

2010 Photo 48 of 52

2010-12-05T15:24:00.003Z

Snow wall extension

Snow not so fun.

2010-12-04T12:38:00.005Z

Snow started around here last weekend with perhaps a couple of inches.

(Sat 27th out of the window)

On Tuesday it snowed non stop and they let us out of work early since lorries were getting stuck on our road, on average it took 6 times longer for people to get home and several staff abandoned their cars and walked the final few miles

By Wednesday morning the top of my wall had 32cm of snow call it 13inches, deeper in places and possibly 8 inches in general on the flat areas. As I was clearing my car I was phoned by my boss and told not come in, since all the key holders to the offices could not make.

Later that morning the only traffic going by my house was 4 x 4's and lorries since they had close the A38 due to an accident, that then turned into a stationary queue for an hour when a lorry got stuck on the hill about a mile from house.

Thursday I made it into work along with about 50% of staff, most of them who lived locally although we could not get into our car park. We greeted by a email from the head office which had no snow telling us we would not be paid for time off due to weather conditions so had to take the day as unpaid leave or a holiday, well my opinion of that is not for a public post.

The Youth Hostel I had booked in the Peak District rang and told me they would closed over the weekend, cancelling our Ascendancy Christmas party, in many ways that was a relief since people had started to drop out, not wanting to travel, me included.

All day Thursday it continued to snow and local radio, friend and family of staff at work were delivering bad news about blocked road and sheet house, then the duel carriageway to the motorway was closed due to a accident. Eventually they decided to close the office a hour earlier and with only a 1/10th of normal traffic on the roads I got home in no time. Although I did have to snow plough my car on to the drive since the snow was now about 11inches on the flat areas, 18inches on my wall, and almost to my knees in the drifts.

(Wednesday 1st Dec, after starting to clean the snow off the car, and digging path to pavement)

(Wednesday 1st bins with snow hats)

(Main road by mid afternoon, once queue had started moving)

Friday was icy as hell and I weaved my way between all the abandoned cars and lorries, some just people who couldn't get off the road on to their drive but most were stuck at the bottom hills unable to get up them. Driving was chaos and a 4x4 does not let get past a lorry that is stuck.

Last night we had another 2 inches, but today Saturday with a slight rise in temperature the main roads are in much better condition when you get on them, even if it is a little foggy. Now I have lots of pretty icicles.

(Sat 4th Dec a bit more snow)

(Sat 4th not been out through back door)

2010 Photo 47 of 52

2010-11-28T14:31:00.002Z

Cat stays warm

2010 Photo 46 of 52

2010-11-21T18:38:00.003Z

Taken a little earlier in the month

2010 Photo 45 of 52

2010-11-11T21:49:00.005Z

Yet more fungal growths

2010 Photo 44 of 52

2010-11-06T22:16:00.000Z

More Fungi - these are about the size of finger nail.

2010 Photo 43 of 52

2010-11-01T08:40:00.002Z

Do you know this Ghost

2010 Photo 42 of 52

2010-10-24T10:07:00.000+01:00

New Hat

2010 Photo 41 of 52

2010-10-18T19:44:00.001+01:00

The Getaway

2010 Photo 40 of 52

2010-10-09T10:22:00.001+01:00

Fungus on path

2010 Photo 39 of 52

2010-10-02T08:07:00.000+01:00

Old hut

2010 Photo 38 of 52

2010-09-30T19:45:00.001+01:00

2010 Photo 37 of 52

2010-09-30T19:44:00.002+01:00

2010 Photo 36 of 52

2010-09-20T07:46:00.001+01:00

2010 Photo 35 of 52

2010-09-04T08:34:00.001+01:00

Red Panda's at Chester Zoo

A wedding at zoo

2010-09-02T18:56:00.008+01:00

Chris and Louise got married at Chester zoo and it turned out to be a brilliant idea.

The days and weeks prior to wedding were very miserable but the wedding day itself was wonderful bright day with odd cloud but no rain, I arrived with Andy, Heather and kids and met Jeff, Lucy, Matt and Sam at gate.

We then spent the morning wondering the zoo, I had brought tie and jacket with me but left them in the car and unfortunately that's were they stayed for the whole day leaving looking a bit of scruff compared to the rest.

Starting with a quick monorail ride which took you only half way around the zoo we took in quite a lot before returning mid day to the hall within the zoo for the wedding. There people like Grum, Colin, Lotti, Gareth, Leslie, James, Dom, & Brian were waiting along with the groom, Karen was best man well I suppose best person. The bride was hidden away in wedding dress somewhere.

Called into the hall we were seated and waited for the bride who looked wonderful when she arrived, although Chris looked smart in his wedding suit.

The civil ceremony was conducted with a bit humour by the registrar or whatever you call her, followed by poem, all of which went well with the rest of the style of the wedding, they even managed to forgo best man speeches apart from quick thank you to everyone, which I thought was great.

After the wedding and bite to eat were told we could wonder the zoo again until it closed at which point we asked to return for cake cutting, more food and special treat.

I wondered the zoo with a few of those listed above, you can see some pictures below. Unlike Twycross which is a monkey/ape zoo Chester seems to concentrate of cats more than anything, although like most zoos it has a fair share of everything, including a bat cave which is pitch black until your eyes adjust and then full of bad whizzing past you and no doubt pooing on the odd person.

Chris and Louise cut the very nice giant chocolate cheese cake, then the zoo keepers turned up to give a personal public free tour of zoo and watch them feed the animals which was ace since some of the shy animals turned out especially for us. I particularly like the black panther which was invisible in its enclosure, but quick call and thrown fish and the panther darted out the undergrowth and incredible speed, ran along the windows and disappeared back into the undergrowth turning invisible again, what a wonderful animal.

Chris & Louise then took a few of us larpers off to see a statue he had found in corner of zoo not very visited while having professional photos taken, the statue photo below must have been created by some sort of cthulhu horror fan see photos below.

After the tour we returned to chocolate fountain and disco, chocolate fountain was yummy, although I should not have had that last chocolate covered strawberry which left me bloated and uncomfortable, but it was a chocolate fountain with quality chocolate so how could I resist.

I can honestly say the best wedding I've ever been too.

Got home early next morning since I decided not to stay locally.

A few more zoo pictures

2010 Photo 34 of 52

2010-08-28T15:06:00.001+01:00

Bird caught almost in flight after a short jump across a stream.

Visit to see Julie, Dave and Meredith

2010-08-24T17:45:00.002+01:00

Went to see Julie and Dave with their new daughter Meredith on Saturday, nice to see them all looking fit and well, if a little tired and hear about the last few months adventures.

2010 Photo 33 of 52

2010-08-21T19:46:00.002+01:00

My Cat

2010 Photo 32 of 52

2010-08-15T16:33:00.003+01:00

Behind the scenes photo at last event.

Week long of props

2010-08-15T13:06:00.007+01:00

Just back from a week long adventure in the woods of South Wales, were help plot a week long full of monsters and machine with my follow refs.

Although I have been writing plot for fours years and ref-ing for almost two this was my 1st week long event and it was great, hard work yes, but I helped along with the rest of the crew provide much entertainment for the players which is very rewarding when you get good feedback.

My fellow refs also thanked me for the props I provided which helped set the scenes for many of the encounters, although prize for best looking scene goes to Amy for her bloodied vampire make-up. (see below)

First the new look vampires that walk in the day protected from the sun by goggles and full head and hand covering.

This is glowing spirit capture device which was smashed by the players to release the capture spirits

This device the Rakken Transmitter/Attractor (although not completed in this photo) spent a full evening being turned on and off giving players Rakken on demand.

This fearful looking thing made from a Dr Who mask retrieved from skip by DaveP and then converted by me with pipes, suckers on the reverse and various machine bits, eventually flew and stuck itself to a player character and sucked him dry of blood to provide a black out for the Vampires to attack in daylight.

Here we have a blood powered device, fixed again to player it pumped away his blood to empower the vampire with extra strength.

This prop was last conversion using from some spare parts I taken with me, fixed to prop already prepared by the other refs, the lights gave it extra oomph.

2010 Photo 31 of 52

2010-08-13T16:02:00.002+01:00

Glowing Skull from larp event, hand held photo without flash.

2010 Photo 30 of 52

2010-08-13T15:59:00.001+01:00

Footprint in the sand

2010 Photo 29 of 52

2010-08-01T18:37:00.002+01:00

Mums dog's soft toy collection.

2010 Photo 28 of 52

2010-07-30T18:27:00.000+01:00

2010 Photo 27 of 52

2010-07-19T18:15:00.001+01:00

Sometimes I run out of ideas.

2010 Photo 26 of 52

2010-07-13T19:15:00.000+01:00

Today Sunday.

2010-07-04T16:44:00.015+01:00

Just spent today visiting friends, went to visit Jock and Bridget, knocked on the door and didn't get a answer but as I walked away the old lady a few doors up the street with her black cat said their in you know just knock louder, the street Jock and Bridget live on is obviously a proper old fashioned neighbourhood were neighbours actually speak to each others and know each other business.

Bridget was drying her hair and Jock in the bath, anyway the old lady apparently knows every one's movements on the street via the black cats that talk to her. Not long after sitting down with them for a coffee a 85 year gentleman started shoving chocolate bars through the letter box, something he does regularly according to Bridget, although occasionally its out of date packets of biscuits, apparently he's going a little senile and forgets were he lives, but he's friendly old chap, still wearing the same winter coat this summer he wore 30 years ago and gives big exuberant waves to everyone like he knows you.

This photo deserve a explanation but I won't give it.

After spending a couple of hours with Jock and Bridget, I went on to visit Andy and Linda, mainly to drop off Andy's birthday card.

I arrived in the midst of crisis Andy had attempted to cut off his finger with the electric hedge cutters, but luckily was unsuccessful and just managed a horrible mangled looking cut which did not want to stop bleeding, still a bandage later he had regained his lost hit point.

Linda then showed me her bra and told about the sponsored moon walk she did for breast cancer with Freda who is currently recovering from her Chemotherapy, a 15 mile fast walk which started at midnight through to the early hours, which is probably why its called the Moon Walk. Back to the bra the participants all had to wear decorated bra's, Linda's was pink and covered in lights.

Linda's bra

While I'm posting bad photograph here is one of Ste at Andy and Linda's BBQ a few weeks ago.

While I think about it Katie who is currently in USA on a 4 week camping trip showed me her new tattoo on her foot at the same BBQ.

This is better photo, taken by somebody else.

Before visiting my friends I went to Tansley's massive car boot, which was very busy with the nice weather, but saw nothing I wanted. I was mainly looking for junk to use for props, but nothing inspired me. I did go skip diving earlier in the week and recovered a Dr Who Tardis that was spotted.

Junk is great, as you can see below this is what you get from old brass imitation light, a draw handle, a old table leg and drainer. Yes you get a steam punk elemental powered drill, obviously :).

2010 Photo 25 of 52

2010-07-02T17:57:00.001+01:00

Old Railway Signals

2010 Photo 24 of 52

2010-06-28T19:12:00.000+01:00

A cow in a dark age village.

2010 Photo 23 of 52

2010-06-25T14:36:00.001+01:00

2010 Photo 22 of 52

2010-06-14T22:21:00.004+01:00

Clouds taken from my garden same photo with contrast adjusted.

2010 Photo 21 of 52

2010-06-14T22:19:00.003+01:00

My cat in the garden jungle

2010 Photo 20 of 52

2010-05-30T15:53:00.003+01:00

What happens when you take a picture with nothing but the Eurovision song contest to illuminate the room.

Thunders weekend.

2010-05-24T19:44:00.012+01:00

Kit making and acquiring frenzy for last event over and I'm feeling totally worn out, although I think most of that is down the change of weather over one week from frosty mornings to humid temperatures in the high twenty's.

The AscendancyLRP event I helped AndyL put together was set in the Thunders a land mainly based on historic & mythical Japan & China. For this event I decided we needed a bit of extra kit, mainly because we set the event in monastery.

So I made four Buddhist robes, they were very simple based on the real thing which is basically a couple of large rectangles of fabric tucked under the arm and over the shoulder, so all I to do was do straight hems no pattern to follow.

This photo is a example.

I also recycled a robe made by Julie for a post apocalypse game we played and turned it into the kit of the Incredible Wang, which although made from wool, not your traditional oriental fabric looked great with the hat and sash.

Photo of the Indiscernible Wang.

My other bit of costume was purchased direct from China and is a copy of Qing Dynasty Imperial Suit, I did have to spent a couple of hours re-working the belt which despite the size description was made to fit around the waist of someone four inches smaller in circumference than me. I think it looks great with its many embroidered dragons and well worth the price paid, which was only a bit more than the shipping cost.

Photo of the now dead Shogun wearing the costume, although he is now the new Golden Vampire, so the costume use will continue.

I also painted up masks for the Puppet master and Yo-Yo, found some really cheap fans and oriental hats.
The fans can be seen in the picture below, found in a shop in Ripley for 50p each and well used given the heat during the event.

The last thing I made was three clockwork bullets for use by an assassin, although due to massive crop of nettles he found himself cornered when he wanted to escape and fire his last bullet.
Bullets.

2010 Photo 19 of 52

2010-05-24T11:13:00.001+01:00

From an Oriental Lrp Event

2010 Photo 18 of 52

2010-05-21T07:18:00.005+01:00

St Pancras Station, on a visit to London this week.

2010 Photo 17 of 52

2010-05-07T21:04:00.002+01:00

Gnarly wood

2010 Photo 16 of 52

2010-05-05T20:42:00.001+01:00

A bit of old ironwork in the forest

2010 Photo 15 of 52

2010-05-02T21:18:00.003+01:00

Tree and a cliff

2010 Photo 14 of 52

2010-04-19T12:53:00.002+01:00

Not photo from this week, but not far off.

Easter week.

2010-04-15T21:48:00.015+01:00

Easter weekend I started a weeks holiday with lots of plans starting with a trip to Stratford upon Avon with JulieS to visit the Butterfly Farm which was great, especially to practise your camera skill, took loads of photos a small sample below (wish I took my SLR). The Butterfly Farm is quite warm being kept between 25 and 30deg C, and at 80% humidity since its full of tropical butterflies as well a few fish, reptiles and birds that don't like the taste of butterflies.

This photograph is stolen from Julie and shows me with a butterfly.

Photo of Julie taking a photo

Mr Iguana

After the butterfly farm we had quick wander around Stratford, which looks interesting, didn't visit any of the other attraction or Shakespeare properties although we did pop in Nash's house garden which was free and full of odd but interesting sculptures inspired by Shakespeare plays.

During the following week I mainly spent my time making steam punk guns, a sniper rifle and kind of grenade launcher which I converted into stun gun for the weekends larp event.

The sniper rifle was made from a old cap gun stock,plenty of screws, bit of brass tube, some smaller tube cut to act has spacer for a toy telescope sprayed with brass paint for the gun site. Added to this was decoration in the form the nozzle from old brass paraffin blow torch,some drawing pins, and a bit of wood stain/varnish.

The grenade launcher used the rest of the paraffin blow torch, a cardboard tea tube, a couple of pipe fittings, a sink strainer, another old cap gun stock, a few screws, a bit glue and some more brass spray paint.

After several days of searching for bits I now have lots more junk to make several more steam punk guns or gadgets.

Last weekend I crewed a larp event and got to play a new long term character, currently called the Hermit, he was a bit of grumpy and plenty of fun to play.

The crew (excluding me and AndyL)

The weather on Saturday was the warmest of the year and with lots of carrying kit up and down slopes quite hard work for a unfit chap like me. Sunday was much better, well cooler anyway.

ChrisA with his new steam tech gun and also the one I made.

Took plenty of photos most are the ascendancy website.

I did also go to see Kick Ass, yet another new movie based on a comic book. Enjoyed it, although found myself quite shocked by the language coming out the 13year old girls mouth, I suppose that was intended. Very funny dark humour, don't go and see if don't like comics books

2010 Photo 14 of 52

2010-04-12T16:12:00.002+01:00

2010 Photo 13 of 52

2010-04-05T10:25:00.004+01:00

Update of stuff

2010-03-29T18:14:00.017+01:00

Over the last few weeks I haven’t done much, but I have done a few things, such as last weekend I went to TORM with Jock and Bridgette.

Usual stuff for sale, I bought an Astrolabe and Perpetual Calendar thing for a 21st birthday present from a company called Hemispherim that does very pretty astronomical instruments.
I did see a nice felt hat, which would have been very tempting at £ 60 but at £ 160 was nice but not worth it, for me at least.

Spot my £160 hat in this photo, its the one with arrow pointing at it.

After the event had a very bland uninspiring meal at the Cocked Hat, which has put me off the place slightly since the previous meal I had there was the same.

Saw my brother last Sunday who’s lad Josh has just passed his driving test, he was telling me that he not bumped the car yet, less than a few hours later he discovered he had rolled his car trying to follow his friend to Crich.

Josh's car roof

He wasn’t injured but it will be an expensive lesson learned.

This weekend I played in a few Ascendancy table top skirmish battles, and lost for the 1st time after 2 draws and 4 wins, the High elves whupped the Skaven.

I also went to ChrisT 21st birthday meal, as honorary family member I was the only friend among the rest of Aunts, Uncles, nephews, nieces etc. Well apart from his girlfriend Emma with bird tattoos.

ChrisT

Nice bit of food at the Spanker, and saw quite a few friends who turned up later, Ste and Deb as well as Freda who is in the middle of her reconstructive surgery for breast cancer and looked very startling with her shaved head.

Ste and Deb

Christophers Sword in the Stone cake made by a friend

Chris's dad AndyT

Chris Mum LindaT and Sister KT

Other than that I have found a new tea or two, I like the pretty boxes in the photo below

2010 Photo 12 of 52

2010-03-27T11:09:00.000Z

Patterns in moss

Variation

Close up

2010 Photo 11 of 52

2010-03-21T12:51:00.000Z

Straw mask and hats

2010 Photo 10 of 52

2010-03-13T15:44:00.000Z

A tree on Beeston's high street

2010 Photo 9 of 52

2010-03-07T09:12:00.001Z

I need to get out and start taking more photos, a cropped version of a previous photos

Beetroot Fair

2010-02-28T17:32:00.008Z

Inspired by the idea of brownies with with prunes made by Julie last weekend I decided to make my own.

I've never baked before, so these were no cheap brownies since I had to buy everything bar a bowl to melt chocolate in, including the baking parchment and deep baking try I think I spent around 8 quid, taking away the things I can use again the cost is possibly nearer 3 quid, although cost doesn't really mater its the fun of making your own and the novel ingredients you can put in.

For my brownies I used Delia's on line recipe for Brownies with prunes and then swapped most of nuts for beetroot.

The chopped beetroot and prunes.

The recipe was simple, no technical cooking terms, a bit of maths to adjust the quantities to suit my baking tray and then nothing harder than mixing stuff in bowl.

The melting chocolate and butter.

The final mixture was a possible a bit too moist since Delia said to spread the mixture, my mixture was quite fluid and filled the baking tray without any spreading, I had a egg left so chucked it for good luck, possibly not the wisest decision.

The runny mixture.

After the required period in the oven the brownies were taken out and the hard top had raised leaving the moist brownies to crumble apart as I cut them, perhaps to long in the oven or some other mystery of cooking that I'm not aware of.

Just out the oven with the unwelcome crust.

The final result tasted wonderful and I have eaten about a third, which is probably a good 200 grams of sugar and butter based on the ingredient used, yikes that's a lot of calories to burn off.

Yum :)

On Saturday before making the brownies I went to the Living History fair with Julie and Dave, ran into very few people I knew Doug and Izsy from Larp and Alan and Jayne from reenactment, I'm never quite sure why this fair is not as popular as TORM since in my opinion it is the slightly better fair.

The car park though was a quagmire on yellow clay mud, which plastered everything, Dave described the mud on the tracks as potters slip, which about some it up, since it splashed up you jeans.

While there I bought some animal skins and Larp safe spear, I nearly didn't buy a hat, but while walking by the fudge store with Julie, she pointed out a tall hat on stall, which I found attractive and within no time I had my cash out buying the hat in the photo below.

Julie bought some smoke peanut butter, but also tried some citrus relish on the same stall Martins Jerked Meat which made her eye water since I think it should have been labelled citrus chilly relish. The smoke beetroot on the same stall was also nice, but the small jars a tad expensive.

2010 Photo 8 of 52

2010-02-28T12:45:00.002Z

Sand

2010 Photo 8 of 52

2010-02-21T16:19:00.002Z

Dave kitted and ready for waargh

Dave on his way to waargh

2010 Photo 7 of 52

2010-02-16T19:47:00.001Z

With lack of good photos here is one from the weekends LRP event

Day out in the Black Country.

2010-02-09T19:21:00.004Z

This weekend I went with Julie and Dave the Black Country Museum at Dudley to celebrate Dave's Birthday.

The Museum as can be seen from the photo below is mainly about reproducing what it was like to live in the Black Country area at the beginning of the 20th Century. A whole village as been built from houses taken down from the local area and then rebuilt creating a fascinating authentic place to visit.

Julie and Dave riding a Trolley Bus, basically a tram without tracks or bus that has to follow overhead power cables

A Trolley Bus at the museum.

The village has many working shops that sell their goods to visitors, this is Julie and Dave outside the sweet shop, Dave bought us all a cake from the shop next door, further down the street was a fish and chip shop. We visited the cafe while there for lunch all of use deciding to have the large black country sausages which were yummy.

Unfortunately it was a cold day, since most of the museum is outside I would recommend you go when its warmer.

Most of the shops and houses had working fires which were lit to keep the costumed characters that worked at the museum warm and were excellent to keep us visitors warm.

Julie knitted me a cowl for Christmas, it was very helpful in keeping me warm, not that I wore it pulled over my face like in the photo below, most of the time I wore it just around my neck. I highly recommend a cowl as a alternative to scarf.

Picture of the canal inside the museum.

I had a great day out, I assume Julie and Dave did, I wished it was better weather since it may have been more enjoyable, next time we pick a indoor place to visit in winter.

2010 Photo 6 of 52

2010-02-07T19:04:00.002Z

Rusty rivets

2010 Photo 5 of 52

2010-01-29T17:07:00.000Z

Winter Sun

Mess by the Oak Tree

2010-01-25T15:44:00.005Z

This weekend despite not feeling well I went along to crew at LRP event at Shining Cliff Wood and found the much of the west end devastated by woodland maintenance. The signs says they a clearing the softwoods to allow a hardwood forest to re-establish itself, this may be great in the long term but they have stripped vast areas of trees totally and thinned the other area so much they are hard to describe as woodland anymore.

From a entry gate at Higgs Lane to the Shinning Cliff hostel car park run 2 paths, the upper path is still a nice place to walk, the lower path is not, stripped of trees, and then the path bulldozed through the debris leaving loose boulders its a place to avoid and will take many years to grow back into nice walk. The end which did have a nice leafy clearing with a oak tree in middle as been halved in sized, given a nice new footbridge, but the hillside behind has been fully cleared of all tree and was full of the noise of chains saws cutting down more, a large logging company seems to have established a base on the road up alongside the wood.

Once past the east end of the wood into the hostels area things are still untouched and protected by owners so will remain that way.

The bottom path, it looks like this from the area we park in all the way to the Hostel car park.

The old oak tree clearing which was full of atmosphere as been reduced to this.

The back drop has been cleared of trees.

The event itself went well, it was 3 or 4 degrees C which did not feel that cold and dry on Saturday, Sunday it did drizzle then rain at the end of the day, so my costumes got very damp and muddy. The players got into things even if the event was designed to keep them moving, fighting and thus warm, its not the time of year for long outdoor negotiations, although their seemed plenty of things to discuss.

AndyL who wrote the plot had now way of knowing what the players would do Sunday with many optional paths so we had to have many contingency plans and quick costume changes at the ready.

Two mountain bikers nearly came off as they rounded a bend and spotted 2 Gaisha in the wood trying to seduce a chaos mage.

Sam forgot her hair brush, I thought she would make a good Ronald McDonald.

I finished the weekend feeling much fitter than I started with the running around clearing up my listlessness, but the downside was the my cough got worse as the mucus settled on my chest and I think as set itself up for a long stay.

2010 Photo 4 of 52

2010-01-23T20:23:00.001Z

Muddy footprint

2010 Photo 3 of 52

2010-01-17T13:31:00.006Z

Having not taken any photographs this week apart a rubbish photo of my cat checking I had washed behind my ears.

The only thing I could do was spice the photograph up a bit to make it more interesting.

2010 Photo 2 of 52

2010-01-09T10:31:00.002Z

Snow days for vegetation

2010 Photo 1 of 52

2010-01-02T15:36:00.002Z

It was snow day today.

This is my cat looking from the warm inside of my house.

This is my cat 5 seconds after going out wanting back in.

Diary of my Christmas

2010-01-01T12:51:00.006Z

I expected a busy Christmas period, but it didn't turn out that way.

Spent Christmas Day at my Mothers since she was not on Holiday this year, my sister and one brother, partner and two nephews also where there and we opened presents together, before tucking into turkey and trimming.

My other brother Stephen was off on short of holiday seeing his new girlfriends parents somewhere in the far South East of the country for few days.

I got my nephews money as is their want, but made them earn it by putting it inside puzzle boxes which they had to open to get to. My main present to my mother was a digital photo frame pre-loaded with loads of family pictures, my sister got a large chocolate pizza from firebox. Me and my mum also ended up buying each other identical books, both spotting a pre-Christmas bargain no doubt.

Brother and Nephew

Nephew, Mum and me.

For Boxing day I went AndyT and Linda's, Christopher did his usual and disappeared all day playing computer games, Katie was working at McDonalds having just finished 6th form, not wanting to go to University and having no idea on what she wants to do.

I received a excellent jumper and shirt from them, they seem to have a good sense of clothing I like and never fail to get me something good.

After opening each others gifts we then went to see Derby County play football, well they were terrible not that I'm a expert, but it seemed to be unanimous verdict after the game.

By the time we got back, Katie was home and opened her gift, a gorilla pod which may encourage her taking up photography something she has wanted to do. Linda and AndyT then made us a light tea which could have fed fifty people, so I found myself eating to much for 2nd day in a row.

Derby playing Blackpool and loosing 0:2

Just after the game wrapped up warm, although the day was not that cold.

Sunday I travelled to see Julie and Dave in Coventry to play a couple of board games, and just catch up, I saw Julie's present from Dave and we exchanged gifts, Julie said she was not knitting anything this year, but still managed to start something for me which she knows makes me very happy. They also got me a magnifying glass I had been eyeing up at TORM it had gone when I went back to buy and was kinda hoping it was them that bought it, plus a mini chess set as well as some pretty boxes.

Julie between winning games (she was lucky) managed to cook a giant cottage pie, while Missy and Charlie avoided me like I was a cat killer.

Monday/Tuesday was supposed to be walking days, but illness and a overloaded Christmas made my friends cancel until they have a quieter weekend in January. So I went sale shopping purchased nothing, not because there was nothing to buy, but because I would not join the massive queues to the tills. Called in to see Jock and Bridgette who bought me a large pendulum thing that draw patterns in the sand and also popped into Chimera and saw Heather.

Spent the rest of the two days playing Fallout3 on my PC, seems ages since I've played a computer game, it was probably the previous Christmas when I bought Warhammer Online which was a big disappointment.

Wednesday played wargames with Jock and AndyH at DaveA's house in Nottingham where his basement is a dedicated war games room. We played a great game which took ages in fact until 8.30pm when we realised we needed food before the pub stopped serving. The pub was doing a quiz night, which somehow the four of us won despite our poor knowledge of TV soaps and current pop music. The only downside was part of the prize was free drinks tokens, which AndyH was determined to consume before we went home.

New Years Eve did not go to plan, although I did find chance to nab some sale bargains and spend a Gift voucher. It didn't go to plan due AndyL and Heather having to cancel last minute with a sickness bug taking a big hold of one their girls. I did get text from Sam inviting me over to her party once she discovered my predicament but it was just a bit late in the evening and bit far so in the end I decided to have a extremely quiet New Year on my own.

I still have one night out left a Steve's for a Birthday meal, but really that's it so a couple of days of rest before going back to work.

That's my Christmas, was good one, thanks mainly to my great friends and family.

Photo 52 of 52

2009-12-26T11:00:00.001Z

How to capture a terrible picture of your brother.

My brother and Nephew at my mothers Christmas morning.

Photo 51 of 52

2009-12-20T10:51:00.004Z

3 for 1 on Cat Photos in the snow

A Weeking of Scampering Lightly

2009-12-12T15:33:00.009Z

Last weekend was the last lrp event of the year at Unston and turned out good fun.

Not having two of my best friends along due to technical problems with health meant I had only myself to cook for, which apart from one meal I manage time for, lunch on Saturday was a whole packet of biscuits, I should have done better.

Living near by and having a cat to feed I travelled home each night, through some heavy rain both nights and Sunday morning which left the roads a dangerous place, with unseen puddles that tried to stop your steering working. Despite the rain during the day it was dry enough to get the players out for a fight or two, or three, well plenty.

The event was designed to be fun and non confrontational, which some of the players managed to conspire against, I hope it was all taking as in character, from those I spoke to, it seemed to be.

I got to introduce two new characters a wealthy cotton mill owning vampire and a Fey Lord who was meant to played by DaveP. The event ended with an already established character the Dark Rider running off as usual, he's no fool, he doesn't fight to the death when the odds are stacked against him.

I got to be rather silly playing a Monty Python style farmers wife in a dress and wig, standing on a chair screaming scared of 3 blind mice. The players turned out to be not very good at herding blind mice so the farmers wife could chop off their tails.

A few old faces returned, great to see Doug again, I think he enjoyed it, Alex Xian Chi and MattB also said they enjoyed themselves, may turn up to a few new events next year hopefully.

Now a few photos from the event.

2 players try their LRP sneak unseen skills on the resident cat, 15 minutes of sneaking got them a look of boredom from the cat before it walked through a bush leaving them stranded.

Cat can also count, well up to 2 paws.

Dan preparing to indulge his secret pleasure.

Dan has a colour string fetish.

Andy and Heather having strong words with the shop staff about making the tea just right.

Me in my new coat purchase on impulse from TORM, needs a better photo, but camera didn't like the cold.

photo 50 of 52

2009-12-12T09:15:00.001Z

One of my lrp photos from last weekend.

Photo 49 of 52

2009-12-04T14:10:00.000Z

A bit of winter colour.

Photo 48 of 52

2009-11-27T21:14:00.003Z

The new egg shell paint.

Photo 47 of 52

2009-11-22T14:39:00.001Z

Decoration on the outside of my house that was once brightly painted.

Photo 46 of 52

2009-11-14T08:36:00.003Z

Detective Marlow

Fairs and battles

2009-11-10T19:02:00.005Z

Over the past 3 weeks or so I have been to International Living history fair in Warwickshire, The Foreign Field LRP Kit Fair in Yorkshire with Julie and Dave.

At both fairs I bought very little, shirt, second hand sword, I was talked out of spending hundreds on other costume items which I think was the correct choice since as they where not what I wanted.
I did buy a cheap second hand top hat for bargain price and loved the steam punk kits the same store had for sale, but most of the content was stuff I already had.

I did buy the odd Christmas present though and enjoyed myself running into people I knew and just seeing all the interesting items for sale. I also got to encourage other people money spending.

This item was not bought by Julie she was testing the clasp

This weekend was the table top battle or should I say battles to conclude a season of many Ascendancy battles, to be bigger and better than last year we decided to run it over 3 continents which meant 3 battles
Never again will I coordinate 3 battle in one day it took 3 1/2 hours just to get started, with briefing people, placing the terrain and taking the figures out their boxes, luckily I had made the battles fairly small in scale so they could be played quickly.

Overall it was fun

Here are a few pictures

The commanders and their lieutenants.

Carnelium Battlefield

Frontier Battlefield

Stronghold battlefield

For one the battle was not that exciting.

Snow getting run down by Cavalry

Photo 45 of 52

2009-11-08T18:26:00.003Z

Rufus at the table top battle

Photo 44 of 52

2009-10-31T21:32:00.003Z

Cat Gymnastics. My cat jumping for a yellow and green ribbon off a packet of fudge that I threw in the air.

Photo 43 of 52

2009-10-28T19:33:00.008Z

With no photos taken this last week I thought I would play with a photo of week that never got used as I used another photo that week instead. So simply let Paint Shop Pro do it stuff here is a selection of the thousands of choices available if a simple photo is not good enough for you. Throughout the photos I've isolated Julie since applied to faces the effects don't seem to work well without lots of tweaking. (Images are best viewed full size)

This is called Topography effect

This is called Contour effect

This is called Enamel Effect

This us called Foil effect

This called Kaleidoscope effect

And this is the original image, a pretty shot looking over the town of Wirksworth

Photo 42 of 52

2009-10-17T08:19:00.002+01:00

When you haven't took any interesting photographs recently, time to resort to cat photos.

War gamers and reenactors

2009-10-13T19:56:00.008+01:00

After all my previous weekend that were hectic, I had a really quiet one which was welcome, the only thing I did of note was go to a party in Nottingham at my friend Dave's.

He had got together lots of people I knew from the past for what ever reason not quite sure, re-enactors and war gamers, quite a few Games Workshop staff where he works in the design team and also does his own war games figures.

One of the Perry twins was there who I had just brought figures off by mail order and John Stollard who I went to Paris with to play Warhammer for the French in 1980something, he now runs his own war games company, Warlord Games.

Most people I knew even if a few names did not come straight to my mind, I suppose once in a decade its nice to see old acquaintances.

They say never far from a rat, well this one lost a argument with my car as I found it flattened on my drive, I say rat because of it size which was about 250mm excluding the tail, so I think just too big for mouse.

I think rats can be cute, but all I thought about was disease as got the shovel to carry the corpse to the bin, especially with the hundreds of flies buzzing around it.

Photo 41 of 52

2009-10-10T08:45:00.003+01:00

Fun with statistics and dice - table top games

Mole Machine and Some Painted Figures

2009-10-05T08:54:00.007+01:00

I have completed several other projects during this month for use in various table top games

The 1st game was a repaint of space gorilla's provide by AndyL into cybernetic steam punk gorilla's controlled by a group of goblins

Then on a similar theme the dungeon in my previous post needed a way to get the player characters out, Von Dumas was the rescuer so we decided on mole machine coming up through the dungeon floor.

This was built in one morning before I went to work from a bit of rolled up cardboard, a cardboard spiral and some rocks from the garden. The cone at the top is a missile pod from a old air fix kit.

The rocks and machine were then given a quick paint and this is the result an hours work at the most.

And lastly a few new oriental figures acquired from Perry Miniatures.

Dungeon Build

2009-10-05T08:36:00.004+01:00

This is my latest secret project, a dungeon for a table top skirmish role play game played yesterday.

Built from all sorts of bits, but mostly polystyrene covered in filler then sprayed black and dry brushed. It also included parts from a friends Van Helsing toy, cardboard tubes and old Citadel Miniatures (now Games Workshop) doorways.

I took photographs of the finished item in the dark with the flash deliberately so the depths of dungeon look lost in the dark.

This photo shows the steam punk machines the players found in the dungeon.

And the players enjoying the game.

My Cat in Bag Haven

2009-10-03T11:17:00.001+01:00

Pity I missed most of the earlier fun

Photo 40 of 52

2009-10-03T08:15:00.001+01:00

Laser eyed cat

photo 39 of 52

2009-09-26T09:30:00.000+01:00

Between my feet

Bites and Blunderbuss

2009-09-22T17:47:00.006+01:00

I volunteered to help out at a Acendancy Lrp event on Saturday despite not really having the time to spare. The event organised by others took place in Shinning Cliff woods, which had received a major haircut since my last visit, the forestry commission had started a thinning out process to allow the hardwood trees to grow. [see photo below]

The other thing they had done was drain the swamp on the bottom, which I thought was nice feature, even if it did mean walkers were up to their ankles in mud.

The wood was full of flying insect life enjoying the last rays of sun before the autumn cold starts to set in, and they really wanted to bite anything they could find, which seemed to be mainly me. I’m feeling more bitten than I have in a long time, which since I was unprepared means I've itchy spots all over.

During the event we had a visit by the police, due to a concerned member of public spotting GarethP blunderbuss cap gun, which they reported has a shotgun, the police took our details and asked us how long we would be around in case of any more reports.

[Blunderbuss below]

The event itself was fun, Colin and RichS the writers had filled full of puzzles or puzzling issues which is their style, the players worked their way through them and seemed to enjoy themselves.
[Photo of Rich and Colin]

Got up 3am Sunday morning to take my Mother to airport, decided against coffee as wanted to get back and go to sleep, which was a mistake since I did not feel fully alert for the trip. I was surprised as I travelled through Nottingham at 4pm in the morning how many people were wondering the streets, some night clubbers, lots of police, teenage kids on bikes and folk that you just felt were up to no good.

I had said I could not help out with the Lrp Sunday since I was organising a table top battle, however I still turned up around 4.30pm at what I thought would be near the end of the event so I could join them at the Chinese restaurant later and found they were still in the middle of things so ended up helping out for another 2 hours.

After the event everyone got away about 7pm, some with long journeys back to Wales, while the rest of us went to a nearby Chinese restaurant for dinner before setting off home.

Me has a Djinn

Photo 38 of 52

2009-09-18T17:39:00.002+01:00

Another Spider.

Arts in Homes

2009-09-16T20:00:00.006+01:00

Visited the Wirksworth festival on Saturday with Julie, this is Arts and Crafts festival with the emphasis on Art.

Ariving late morning we were greeted by an elderly gentleman who was serving two other people as we arrived at his table and exclaimed you will have to wait a moment I have a rush on, and he meant it, was flustered by having to serve 2 people.

We then proceeded to wonder around Wirksworth following the trail guide, which took us to the town hall, parish rooms, shops, café’s, churches and most oddly peoples living rooms, kitchen and gardens, where their artistic goods were on display. All the houses where signed with numbers and marked with purple and white balloons, so you did not wonder uninvited in to strangers living rooms, some even opened up their toilets to the public.

The art was interesting consisting of sculpture, painting, photographs, fabric, sewing ironwork etc, but mostly not the sort of stuff I would buy mainly due to its cost, but some cases too surreal, uninspiring or just too big for a normal sized house, saying that the majority was good.

[View below looking out over Wirksworth from one of the trail sites]

By the time we had walked the hilly streets visiting two thirds the exhibitors we were both numb to seeing any more, so left around 5pm after homemade cake from the church.

I’m told by a fellow at worker the evening was extremely busy has the bands and performance artist took the streets in number to entertain the crowds, and people did not close their front rooms to art inspectors until late into the night.

On Sunday I was invited out by Ste and Deb photo below to have lunch and tea with them and visit a massive Garden, craft, outdoor wear centre with them. The centre was a disappointment as it seemed to have changed hand since they had last visited and the craft area was filled with other high street traders such as the Works, Yeoman’s, plus pet products and some other clothing brands you see everywhere. My friends did not have a good word to say about the place especially the coffee shop which was now serving in cardboard cups rather than nice china cups.

Just outside the centre we went to the farm shop which was up to scratch and I bought some Banana and Pistachio Ice cream for us to eat when we got back to their house, it went down a treat after the lovely Tai green curry Deb made for tea, after I turned my nose up at a Indian curry.

A good weekend overall out and about.

Photo 37 of 52

2009-09-12T20:23:00.001+01:00

Gargoyle

Fried Fey.

2009-09-10T17:59:00.006+01:00

On Saturday I had friends Leslie and Samantha stay over, Leslie was unfortunately caught up in the railway chaos and arrived much later than expected.

Both Sam and Leslie have fussy diets, Sam’s being wheat and a few other things free and Leslie being a vegetarian who does not like eating, so while I did offer in the end I left them to cater for themselves which meant in Sam case lots of fried food which made my house smell for several days.

During the evening Sam caught a sight of my copy Sapphire and Steel an old surreal, spooky sci-fi TV series from the late 70’s early 80’s .We put in the DVD player and watched 6 half hour long episodes of the first series. While the sets, special effects and even some the acting is dire, the atmosphere and mood they create with music, lighting, and long pauses is excellent and while not always making sense, the plot/storyline I still find interesting a quite gripping. It’s reminded me I should order the 2nd series if it’s available.

Jasmine has discovered she likes climbing into bags see photo below.

Sunday was the latest Ascendancy battle; AndyL pitted his wits against RichS who had lots of help (or hindrance) from about 10 other players, see photos below.

The game gave AndyL all the initial tactical advantages in deployment which he used to good effect, while RichS had a 15% points advantage after his initial losses which were written into the scenario and not counted, RichS also could only really react to what Andy did since he was on the back foot from the start. The battle ended in a draw with 7 victory points each side, although Andy was 2 points ahead until very last move.

A good if very tiring couple of days.

Photo 36 of 52

2009-09-04T23:59:00.000+01:00

A big rat or Capybara

Ham roll compalaint

2009-09-04T12:19:00.002+01:00

This is not my normal post since I don't use this blog to moan however this time I have.

I bought a Ham salad roll (Ham salad cob if your from around here) from a mobile delivery van and found for the second time in less than a week it had very little filling, at least by my standards see the photo below it, the piece of ham covered half the surface, a tiny bit of lettuce tucked near the visible edge, some thinly sliced tomatoes, onion, cucumber and a thin scrape of butter. (Note there is no ham under the tired looking cucumber)

I was annoyed so sent the supplier a fax saying I wanted my money back £ 1.60 and that they needed to improve or I would not be buying any more from them.

The supplier however did not take criticism well, he rang me up saying he relied on word of mouth and nobody else complained, and said they would no longer deliver to our company since I would apparently bad mouth him and no one would buy. So instead of dealing with the complaint in a sensible way he’s lost his half a dozen customers totally, needless to say he kept to his word and the van has not turned up this morning and unfortunately I’ve not got my money back and I’m very disappointed.

Polling the building I’m in by email, it would seem other people had already stopped buying anything but crisps, cakes and sweets and did not rate his food anyway and nobody seem bothered the van will no longer turn up, so not feeling guilty for being the person responsible for loosing our delivery service.

On the plus side it will stop impulse purchases of food and the down side I will need to drive to the nearest shop if I need anything for lunch.

I somehow feel the supplier won.

Twycross video

2009-09-01T18:31:00.005+01:00

Compilation of video from my still camera taken during my visit to Twycross Zoo, only watch if your really bored.

Day out at the Zoo

2009-08-30T15:09:00.011+01:00

Spent the day with the primates at Twycross zoo yesterday, 3 of which you can see below.

Julie (centre) as already posted on her blog about various things such as the Guanoco getting a bit feisty and the banging of windows when it says please don't!, she also got some nice photographs, so I will leave you to read her blog about those items.

I took lots of photos, most of the enclosures, other members of public, awkward position of subjects and reflective glass screens made it incredibly difficult to get good shots, particularly of the apes and monkeys the zoo specialises in breeding, so a lot of my photos did not come out well.

As can be seen below the new 3 and bit week old elephant was very popular and I could not even get to the fence, I did eventually get a shot from the other side by going down a closed off path.

The zoo has plenty of apes but not much else, we have Capybara the worlds largest rodent, about the size of pig (see below).

Meercats and Prairie Dogs which were fun

I have a couple of cat photos one of a Scottish wild cat which is about the same size as Charlie and a leopard which I edited away the bar from.

We all had a good day out Dave left some ice cream which was too sweet for him and after a few mouthfuls too sweet for me.

We arrived not long after opening and left as the final gift shop was closing so I would say we got a good days entertainment out of the zoo. Julie fed us, Dave provided drinks and I did the driving and even the roads managed to be not blocked by heavy bank holiday traffic, apart from not being able to get off at my junction on the way home due to the road works.

I didn't wear sun block so my exposed arms are a little red today.

Photo 35 of 52

2009-08-30T08:44:00.002+01:00

Two photographs with reflections involved, 1 in the glass of a monkey cage, the other me in sunglasses.

Steam Punk Stuff

2009-08-21T18:08:00.012+01:00

I finally get to post about some steam punk props made for AscendancyLRP that I started a month or so ago but since I wanted them to be a surprise at the event I couldn't show them here.

I had been busy collecting junk as can be seen below

Which I liberally spread around my house

This my Steam Rifle, made from a crossbow stock, a candle stick, a fire extinguisher and a dial from a foot pump.

Next we have a brain in jar, this is made of biscuit tin, part of a cyberman toy, some cutlery drainers, a bit PVC strip and a latex brain from the Adventurers Emporium

Then a brain transfer device which was mainly made from the back half of a cyberman toy helmet.

This mechanical arm was made from a Dr Octopus toy arm, I then added the innards of a electric drill and few pipes

The memory crystal is basically a bit of brass wire from hobbycraft, a candle stick, a old box and crystal prop I had lying around, glued together with a hot glue gun.

This is my mind testing device, basically a couple of dismantled alarm clocks, which I printed new dials for and Vitalator bought from a junk shop for £8

I have some other steam punk props to post about which I will do separately when I have chance to photograph them.

Photgraphs from the event they where used in can be seen here, including photos of the cybernetic gorilla, brought in by the Goblins

Photo 34 of 52

2009-08-21T16:31:00.001+01:00

My latest cat photo

Science of Murder event

2009-08-17T23:28:00.008+01:00

Had great fun this weekend all be it very tiring, at the Ascendacy lrp Science of Murder event, probably the nearest Ascendancy will ever get to a traditional murder mystery.

Yes the Butler did it, although the butler killed himself after transferring the murder victims brain into the butlers body, so I suppose the butlers body did it, but not the butlers consciousness I'm sure that makes sense to all my readers.

My main contribution to the event was lots of steam punk props which I will write about separately soon, plus a really obnoxious character.

I enjoyed watching Dave's comedy Cybernetic Gorilla handler who forgot his name and did eventually unleash his not so deadly Gorilla. I did have a lot of fun being in the middle of two or three players mad pressing of the "Do not press this Button" moment which resulted in a couple of hours of chaos and brain swapping.

Anyway this is a quick post with a few photograph below, as soon as I have chance I will put the rest on the photos of players Ascendancy web site.

My steam punk props specially prepared for the event

Julie and Andy the two rotters who tried to steal the money my character was about inherit.

Heather with her urchins pre yellow face paint, which is pre red face paint.

Heather playing a combat nun

Julie working repairing the chains

Me playing a unnamed boot licker of Ubilatis Grim, with newly painted green legs

Amy pre Cybernetic Gorilla.

Julie playing Mrs Periwinkle the murder victims wife.

Dave has just strapped a ladle to Grahams head then covered it in fabric, the improvised Heron costume highly amused those present.

Photo 33 of 52

2009-08-13T20:04:00.007+01:00

Insey winsey spider came rushing out a bush for his freshly delivered lunch just as I arrived home last Sunday so he got snapped by my camera.

If there is a spider expert out there, what's his name?