Thermal

I’m back and this time it’s…. well the same old rubbish really.

I could bore you with tales of woe & overwork, but;

1. That wouldn’t cover the laziness.
2. It’s good material for future posts.

I have kept an eye on most of the old crowds blogs, but sheer inertia has prevented me from posting so much as an inane comment, and really my recent internet life has been one of trooping round my musty blogs deleting all of the DoFollow comment spammers. If I ever met Courtney Tuttle I’d jab him in the eye for ever adding me to that poxy list.

Anyway, I’ll give a prod to some of the old crew to see if they’re checking their incoming links and finish off playing with my shiny new theme. Rather nice isn’t it?

More soon (honestly).

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I would post more on the blog, but I keep having a ‘little look’ at the internet too…..

Have just spent a fun evening re-installing Windows after the PC died – how are you?

‘Twas a Bank Holiday in Scotland yesterday, which just means we get a free day off work so we headed off into the highlands up to Braemar, favourite Scottish spot of our beloved Royal family who, thankfully, were nowhere to be seen!

Incredibly for the UK in general, Scotland in particular and definitely for a Bank Holiday it was sunny and really quite hot. You can find more of my landscapey shots either at my photo blog and/or on my Flickr account, but here’s a shot of Braemar Castle, which is now owned by the village itself and has just opened after some lengthy restoration work:

As you can see, it’s under attack…… It was a nice friendly place and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

The boys wore themselves out as you can imagine, and I’ll leave you with the full horror of them charging towards you: just scroll down quickly for the full effect.

Ouch, terrible pun sorry. The last few days have been spent doing an 1100 mile circuit of the UK heading back down to Northamptonshire where we used to live, to see our ex-neighbours and (current!) friends Andrew & Caroline.

Although the traveling was OK, the weather was generally awful, with strong, cold winds and driving snow & rain.This meant that my camera had a nice ride in the car without coming out much, but it was still a really nice break. Despite not having had any snow in Northern Scotland, we were greeted by this after driving 500 miles south!

Thankfully it didn’t last long, and despite us eating them out of house and home, Andrew & Caroline were fantastic hosts as usual. The boys love them to bits, and rarely gave them a moments peace – Steph & I nearly slipped away on several occasions!

The boys got to see their first ever football (soccer if you will ) match on Saturday, watching the mighty Kettering Town defeat Nuneaton Borough 3-2. It was actually a good match despite the frequent blizzards that swept the ground, followed by sun & blue skies. The boys enjoyed it, and Pat in particular got into the spirit of things by telling the Referee that he needed glasses (which he did).

We went on to the National Space Centre (in Leicester of all places!) which despite being a modern museum (i.e. lots of flashing screens, little hard information and a confusing layout) was quite enjoyable and had some cool stuff on show:

We also went on a simulated ride to Europa, getting shot out of a magnetic tunnel before crash landing, which was impressive, but a little rough. Despite the following photo, the boys don’t want to be astronauts anymore!

The weekend was over all too soon and we headed home via a night in the Lake District. We were still pursued by snow, so most of it was spent in the car, but it was very beautiful and amazingly busy given the weather. Still, I managed to get out of the car for this shot at Castlerigg stone circle:

Incredibly cold, but I wish I could have stayed longer!

All this and not a chocolate egg in sight – how was your Easter then?

Nostalgia ahoy! The Retroist.

Thanks to the glory of Stumble I’ve just found this blog, where if you’re of a certain age & geeky persuasion (ahem) you’re sure to find something to suit – Old Atari adverts? Yep. A clip from “North & South Book II”? He’s right, what did happen to the idea of the mini series? It’s like being back in the 80′s (in a good way) all over again.

He’s got everything covered, music, TV, sweets, films and even toys – what would my wife have done with the New Kids On The Block ‘movable action figures’?

The site’s well worth a rummage, and he’s got me thinking about the old Atari 2600 now – Galaxian was always my favourite:

Ah, the hours I spent on that. Have to say the Wii just shaves it though

Are you an 80′s child? What do you miss the most?

I remember reading some advice a while back that said you should never apologise for not posting regularly, or even mention that you hadn’t. So on that note…..

I have been up to little apart from workand then going out on weekends, so that does unfortunately leave little time for blogging. I used to do this all the time, now hardly ever and I do feel a bit sad about that in some respects. This used to be quite a busy place, and now…. Ah well I’m hardly likely to start complaining about being too busy to sit in front of the computer, but how all you regular posters also work full time I don’t know.

Another impediment to continued blogging has been our eventual acquisition of a Nintendo Wii – we’d fancied one for quite a while, but they’ve been rarer than Hens teeth in the UK. They really are as good as the hype though, very clever bits of kit and genuinely good fun for all the family. The boys are demon bowlers already and have out-scored Mum

I’m looking forward to the Easter break and some time off – we’re heading back down south to where we used to live and to catch up with some friends we haven’t seen in over a year – they’re the only thing I miss about our old home, nice as it was and I wish they were closer. Getting into Spring and getting my camera out again will be good too.

So, how’s things with yourself, if you’re still there?

Another week has gone by already – where’d it go?

Last weekend the one and only Henry Rollins came to Aberdeen for the ‘first time in 47 years’ as he put it. (Happy birthday on the 13th, Hank )  If you’ve never heard his spoken word stuff it comes highly recommended.

Basically this 47 year old survivor of early 80′s punk came bounding on to stage, talked for three hours solid without hardly drawing a breath, and made you think, scream with laughter, wince, jump, smile and just be all round envious of a man that’s done so much with his life, but with the knowledge that it was anything but easy.

He talks about life on the road, America, diverts into hysterical anecdotes about David Lee Roth, how he joined in a near-riot in Islamabad the day after Bhutto was assassinated, back to Bush & Iraq onto meeting Iggy Pop, leading The Ruts on stage, women attempting to marry him off in Iran, chewing off a chair leg in a Taxi driver’s home in the Lebanon before joining Nick Cave on stage in San Francisco.

The man is a genius, and never less than entertaining, provocative and top value. If you can’t see him live, grab a CD from his website.

Come back soon Henry!

Is it nearly Wednesday already?

We’ve been having some interesting weather this week, heavy snow that didn’t settle, lashing rain, sun & a hard frost and now back to rain and gales again. Fortunately when we headed for Scolty Hill on Sunday it was a day of blue skies and white frosts:

Here’s Pat working his way up the hill. This was one of the few times he or Tom was at the back. They get a bit bored walking the forest tracks, but show them some rocky slope or streams to cross and they’re gone.

Scolty Hill is a small (but steep!) hill overlooking Banchory in Aberdeenshire and is popular with the locals for an after lunch walk. We prefer to get there early and have it to ourselves! At the top is a memorial to General Burnett who I really can’t be bothered to look up – here it is:

That’s Tom already at the top, and poor old Steph labouring up in his wake As you can see you can climb to the top, and here’s the view:

Which made the climb all the more worth it. And we were back home in time for Sunday lunch too

Ooh look, it’s 2008. Yay. Woo.

Anyway, how was Christmas for yourself?

Too much food? Check.

Never want to see chocolate again? Check (Well, until the weekend anyway).

Gone back to work and can barely remember what you should be doing, or what people’s names are? I’m there…..

The boys had fun anyway, with altogether far too many presents, sweets and late nights but then you’re only 6 once (unfortunately). No snow for us, but it was pretty cold and frosty, and there was also plenty of sun: here’s last Sunday on Aberdeen beach:

Looks nice, but was about 4 degrees celsius…..

We also visited Crathes Castle which has an excellent café and bookshop, perfect for those after-Xmas presents to yourself, but before porking out we had a walk round the woods where I got arty with a new filter for my camera:

So that’s it for another year. Now just paying off the credit card, and the long wait until the trip to Austria in July……

I’ll be mostly eating…..

My favourite

Thanks to all of you gluttons for punishment who still make the thankless trek to this little corner of the internet – it’s always good to see you.

Hope you all have a good Christmas wherever you are, and that you get everything you want, or deserve whichever is the most pleasant!

I’m off to scrape two six year old boys off the ceiling…….

Image: Yummy Pudding by juicylucymama