January Stay at Homes

It has been a strange few weeks.  The weather has been so unseasonal with high winds and drizzle.  There have been days when it has never seemed to get properly light and we’ve had the lights on all day.  Even cars have been driving around with their lights on in day time.  We’ve been kept busy with working on photos and websites so we don’t waste the good weather.

Jon came to lunch as he was seeing a client in Bradford and then driving on to Manchester for a meeting.  It was great to see him and catch up on news.  I suppose it’s a sign of the times that he just logged into our network and checked his work emails and dealt with queries.  Keeping in touch is so much easier nowadays.

We have booked our flights to the USA for the summer holidays.  We are staying on Cape Cod in a lovely traditional house.  It looks as if there will be eleven of us with the possibility of another two.  Rosie and Mike will fly over on the same flight and stay on an extra week in the Boston area.  Dave, Tara and Simon will fly up and so will Vickie, Jay, Darvik and Danika.  It is going to be great, especially as we thought we wouldn’t manage a family holiday this year.

We’ve been diving out the door whenever it has been fine and not too windy to get in a few walks.  We’re lucky round here with a lot of public parks.

This one is just over the main road from us and you can see the back of Bankfield House, once the home of Colonel Akroyd who built our village, and it is now a museum.

That is winter heather above, flowering on a bank in the park and below is Pule Hill, which we can see from our house as well.

One of our favourite parks is at Lightcliffe, about three miles away.  It is known as The Stray and is a very open area of 11 acres of grass with trees.

I had always assumed that an area called ‘The Stray’ – there is one in Harrogate as well – would be associated with the gathering of stray sheep.  Apparently I was wrong and the one at Harrogate was set up to protect the springs.  Why this is called ‘The Stray’ I have no idea and Mr Google offers no clues that I can find.

The church shown above was the Congregational Church, though it is now offices. It is unusual, as a Congregational Church, for having a steeple and also a full ring of bells.  The park makes for a pleasant walk all through the year and the criss-cross of paths make it easy to get back to the car if the weather suddenly closes in.

We’ve made one longer trip in the second half of January. Last Saturday (28th) we woke to find a thin carpet of snow and bright sunshine so we decided to try and find some more snow by driving up to the the Lake District.

There was no more than at home as we climbed up to Ovenden and, when we started the run down to Denholme, there was none to be seen.  Not deterred, we drove on and, eventually saw snow on the hills in the distance and we chased it with the determination of thirsty travellers following a mirage in the desert.

Crossing Lake Windermere at the Hawkshead Ferry – the last time we shall make that journey at £4.30 for about 5 minutes of crossing! – and drove up narrow lanes to Hawkshead with the snow still a glint on the horizon.  When you meet a bus on a lane like the one below, you swing in your wing mirrors, snuggle up to the wall and think thin thoughts!

We only go to the Lake District in the winter as it is just too crowded in the summer.  This was perfect with plenty of room to swing the proverbial cat and we headed for the Queens Head for lunch.

An Inn since the early 17th century, it is welcoming and cosy with an open fire, low ceiling beams, and warm wood panelling.

Enormous pieces of beer battered fish and thick, perfectly cooked chips were consumed with no regard to cholesterol or calories.

Eventually, replete and in no mood to take the exercise we so desperately needed after such a meal, we staggered back to the car and resumed our search for snow.

Still it eluded us and we decided to take the Kirkstone Pass.  Surely there would be snow on the highest pass in the Lake District?

Alas, the pass was closed – whether to snow or for some other reason the sign did not say – so we metaphorically shook the snow of Cumbria off our car tires and set off back for home.  We were rewarded by a lovely view of Ingleborough, well covered in snow and arrived home at dusk, needing only a sandwich for supper.

Now we wait to see what February brings.

January 2012 – Where Does Time Go?

That was a rhetorical question and I don’t expect an answer – unless anyone has a better knowledge of ‘The State of The Universe’ than I do – or even more importantly than Professor Stephen Hawking does.  Happy Birthday! to him – a few days late but I don’t suppose he will mind.

A quote from Hawking is "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet."  I like that and we will continue to try and meet that target this year.

I’d like to follow his advice literally as well as metaphorically so perhaps at least one meteor shower will arrive when we have a clear sky?  The first didn’t so I have to wait till April to find that out.

We hope to make another trip to the USA this year for a family holiday and to see places we have not visited yet.  It looks as if there will be 10 – 13 of us and finding a house we can rent for us all is difficult.  After all, how many families nowadays plan trips with that many members?

We’ve also got a list of places to visit with the caravan this year that would require  some manipulation of the space-time continuum to manage.  We do like a challenge and are bidding on e-bay for a Police Box.  Worth a try?

Alan’s book comes on apace and he still gets a lot of contact and information from his old students – I should, perhaps, call them Alumni rather than ‘old’! To catch up on them go to his website.  It may take a bit of scrolling but we are hoping to improve that soon.  Web technology has come a long way since he started it 7 years ago.  In those days, you had to learn Dreamweaver to build a site and neither of us had the time or inclination to do that.  This blog took me less time to set up than Alan’s site.

My venture of A Yorkshire Cook, born out of numerous queries about recipes and cooking has come on well.  It is climbing the Alexa rankings nicely and visitors are beginning to comment.

As we get to eat the results of my experiments, Alan is happy.  I’m enjoying writing it and also the photography – though food photography turns out to be a tricky new skill to learn.

The weather has been as unpredictable as ever!  Far from the nasty snow and ice of last winter, so far, we have had mild weather.  The rhubarb crop is hampered by lack of frost which is needed to set it into growth. 

We have been lucky in a couple of weeks dominated by high winds.  The most we have seen is the dash for freedom of local wheelie bins which may have caused problems for those who had to go out – we just hunkered down and waited it out.  Then we handed a stray waste food bin, which had wandered into our front garden, to the recycling collectors when they arrived (a day late).

Halifax did make it into the national news when a dormer window was blown off, over a house, taking the chimney stack with it and crashing into the street!

Now we are beginning to put our heads above the parapet and today we are going on an expedition to find the right surface for our front garden.  Small as it is, I can no longer manage it and it depresses me to see weeds and a tangle of growth.  I kick myself that I didn’t think of this when we sorted the tiny back yard which has worked very well with a raised bed.

We hope to sort it this spring and leave me with a rather nice raised trough to play with.  Photos will follow when we have the job done.

End of Year Round Up - 2011

I can’t believe that it is nearly the end of the year.  They do say that time passes quickly when you’re having fun – so I guess there’s a lot of fun in my life.

We seem to have spent a lot of this year chasing Charles Darwin.  He came from Shrewsbury, where there is a shopping centre named after him – of all things!

And he left on his famous voyage aboard the Beagle from Devonport. Today we think of Plymouth as a famous sea port but Devonport was one of the three towns, East Stonehouse being the third, which were merged in 1914 to form the Borough of Plymouth in 1914.

We stayed with Rosemary and Mike for a weekend towards the end of October and visited the beautiful park at Devonport where this Darwin mention is part of a fountain.

We were so lucky with the weather and even managed a boat trip past the dockyards.  The large building in the above photo is Babcock International where Grandson Dan is now an apprentice.

We made a return trip to Mackenzies Smoke House towards the end of November to stock up and to have lunch to celebrate Alan’s birthday.

The journey up went so smoothly that we arrived much too early and pottered round the lanes for a while, passing the ‘golf balls’ of Menwith Hill.

These geodesic domes house the very latest in communications and intelligence support to the UK and US.  Nearby there used to be one of the more amusing of military eccentricities in the shape of HMS Forest Moor, a navy base on a hill which had to be named as ‘Her Majesty’s Ship’.

The biggest news of the autumn was the birth of Danika, a daughter for Victoria and Jay and sister for Darvik in Kentucky.  Alan travelled over for a few days to meet her.

They stayed most of the time at Old Rice Farm in Victoria and Jay’s cabin.

Last week we travelled to Fountains Abbey which is in North Yorkshire for a dinner followed by a performance of ‘A Christmas Carol’ by The Pantaloons.  We had a lovely evening and then a drive home on a crisp moonlit night.  Perfect.

At home, we have both been busy on various projects. Alan’s website is popular in the Tourism world and among his ex students.  He hopes to have a book coming out some time next year.

Pat has started to put her recipes and cooking knowhow onto a website – A Yorkshire Cook.  It had been suggested by several people but the time involved has never been available till now.  It is proving great fun and, of course, we get to eat the food.

In other family news, Layla is now at university, studying design. Tariq is studying for A levels and is specialising in literature. Kalif is working towards GCSE and doing well. Jon has joined a company which deals with cleaning up after emergencies and disasters.  He is finding it more satisfying than his previous job.  Kerry is enjoying organising music and drama at two secondary schools.

Rosie is still a teaching assistant, happier in her job after a re-organisation and Mike’s company is weathering the recession.  As I mentioned earlier, Dan is an apprentice with Babcock, beating a lot of competition to get the position.

Dave and Tara are still in California and Simon is doing well at school.  Their latest adventures can be seen here, including Simon’s Christmas performance at school – he’s at the back left in the video.

In the wider family, we have had two deaths this year. Orlando, Joy’s grandson, died in a light plane crash in May.  It was a great shock as he had come back safely from Afghanistan when he was in the Marines and was a very fit and active young man. 

Last week, Shirley’s brother in law, Bob, died after a long illness. Even though it was expected and he had beaten the medical predictions by a couple of years, it is still a sad loss.

We’re looking forward to a quiet Christmas.  There will be Dr Who and plenty of relaxation.  If the weather is good we will get out and about but that is not something to plan too rigidly at this time of year.

A Happy Christmas, everyone!

And I thought changing a light bulb was simple. Wrong.

It sounded so simple. Our main kitchen light decided it didn’t like me any more when I came down this morning – no, I wasn’t up THAT early but we had dark cloud and heavy rain.

Of course, we didn’t have a spare. The empty box sat on the ‘landing strip’, AKA the top of the shoe rack in the hall where we couldn’t possibly miss it. It had been there for some time, muttered over when dusting, forgotten when going to the hardware store.

So, this afternoon, Alan set off for the hardware store and wandered round, empty box in hand, looking for a replacement. I should point out at this point that light bulbs in the UK have an option of two fittings – as above, screw thread or, as below, bayonet fitting.

Sorry for the quality.  Not my photo but posted under a  GNU Free Documentation License, Our bulb was a screw thread, one of at least two sizes that I know of!

We had forgotten that a new EU (European Union) directive has come into force that incandescent light bulbs can no longer be sold.  They use ‘up to’ five times as much energy as the low energy bulbs.

Pro.
1. save electricity – thereby saving fossil fuels. According to experts they will save 60% of the energy used by light bulbs in the EU.

2. A low energy bulb lasts ‘up to’ 10 years.

Con
1. Low energy bulbs cost something like 6 times as much as the incandescent ones.  This is a cost no one can avoid.

2. The low energy bulbs contain a small amount of mercury and under new regulations for hazardous waste, councils are obliged to recycle low energy bulbs at a cost to the tax payer, over and above the cost of the bulbs.

3. The EU has now admitted that the claims for equivalent brightness have been overstated –  On a website intended to answer consumers' questions about the switch to energy saving bulbs, the European Commission states: "Currently, exaggerated claims are often made on the packaging about the light output of compact fluorescent lamps. For example, a 11-12 Watt compact fluorescent lamp would be the equivalent of a 60 Watt incandescent, which is not true. The light output of 15W compact fluorescent lamp is slightly more than the light output from a 60W incandescent."

We already have low energy light bulbs in most lamps in the house – we do TRY to be green – they vary in brightness and time taken to warm up.

Summary

1. I like being as green as possible. I do believe we have a very short time frame for stopping climate change.

2. I object to the cost of low energy bulbs.

3. Perhaps this bulb – if it really lasts 10 years – will ‘see us out’.  I’ve tended to see light bulbs as consumables and have never thought about their life spans.

4. Mercury is a nasty element in any quantity.

5. I hate and distrust any claim which is ‘up to …’.

We’re off again!

We’ve been home for four weeks now and, apart from the Railway Children Anniversary, not much has happened to write about.  It’s been a domestic few weeks, interspersed with progressing other projects, a little socialising and sorting problems.

We have been having outages on our broadband access – several times a day – and finally got frustrated enough to call Virgin Media.  We now have a new router and a new monthly package which is  giving us a faster download speed AND costs a few pounds less than our previous one.  So far (touch wood, cross your fingers) it is working well. 

Of course, installing it was an occasion for head scratching and muttering.  Alan managed it eventually.  Well done!

A nice thick manual was provided, one page of which was in English. While we’re on the subject, why do these tech people assume that us ordinary folk understand their jargon?  Don’t bother to answer.  It’s for the same reason that street signs don’t always make sense – the people who put them up already know the way!

The freezer packed in! We stuffed it with newspaper and phoned a local repair firm. A very reassuring engineer came out and fixed it. Apparently, this model has an occasional fault and the cooling system builds up ice on the vanes, behind the back panel where we couldn’t see it. Much work with a steamer cleared it but I was a little concerned when he told us he gets called out to four or five of this particular model each week.

Once it is cleared, it rarely recurs so I should be thankful, I suppose. If anyone has a Hotpoint FZA80 freezer, take note!

We’re off to Shropshire tomorrow for a couple of weeks, staying at a site near Shrewsbury and hoping to spend some time at Ironbridge and visit several other sites in the area.

This time, we’ve checked on mobile coverage and the site has a good signal so we should be able to get on line easily.  I need to start gathering things together now and get the caravan loaded so I can watch the Monaco Grand Prix.

Daffodils for Mothers' Day

It is Mothers’ Day on this side of the pond on Sunday 14th March and it may be hard to find the traditional bunch of daffodils.  The extreme cold weather has held back the plants by 4 weeks in some areas. Cornwall and Lincolnshire are our main areas for growing the heralds of spring and about half are exported.  It's a big worry for growers as the season peaks at Mothers’ Day and Easter which is early this year. For the rest of us, it means even longer before we see the roadsides and gardens awash with colour. Here, in the North, our plants are just peeping through the ground to check if it is safe to come up.

To cheer us up, here are some daffodils we saw in The Netherlands a few years ago. We went to see the tulips at Keukenhof, not far from where we were staying in Amsterdam, but that was another late season and we caught the daffodils instead. If you are every in Amsterdam, this is a 'must visit'.

I bought a bunch of artificial tulips at the market to bring home, which was probably a good idea as we are still enjoying them and they make a lovely memento of a great trip.

Trying to be green and mean

We were up bright and early yesterday for the drive to Warrington to have a solar panel installed on the caravan, together with an additional battery, and also have all the bulbs swapped out for LED units.

It makes sense for us as we can stay on Caravan Club CL (Certificated Location) sites like this one for about half the price if we choose ones without an electricity supply. It also gives us a lot more choice.

The day dawned

Pat looks at the alarm clock – without donning her glasses. Nearly 7.00 am, time to get up.

5.45 am  Pat goes downstairs (with glasses on), sees the time on the kitchen clock and realises she has seen the little pointer that shows the time the alarm will go off, NOT the hour hand.  Pat makes coffee.

7.00 am  Alan leaves to take Mac for a walk while Pat starts making a packed lunch.

7.02 am  Alan comes in to say the car won’t start.

7.03 am  Alan goes out and tries again. Pat watches from the front door.

7.04 am  Alan lifts the bonnet (hood, for our friends over the pond) and mutters imprecations. Pat fetches the garlic. (OK. It may be primitive but sometimes it works on the malevolent spirits which inhabit a computer so perhaps it will work on the car).

7.06 am.  Alan closes the bonnet/hood and Mac emerges from the car looking bewildered – as well he might, he usually goes to a nice green field at this point.  Pat makes coffee.

7.07 am  Alan and Mac set off for a local walk and Pat surveys the rolls, tomatoes, ham, pork pies, etc., and shrugs.  She carries on making lunch – optimist.

7.30 am  Alan returns and repeats the exercise of trying to start the car, hoping to catch it by surprise.  A neighbour emerges and expresses sympathy – slightly spoilt by his grin which says “I feel better seeing someone else suffer.”  That’s schadenfreude in German, a lovely word. Pat makes coffee.

7.45 am  Alan phones the RAC.  Pat stows the packed lunch in the fridge.

8.15 am  The RAC man arrives.

8.30 am  The RAC man declares that the immobilizer has immobilized the car.  Alan phones our usual service folk.  They are overbooked for today.  In any case it ‘should be’ covered by the warranty so has to go back to the dealer it was brought from.  Pat makes coffee.

8.45 am  The dealer agrees to look at the problem today or tomorrow.  Alan goes out to tell the RAC man where it is to be delivered.

9.15 am  The car departs.  Alan and Pat have breakfast. Mac goes back to bed in disgust.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom as the gas engineer phoned to say the new thermocouple had arrived for our cooker a day early so he came and installed it.

On the principle that you might as well do miserable jobs while feeling fed up, we now have clean windows (Pat) and a clean cooker (Alan).  At least lunch was in the fridge and supper ditto, as Pat had made a Beef Stew the night before.

Next week we will try again to be green and mean.

 

Japanese Knotweed, A tasty snack for Psyllids – we hope.

The news in the UK yesterday was as depressing as ever, Apart from the real news of disasters, wars and crime, it includes political ramblings (yawn), the Oscars (yawn again), and the tenth anniversary of the London Eye (where did those years go?).  One item did catch my eye, though.  Japanese knotweed was introduced into many countries as an ornamental plant in the 19th century – though no botanist seems to want to take credit for it. Now it is illegal in the UK to spread the dratted plant and is classified as controlled waste. It will burst through, tarmac, concrete and undermine buildings. 

There have even been cases where a mortgage has been refused where Japanese knotweed is found in the garden. It grows at the rate of more than a metre a month and its roots can go down 3 metres (9.8 ft). Herbicides need repeated applications over several years and the strongest of these have been withdrawn from sale because of health risks.

Now, for the first time, a biological control is to be tried – a tiny insect which, the scientists hope, will only eat the target plant. The UK lags behind other countries in introducing biological controls.  Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the US have tackled 100 weeds between them with complete or partial success in half the programmes. Like most non-scientists, the idea of introducing another alien species makes me nervous but, if we don’t find an answer, it is estimated that the UK faces a cost of £13.5bn ($20.4bn; 15€) by the turn of the century (according to the BBC).

So chomp away, little psyllids, but please make sure to follow the diet recommended by the scientists.

On a more cheerful note, I walked over to All Souls Graveyard, where the nasty plant had almost obliterated everything except the trees, to see the current state of the site. I found that the Council’s efforts over the past few years have worked and the area is recovering. Local residents have planted bulbs and large clumps of snowdrops are thriving.  A good news story at last. Though it won't make the headlines.

The first photo is licensed under Wikipedia Commons Germany
The second one is licensed under  Wikipedia Commons Netherlands. It was taken at Beekbergen (The Netherlands). A few years ago, this place was still Knotweed-free 

Pat's New Toy

A Handheld Blender
During the winter, I make soup most days for lunch and we have it with crusty bread or a sandwich. Homemade soups tick all the boxes -  quick, easy, healthy and yummy. I often put part of the soup in my liquidiser that fits on top of the Kenwood Chef to thicken it, but it’s a pain to get out for such a small job and an equal pain to clean and put away again.

I had a handheld blender years ago which died young of overwork and I wondered if they had improved since then. After some research I bought a 600W Philips with a lot more muscle.  It certainly sounds serious because it doesn’t have a cute name – just an alpha-numeric identifier.

So far, it has coped with Cassoulet, Corn Chowder, Vegetable soup and a sort of tomato, beans and vegetable soup (made from the last of the veg sitting in the fridge). If it stands up to the test of time, I’ll recommend the gadget – if not, I’ll probably rant about it!

One of the joys of retirement is the fun of cooking without the time constraints – and I do love my kitchen gadgets.

The Great Book Sorting

A warning: Don’t come and stay with us if you have a book phobia. Our spare bedroom has three walls of bookshelves – floor to ceiling. There isn’t a room in the  house, except the bathroom, that doesn’t have books in it.  We’re trying to reduce the number (and sheer volume) of books. A rough count shows well over 3,000 and I’ll swear they are breeding.

We can dispose of technical books which are out of date, of course – and don’t they go out of date quickly! Programming in Basic, anyone?. I don’t want my management or psychology text books anymore, so off to Oxfam they go! But we both have a love of history and travel and write about those subjects so we’re a bit leery of discarding any on those subjects. I love my cookery books and do use them so they must stay.

Then there are the books that have meaning in their own right. Do we discard Alan’s Biggles books? My Chalet School books? What about Swallows and Amazons? No way! Those books are our comfort blankets; they hold our memories; they hold our past – just seeing them on the shelves is enough to send us back into that golden glow of never-was that seems to hang onto everything we remember from childhood.

Over the years, we have read the biographies of the authors of these old books and it gave a different perspective to them – they are the more precious for knowing the background. We got into a conversation about Romany with Joy a few weeks ago and have just lent her some of them, which she is enjoying, having heard him on BBC radio in the ‘30s and ‘40s. If we hadn’t kept them through all the house moves, we, and she, would have been the poorer.

At the moment, we’re at the stage where things are worse than when we started, piles of books, boxes and crates everywhere. Books are moving down two flights of stairs from the spare bedroom to my study as I sort and winnow. And now the sun is shining and our good intentions are flying out the window – as books fly in because we’re still buying books.

The coldest winter for 31 years

Rod Stewart wrote about 'The coldest winter in almost 14 years'. We've beaten that this year and though haven't got buffalo dying in the frozen fields, the Meteorological Office has announced that this is the coldest winter for 31 years.
We’re spending some of our time during this awful weather sorting out and organising what some people would call our junk.  It’s really the accumulated result of living over 130 years between us, collecting books, photos, souvenirs, hobby supplies and – well, junk.


Take photographs as an example.  We’ve both been taking photos since we were in our teens and so we have black and white photos taken when we had our first cameras, fifty odd years ago.  Then we each moved on to colour prints, slides and, finally, digital photography.   That is, of course, without counting snaps and postcards inherited from long gone relatives
We can scan the prints and convert the slides into digital files – but it’s slow, slow, slow.  It’s also, probably, a waste of time for many of them so we try to be selective.  No doubt Murphy’s Law will apply here and the one picture we simply must have will be buried at the bottom of a pile of crates in the basement.


I’m living in the superstitious hope that if we move things round fast enough some of them will find their way into a parallel universe.


A lot of time is spent (note: not wasted) in exclamations and reminiscences – “Look at this!”  Gatlinburg, with Vickie and Jay,  Groombridge, with Jon and Kerry.  Charlestown, with Rosie and Mike.  Monterey, with Dave and Tara, New York with David and Shirley, Charleston with Bengt.  Paris, Barcelona, Bruges, Athens, London, Valetta, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, San Diego, – the list goes on, bringing memories and making us wish we were there NOW.


But the mandolin wind doesn't change a thing. There's more snow forecast for the weekend.

Books we read in February

Some people say (read this in Jeremy Clarkson’s voice and insert a pause and raised eyebrow here) that we have too many books. We don’t agree, though will admit Alan has had to mend a bookcase this week due to overloading it.

We've read :

'Churchill’s Wizards'  by Nicholas Rankin, published by Faber and Faber, paperback 2009  
As the blurb says ‘This is the story of how the British really won two world wars – by conning the Kaiser, hoaxing Hitler and using brains to outwit brawn’.  It covers the development of camouflage and the technique of sticking a dummy’s head over a parapet to lure hidden snipers in world war 1, right through to the deceptions (including inventing an entire army to mislead the Germans) which preceded D day towards the end of World War 2.  It is full of anecdotes and character sketches and uncovers stories which remained secret for decades.
Above all, it turned out to be a really good read. If you read these stories in a novel, you would say it was not true to life.
Pat read it. Alan started it.



'Ross Poldark' by Winston Graham, published by Pan 2008 (originally published 1945)
Ross Poldark returns to Cornwall from America in 1783 to find his father dead, his estate impoverished, and his girl engaged to his cousin.  This is the first novel in a series of twelve and traces the first four years of a saga which continues to 1820.  The depiction of Georgian Cornwall gives a good view of what real life must have been like and the characters are well drawn.  Winston Graham has an understated writing style which makes the story even better.It was televised in the ‘70s and was very popular in several countries, including the US.It was good enough that we have bought the next two books already, having lost/lent the series somewhere along the line.
Alan re-read it.


'On Basilisk Station' by David Weber, published by Baen Books 1993
This is the first in a series, known to aficionados as ‘The Honorverse’ after the heroine Honor Harrington. If you like your Science Fiction as a rip-roaring space opera, galactic in scale and with a strong heroine, this is for you.  David Weber makes no bones about the fact that the series, is to some extent, a tribute to C.S. Forester – Horatio Hornblower in Space.
As this is the first of the series, Weber has to spend some time explaining how the FTL technology works in his universe but he does remain consistent throughout the series and it is easy to follow, if you suspend disbelief – and you wouldn’t like Science Fiction if you couldn’t do that.
I have to warn you that, as the series progresses, Weber has no hesitation in killing off some of his more likeable characters and not all the books end on a happy note.  The books are best read in sequence and I strongly recommend that you start with this one.
If I were to say anything negative about the series, it is that there are too many explanations particularly of spaceship combat. It makes for dull moments with lots of numbers. On the other hand, his accounts do give a sense of the sheer distances in space.
The best place to find all about the series is at Baen Books, which publisher I highly recommend for contemporary Science Fiction.  You will find the first two books in the series for download in a range of e-book formats in the Free Library.  Yes I said FREE.
Pat re-read it.


'The Eagle of the Ninth' by Rosemary Sutcliff,  published by Oxford University Press, paperback 2004 (first published 1954)
Somewhere around A.D. 117, the Ninth Legion (Legio IX Hispana) marched north into Scotland and (so legend has it) were never seen again. Nearly 1800 years later, a wingless Roman Eagle was dug up at Silchester.
Rosemary Sutcliff wove the two stories together by telling the tale from the perspective of a young Roman Centurion Marcus Aquila and his attempt, 20 years on, to discover the fate of his father’s legion in Scotland and recover its standard.
Although it was written over 50 years ago, it stands the test of time and the geography can be traced through the Roman place names.  As for the history – well, 50 years on, we know that there are records of the Ninth Legion later than 117 and it is thought it met its destruction in the East of the Roman Empire.  The museum housing the Silchester eagle states that it "is not a legionary eagle but has been immortalized as such by Rosemary Sutcliff.”   She also assumed that the legion's title of "Hispana" meant that it was raised in modern Spain, but the title was probably awarded for victories there.
You will hear more of this tale in 2010 as no less than two films are being released based on the story of the Roman Army which crossed the border in a campaign against the Picts and the legend that they never returned.
One is ‘The Centurian’, which had the working title of ‘The Ninth Legion’.  This is directed by Neil Marshall who says it isa straight-up action thriller which just happens to be set in the 2nd century AD.
The second film is directed by Kevin McDonald and is called ‘The Eagle of the Ninth’.  It is supposedly ‘based on’ Rosemary Sutcliff’s book – we shall see.
Both films did some filming in Scotland so the Ninth Legion returned twice in a year after a gap of nearly 1900 years.  Not bad for a book that was intended for children.
We both re-read it.

We've also enjoyed this reproduction of an 1844 Panorama of London.  

Quiz Night

Some neighbours invited us to join them for a Quiz and meal at their Church yesterday evening.  Alan was keen. I was reluctant.  I ended up being glad I went, though.

My reluctance stems from working and socializing with very competitive people in the past.  You know, the sort - they get into a sleeves rolled up, arms waving argument and come near to fisticuffs with the Quiz Master over any and every answer they get wrong.

I’m not really all that competitive – at least not to the extent of wanting to win at all costs, but I do hate making a fool of myself and my brain processes are slower than they used to be.  I blame the unspeakably quick kids on University Challenge for giving me a complex.  I can often get to the answer if I’ve time, but give me a quick fire situation and my brain freezes.  I visualise Jeremy Paxman looking down his nose at me and snapping “Come on!  I need an answer!”

This quiz night was not anything like that.  I’m guessing there were about a hundred people there and some were local people we have not seen since the snow started before Christmas.  It was good to catch up with a few of them and wave to others across the crowded room.

There was lots of laughter and, although we did our best, we weren’t above putting in a facetious answer when we really didn’t know.  Fred Flintstone did a lot of famous things you didn’t know about and acted in some excellent movies.

Five rounds of ten questions before the interval when we stoked our brains with delicious baked potato and chilli in readiness for the second half.  A few glasses of wine helped, too.

Five rounds of ten questions after the interval went very quickly.  A good evening and I was surprised how late it was when we left.

Alan was on the team that won second place and, although my team didn't win a prize, we came in with a respectable score.

Thanks to Jackie and Martin for inviting us and to Ben who was an excellent quizmaster, and (last but not least) to the cooks.

Do you know how many colours there are on a Scrabble Board, excluding lines, letters and numbers?  No cheating, and I need an answer, now!

It was a winter wonderland

When the snow started falling everyone was excited - A White Christmas! Then it thawed a bit, froze, snowed, thawed, froze, snowed (repeat ad nauseum) right up till the present moment. Now it's just annoying. Rain, sleet and snow is forecast for the weekend.

That's why we've been missing for the past few weeks.

The picture was taken by our neighbour, Jackie, through her bedroom window and shows the park opposite our houses before the children were let loose to build snowmen. Very evocative and capturing the wonder of the snow.

Now we are longing for spring.

Free at last! Graduation Day

Alan’s last day at work with Leeds Metropolitan was Graduation Day on 15th July. The perfect day to retire as the class of 2009 paraded in all their finery to receive their awards. After the formal ceremony, the celebrations get a bit chaotic but in the midst of throwing mortar boards in the air, Alan was presented with a scrap book of email messages and photos from past students and colleagues. His colleagues bought him a Windmate (for details see here). He does love his gadgets!

Technically his last day will be the end of the month but he had vacation owing so was able to finish early.

More pictures here.

Goodbye Mr Quips - Alan Machin Retires

This image  was chosen by one of Alan's colleagues for the invitation to his Pre-retirement party back in May as exams finished and students prepared to leave Leeds Metropolitan  University for the Summer.


A large room above the Original Oak pub in Headingly was booked and over a hundred students, ex-students and staff spent the evening eating, drinking and, above all, reminiscing and catching up with old friends.


Stuart Moss has put up two videos on FaceBook here then if you press 'next' you will get a more general one. More pictures are here.