Category: Hobbies

A moment of pleasure when I learned from Diamond Geezer’s seaside postcard from Dungeness that the garden at Prospect Cottage is still thriving. Thank you, Derek. You are missed.

One of the things about keeping the garden in check here is the amount of prunings and loppings that is generated. As an alternative to carting it off to the recycling plant (for which we are charged by weight) we decided to go for the cheaper option of applying to the council for a license to burn the rubbish.

 

We had built up a fair sized bonfire, and the original intention was to set it alight at Easter. In this part of The Netherlands, Easter bonfires (Paasvuuren) are a traditional part of the celebrations. However, we were hit by a double whammy. First, the council informed us that the license we had to light a bonfire was not valid for a Paasvuur, so we could not light it at sunset on Easter Sunday. OK, we thought, then we’ll light it on the Saturday. "Not so fast", replied the Fire Brigade, "because of the dry weather we’ve been having, we will not allow bonfires at all at the moment"… So we’ve had the bonfire sitting waiting expectantly in the field for a suitable moment.

 

Well, today it suddenly came. The wet weather last week meant that the Fire Brigade’s ban had been lifted, and today dawned dry with relatively little wind. A quick call to the council to tell them we intended to light the fire, followed by the fetching of a bale of straw from our neighbouring farmer, and we were all set. Not ever having done this ourselves before, we asked another neighbour to be on hand and to light the fire. All went exceedingly well as can be seen from the photos. The one bad note was that once the fire was underway, it suddenly became apparent that there was a Blackbird’s nest deep inside the bonfire. One fledgling managed to escape the burning building, as it were, and crawled to safety. We left it to its own devices, but later in the afternoon it had disappeared. Because I don’t think it was able to fly, I suspect that its vanishing was probably caused by a passing crow… Such is Nature…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a nice little collection of postcards produced by a German cacoa manufacturer in the 1900s, showing what life might have been like in the year 2000. Predictions are so difficult to get right…

 

(Chris, this one’s for you) 

Michael Killian is a software engineer by profession. In his spare time, he is an inventor. He has invented the Sideways Bike. It’s clearly a death trap, if ever I saw one. I can only hope that I am not using any of his software.

 

(hat tip to qwghlm.co.uk for the link)

I’ve recently come across MAKE magazine, which certainly seems to have an eclectic range of hobbies covered, with some interesting projects. Take this one, for example. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be attempting it. Step 3 might be a tad problematical for me.

It’s a good thing that I never seem to have enough time to do all the things I want to as it is, or I might be tempted to take up a new hobby. Like this one. On second thoughts, I don’t think so.

I’m sorry, I think my brain has just melted. Grow your own what? I’ve fallen through that rabbithole again…

A couple of weeks back I mentioned a couple of books, published in 1917, that divided girls and boys into traditional groups. The girls were supposed to like needlecraft and housekeeping, while the boys got to make things, or mess about with electricity.

 

Here we are, 90 years later, and things don’t seem to have changed much at all. Sigh.

Our neighbour is the secretary of a horse and carriage club. The club had a day out today – a roundtrip starting at her farm and with a route going through the local woods. I positioned myself at the entrance of the wood to take some photographs. At the end of the ride, Martin and I joined them for pancakes in the barn section of the farmhouse.

 

  

Henry Lizardlover must take care. He walks the same path that Louis Wain has trod. That way lies madness. In the meantime, the rest of us can go WTF?

 

(hat tip, again, to Improbable Research)

Gelert complimented me on the photos I took at the Hippisch Festijn. I replied that photography is a hobby of mine, but it’s more by luck than judgement when a picture turns out really well. I don’t have a talent for it, but bump along as best I can… Contrast that with this photo from Miukiutada, a student living in Tokyo. Her photos are amazing – she has an eye for pictures and a real talent. I stand in awe.

Someone obviously likes playing with Photoshop to produce animal hybrids. Some are less successful than others, but the best are pretty impressive. The cat shark is going to give me nightmares, I feel sure.

 

(hat tip to PZ Myers over at Pharyngula)

Canon are bringing out the next generation of their prosumer digital SLR camera; the 400D or Digital Rebel XTi, as it will be known in the US. Ooer – if ever I get to afford to replace my trusty 300D, this is probably going to be my choice.

We’re starting to tackle the garden at the farmhouse with the arrival of some warmer weather. There’s quite a lot of the garden to tackle, so it will be occupying much of our time, I feel. At the back of the property is a one acre meadow that should be mowed at least once a week apparently. Even though we have the luxury of a sit-upon mower, this takes a few hours each time to complete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I use Flickr as the online repository for my photographs. It’s a community web site, with a lot of traffic. Trying to get a sense of what’s going on with the hundreds of images that are posted each day is difficult, but here’s a site that attempts to give you a visual impression of what’s happening.

I see that Hasselblad has just announced a new digital SLR camera and camera backs. These things have an incredible 39 megapixel resolution. Well, I’ll just have to carry on with my trusty Canon 300D with its 6 megapixel resolution. I’m a happy snapper, not a professional photographer. But give it another 10 years, and we’ll probably see this scale of resolution in consumer cameras.

Interesting new device…

…why?

Suburbia – stranger than fiction.

Instead of knitting that shapeless, hideous jumper for an ungrateful relative this Christmas, why not do something useful – knit a jumper for a penguin. As well as making them look as stupid as your ungrateful relative, it does actually have a useful purpose.

 

(hat tip to Improbable Research)