The line of mist is following the lines of the river which is reasonably straight at this point. Before TPB filled the canal in to build the valley byepass road there would have been two lines of morning mist, the canal one being slightly closer to the camera.

The morning Sue arrived I had to go to have my blood taken to test it for lack of Insulin again so we couldn't go far. I took her across to the other side of the valley so that we could look back and actually see Chapel of Ease, thanks to the high winds stripping the trees of most of their leaves.
This shows the village it's self, my house is the last one on the hill that you can see any of the walls.



This one shows the side valley where I used to play as a child, I can trace the path we took a lighter streak in the trees showing a right angled bend center picture, with the greatly expanded quarry at it's head.



We walked on into West End to the shops nand took a few pictures of the railway bridge over the Ebbw. This is the view I prefer. But I will put the other views as clickable thumbnails under it.

I didn't take many pictures there , you've seen it all before. But there was a delightfully bold squirrel at a feeding station in the wood that gave us a 15 minute photo shoot. Unfortunately most of mine came out blurred but here are two of my best. By the time I took the last one I was barely 6 feet away from him.






And yet another view of the giant dragon fly.

Just to prove she was here
Sue taking a picture of Mynyddisllwyn Church yard.


And the picture she was taking, more or less.


Same church yard

The steps to the private bit of the Church Inn next door to the church.

Current Mood: full of Sunday Roast

EDIT 2: I am defeating the bougainvillea. Slowly. And BTW, bougainvillea scratches *itch*.

EDIT: After I posted I tossed the laundry in the drier & went out front to feed/water the cats/birds & while I was watering my strawberry patch a giant swallowtail appeared and began puddling on the damp cement block behind me, despite wind gusts that flattened it onto its side. I stayed & took pics until my batteries went dead at one point lying down on the cement to get closeup portraits pics of it from ground level. Am going back out to see if its still there. My life is so exciting. :^)

blakefancier suggested I do something fun now that the pool business is virtually over & I was trying to decide between going back to Amelia Erhart Park, or going to Miami Metro Zoo. I hadn't been to the zoo in decades & wasn't sure if it was worth the long taxi ride, so my BF mentioned looking for a website for them.

I googled and found--- they had a baby giraffe born last Tuesday! She should be on exhibit by now. So, ok, that settles it. I dug an unused pair of sneakers out of my stash & am trying them for comfort today as I hope to do a lot of walking around the zoo. It's quite large.

http://www.miamimetrozoo.com

Oh! They say they have orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies! Anteaters and otters and eagles, oh my! Laughing thrushes, singing dogs, and howling monkeys! Gerenuk, muntjac and OKAPI!!! EEEEEE!!!

I'm gonna try to go next week. I hope for good weather and strong feet.

Today I need to do laundry, fix the portable fence I broke yesterday, bag yesterday's hedge cuttings, take the electric hedge trimmer to the front bougainvillea, write fic for mini_nanowrimo and i_mop *think* about fic for b7friday and the ficathon on dv_squee and probably should try to watch an episode of the fandom I hope I don't get assigned on yuletide's ficathon because y'kno, it's always the one you're least prepared for that you get. And... I forget what else I need to try to do today. It's nice to be healthy enough both mentally & physically to do stuff; I am very grateful for that, whatever being is in charge of things please note, I am really grateful for what I have, you don't need to make me miserable so I'll look back & say 'gee, I should have been glad then'.

Off to do laundry.

For those who expressed an interest, here is the next part to the Adrian and Kali story.

Rating: Gen
Genre: Drama

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Here's today's prompt for you to post your updates and any excerpts and thoughts etc in comments.

I just realised that I missed bigdamnxenafan's birthday. [headdesk]



This cat knows how slack I am. See the accusing look she's giving me. :-P

I hope you had a wonderful one. [hugs]

This drabble (alright it's a bit mooore than a drabble) is for emerald_happy who won the Favourites meme challenge when she guessed the connection between SG-1: Atlantis and Traders.

Her plot bunny was a bit of a challenge because I've never written these two alone before.

The Plot Bunny - Vila said Avon was helping him and Corinne set up the magic show. Did Vila ask for help or did Avon offer? Oh to see how that came about! Not to mention Corinne's response. I bet she glomped Avon. Good for her. No one else is exuberant enough to dare. XD Or was it Corinne's idea in the first place? I wouldn't put it past her since she invited Jenna to Reya's party...


( The Request )

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Thank you, hulu, for enabling me when I should have been working! So, behind the spoiler cut, a few obserVations:

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Erm, I was tired and busy so in the end elina and I took H&W up in a virtual airship in Second Life, stripped them naked, and covered a bit of them in pears.

( pear nudity below )

Word Count 11,841

The Villainess is showing her true colours to one of the subsidiary characters.
However sleeping last night was difficult as my Muse wouldn't shut up!

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After some delay due to tutor absence, we finally returned for our next pre-3 BSL lesson. So far, I feel like I'm at roughly the right level: it's difficult, but not so tough that it feels impossible, and our tutor is gently but firmly shoving us over the first few hurdles. A lot of the work is gaining the confidence to study and improve instead of thinking 'oh, my receptive skills are too crap, I'll never understand this' and just switching off. Working with video stuff in class is making me realise that all those 'omg way too bastard hard' videos floating around the internet are useful if I just have the patience to sit and work at them. I can feel my brain stretching a tiny bit, and I can see that I'll get a lot out of the course if I can put in the work, and stick with it. ;)

After a really crap experience in Welsh class last year*, it's good to be enjoying language learning again. I know it's partly the luck of the draw, but I have had some excellent (and very patient) BSL teachers over the years. When I think of the Welsh classes where about 75% of the time was spent speaking English ... bleh, I just don't work that way. That said, the class does feature a couple of people who secretly whisper in English. This drives me nuts, as a) it's disrespectful to the teacher, b) it's distracting, and c) it's crap for learning. It's also one of those things I really don't want to confront anyone over, so I'm going to sort of pointedly ignore it for now. 9.9 Me-fail. :/

And now ... Time for Town Hall Meeting in New Babbage

* mostly due to 60% of the class dropping out, and our being switched into another group full of strangers (one of whom had a go at me, arghh), but I hated the english-based learning too.

I chopped back some vegetation in the back yard & cleaned the pool filters (breaking the cheap portable fence in the process- shall try to repair it another day). Got tired & left the cuttings in heaps. No butterflies or dragonflies- the wind is too strong for them. I added a bit to the cat-burglar. I keep stopping when I can see a bit more, because I'm afraid if I write everything he's told me at once I'll have no starting place tomorrow.
The whole thing.

Cut just to today's addition.

I know this ruin well as I attended the church as a child. It is on the mountain side above and outside the village of Abercarn, Gwent I had hoped to get closer but the first picture and the close up of the tower were taken from outside a locked and chained high gate. The front view is taken from the main steps up to the church which have been mined out by locals wanting good stone for patios and walls. The windows, all of which were Victorian/Edwardian stained glass were removed and put into a near by less isolated church that had no stained glass.


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Current Mood: sad

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Also pics of pool permit papers, living bench in progress, dove wrapper giraffe sculpture, and neighbor's palm tree in yesterday's rain.

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Please post today's updates and any excerpts / thoughts / etc in comments.

Here's today's daily prompt for your updates and any excerpts, thoughts etc.

Because it made alliesingsand I giggle madly....

GAH!!!!! I did NOT realize this was one of ellymelly's!!! No wonder it's wonderful!!!

Current Mood: giggly

Under the cut for spoilers in my whine...

( WHINE!!!!! Whine...whine...whine... )

Current Mood: irritated

spacefall and other Holmes fans: look at this! It's five sample pages from a book of... Sherlock Holmes paper dolls! See Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade and some alternate costumes, and on the 5th sample page, a whole series of Holmes and Watson heads if you fancy different actors. I had no idea so many had played the pair. I'm not sure how the alternate heads work since they're all looking in different directions and the hats won't fit them. Perhaps one needs the whole book.

The link is temporary; Dover Publications only leave their samples up for about three weeks.

Had a lovely time in Thailand. Now in Brisbane. Not really in a place where I can read or comment on any more of the fic in ownficfest or hp_darkfest or my flist in general. Theoretically will catch up this week if I can find somewhere relatively free of relatives.

And I trust you're all being good girls and boys while I'm away? ;-D

Current Mood: lazy

Tonight when I got in from Plympton, Tim and Claire were only minutes behind me. After tea we had a chance to look at their holiday photos, as Tim had remembered his lap-top. Here he is, in our lounge getting organised. As you can see, Mum and Dad have as much stuff around them as I do!

Current Mood: cheerful

Category: Humour, Drama, Romance
Rating: Gen
2nd Story of From the Ends to the Beginning

Introduction: Kirsten attempts to have a serious discussion with Sester. Avon, Argus and Vila have discussions of a different sort on the flight deck.

I bloody love Overstream.net. It's a win-tastic web app that allows you to subtitle videos on YouTube and similar sites. You can make quick and dirty subs by just clicking 'add' and using the default subtitle lengths, or you can set start and end times manually. Click on a subtitle 'block' and you can drag it about or set the end point ... and being a Flash tool, you can zoom in on the timeline for those really fiddly edits.

Go on, subtitle those strange, cracky videos that you couldn't share because they're in the wrong language/they're in audio/they feature some obscure accent that nobody on your flist can understand. Why, just today I had the urge to traumatise friends with Sherlock Holmes and the Big F-ing Mystery [subs], and overstream was my brain-melting accomplice ;)

Interview questions from bigdamnxenafan. If you want to be interviewed, ask below, I'll give you the questions here, answer 'em in your LJ.

1. If you could dance any part in any ballet what would it be?

Ummm, probably not a story ballet, because the leads tend to be--like opera sopranos--a) simpy and b) dead. So, Balanchine! Maybe the lead in Rubies? Or, because my jumping is less-worse than my turning, Ballo Della Regina?

2. When you were 12 to 15 years old what did you most want to do with your life, and how far away are you from that vision now?

Hahaha! I wanted to be a college history professor! So, not even close. But I did sort of think about being a novelist, so being a hack journo is close-ish.

3. If you could delete a single scene from Blake's 7 canon, what would you ax and why?

Avon killing Anna in "Rumours of Death," because that's when his destiny became irretrievable.

4. Name three people living or dead (fictional or real) that you would like to have tea with and why.

George Bernard Shaw--I'd be interested to hear what he'd have to say about the mess we're in now!
Sylvia Pankhurst--ditto
If authors can be permitted to confront their characters (is that, like, Anti-Matter or something?) maybe Andrew Undershaft from "Major Barbara" would contribute a counterpoint.

5. What is the most memorable meal you ever cooked/prepared?
I suppose it's not strictly memorable in culinary terms, but I remember fixing vegetarian and non-vegetarian curries for a group of English B7 fans who were over here for Eclecticon 2001, and I also had houseguests so when the table space and chairs ran out, I remember putting part of the buffet on the air mattress in the living room I was sleeping on, and sitting down to eat--it was sort of like dinner in a Bouncy Castle. I do recommend curry if you have to cook for a lot of people, because you can pretty much throw anything in, and it's easy to accommodate vegetarians.

Just a quick and silly music-pr0n-related cartoon. janeturenne once wrote a ficlet along these lines, but, er, rather more graceful ;)

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I've got a sound file where it would be useful to know the language.  We're pretty certain about the content as we have the English equivalent, but we don't know what language it's in.  Well, two files to be accurate.  We're guessing at Arabic and Hebrew, but could be totally wrong.

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I've been with Southern Electic for a while via a tariff that gives money to the RSPB.  However, I had a salesman round this morning from Scottish Power who reckoned he could undercut them.

Being a regular reader of Money Saving Expert, I was instantly suspicious, especially as Martin Lewis had been complaining about salesmen saying that he recommended them when in fact he doesn't.  And indeed, they were quick to cite him as an authority, although the price comparison site they suggested wasn't his favourite (though it was one he does mention).

I got them to wait while I did some checking online.

Turns out they were partly correct.  Energyhelpline, Martin's top comparison site, confirmed that they were cheaper than my existing supplier.  Unfortunately, Ovo's all green tafiff undercut even further... (and the rate is fixed for the first year - as was Scottish Power's, to be fair to them)

So,  I've just signed up with Ovo.  I reckon the RSPB were probably getting a tenner a year from my previous supplier.  I'm saving over a tenner a month with Ovo, so I've just increased my monthly direct debit to the Charities Aid Foundation by a tenner  a month and both the RSPB and I will end up with more money!  And I have a green supplier into the bargain.

And becasue I used the link from Money Saving Expert to energyhelpline, I should get an extra £15 cashback...

I should add that the Charities Aid Foundation have quick, efficient and helpful staff on their telephones.  If only my bank was that easy to use! 

For those who don't know about it, the CAF allows me to have a direct debit every month from my bank account, which will have gift aid added automatically.  Whenever I get the urge, I can log onto their web site and give money from my account  (by name or anonymously) to any registered charity of my choice.  It keeps a list of my favourite charities: Marine conservation Society, Durrell Foundation, Dorset Wildlife Trust, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, etc. and I can add new favourites at any time.

After getting to sleep at 2, I hadn't expected to wake up at 6:30 with the cat-burglar talking to me. I jotted down the gist of his remarks & decided I might as well take advantage of awakehood to put out the trash/recycling I'd forgot to do last night, give the birds & kitties an early feed, and dig up some more weeds in the strawberry bed before it got hot. It actually is Comfortable outside today!

And then having chored, I sat down to write what he'd told me. It's now up to about 2,000 words with today's 561 word chunk. MMmm...9:30 now. And am now sleepy. Shall try to nap.

After I go out for a minute to see if there are any butterflies.

http://entropy-house.livejournal.com/1064301.html

Eleven prowriters talk to the Wall Street Journal about their writing methods...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513463106012106.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLEFifthNews

Once again I am doing page proofs...I was able to negotiate an extra day so the approximately 800 pages in the first set can be received in Texas on Tuesday, not Monday. I have to FedEx the pages with changes, so if the deadline was Monday then I would have been given from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday morning for the first set.

As usual, the copy editor's main contribution has been to fail to detect the errors, but to take unofficial citations that followed house style and turn them into official citations that don't...

Anyway, it's an 1,800 page book so finishing the first 800 pages is more than a drop in the ocean but not quite The Whole Story.