Sunday Again!

I was up early wanting to try the new editing program Bob had put on my computer for me, 

this straight out of the camera, I ran it through Topaz making a couple of small adjustments, 

and arrived at this, much clearer, cleaner and a tad brighter and with a better contrast, 

the detail in this crop, 

much clearer, a great programme, it has saved me a ton of work in Photo Affinity 2 and the NIK 9 Collection that I normally use, 

on to my read and sherry,

straight onto our main course, roast lamb with lashings of gravy for Diana,

sans gravy for myself,

'Cheers!',

then a real treat, Diana had made a apple and sultana crumble with cream and ice cream it was delicious! we settled down on the sofas normally for a couple of Columbo's, but the ones showing we had recently watched so for our Sunday afternoon film,

 North by Northwest, great for a Sunday afternoon when you are relaxing after a Sunday lunch, in the evening after a snack a old favorite was showing on one of the television channels, 

 The African Queen, Rose Sayer takes on the German warship, the Louisa, on one of the great lakes of Africa, Tanginika, as it happens I was SCUBA diving there at a catching station for the tropical fish trade way back in the late 1980s, arriving back in the UK within 24 hours I was in isolation at the London School of Tropical Medicine as it was known then for 10 days, but that is another story!, back to the film, when watching this I was immediately reminded of Commander Geoffrey Basil Spicer- Simson, who by means of three small armed vessels, on Lake Tanganyika took on the German navy who had on the lake at that time, the gunboat Kingani, a vessel of 30 or 40 tons, (which was captured after surrendering), leaving the Graf von Gotzen, a vessel of 400-500 tons carrying one 4 inch and two smaller guns, and the Hedwig von Wissman a gunboat of about the same size as the captured one, the Hedwig von Wissman was attacked and sunk, leaving the Graf von Gotzen, but she did not risk an engagement, after being bombed by a Belgian aeroplane, she was scuttled by the Germans in Kigoma harbour, on the eastern shore of the Lake, but the real story is of how the British ships arrived on the lake, it is a fascinating story, 

after being landed, at Cape Town the boats had to be taken 2,300 miles by train, via Bulawayo and Livingstone, to the railhead north of Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo, next there followed 150 miles of haulage, over atrocious roads, across country varying in altitude from 2,000 to 6,000 feet, this was followed by another journey on trucks over a short section of railway, then the boats were floated 400 miles down the Lualaba River under their own power for part of the journey, and for the rest on lighters, shoals and rocks abounded, and barrels had to be lashed under the boats to reduce their draught, the final stage of the journey was by rail again to the small Belgian harbour of Lukuga, about halfway up the western shore of the Lake, all of this with the limited use of modern equipment, well it was in 1915! As an aside it was this that lead to C. S. Forester writing The African Queen, that was then made into the film, great actual facts, book and film, after which a Midsomer Murder before we were off to bed.