I Am Only Making One Post Today,

for two reasons, firstly it was Diana's day off, and secondly I took lots of photographs!

secondly as soon as post this I will be off to visit Duncan, back to Tuesday, we decided on a leisurely drive in the country to visit Waverley Abbey, the satnav quoted 40 miles, and a travel time of 1 hour 30 minutes, we set off at 10.30, two and a half hours later we still had 17 miles to go! the traffic was absolutely terrible, but we eventually arrived, amazingly the grounds of the abbey are free to walk around and the car park is free too! I had brought the twin camera set up, one for normal photographs and one to take infrared photos,

what a glorious day,

in the distance a banqueting hall that is available for hire,

we were leaving the entrance behind us,

walking along the pathway,

Diana looking back at the hall,

in the distance a bridge, looking as old as the abbey ruins,

naturally a pose,

from both of us,

next a few more of the hall,

and in the far distance the car park,

what stories this bridge could tell!

a last look at the hall, if you are scared of cattle, the next bit is not the place you want to be, there are 2 cattle gates, one into and one out of the cattle field, although it has to be said the cows there are so used to people, one wanted to follow Diana home!

the legend says it all,

as soon as I was near the abbey,

I started snapping away,

the sky was perfectly clear, which was so nice,

walking around the abbey in the sun,

a quick pose,

before I carried on,

walking past one of the buildings,

I am not going to play with any of the images today,

I will leave that to next week,

all of these are as they come out of the normal camera,

a Lumix G8, it is Micro Four Thirds interchangeable lens camera, the review was made when I bought it back in 2016/7,

the second is exactly the same but I had it converted to take infrared photographs, so I will be playing with those when I have time in a few days,

I continued walking around the abbey,

as it happens it was quite nice to be in some shade believe it or not,

I had a look through one of the windows,

it looks like a face on the central column, but it is barely discernible,

around the corner,

a few paces back,

and few more,

note self, do not shoot into the sun!

a tad better,

I started back to where Diana was sitting,

stopping every now and then,

as I neared more parts of the abbey that survived,

the shadows starting to get long,

it was past midday by some,

I caught up with Diana who was siting by the tree, on the way back through the stiles,

Diana best new friend came up to say hello,

we walked back to the car park, and then across the road, to look a the River Wey,

as it raced under this bridge,

from this weir and sluice gate above it,

in the pool above it,

a weeping willow, by now we were both hungry and thirsty, 

so on the advice of a nice chap that was walking towards me we drove a couple of miles,

to a country pub on the river, 

the Mill at Elestead, 

and inside there really was a turning full size water wheel,

the legend,

by the wheel, it was a tad difficult to take photographs as there was a glass screen around the wheel,

we ordered our food,

 

and went to a table in the garden to wait for our food to arrive, having taken our coffees and Diana's cake with us,

we did not have to wait long, a shredded chicken bar-b-q burger for Diana,

a tuna and sliced spring onion mayonnaise sandwich for myself, both with chips,

it was just so nice sitting in the sun, our bill came to £30.00,

before driving home,

we had a walk to the other side of the building,

where the water from the wheel exited,

and made its way down stream,

Diana was taking a few photographs as well,

for the family album, if those are kept anymore!

a quick pose by the car, that as usual performed effortlessly, despite the hours spent queueing traffic this morning, in truth I was not looking forward to car queues on the return journey,

but there it is,

over the bridge and we were away,

as it happens despite the road works there was hardly any traffic, even past the road works, but as we neared Croydon as this morning so many traffic warnings, so we added a few miles to our journey by driving past the Croydon exit and took the one at Bromley, arriving home in the late afternoon, for the technical including the extra miles trying to avoid holdups on the way there and home, 

we drove 116 miles, 

at a average speed of 28mph considering most of the journey was on the motorway that give some idea of how long we sat in traffic jams! 

and averaged a terrible 49.4 mpg, way down for the 60s and 70s to the gallon we normally get when travelling, but there it is, there were some major holdups on the way down, and having the aircon on all day I guess did not help! after all of that it was feet up for a Midsomer Murder followed by a rather nice episode about the Everglades, narrated by Troy Landry, titled Troy Landry: Dragons from Hell, apparently there have been a number of strange disappearances near Lake Okeechobee, Florida, of pets and animals, I have to say I was amazed at the number of non-native species that were caught in over night traps, on a different note, Diana has a 4.00 AM start tomorrow, so after that we were off to bed.

I Had A Busy Day,

first thing out to the shop,

the sky was a tad cloudy, before going to the shop I called into the shoe repair shop at Beckenham Junction, I needed to have some steel heels replaced, 

the owner very kindly said they could be repaired today if I had some shopping to, so I was off,

past the green, 

and to Kingfisheries, where I dropped off some printing, 

next a walk to the cinema,

well to the bank actually to pay a couple of cheques in, after the 14th of this month paying in cheques will mean a bus ride to Bromley, as this branch of Barclays is closing, as indeed is Lloyds, all of the banks in Beckenham will then be gone, except Santander, 

next stop Marks & Spencer's for some fresh fruit to snack on if I feel hungry during the day, apples and plums and I was on my way to pick up my shoes at the nearby shoe repair shop, £18.50 later and I was on my way home,

into the park,

past the magnolia tree in this homes front garden, if only the blossom lasted for a few months!

back home, Diana had still not left for work, today she was on late shift, a quick look at my repaired heels, what a great job, it is unfortunate I wear out normal heels in no time at all, with these metal outers it gives my shoes a few new lives,

after Diana left for work and my evening meal it was feet up for Adormidera, it has to be said a lot of money went into the production, but the fight scenes were so unconvincing, but there it is the film passed away the early evening, I followed that with a Lewis, and then a real treat,

photograph BBC Sword, Musket & Machine Gun: Britain's Armed History, and what a treat! this was part 3, mainly concerned with the weapon to end all wars, the machine gun, during which Diana arrived home so we watched the end of that before A Touch of Frost after which we were off to bed.

Chips Go With Most Things,

but mammoth meat balls and chips?

photograph Aico Lind/Studio Aico, just somehow does not seem to sound right, but they might soon be coming to a restaurant near you, Australian start-up Vow took the DNA sequence for mammoth myoglobin, a key muscle protein in giving meat its flavour, and filled the few gaps in the strand with elephant DNA. They then put this sequence in myoblast stem cells from a sheep and grew the tens of billions of cells necessary to create the lab-grown meat, “It was ridiculously easy and fast, we did this in a couple of weeks,” Prof Ernst Wolvetang, at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland, told The Guardian newspaper. “It’s a little bit strange and new – it’s always like that at first. But from an environmental and ethical point of view, I personally think [cultivated meat] makes a lot of sense.” Vow has already been experimenting with dozens of species, including alpaca, buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo, and peacocks, mixing lab-grown meats to create unique tastes,

“The goal is to transition a few billion meat eaters away from eating [conventional] animal protein to eating things that can be produced in electrified systems,” Vow CEO, George Peppou, said. “And we believe the best way to do that is to invent meat. We look for cells that are easy to grow, really tasty and nutritious, and then mix and match those cells to create really tasty meat.” as it happens mammoth meat balls will not be on the menu for some time as Prof. Wolvetang explains: “We haven’t seen this protein for thousands of years, so we have no idea how our immune system would react when we eat it. But if we did it again, we could certainly do it in a way that would make it more palatable to regulatory bodies.” so maybe one day you really will be able to order mammoth balls and chips!

On My Walks To Town And Back,

also the club, I pass tennis courts,

where I see hundreds of tennis balls on the ground or in the bushes, I once asked if one team of players wanted me to throw one back, the reply, "no thanks it is an old one, we will not use it again", I have to say it looked pretty new to me, so what happens to all of these old tennis balls? well here is one use for them, which solves a problem most cyclist will run into sooner or later, a easy remedy to a punctured wheel! YouTuber user The Q has found a way of making functional tires out of tennis balls, there is a bit of work to do but The Q made small rings of PVC pipe and used them to mount the balls on the rim of the wheels, attaching the rings required the construction of a custom jig that drove balls inside the rings without rupturing them so just get past that problem and all you need to repair your tire is a tennis ball in your pocket! for the full story have a look here.

Sunday Has Raced Around Again,

so time for a 'Cheers!',

along with a read before lunch,

for today lobster bisque soup,

with some rather nice freshly baked bread and butter,

for our main course roast lamb, 

so it was eyes down and tuck in, after a long break time for our Sunday afternoon film,

Narvik: Hitler's First Defeat, based on the true story of Narvik and the power struggle as both Great Britain and Germany vie to continue to extract iron ore from the port, the aftermath of which gave the English language and many others, a new word, Quizzlin, in case you are unaware of him, the surname of Vidkun Quisling, is synonymous with traitor, he was was appointed Minister-President of the new government of Norway in 1942, Quisling participated eagerly in the deportation of Jews for their extermination and sought to win Hitler’s respect by recruiting Norwegian soldiers to fight for Germany, as you can imagine he was not popular with Norwegians, hence the derogatory meaning of his name, in the evening on a happier note,

photograph BBC although I had watched the hour and a half long documentary before Diana had not, it was about the making and a behind the scenes look at a favourite comedy of ours, Are You Being served? the documentary was called Secrets & Scandals Of Are You Being Served?, which was quite an eye opener, after the pilot showing before the series started filming the BBC said, 'get rid of the poof' luckily they did not, as John Inman became the star of all 10 series, a record for the BBC, at the programs peak in the UK it was watched by 22 million viewers, not bad for a programme the BBC did not want to make after its pilot! we rounded the evening off with a Lewis before we were then off to bed.

A Couple Of Question To Start The Day,

how hot is the sun?

image credit: Hinode JAXA/ NASA/ Wikimedia Commons, according to this article the hottest part of our Sun is its core, where nuclear fusion reactions create temperatures up to 15 million degrees Celsius (ºC) or 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (ºF), according to NASA, on to the next question, how do we know having never been there? apparently the answer is seismology, the study of earthquakes, starting with the development of the seismograph, which allowed us to record ground oscillations. With the power of science and mathematics, these oscillations became the key to mapping our planet's interior, fast forward to the 1960s, the decade of powerful telescopes, scientists realized that the Sun oscillated, too, this gave them the revelation that the methods of seismology might also apply to our Sun. This gave birth to helioseismology. And if seismology applies to our Sun, then it would also work for other stars out there, this realization gave rise to asteroseismology, for myself it is amazing how discoveries build one upon the other, as it happens our Sun is by no means the hottest star, that accolade goes to the star WR 102, which is found in the constellation of Sagittarius and has a surface temperature of over 200,000ºC. the brightest of stars in our night sky, Sirius, has a surface temperature of 9,600ºC, while Alpha Centauri A, the Earth’s nearest yellow dwarf star (like that of our Sun) is 5,500ºC at its surface, for the full story have a look here.

Some People Love Them,

some people hate them,

 photographs BBC, then there are the creepy ones, dolls, like this one from Texas, meet George, a 1930s doll reportedly made using a dead person’s glass eyes and their hair, his home is the Nottingham’s Haunted Museum, and he had a day out,

when he recently met antique expert Charlie Ross on BBC’s popular TV show Bargain Hunt, but why a real persons eyes and hair? Well George comes from a time when people made such dolls in memory of their loved ones, only in his case, the person who made him used the loved one’s actual hair and their glass eyes, 

“He came to us from Texas and, back in the day, they would make things like George in memory of passed loved ones,” Marrie Wesson said on the show, asked about George’s origins, Marrie said that the person they got it from came to them because his family was experiencing “a lot of paranormal things with him,” and they apparently wanted nothing more to do with the doll, “They would get headaches and their eyes would start hurting, so they took him to a few mediums and apparently George wants his eyes and hair back, he can’t rest without them,” the museum owner added, “That doll should have stayed in Texas, I can’t look at the TV, I hate dolls,” one Bargain Hunt fan tweeted, even if you love dolls, I am guessing that giving George a place in your home might make you think twice!