Monthly Archives: April 2009

Bishops Waltham

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Bishops Waltham is a small town in Hampshire, at the head of the River Hamble and close to the South Coast of England that dates back to Saxon times.   Much of the town is unchanged, retaining the historic buildings and shops and narrow streets.   Debbie and I stopped to take a walk through the town in April.  We hope you enjoy the photos that we took, which are in the gallery below.

The town is one of the few in England that has managed to retain it’s character, and as well as many of the Georgian buildings remaining, Bishops Waltham has managed to suppress the influx of larger supermarket chains and almost all of the shops in the town are family run businesses.   The local butcher had a number of protest signs outside because one of the supermarkets is planning to open in the town, which will sound the death knell for many of the local shops.

The ruins of Bishops Waltham Palace on the edge of the town are open to the public in the summer months and are run by the English Heritage Trust.  The palace was used by the Bishops and senior clergy of Winchester as they travelled through their diocese. Winchester was the richest diocese in England at the time, and as such its properties were grand.   The palace was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil war. Much of the old Palace is still in the town. Apart from the ruins, which are open to the public and well worth a visit, material from the Palace was used as building materials in town buildings still standing to this day.

Click Here for Books and other items about Bishops Waltham from Amazon.

The Sausage Dog Pony

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The Sausage Pony

A month ago Debbie came across a news item on the BBC Web Site about a pony that had really short legs, so short in fact that numerous passing motorists on the highway had called the emergency services because they thought it had got stuck in the mud.   You can CLICK HERE for the original article from the BBC.

Since this happened close to where Debbie lives, and she had seen the pony when we drove along the same stretch of highway just over a week ago,  we drove out today to see if we could get a closer look and to take our own photos.

It’s incredibly difficult to get to the field where the horse grazes, and we did see it, however this is the best we could do, since it was grazing in a dip.  You can click on the photo for a larger version.   If you look at the photo below, you can see why we couldn’t get any closer.  There was a railway line in the way, plus fencing, and nowhere to get a higher viewpoint.  As it was, I had to hold the camera up high to get the snap that is shown above.

Sausage Pony from a distance

I really do love my Canon Powershot A630 Digital Camera, the second Powershot that I have owned, not only because it takes great photographs, but because of the fact that you can rotate the LCD screen.


With most Digital cameras, you can see what you are taking in the LCD screen, but you are limited to taking photographs where you can see what is in the screen.   Like many camcorders, I can rotate and angle my LCD screen, so I can hole the camera high above my head, avoiding people’s heads in a crowded situation, and even rotating the LCD screen to face me so that I can take pictures of myself.  Actually 90% of the photos of Debbie and I together were taken this way.

The other feature that I really do love with Canon cameras, is the they record the angle at which you took the shot. So, say you take a photograph with the camera vertical, the camera records this, and provided you display the photograph using software that uses this, the image is automatically rotated. No more of the annoying need to rotate your head left and right when someone makes you watch a slide show.

If you would like more information on the Canon Powershot range of digital cameras, click on the camera image above, or hover over the image.

A Recipe For Victory

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victoryA Recipe For Victory

 

Ingredients;

One  large,  good, solid idea

A good pinch of AIM/GOALS

One unique theme

A cool name

One cute logo

A massive amount of effective Support

 

METHOD:

 

Develop the idea over long periods of time.

Keep your aims clear and focused.

Blend in a unique theme and add a dollop of a cool name.  Mix with this in equal parts a cute logo.

Test, test and test again.  Invite friends to sample your product at regular intervals.  Encourage them to tag, tag, and tag some more.

Throw in a helping of Adsense and a pint of Amazon. This will produce revenue.

Blend all ingredients together and add some badges and ample amounts of goodies.

Pour mixture into Foot shaped tins and cook for as long as it takes.

Meantime, cherish, nurture and encourage the taggers in their footsteps.

When the mixture is ready, and only you’ll know when, hit the

‘GO LIVE BUTTON’

Stand back, admire and be proud in your  VICTORY  because your creation will rise and become the best on the net.

 

This blog entry is a contest entry on Tagfoot

Good News

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Debbie And Tony EngagementDebbie and I are pleased to announce that we got engaged yesterday (8th April 2009).   We have known for a long time that we wanted to get engaged, and how we felt about each other, but we just wanted to wait until the time was right before making things official.

I dropped down on one knee in the bedroom behind Debbie while she was looking in the closet, so that when she turned around and saw me it was obvious what was happening.   I asked her if she would marry me, the answer to which was a wonderfully happy “YES”.

A little known fact is that pretty much everything that has happened in our relationship happened on a Wednesday, so it only seemed right to get engaged on a Wednesday as well.   After the tears of joy and lots of hugs etc, we decided to head out to the shops to look for an engagement ring.

Debbie And Tony Engagement RingDebbie knew more or less what she was looking for, a Trilogy ring in White Gold, so once in town we looked around all the jewellery stores until we found one that we both liked.  We narrowed it down to two rings that we both liked in one of the stores, and it wasn’t hard to make a decision.  Fortunately, the ring was even the right size and fitted her finger perfectly.

To celebrate, we went out in the evening to a local Indian Restaurant that we both like, which does excellent food, and it’s only 5 minutes walk from the house.   The meal was wonderful, followed by a walk home, the stars out and an almost full moon shining down on us.

This was a very special day for us both, and we just wanted to share it with all our friends.

Tony & Debbie