End of Jan

Its still cold out side though I am reliably informed that from tonight it will warm up. Just though I would start something and see what happens it is the last hour of the 31st of January and I thought about sitting down and typing up something.

So highlights of the day I went for a walk at lunch time as I try to do most days. I do miss the River in Shrewsbury, it changed and there was always something. today I suppose was about intangibles. In the one "quiet" section, ironically, the birds were making more noise, chirruping and cheeping as they do. Well I noticed it more and it had more of an effect on me. Spring is one day closer and will get here regardless of what happens. At least I am paying attention, well that is how I am comforting myself. Apart from that the day passed uneventfully, well as any other.

So tomorrow is February

Bed time

Jan again

Starting again as always is hard I usually get to the the end of this sentence and go off and do something else. Come back and hope the ideas flow and sometimes they do and I plod on. I should start with a beginning and work out wards. So dropped daughter number 2 off at her drama classes and went across to Forge Mill Lake up by junction 7 of the M6. I went for a walk around the lake, there I am fitting a "relaxing" peaceful walk between fetching and carrying of Children. Next week I will try and do it differently. Not sure exactly yet. I did have a plan and a routine that I liked on a Saturday and then at the beginning of the year it changed. I do blame my eldest she got too old for the class and wanted to move up into the senior, OK so they start at 12 not at 10 and , and .. and I could go on for ever.

So what about the lake, it was quiet and the walk was good. This winter has been cold for longer than I remember. I know the very cold spell has passed for now, but the lakes and canals still have ice. Memory does play tricks and the fact that it is only in the last few years that I have paid real attention. anyway the stand out memory was walking along and out of the general quiet overhearing, is the only way I have of describing it, the tweeting and calling of small birds and peering into branches of the nearest thicket seeing not much and then as I got my eye in catching sight of lots of small blobs hopping around in the branches. I eventually worked out there were siskins and redpoll and very probably others in there, but I had reached the limit of my identification skills. Trying to take a picture was fun, not. they just did not want to keep still, just flitting from branch to twig and back again. Then it went quite and they stayed still. I looked up to catch a sparrowhawk drift overhead.

This all took probably 2 - 3 min, but , I decided to wander on and get back to the car. It did mean I got to drink half a cup of tea before I had to go take daughter number 1 and rescue number 2.

In the middle of this I met up with Lauren, who likes my pictures and we talked through some of the ideas that she had. On the one hand it really positive that that someone else likes what I do and in way have begun to take for granted and counterbalancing this is feeling that someone is looking at this and what will they be thinking and will this influence what I write.

It was also good for me to talk about my pictures to listen to some one else read things into them that I have not thought about. I remember my context for the image. There were a couple of pics that Lauren had a different perspective and used the image to illustrate whole set of different things that I just never even thought of.

Change is hard, I like to be able to predict the future and if someone or something else is going to change the rules I want six months notice and several dry runs before I agree to it. If only!!
But if I don't like where I am now, if I am not happy, what is there to do. The problem for me has often been that I have not been happy and tried to change the world around me( usually on a small scale) and have become even more frustrated when I am still not happy. So trying to change job, change the relationship. What needs to change is me, maybe even as small as the way I look at the world. As you know getting supertankers to change course is hard and takes a long time.

I am happier now than for all my adult life and I do remember being fairly miserable as a teenager.

So onwards before I begin analyse everything to death.

Bedtime

part the fourth

End of January and I got around to writing another post in the on going saga. Things are much the same at this end, the weather has improved somewhat, the snow and ice of the beginning of the month has gone to be be replaced by on the whole dull and grey. We have had a couple of days clear and bright, but not enough to balance. It is winter and dark, January is slowly coming to an end and sunset is getting slowly later. There are the odd signs of the Spring to come, I have see catkins and signs of crocuses and snowdrops poking green shoots through the soil. Today on my meanderings I saw a Goldcrest , a tiny thing, bopping around in the trees. They are smaller than a wren and that is small.

I suppose things are moving slowly, winter is waning, slowly, though I am I am sure there is more cold and general misery to come, the movement is upwards. We have passed the solstice and the Sun is slowly returning. do I want to cheer up or do I secretly enjoy my version of S. A. D. and want to remain melancholic. It is as always a matter of degrees. I used to quite enjoy sitting at the bar feeling melancholic, usually on my my own, hopefully with something to do like read a book or watch the video jukebox or generally contemplate my lack of fortune in whatever was going wrong at the time. . Once the boredom set in then I went down hill quite rapidly and needed someone else to come an kick start me into some sort of activity or the apathy and general depression would really kick in.

So the Goldcrest, ignored me, wandering past and stopping to watch, just got on with it. It was more interested in the important things in life like, dinner, keeping warm, and I suppose when and if spring ever comes, getting laid. I think I have things to learn.

Time for bed

Good night

January Part the Third

So Nine days have passed since last I sat down and started to add to this blog. Not much has happened to be honest. Well my car, needed major surgery and I was bereft for 3 days. It had begun to lose power and mis fire. I will admit to knowing about many things and you defiantly want me on your team in a pub quiz. However when it comes to motor mechanics, I get the general idea as I know how the internal combustion works, (well, I have seen the pictures and been to the science museum.) so am told three of the four cylinders needed new injectors. I have looked at the pictures and tried to work out what they mean and I sort of get the picture. Everyone else who I mention this to seems to grasp the severity and have an inkling about what I am talking. It then gets especially hard when they want more detail and the depth of my lack of knowledge is revealed for all to see. But three all in one go. OK I have my car back now and it sounds and drives a lot better. So what will go wrong next heh??

What else has happened? well I have been for a few walks in and around Telford and along the Rushall Canal, which is still frozen over. There has been since the New Year a thaw where I am and the only evidence of the cold is frozen waterways and the odd patch of snow that remains of the piles of cleared snow.

Work is as ever fairly unexciting, which is getting to me more and more. we shall see what this year brings. I have lived through "interesting times" and am sure they will return. The Coalition have decided to rearrange the furniture in the Welfare to Work arena. This will happen as far as I know between now and June. The company is on the list of preferred suppliers so we should do alright. Just how it will affect me I have no idea. Less dull times on the way.

OK so that's it for today I am going to Bed

Part the second

I have actually thought about where I was going to start with this post. I think I have mentioned that I have been walking up and down the Rushall Canal, which cuts through the estate I live on and is five minutes walk down the hill. It actually joins on to the Wyrley and Essington Canal which has a branch leading up to Chasewater where I spent many a long day working as the boatman in the early 80's. Yes I was the one that said "come in number 9 your time is up".

I get to the canal about half way along its length and have the choice of heading "up" towards Hayhead Nature Reserve or down towards the Motorway.
This is a picture I took on the way to the Motorway during the summer. The canal itself is fairly straight

To be honest most times I go up as it gives me lots of options to loop back home or if I want or to branch off into the Aboretum and wander around in the fields. This mainly happens when my youngest wants to come for a "Bike ride". She rides the bike I tend to jog along behind.

One of the things I like is the opportunity to get the same picture at different times of the year. At the moment these are my favourite.


The first was taken at begining of November as Autumn swept through. I do like Autumn and the colour of the leaves, the berries and the fruit, I could go on, but you get the Idea.

Compare this to the a picture I took a month later. Autumn has been and gone and Winter has truly arrived.

All the leaves are gone the variety of colour has been replaced with a monochrome. Yes there is the green of bark, lichen and moss. this is background the white of the snow and frost dominates. The water which reflected the surrondings is frozen and snow lies over it.


I should go to bed now so more soon

2011 New Year

Hello

So I am writing something on the first day of the new year just about anyway. It is well after 11:00 pm and I am sort of thinking about a New year Resolution to make more of an effort with my blog and to generally put more effort in this year. 2010 saw a bit of a decline in my writing from its peak in Dec 2009. I think I found it harder and harder to have something to write about. I am still taking pictures, but am now based in Telford which is somewhat less inspirational than Shrewsbury. I do miss the River. I did take this at sunset in November. I like it anyway

I still walk during my lunch times and have a couple of routes that I follow. I do take fewer pictures, there is much less change and roads just don't have the same. The weather over last Month or so has given the whole place a different cast. This is a "frosty" picture of St Peter's Church and also a picture of the frost and snow with The Wrekin in the background


So this is my take on Telford, well this does make it look much more attractive than it really is. Telford is a "New Town " and does not seem to have any focus or any feature that ties it together. Yes, there is a shopping centre and various other "attractions" but it has no history and nothing that ties it all together.

Enough for about Telford, which I know so little.

OK enough for tonight