Sungkyunkwan Univeristy Logo on the Earth

Alaköl Audani bearing a very close resemblance to the Sungkyunkwan University Logo
I was browsing the Earth as you do (or at least as I do) following this tweet from Tim Peake on board the ISS:

Tims tweet
While trying to locate those mountains I zoomed in on a rather intriguing formation which looked like a bit of human engineering - it was indeed a river delta which has been massively utilised for farming right in the far reaches of the east of Kazakhstan near the border with China. I then realised that the formation looked quite like a ginkgo leaf which is the logo for my Father-in-law's university in South Korea - Sungkyunkwan (also the oldest). Sadly when I checked the logo online I realised that the land formation is instead the mirror reflection of the logo. Here they are side by side. For your interest the geographic coordinates are: 46.040012N, 81.036736E near the town of Alaköl Audani

Alaköl Audani bearing a very close resemblance to the Sungkyunkwan University Logo

Sprautumn already and it's only January.

It is the end of January 2016 and the cherry plum blossom is out. I noticed this last weekend, the odd emergin flower, but then this week as I've cycled to work, more and more plum blossom has been emerging until whole trees are out. This can't bode well for a plum harvest this year can it? Fingers crossed for no frost/snow even though I like a good blizzard.

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@NationalTrust Wimpole Hall Estate in Autumn

With autumn upon us and unseasonably warm weather since getting back from Korea we headed out to Wimpole Hall (National Trust) to have a weekend walk around the estate with a friend of ours. I was in a t-shirt walking around, utterly splendid despite being Halloween (surprisingly similar to last year in fact). What's more there was an actual hill to climb which afforded an actual view. A view. In Cambridgeshire. What joy!

wimpole tree stitch

wimpole pond

branches stitch

light through the trees

autumnal leaves

yellow and orange

wimpole at sunset

last light through the trees

Nasturtium leaf from behind and other macros.

I've had my 35 mm lens on so much recently that I felt it was time for a change. Out with the macro lens while the sun was shining at the weekend. Actually, the sun was a little too bright at times leaving me to resorting to sun effect shots through the leaves and petals.

nasturtium leaf from behind

yellow and blue

prickly echinacea

dahlia from front

dahlia from behind

a yellow what's it called

pompom dahlia

fly on cornflower

cornflower up close

my son eating the garden (nasturtiums are a favourite of his)

2015-09-06

In the garden recently - a blooming lovely combination of flowers and weeds

It has been a striking early spring in the garden and quite a surprise. Just before April the garden was only green with the odd daffodil and hyacinth but not much else. Then suddenly the forget-me-nots exploded into life simultaneously with the tulips and wall flowers. It was utterly tremendous and a wonderful welcome for Mr Sir's arrival. I was able to enjoy the garden with Nana on two separate occasions which was extra lovely. It's just about beginning to go over now, though the clematis is in full glory and the rowan tree is throwing out a lovely scent in the evenings (at least I think it's the rowan: I can't find anything else at ground level which is scented presently.)

the pink clematis offset with blue forget-me-nots

the drape of clematis on the fence

this is my favourite wallflower this year, a deep wine purple

the clematis is climbing the rowan

two brassicas, one for flower on for leaf

our patio area with chimenea

full on clematis magic
2015-05-09

Ten thousand visitors to my blogsite.

Tonight I passed the 10,000 mark on this blog (not my main website which counts quite differently and not entirely accurately - then again it's impossible to get Blogger to not count my own page views, so if the power of Google can't work it out I'm damned if I'll be able to). I feel touched. Perhaps this is not a big number in the grand scheme of things. It's not like I have 10k likes, or unique visitors, and I doubt many of those people spend much more than a few seconds checking to see if I'm the Nick Bailey they're really interested in and then leave. That's not to say I doubt your sincerity (the those of you who are reading this), but in the modern web attention is so fleeting and gratification so un-delayed.

So thank you all for stopping by. Please do leave a comment or two some time. I love to hear from visitors and I'm always looking for people to bounce my ideas back at me.

Blessings to you.

Birthday Treats for the Office

For work today I fulfilled the tradition of bringing in some goodies for the office by providing a hobbit-appropriate second breakfast of crunchy nut cornflakes (which I'm not sure people totally appreciated) followed by a second lunch of mini mince pies with Baileys cream and lembas donuts - which were simply a donut wrapped in one of my office grown leaves. I though it was fitting for a hobbit who has just come of age.

lembas donuts and some mini-mince pies with cream for my office
This evening Dr K and I went out to watch the final The Hobbit at the lovely Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge. I was able to make use of both Orange Wednesday and a members ticket = free cinema for the both of us. Great seat right in the middle middle of screen one. Not quite the impact of the IMAX at the weekend, but a good place to watch a film. The film itself was good and enjoyable but not really a scratch on the original LOTR. I fear that perhaps Peter Jackson isn't a very good story teller preferring instead to make superfluous sweeping camera moves rather than focus on character development or plot. I think the films were seriously hampered by being split into three making them oddly both overly long and waffly and yet unsubstantial. The music didn't compare anywhere near as good as the original sound track (which reminded me to play it tomorrow at work). I shouldn't be too hard on the film though, it was fun and after all the book is itself a much softer version of the tome to come.
2014-12-17

Trees on the Roman Road at Wandlebury, Cambridge

I too the opportunity of a warm sunny evening to explore somewhere that I had been alerted to on Twitter. The prospect of finding actual trees in Cambridgeshire was too strong to resist. Plus in the ludicrous Autumn warmth we're experiencing I would have been silly not to. I was pleasantly surprised by the Roman Road along the back edge of the Wandlebury manor (which itself looked worth a look had the sun not set). I nipped home via Waitrose, so good times all round.

tree lined avenue with delicious hints of autumn

as you might expect, it's quite a straight path

certainly one of the more attractive parts of Cambridgeshire

Wandlebury at sunset
2014-10-31

Late Autumn

Late autumn sunlight through a leaf
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Opening Dahlia

This opening dahlia flower in my garden is a latecommer to the party but looked rather cute partially open
 

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Blossom vs Leaf

 

British Rail + Leaves = Problems

Clearly our railway companies just can't cope with autumn. This photo from Southampton Central station shows leaves clogging up the drain pipes.

A typical autumn scene in the arboretum 

Not quite a maple leaf 

Autumn leaves