New Forest - Not seen that many horses...

...since the Grand National! One of the (although certainly not unique) more unusual things about the New Forest is the sheer number of large animals that seem to be oblivious to the fact that there are cars hurtling by, they just ignore roads completely, seemingly treating them as a kind of "area of suprisingly little grass" (or some such horse-thought)...at least 3 of the traffic jams encountered today could be attributed to either equine -

- or bovine -

- related causes...!

The first stop of the day was to the visitors centre and museum (museum saved for a rainy day) which is located in the natural "traffic jam" of Lyndhurst. There are actually *permanent* signs on the roads leading to this (otherwise charming) little town announcing "long delays", and it seems that there is a good reason for this - if you look at this place on a map you will see that, thanks to the limited number of roads in the locale, Lyndhurst falls at a bit of a crossroads making it a perpetual bottleneck...
Good for the resident shop owners, though, as once you get in, you are kind of stuck...(they must do alright too, because the local garages were only selling Ferrari and Maserati cars)...!

Here is a shot down the high street -

- In the visitors centre I obligingly coughed up two quid for a nice large blow-up map of the area in the cunningly placed "entrance shop" only to find a free one 30 seconds later in the "information centre" at the back...doh!

Then a quick visit (before the parking ticket ran out) to both of the two camping shops in town for some essentials (like a tent pole replacement to fix the broken one before the festival season starts for the year) plus a few other "outdoor" things that seemed to have been mislaid in the move, and (accidentally on purpose) skipping the enormous queue all the round way the one way system by shooting up the wrong lane, it was time for lunch...

The venue was the "Green Dragon" in the *tiny* village of Brook. A charming (thatched-cottage-style) place that has had a license to serve intoxicating beverages for over 200 years! -


- I went for one of the specials, an absolutely melt in the mouth shoulder of lamb which slightly unfortunately arrived sat in a rather unexciting mint jus. It was accompanied by one of the worst, overcooked selections of veg I have ever had the unpleasant opportunity to poke with a fork, and the roast spuds were nothing better than average, a *bit* on the crunchy side, but *no* way near fluffy inside (I only ate two of them) -

- oh and also (and this is funny because I predicted this exact eventuality about 5 minutes before it happend), Flyingpops' Brie Baguette turned up with bacon all over it, so that was sent back to the kitchen. It flew back in *just* about the amount of time it *might* have taken to make a new one (well, *almost* anyway)... ;)

From here we moved on to inspect the interestingly moniker'ed (is that a word?) "Sandy Balls" campsite (God only knows what made them pick that name) for the site of a possible later-in-the-year break (which I really wish we were taking now!). Take a look with me down the "high street" onsite, it's actually more like a little village than a campsite! -

- Let me leave you in no doubt that this place is certainly facility rich - there is a pub, an italian resturant, a SPAR supermarket (bit overpriced) at least one swimming pool (but there might be one indoor and one outdoor, we didn't check specifically, but the aerial photo seemed to hint at it)...plus cycle hire, and obviously loads of organised kids entertainment...

Interestingly, the place was *absolutely* packed out, even this early in the season and to be quite honest, I felt a bit put off by that, as *quite* what it is going to be like later in the year when the weather improves, I just don't know -

- Oh and I'm not exactly jumping up and down at the thought of volutarily pitching the tent on a spot of land absolutely *covered* in stones either (ouch!), each of the pitches seems to be deliberately made up of shingle! Now, I don't know about you, but I normally have at least a half-hearted go at getting *rid* of all the stones from where I am planning to pitch my tent, *not* trying to find the greatest concentration possible before settling down! Very strange for a bunch of so called "professionals" in the field of camping... -

- All in all though, it did look like a reasonably nice place perhaps for a weekend away (if not ideal for a full blown camping holiday)...

That done, some "interesting" little roads took us to where the day finished off - in Burley (a *total* tourist trap) where this mother and foal has decided to hang out in the car park for some odd reason (actually, it might have been all the hay that *somehow* ended up there (wonder if they shoo away the not-so-photogenic ones each morning? Ok, sorry, getting a bit cynical there!)) -

- and there was one other fringe benefit of the stop over (*slurp*) -

- only really a tiny shop, no tour, or demonstrations or anything like that (apart from the "on request" bottling demonstration, of course)....so not really a patch on the Cornish Cyder Farm experience...but hey, the "Cyder" they put out from there tastes rather like it belongs in the toilet (*before* human-digestive-processing) and this New Forest stuff is rather nice actually...so "Cheers"...and now I am off to bed...nite... ;)

Off to the New Forest today...

...on an expedition to see if it is going to be a good spot for a camping holiday later in the year, we shall see what transpires! ;)

Well, feeling a bit better now...

...not had much time to be sick though, been working longer hours than normal (from home though, thank heaven for small mercies) and I just know I have got piles of stuff to catch up on next week, I have at least 30 emails I haven't had a chance to read, and all the reporting stuff has just had to go on hold....(got to stop thinking about work now and *try* and get on with the weekend)...

Oh no!

Sitting here working away and all of a sudden the skies went completely black (really sudden, was quite wierd, it made me stop what I was doing and glance up) then just at that moment a massive crack of thunder shook the windows (which made me jump) and within about 30 seconds something heavy and persistent was smashing into the glass, I leapt up from the PC and threw open the curtains to see at least half an inch of ice covering all my tiny seedlings! Argh! I ran into the kitchen to grab something, anything to try and cover them up, great! Only one black bin bag! So I grabbed some Tesco bags from the Ikea carrier bag tidy and flew back across the living room, and struggled (horror movie style) with the two locks on the back door, gave it a gentle kick to send it open as quickly as possible and dived out into almost solid crashing ice, not solid hail so much as "firm" slush...nice...

Anyway, once the cloudburst had subsided a little, I dared to venture outside again and remove the improvised shields, and took the shot above (in a bit of a hurry as it was still chucking it down), check out the piles of slush on the fence to give you an idea how severe it was, and this was after about 10 more minutes of rain after the ice...

By the way...

...I came home again at lunchtime yesterday after being told off for bringing in all my nasty germs into work, I guess it's not fair to put anyone else at risk... :(

I'm gonna work from home till my symptoms are under control...

*cough* *sneeze*

I woke up today really suffering with the cold that I have been trying to fight off for about a week now. Really sore throat, streaming nose, cotton-wool level reality perception and aching fatigue level musculature performance...and it's cold, and raining, and a bit windy...so not really feeling full of the joys of spring ({waynesworld}if I were a Hogwarts house I would be either Snufflepuff or Sniffindor{/waynesworld}) as I huddle in my jacket, trying to keep my core temperature up -

- then thanks to a "Broken down train" at Farringdon I have to disembark and stand in the rain waiting for a number 17 bus to crawl through the London traffic and whisk (wrong word) me to Kings Cross...great start to the week... :( We'll see just how much of today I can cope with, it's certainly not being terribly kind to me so far...

Oh dear...

...today showed a heart-stopping return to (almost unstoppable) power by team Schumacher-Ferrari in the San Marino GP...never have I seen a race so closely contested, right until the finish line...

Respect to Herr Schumacher, but sorry, if this (and I think Mr Brundle said it best) "ominous" performance is anything to go by, I'll be ditching F1 again before too long, Schu-whitewash race-after-race, year-after-year, I just can't swallow it...sorry...

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and it was probably one of the best races I have ever seen in my life! I can just do without the monotony, *if* (as I suspect) with their fixed up car, all we ever see is a little red blur between the start and chequered flag...we need competition (just like we saw today), but if he hadn't made that petit faux par in qualifying, all we would have seen is the boring Schumacher domination that turned me off the sport last time...*please*, *please* *NO*!!!

Puff...!

Had a lovely time today, went on a cycle ride...

...down to Earlswood lakes -

- had a great time, even though all the tyres involved were rather too flat, leading to some "exciting" kerb moments...not that we didn't *try* and pump them up, the local Shell garage was annoyingly out of order (air pressure-wise)...

Typical...

...great weather all week, get to the weekend and it's pissing down with rain... :(

On my way home today...

...and I guess not many commuters can claim this, I decided to make friends with one of the horses I pass on the way home (and I have to confess, this is only because I saw a posse of young kids doing the same a few hundred yards away to horse number 2), to be completely honest, I have a healthy respect for the kind of damage a large quadruped can do to the human frame, and I guess *one* of the possibly predictable graveyard markers for me may be "Better Safe than Sorry"...but throwing caution to the wind I strode up to the poor animal and brandishing my fist, rather as I would to a Hagrid-sized-dog (a french horse did once attempt to consume my entire hand, but that is another story), I let it take my scent...it regarded me for a moment or two, somewhat nervously, with it's huge eyes, and then, without another moments hesitation, nestled firmly into my shoulder, flicking it's head a few times in appreciation as I ticked it's ears and stroked the profusion of loose hair from it's mane...glancing back, the tiny horse was watching me all the way across the field as I was walking away... :)

Update - I took flyingpops over to meet the horse a little while later, but it was clear that there was no way she was going to get anywhere near the animal, this, I think, spooked the poor creature a little bit because it wasn't *quite* as friendly this time...oh well...

The answer...I think...? Moon vs Camera

...to this question, found here (in full) - The summary is as follows -
{snip}"The explanation is believed to be as follows. We 'know' that a cloud that is overhead will be larger than when it moves towards the horizon. And an airplane that is a mere speck on the horizon becomes large when it is overhead. And we are all familiar with standing under a tree which seems enormous, yet at a couple of hundred paces seems insignificant. It would seem that so much of our world is interpreted this way that we are ill-equipped to cope with an object like the moon, that subtends the same angle at the eye, whatever position it occupies in the sky. And so our brain 'interprets' the image that it 'sees', and tells us that the moon is larger than it really is".{/snip}

Still not entirely sure! But it does look like it is the brain at fault rather than the camera...*thumps head a few times* >;P

What a beautiful day...

...to be in London (actually, what am saying!! ;)

Kings Cross station from the outside, with St Pancrass looking oh so photogenic in the background...

...and I snapped this from the train on the way in, this is the view up the Thames river towards Tower Bridge that I enjoy twice a day (fleetingly)...

Why does the moon...

...look so *small* in photographs?

It seems about 5 times that size when I look at it IRL, why on earth would that be? Some odd optical effect of the eyes? My brain re-prioritising it for some stupid reason? I must google this at some point, can't be just me...and "the camera never lies"...and did I *really* never take a picture of the moon before??

Here we go! Platform 9 3/4 - Kings Cross!

Proper Potter... ;) As I suspected, it's real...(as usual, click for a larger image)...

This is so good, that is actually about 1/5th of a real British Rail trolley glued to the wall so if you grab on, it looks like you are vanishing onto the platform...! There were a bunch of obviously American tourists standing around trying to pluck up courage to do so...So "Torquay Slag" and myself dived right in and took a few snaps while they were dithering, as we walked away a small queue formed at the wall... ;)

Doing a bit of poking around on...

...Flickr yesterday night, I noticed a bunch of people had photos of a bit of wall that is quite obviously from Kings Cross station (same dirty brick work anyway), and is clearly labelled with a large sign saying "Platform 9 3/4"! It looks like it might be on a bit of wall *before* you actually get to platforms 9 and 10 (so not *really* what JKR describes, which I got a shot of the other day, but nice of British Rail to put up this tribute, none the less)...

I'll go and try to get a snap later... ;)

A lot of fatalities today...

...just a seriously unexpected number of slugs and snails, slaughtered within about 2 inches of where they unfortunately met one of the pelets from one of these bad boys...(it's obviously a lingering death, therefore)...

...good in a way (I want to actually eat the food that I have grown) and bad in a way (I didn't actually expect to have to kill to get there)...this stuff is viciously effective, a handful of pellets = WMD, a tiny dusting of powder on a sunny day and an ant scent trail resembles an Iraqi high street on a bad day...

God Bless Flickr.... 8)

So, as you may have already read, traffic is (although not *massive*) still, far too huge on this blog for a free Flickr account to be sufficient. I therefore had to sign up for a "Pro" account (hell, it's cheap anyway, works out less than £2 per month)...

The *wonderful* and totally unexpected bonuses that Flickr blessed me with today were warmly received, double subscription time (1 year becomes 2), double bandwidth (1Gb becomes 2Gb)..and two free pro accounts to hand out as I see fit, one I have given to "Torquay Slag" as he has already demonstrated his excellence in the field of photography to me, the other is open, so please, drop me a line if you think this second free account should be for you... ;)

"Interesting" shops of Kings Cross #2

Collect them all! ;)

Spotted by "B" and I on a little walk the other day...this hilariously named "video" shop - "Klonex" just begs the obvious parody... ;) The sign on the door warns that "not all the goods on display on this shop are suitable for those under 18 years of age"...

"NY Boss" is over again this week...Smithys for Lunch

...and we had a number of matters to attend to, *but* work being as busy as it is at the moment, we took a long lunch to chew them over (ouch! :)...I opted for Smithy's (as the choice was, once again and graciously, mine)...after considering the menu for a while (and fighting off (successfully) my inner "Always-take-the-big-steak! You fool!" daemon) we both ended up going for "The Cheeseburger" (hang on, stay with me! It's in quotes and capitalised for a reason!) -

- now, you must forgive me for frothing slightly at the mouth, but this is the kind of burger you really only deserve in a dream...freshly minced steak of serious quality, cooked to pink perfection, oozing with juices, dripping with melted cheese, nestling comfortably in a heap of quality leaf and sliced red onion, topped off with thick sliced steak tomato and a generous swipe of a simple tomato relish on a warm toasted bun, so fluffy you would think it had just come out of the oven...mmmmm!

"Time based bulk"'s lunch of last friday *flickered* briefly, in a sort of wilted, pale version of a flashback through my mind as I stretched my mouth as wide as it could possibly go...to..just... (*strain*) ...take....the... (ah!) ...first...bite........*fade to (rather satisfied) black* :)

I spotted this strange thing...

...in Redhill the other day (offering free email and local news and events) just after I had had my haircut and was walking to meet "Flyingpops". The first thought that popped into my head was "Heh, bet that doesn't last long", so I resolved that I ought to go and check it out before the louts poured concrete in it or something to spoil everyone's fun, and guess what? It was already broken... *shrug* ;)

Still running behind...!

On Saturday I went out for a little exploration of the local area, I have only really cycled round before (at some speed) and moving on foot gives you more time to appreciate the scenery you are passing, here are a few shots I took as I was wandering, first off, some of the "Horse circles" I was talking about -



- quite honestly, if you didn't know these had been made by a tethered horse over the course of a couple of days you could jump to all sorts of conclusions about their origins!

Next up, a very sad sign hastily painted onto a bit of wood outside Redhill football ground reads "Nothing left to steal - thankyou!". Now, I have been in mens changing rooms, and I can't begin to imagine what anyone would have wanted with the contents...Actually, thinking about it, the club probably has a bar, which would likely contain some more understandable targets for theft...

Just a little way back from the main road, after wandering for a while through a little woodland, I found this pond, there is definitely something to be said for sub-pushbike speeds...I'd never even seen the path before then! ;)

One of several old milestones I passed on my walk (marking out the distance between Westminter and Brighton), not that I was going to walk as far as either of those destinations...I think it would have taken about a week!

I stopped for lunch at a pub in Earlswood (part of the travelodge range), which consisted of a pint and a cheese and pickle sandwich, served with coleslaw and chips (not worthy of a photograph I am afraid), but I was starving hungry so it had to do... ;)

Damnit!

Missed the start of Dr Who this evening (in fact, 10 minutes of it)! :(

A quick catch up on Friday night...

...just realised I completely forgot to mention it before! We had arranged to meet up with "Squiz", an old friend for a few drinks, as she has just started working in London by happy coincidence. The wait for her to turn up proved to be rather boring (and crowded), so I thought (seeing as I am re-reading "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" at the moment in anticipation of the new movie) that I would go and find "the barrier in between platforms 9 and 10", it was actually miles away from the main concourse, but I finally found it -

- which is a bit of a shock, because they clearly haven't used this location in any of the movies so far...! Bit strange! To be honest, the waiting area is so small for these two platforms that any attempt to secretly crash your trolley into the barrier would probably be easily seen by everyone, so in this case the reality is, it wouldn't have looked at all plausible on film if they had used the "real" barrier... ;)
Anyway, when she finally did turn up we made our way to the mutually approved "Sahara Nights" for a few drinks (which, I might add, looks much better at night!) -

- the return trip (for me at least) in the evening was a great success, even if the music was a bit on the noisy side, we still managed to find a little table upstairs where we could chat...The bar staff were a bit on the dozy side though, constantly getting the change wrong (accidentally of course)... >;(
"FlyingPops" joined us after about an hour I suppose and we moved on to "The Driver" (can't find a web site for them I am afraid), where I enjoyed this little "make good" for lunch -

- the owner (apart from telling me that this steak is hung for 3 weeks, and tastes every bit as good as his claim, by the way!) told me that he was expecting someone from the Evening Standard to come and review his cuisine on Monday, I hope they put a bit less salad dressing on his/her plate...trying to eat those 6 inch long stalks of curly leaf proved to be rather a messy (but tasty) affair! ;)

Woo Hoo!

Just got a letter through the post from NTL saying that they are going to be upping my intenet connection speed (at no further cost) to 2 Meg! Certainly didn't see that one coming! :) :)

A quick seedling update...

...yes! Finally! The tomato plants have sprouted! I have three different varieties in this batch, Gardeners Delight (a juicy small fruit), Golden Sunset (a yellow, rich tasting fruit) and a hearty steak tomato which I can't remember the name of...

...following the advice on the packet, I should pick the strongest of the seedlings and transplant them to grow bags when they have grown up a little bit...

The Golden Lion...

...was the scene of a terrible crime today...namely LUNCH...back a month or two ago, "MP" (who has since gone to work for "Marketing Week"), "Torquay Slag" and myself stumbled across this particular watering hole..just to set the scene, the place is decorated beautifully, holds treasures like this -

- has a wide selection of excellent beers and wines, has a chilled out barman who makes his own mix CDs from legally downloaded music (which are rather good), and also, at the time, used to do rather good food. I once had an excellent stew there, the person serving me proudly told me it was an eastern european recipe, which had been aged for a couple of days to really get the flavours working together, it came served with a creamy mash and a warm beetroot marmalade, which was quite exquisite...todays little number (oh how foolish I was to select the beef stew from the menu, just look at the colour!) -

- might as well have come out of a tin. Tiny stringy bits of beef, I counted 3 bits of carrot and I think that was about all the veg that was in there, and to top it all, it arrived at the table little more than tepid, I really should have sent it back to the kitchen...

"Time Based Bulk" ordered another real winner, the beef burger, served with chips and a side salad. No joke, it looked like it came out of a Birds Eye packet, there was no way that (and the roll) didn't fall limply off a production line and straight onto the grill...oh how the mighty have fallen. I won't be going back...

Update - Apparently in recent months the place has been adopted by the gay community, just hope they have improved the food... >;P

On the subject of horses...

...there is a new arrival on my regular walk home from work across "muddy field" (I'm sure it has a real name, but "muddy field" is what it should be called), this is one of two horses that have appeared in the last week, obviously deciding to enjoy their historical right to be grazed on common land. I don't know what it thought of me brandishing the camera, but that look it gave me was definitely one of deep suspicion...perhaps it thought I was after a quicker mode of getting myself back to the house? It needn't have feared though, I think my feet would have dragged on the ground had I tried... ;) Because they are tethered to a point, both the animals are making small "horse circles" where they have cleared all the vegetation within their reach...I cannot help but think that this will not help the situation with the mud...

Snapped this last Saturday...

...I might be being a little unkind here, but somehow I think Lidl may have slightly misjudged it's normal customers demographics...I just have a little bit of a problem picturing the "horsey" set ever even getting to see this poster hanging so proudly in-store... ;) Is there really a market for bargain basement horse-coseys?

While I am on the subject of last Saturday, I also had the chance to sit in the new VW Golf (as I "while you wait"'ed for some routine maintainance) -

- it feels about 20% smaller than the Mk IV, peripheral visibility is down too thanks to the door frame moving up to squeeze in 4 doors...why? But still, it's the little things that make it special (you might have to click for the bigger image to see properly, depends how big your monitor is) -

The logo is actually punched into the headlight bulb...very cute, wonder if it will retrofit to older models? ;)

A walking, shooting mech!

Check it out here, don't forget to watch the movies here and here!! I mean, it's not going to go chasing people across rugged terrain anytime soon, but it is pretty cool none-the-less! ;)

A bit of really bad news...

...here from Slashdot, wish I hadn't read it now...! It looks like Enterprise has been cancelled regardless of any money raised to try and keep it alive...I, for one, was really enjoying it.. :(

The end of an era...

Well, it's the end of the line for the Waterside Inn, scene of many an average chain-pub meal, and merry pint in the sunshine, overlooking the canal museum...the bulldozer cometh to make room for the new Guardian Newspaper building...(they are going to have to dig a very big hole, as apparently there is going to be an underground concert hall, I wonder how they are going to stop the water getting in!)



In the background you can just about pick out some of the narrow boats and the start of the considerable amount of outside seating they had..no idea where we are going to go on sunny Friday lunchtimes now! Canal 125 is the only place I can think of with outside seating, and that gets rather cramped when there are more than 10 people...oh well, we'll find somewhere! I think Sahara nights has got a roof garden, might have to check that out... ;)

On the left here you can see the start of the warehouses next door, they are all coming down too (not that I care much about that!)...

A rather interesting shop...

...situated in Kings Cross...I pass it at least twice a day, to and from the station, and each time I do, my nostrils are assaulted by the reek of strong skunk, whether the shop is open for business or not...I'm not entirely sure that this kind of thing is legal!

An amazing bit of paintwork...

...visible just near the station...