Old but good: Lottery Rollover

I’ve been looking back through the contents of my Writings Page and found this:

13th September, 1998

Last Wednesday, nobody won the lottery here in the UK, so there was a rollover jackpot on Saturday night.

On Saturday afternoon, I was queueing up at the checkout in Sainsbury’s when a lad came along to remove a stack of baskets from by the checkout; and he discovered a pack of bread rolls, which must have fallen off the conveyor.

I can’t say I was surprised. After all, it was a rollover day.

More bonfire and fireworks pictures

I’ve now uploaded my pictures from Saturday night to Chislehurst_Fireworks_20091107 pictures by HelenEdith – Photobucket

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks bonfire flames

I’m wondering whether to start a photographic debate to rival the “fluffy water” debate where some people believe that “real water” is photographed at high shutter speeds; whilst others like to make it flow with a slightly longer shutter speed; and a third group like employing a really long shutter speed so that water looks like fluffy cotton wool.

It’s a bit difficult to achieve a long enough shutter speed to make flames that fluffy because flames are rather bright, but with some neutral density filters, maybe it could be arranged.

For the picture above, I used ISO 100 and f32 and achieved a shutter speed of 1/45 second. However, I also tried “freezing” flames but using ISO 800 and f6.7, which resulted in a shutter speed of 1/4000 second. This produces the much grittier result seen below.

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks gritty bonfire flames

I always enjoy pointing a camera towards the fireworks display. Sometimes I think I’d see more of the display if I didn’t take the camera. That was particularly true this year when I used the telephoto lens as I was continually realigning the camera. With a wider lens, I can set it up and just operate the remote shutter release without needing to look through the viewfinder at all!

Now, here are a few more of my favourite firework pictures:

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks 2009

Chislehurst Rotary Fireworks through a telephoto lens

This evening, Stephen and I went to our local fireworks display at the Chislehurst Recreation Ground. It’s run very efficiently by the local Rotary Club and was very well attended this year.

The gates were open from 6pm and there was a funfair for entertainment until the bonfire was lit at 7pm. To get a good view of the bonfire, you need to gravitate towards it soon after 6:30pm. I left it a fraction late and didn’t have quite the angle of view I wanted, but it worked out fine in the end as I got some interesting smoke pictures which I might put up later.

The fireworks were about 10 minutes late starting as there were still people coming in through the gates at 7:30pm and the stewards correctly decided to get them all in before allowing the display to go ahead. This year’s display was accompanied by music, and lasted a little over 20 minutes.

I usually photograph the fireworks with an extreme wide angle lens. It allows me to capture the flower-like patterns made by the light trails from their launching point to where they explode; but I decided that I’ve done that several years running and I wanted a change, so I used a telephoto lens this year. The success rate with a telephoto lens isn’t as good as it doesn’t cover as great an area, so you’re more liable to miss some of the fireworks, but the images are quite different from those captured with a shorter lens. I decided that I didn’t trust my Sigma 28-300 as the zoom on it is loose and it won’t stay where you zoom it if you point it up in the air. So I got out my old Tamron 85-210 lens for the occasion. I’ve had that lens for over 30 years and it fits right onto my digital SLR. It only works in manual mode, but as I was shooting by holding the shutter release open as long as I felt like, that hardly mattered. I just set the aperture on the aperture ring and got on with it!

Once the fireworks were over, Stephen said I owed him a burger and that he was cold. His hands were certainly cold. We patronised the burger van, but in the end, he paid! Then we walked home, and got wet. Somehow, between the fireworks display and finishing our burgers, the stars we could see in the sky had all disappeared, and rain had crept up on us!

At least our pussy-cat boys have been growing up to the sound of external bangs and have learnt to pay them no attention, so we came home to two nice relaxed cats. In fact, Rolo actually spent an extended spell on my lap! That’s usually Monty’s perch!

The City and Waverley

City skyline with Waverley at Tower Pier

On the evening when I took my camera up to town to take a look at Waverley, I took some wider shots which showed The City skyline. It was the first time I have looked at the City skyline in the dark since the Willis Building was finished, and I notice that it has a vertical light going up one side of its tower.

Waverley is tied up at Tower Pier down in the river part of the shot.

City skyline with Waverley at Tower Pier

I zoomed in closer, excluding the Swiss Re “Gherkin” building from my second shot. I liked the composition a bit better.

Waverley at Tower Pier

Then I went in closer again. Plantation Place is at the top of the skyline of this picture.

I think that I did better about four years ago with my Pentax *ist DS than I did with the Pentax K10D and these pictures, but I wouldn’t blame the camera. I’m out of photographic practice; and I was about a half hour too late for the best light.

Maybe I’ll do better next year…

Waverley in the dark

Waverley passes through Tower Bridge

My personal timetable didn’t allow me many opportunities to see Waverley during her Thames season this year. I did snap her on my cameraphone one day, but least said about that is probably best!

I did haul my camera up to town one day and watched her pass through Tower Bridge, but she was really a half an hour behind optimal lighting conditions and this isn’t the best Tower Bridge lift picture I’ve ever taken!

Waverley at Tower Pier

This was probably the best picture I took. I set my tripod up on one of the Tower Bridge piers for this. There’s no point in doing tripod work from the suspension sections or the bascules as they are not steady enough!

Waverley under tow approaching Tower Bridge

This is probably the worst picture that I will admit to taking. Believe me, there are a lot which are considerably worse in my reject pile! I just couldn’t achieve a fast enough shutter speed to freeze Waverley’s motion and now I want a Pentax K-7!!!

I hadn’t stood on Tower Bridge and watched Waverley approach before, so it was an interesting thing to do. She departed from Tower Pier and went up near London Bridge, where her tug swung her around. Then she stayed under tow for her departure.

Busy, busy, busy…

There hasn’t been much time for blogging lately.

My www.wuronga.me.uk webspace got hacked. I’ve taken out the bad stuff and changed my passwords, but I’ve had to submit it to Google for reconsideration as Google has flagged it for malware.

I finally got rid of the priority-2 items on my work queue. I’ve been working on a variety of items with lower priorities, and have cleared up a couple and am well on my way with a third.

Waverley was in London between 7pm and 7:45pm this evening and I hauled my camera and tripod up to town to take pictures. It’s a pity that she wasn’t there a half hour earlier as it was a bit too dark for good pictures. Now I want a Pentax K-7 as I reckon that has a high enough ISO setting that I might have got my pictures this evening!

The Beckenham Concert Band are doing a memorial concert for Ken Messenger on Saturday. It’s in the Hayes Free Church on Pickhurst Lane and it’s for a good cause: the kidney charity associated with the hospital where Ken received dialysis for the best part of a decade.

I’m supposed to be getting music to practise for a massed bands concert on November 11th up at Central Hall, Westminster. It will be interesting to participate in, and being the daughter of a returned serviceman, taking part will have considerable personal meaning for me.

The kittens continue to grow. They look like proper little cats to me, although Stephen has seen his Mum’s cats today and that cuts ours right back to size for him! Monty is the better jumper. Rolo’s success rate is much lower, and sometimes he sits of the floor and mews pitifully when his brother achieves a more elevated position.

Spotted Dick back on council menu

The council received abusive letters after renaming the pudding

I just saw this on the BBC News Website: Spotted Dick back on council menu

It gave me quite a laugh!

Busy Weekend

Garden of Remembrance, Biggin Hill RAF Chapel

The weekend just gone was London Open House Weekend. I had lots of plans, including some of the places with connections to Napoleon III, who lived in Chislehurst, but in the event, my plans were bigger than my capacity for carrying them out.

On Saturday, we visited the Oakley Hotel for Cats, where Rolo and Monty will be taking a holiday while we are taking a holiday in Wales. We wanted to have a look at where they will be staying. It comes very well recommended and they look after the cats very well there. I think that Rolo and Monty will prefer it when they get back home, though – although one never knows: they might enjoy the chance to socialise with other cats!

Then I delivered Stephen to the Harris HospisCare shop in Biggin Hil and I went to the pet shop in Biggin Hill for some dry kitten food. I stopped off in the library as well and selected some library books. I still haven’t finished reading the Michael Jecks book I bought at Polhill. It’s a hardcover book with a pristine dust jacket and I don’t dare chuck it in my backpack or it won’t stay pristine. So I really need some reading matter for the train.

I then decided to visit the RAF Chapel of Remembrance. It is a participant in London Open House, but it turns out that you can visit at any time. Anyway, I was going right by, so I turned in and found it to be very interesting. The picture at the beginning of this entry was taken in the Garden of Remembrance, where there is a rose garden planted completely with one variety of yellow roses. There is also a huge wisteria there. I will have to make a return visit in the spring, when that will be absolutely gorgeous.

Altar and honour rolls, Biggin Hill RAF Chapel of Remembrance

Having strolled around the garden, I went inside, where the caretaker had no objection to me setting up my tripod, although he did tell me to take care of the floor. I ensured that the soft feet on my tripod legs were screwed down! There was lots of interest in the chapel and I will make a return visit at some time – possibly when the wisteria is out in the Garden of Remembrance – as I didn’t photography nearly everything of interest.

As you might expect, the predominant colour scheme was red, white, and Airforce blue. There was also a lot of Spitfire and Hurricane symbolry to be seen. The caretaker told me that the large candles on the altar were a gift from Australia. There is also a memorial to American airmen who volunteered to fight in the RAF before America entered WWII.

The stained glass in the main chapel is themed, with windows of matching colours on opposite sides of the chapel. I only photographed one of these windows, but may return to photograph some more.

There is an area to the rear of the chapel where a display was set out, where I found out that several Biggin Hill streets are named after women who were decorated during WWII. I also found out that the Spitfire and Hurricane replicas which guard the chapel are 20 years old and showing their age and an appeal has been launched to replace them. There is some stained glass in the rear area which I would like to go back and photograph: in one window, women radio operators are depicted, while in the opposite window, parachute packers are shown.

I spent so long in the RAF Chapel of Remembrance that I didn’t have time to go back to Chislehurst before Stephen was ready for collection from the Harris HospisCare shop, so I returned to the High Street and went into Waitrose to pick up some shopping and Stephen met me in the car park. We went home and spent a quiet evening with Rolo and Monty.

The Sunday agenda involved a car boot sale in a field on the outskirts of Biggin Hill. We were rather late arriving and ended up splitting up and doing the boot sale separately. I came home with 6 paperbacks (I’ve got plenty of train reading now!) for £2, some plastic cooking utensils (Stephen wanted to know why I bought them and I said it was because I could never find a clean utensil when I wanted one so we obviously needed some more ) and a small one-cup black cat teapot which can join Jessie’s teapot collection. My carrier bag also had a few things that Stephen found. Stephen seems to find larger items at car boot sales than I do. He lugged a couple of briefcase-sized items back to the car!

The car in question was the VW Golf, as Stephen was having some 4-wheeled driving practice. We need to start making sure he goes out in it as near to daily as possible. He should be ready for “finishing” by a driving school soon – provided that he takes his theory and hazard perception tests. I would have thought that as he already holds a motorcycle licence that those could have been dispensed with, but apparently not.

We returned from the boot sale via a garden centre where we stocked up on yet more dry kitten food. On arrival home, we flopped on the sofa. Stephen ended up with Monty and I ended up with Rolo. Eventually I left the sofa and cooked two of the three beef escalopes that I bought in Waitrose on Saturday. Stephen had microwaved vegetables with his, but I had a salad with mine, and the salad took longer to prepare than I had anticipated and the steaks therefore ended up a bit more well done than I’d intended. There’s a third steak left which Stephen can eat. I have a load of smoked fish to keep me fed for several days. I succumbed while I was in Waitrose, and it’s making a tasty kedgeree-type meal for me.

Rolo has learned how to do a tiny but definitely audible and very pitiful little mew. He was using it on Stephen when he was shut in the back bedroom where there are far too many things for little paws to get into for Rolo and Monty to be granted access. I think it may sometimes mean “I’m hungry” but I’m not altogether sure. Sometimes it might just be a call for attention. He does have other calls. He’s been using a vocalised purr-type chirp almost since we’ve had him. Monty can do it too, but Monty is usually silent until he is angry about something.

And on that note, I’d better say a final goodnight to our two little hooligans and take myself up the stairs to bed, where I should have been at least an hour ago!

Old but good: Slow train travel

I’ve been looking back through the contents of my Writings Page and found this:

21st November, 1998

Heard over the PA system of a decelerating train:

“This train will now be fast to London Bridge.”

A trip to Hair Plann

Fresh from the hairdresser, August 2009

I have just been to my local hairdresser, where my hair was cut by a nice Russian stylist. She took the time to look at my hair and discuss styles with me before she set to work, and I have ended up with a layered bob rather than the crop that I was originally leaning towards.

So long as it fulfils the requirements of giving my hair enough body; not blowing into my eyes when I’m outdoors doing photography; or into my mouth while I’m outdoors playing on bandstands I don’t really mind exactly how short it is, and this undoubtedly suits me better than going super-short.

I’ve also been told to come back in about 3 weeks for a free fringe trim, as she wants to change the shape of my fringe, but it wasn’t long enough to do today. She’s told me not to go trimming my fringe for myself, but to go back and let her do it! Phrases like “promise you won’t put scissors near your fringe” were uttered, so I think she definitely means it.