Fiona's Quiet Life

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/copyrightreform/

Which: We call on the Gov­ern­ment to aban­don plans, announced on 29
 Octo­ber 2009, to allow free and unhindered repro­duc­tion of pho­to­graphs
 without pay­ment or credit on non-commercial websites.

This is com­pletely at odds with the Government’s stance on file
 shar­ing of other forms of intel­lec­tual prop­erty (films and music) and
 raises the pro­spect of crip­pling thou­sands of small busi­nesses while
 pro­tect­ing large cor­por­ate interests.

The pro­posal uses phrases like “It must be seen to bene­fit all
 parties, not some at the expense of oth­ers” and yet the Government’s
 pro­posal does exactly that. It takes the work of pho­to­graph­ers who
 have inves­ted time and money in cre­at­ing work, and gives it to people
 who have no rela­tion­ship with that work, for free. Pho­to­graphic
 busi­nesses are already under severe strain and the pro­lif­er­a­tion of
digital cam­eras gives the impres­sion that cre­at­ing pro­fes­sional
 qual­ity imagery is easy. This will fur­ther devalue the work of
 pro­fes­sional pho­to­graph­ers and des­troy the pho­to­graphic industry.

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don’t travel unless you have to they said…well i had to and was up for an adven­ture. Nic­ola was due to go to Lon­don and to Birm­ing­ham so i went for my monthly trip to Chip­pen­ham, but i went pre­pared, tak­ing a duvet plus pil­low a flask full of boil­ing water and some sachets of tea and hot chocol­ate. and lots of ham and tomato rolls, a torch a book an ipod in fact everything but the kit­chen sink. kept the fuel tank topped up and sal­lied forth, it is the first time i have driven down the length of Bri­tain and it being all snow covered it was very dif­fer­ent and almost unre­cog­nis­able, as it happened the new snow didn’t start till i was within a few miles of her house.

next morn­ing was another mat­ter, snow every­where, and trains to Lon­don either off or very delayed, so Nic­ola didn’t go to Lon­don after all.and the school was closed so we all trudged off to the shops in search of treats.
she went off by train to Birm­ing­ham next morn­ing at 6 a.m. ish.
next day school was on so i was pel­ted with snow balls all the way there and back…little darlings. then we did some dood­ling with Lego because i couldn’t find the on switch on their new television.….….….….no it wasn’t only on the remote.
why are boys given to sud­den run­ning, they ran­domly zoom off at the speed of light.

hav­ing sur­vived them i drove up to Edin­burgh where Sheena and i hav­ing had one of her superb lunches met up with lots of other people at the Hilton hotel, atten­ded a lec­ture by three astro­nomers and then boarded a plane.
it was the best fun i have had in the dark for many a long year.

we flew north to lat­it­ude 63.5 then the pilot hav­ing received per­mis­sion, put all the cabin and nav­ig­a­tion lights off, we taped up any screens on our cam­eras and switched off the flashes,then tak­ing turns at the win­dow we gazed at the North­ern lights and the won­der­ful stars, the astro­nomers were as enthu­si­astic as sports com­ment­at­ors at a great race.….…here comes Orion on the right hand side …etc i have never seen any­thing so beau­ti­ful as that sky.…and we got food too before the light s were put off .

www.astrospace.co.uk/NLights.html

http://www.omega-holidays.reader.travel/ReaderNew/booking1.php?eid=71&Agent=ADW1

as it is in a 737 there are three seats in the row so you have to clam­ber over each other and take turns at the win­dow, for­tu­nately the other lady in our row was a decent per­son and we all had a good look…and giggle as we kept tread­ing on bits of each other.

after a nice day in Edin­burgh the next day i thought i would go and visit my old­est friend,” she is very poorly ” said the head of the care home“you might not want to see her like this”.….….…i am so glad i went in and told her all about the stars because she died that night.…perhaps i made heaven sound too good.

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we mem­bers of the queens park cam­era club decided that another wander would be good so we all donned our thermals, boots and gloves and 18 or so of us gathered in Pol­lok park this morning.…it was only –6 so seemed nice and warm com­pared to the nights, any­way the park rangers offered to feed the high­land cattle so that some of us could take close ups of the steam­ing beasts, i had plenty of pho­tos of them already so went with the oth­ers to the river.

The well named White cart River frozen over

we wandered about for an hour or so then feel­ing a bit tired some of us adjourned to Pol­lok house for cof­fee and scones.…soon to be joined by the rest of us.

then him upstairs and Katie and i went off to Glas­gow green , which should be called Glas­gow white  this month, and took lots of pho­tos of the frozen foun­tain.and then on to the Clyde at the BBC build­ing. and took many more pho­tos of the frozen river, it is tidal so the ice had been broken and re-frozen many times giv­ing it an inter­est­ing mosaic effect.

we are start­ing to the great project.….….…55 years ago a book of pho­to­graphs of Glas­gow was pub­lished, we are rep­lic­at­ing it with pho­tos taken from the same places this year illus­trat­ing the changes in 55 + 55.

So him upstairs said he had seen a bed at a good reduced price in a well known store could we pop in and see if he still liked it he would buy it. in we went, he still liked it, i liked it, we find a lady to sell it to us,

it is not the bed that is reduced said she, just the mat­tress, i read the notice and it seemed to me that it meant the bed but she was adam­ant ‚OK i don’t want it at the full price says he, ah says she let me check.….….…..an offer just star­ted this morn­ing , 30% off the bed.….….…..but that is £349 says him upstairs, yes says she. but that is what i thought it was going to cost in the first place says he, yes says she.

so he bought it…along with a lot of flirt­ing between him and her and con­ver­sa­tions about dogs. it is now mid­night and only –6 so i won­der if it is going to snow.

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i am sure i had some­thing to say but i can’t for the life of me remem­ber what it was.

all quiet on my street

the shower is frozen des­pite my leav­ing the heat­ing on all night, my friend Sue has sug­ges­ted i leave the attic hatch open tonight, i think per­haps that is a good idea.

the birds are eat­ing all the old apples i had saved from the tree, i am put­ting them out a few at a time,
yes­ter­day i thought i might never get my new boots off, now i know why people live in pairs.
temp­ted to see if i can walk on the Clyde but don’t want to put my car at risk on the slidey roads.….actually i am too lazy to go out.

went to bring in some logs from the wood pile yes­ter­day but they were all frozen together, didn’t think of that com­plic­a­tion, for­tu­nately there is also a big bas­ket of them in the garage.

i am so glad i got that gar­age built, to go into the car and not have to dig it out of the ice and snow is wonderful.

i have dis­covered what people do in the long winter hol­i­days, they buy books on amazon, i have sold more in the past week than i had done all year.….…..much curs­ing and plod­ding round to the post box.….….…it is still a very slow way of clear­ing out my old books though. i do take lots to char­ity shops but they are sat­ur­ated with books, and i did leave a trail of them all over south America.

there is going to be a bonspiel on the lake of Men­teith, the first for 30 years.….…..so this is global warming.

lunch time.

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walk­ing on water

Jonathan the very aut­istic one ate all the food or if not all of it he had either a bite out of everything or gouged bits out with his grubby fin­gers, and actu­ally choked on some potato so i threw it all away and hid fresh food in the boot of the car, in the gar­age, for­tu­nately the gar­age was as cold as the fridge as the tem­per­at­ure had been below zero for days. He is a delight­ful boy …well man he is 20.….but just has no idea about food and would eat all day and night if he could,keeping him slim and healthy is a major problem.

i am await­ing new winter boots and also had an emer­gency boot buy­ing dash on 30^th.
Abi­gail had vis­ited an ancient aunt and came back say­ing that she looked frail, i ever alert for a buy­ing oppor­tun­ity thought ‘aha the ground is frozen and my daft fash­ion boots are no use at all’ so we went on line Abby and me and ordered a pair of Cater­pil­lar boots, nice and warm with good thick treads on them. the roads and foot paths and my drive way have very thick ice on them.
but she died the next morn­ing and the funeral was arranged for new years eve, so not wish­ing to be jump­ing about the cemetery try­ing to keep toes cosy i dashed out and bought another pair, hav­ing ordered black ones i thought i should buy a dif­fer­ent col­our so i got brown ones, prompt­ing Ian and i to burst into song.….…it was Stanly Hol­lo­way i thing who sang about an uncle who shamed the fam­ily by wear­ing bran boots to a funeral.

i knew i needed warm boots because i had been walk­ing on water.….…frozen water.

it is amaz­ing how ducks man­age to gen­er­ate enough heat to keep a circle of melted water, the bit i was stand­ing on was 5 cm thick.

so that is how Abi­gail and i spent a large part of new years eve at a funeral.
it was in the same place as basil is bur­ied , i had been going to visit at Christ­mas but with the thick snow and the cemetery being up a hill i had put it off till the weather was bet­ter, i had been sav­ing up stoned from all the places i have vis­ited, but for got to take them with me, but even bet­ter that them Abby and i put snow­balls on his grave­stone , we know he would laugh at that.…if they have gone i will be sure he threw them at someone.

saw the new year in with cous­ins , the fiance of one was a rather dishy young policeman…i didn’t dare drink any­thing as he knew i was driv­ing home ).….…wouldn’t have any­way what with the ice and freez­ing fog

caught in act of eat­ing chocol­ate on new years eve

that photo is sup­posed to be what i look like .…funny i feel much younger and more elegant.

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