A bit of a noir moment by the mill race at St Fagans.
In other news, I’m coming to the end of my maternity leave, so all my free time has been spent learning about technological things like GPIO pins and GitHub and reminding myself just what you do with a command line. Normal blogging service should resume shortly, though.
I took this a couple of weeks ago, on a day when the spectacular sunrise coincided with me being out early to take Ronan to his childminder’s house. I’m using it as a bit of a test post: WordPress seems to be doing some funny things in terms of sharing posts on social media, and I wanted to try to find out what is happening. Although I’ve shared this around the place before, I thought that it was at least prettier to look at than a page full of Lorem Ipsum text.
Normal service will resume shortly!
The best shopfront in Penarth, hands down. I particularly love the way the terrier and budgie on the adverts have been made out of the word “Spratt”. I’m so glad that buildings like this have survived for so long.
For Eoin, hunting for beach glass is a serious business: a young man cannot consider himself properly equipped without his magnifying glass. Fortunately, the tired beachcomber can always enjoy a hot chocolate on the pier after long, windy walk. Cheers!
The Esplanade is looking particularly shipshape at the moment, with this rather impressive flag display:
I wonder if they’re trying to spell out a message to passing ships? I imagine that, if they are, it’s something along the lines of “It’s fierce hot out! Please send ice-cream immediately.”
Not to be outdone, the Cardiff Arcades are sporting a fine line in stripy bunting:
I’m having a strong desire to get out my pinking shears and start stringing little flags all over the house: it seems that the combination of hot sun, general summer festiveness and an overabundance of fabric may have gone to my head…
It’s really rather nice to have your Sunday roast prepared by these two talented gentlemen. The question is, which one of them is the chef and which is the sous?
I’ve already tweeted a version of this picture, but I decided to post it here too, as I’m really rather pleased with it. It’s only an iPhone image, but the setting is so splendidly spooky that I think it’s worth a post.
This morning, we woke up to quite spectacular mist and fog. We live on the coast, so this isn’t unusual, but it is unusual for me to be scarcely able to see a few metres down the road when I come out of the house. On my way back from dropping Eoin at his childminder, I stopped on the Esplanade to see how the Pier was looking under the unusual weather conditions. Well-nigh invisible, it turns out, at least until you were right on top of it. I only had my phone with me, but I took some pictures while clambering precariously on top of one of the seafront benches in search of some much-needed extra height.
I enthusiastically shared my misty photographs online, but I felt that I could improve on them with a little bit of digital tweaking. A couple of filters later, and I feel I have an image which is closer to the eerie scene by the Pier.
Hermitage Museum windows, from back in the days when I used to go to places that weren’t soft play centres…
Sorry: I know this isn’t a proper post as such. I’m really tired, and trying to work short rows out is making my head hurt. The photo itself is a bit better if you click to embiggen.
Mind you, it was a lovely day, and the church is a gorgeous one. John Betjeman gave it top marks out the churches in the local area, don’tcha know? The interior is beautiful: you can see more here.
With that, I’m heading off to bed, clutching a copy of Little Red in the City. I’m going to work this bust shaping out if it’s the last thing I do.
I dropped Eoin off at the childminder’s house this morning, and, before I went home and started work, I went for a walk. It was a beautiful morning, I had got my good camera back over the weekend… Surely there would be a few good opportunities for photographs?
I wasn’t wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present: Penarth Dalek!
He (I’m making the massive assumption here that Daleks are male, largely based on the voice) is in somebody’s front garden up near Belle Vue Park, and he’s pretty spectacular. I’m not sure if he’s left over from Halloween, or if he’s some sort of scarecrow, designed to deter the real thing. Either way: he’s a Dalek in the front garden of a regular terraced house, and that’s something to celebrate.
I think he’s mostly made out of a compost bin, with quite a lot of plastic cups for his various nodules and lights. The only small design flaw is that his plunger attachment appears, inexplicably, to have been replaced with a small mop, but I suppose we can allow this to slide. After all, you can see that his egg-whisk-style laser is made from an actual egg whisk. Happy day!
Well done, Dalek builder: I am sure you have made a lot of people very happy.
PS: I’ve just realised this is my 200th post: hurrah! I didn’t think I’d get this far. Clearly, I owe it all to Daleks,
Biographia Domestica 