Monthly Archives: May 2007

This is England

Posted on by
Reply
16°C, heavy rain, no cycling

Cinema: This is England– set in a typical working class English town in 1983. A story of unrelenting grimness, broken characters falling into destructive lifestyles set against a background of changing Thatcher’s Britain. It could have been made by Mike Leigh, but it wasn’t. It lacked Leigh’s sparkle- humour and irony. The filming, acting and production was flawless, but the story & character development was hopelessly grim.

Cycling is called off today due to heavy rain. That gave me a chance ot paint- but the results are probably not going to look radically different to the last photos shown here.

Linseed: Worked on two paintings this morning. Chages are probably harder to discren from photos but both now have their first linseed layers- so some richness of colour is starting to form.

Here’s a short sequence to show the progress of the horseStalking

My lower back still aches and next Friday we’re going to Cumbria again to take on the mountain again- this time we’re not only going to beat it, but drive to the next one for a part dress-rehearsal.  Two climbs in one day, with a 5 hour drive between ( use that for recovery). This time, we know the route, I have some better gear- in a new rucksac that it partly packed right now.
That’ll be a tiring weekend then.

…there you are- a blog entry that should have been written over several nights.

Monitored

Posted on by
Reply
14°C, showers, some heavy. Strangely, feels warmer

Post: New monitor arrived today, this room is filling with clutter- boxes, mostly computer things and so far- no luck with networking the two machines to copy files over. There seems to be a faulty network card to blame.
 
Tomorrow will be a strange day for some at work- Y11 & 13 go on study leave, some Y11s have lost this right however, then they often go bezerk on this day each year. I’ve had some nice leaving cards from an Art group- thanks Sophie, Gemma & Louise.

Meeting: 3~Peaks.

Posted on by
Reply
14°C, showers.

Debrief meeting: rather a gloomy feedback session; three have pulled out, I got a ticking off (which was expected) and facing up to reality- it was called-for. I continue to stagger with a tight lumber and less than cheerful outlook. Lets make sure that we don’t become the subject of an article like this.

This shot looks like our ascent, I took the route on the right, following zig-zags in the scree. Most of the others went left. Blow is a link to a map of our route- purple was the intended route and red where we went in error in that thick cloud and hail.
Still, many of us want to beat that mountain- so we’re going back soon. In the meantime I have some shopping to do- mainly safety gear and a bigger pack to carry it in.
Let’s see what I can find.

Recovery

Posted on by
Reply
16°C, showery, with sun

Recovery day today: Legs are sore down the front (Quads) and lower back is very stiff indeed. One of the women who gave s a lift to fetch our cars yesterday, said they’s seen a bloke being airlifted off the climb that gave us so much trouble. The newspaper report today reveals that he didn’t survive. There is a short article on the BBC website. 
 
Shopping: ordered a nice big new monitor. It’s a 24" Dell widescreen LCD panel. *clasps hands in vampish glee*

Scafel Pike

Posted on by
Reply
From 14 to -2° & back

3~Peaks: It’s 02.45 am, Rosie & I just got back from Cumbria where we attempted Scafell Pike today. We failed ot conquer the mountain due to a number of reasons: the catalist was the weather, my inadequate clothing and an injury I sustained climbing what ne now know is a dangerous Col on Scafel. That coincided with the weather throwing it’s worst at us just as we made our way up the most difficult part- a narrow, steep ascent up loose gravel/bolders while fending off hailstones and strong winds.

At a the top of the Col (Corrie), we sheltered and waited for the remainder of the party. This is when the shivering began, partly from the cold and the rest from the pain of my back injury sustained as I caught myself from falling on that last tracherous climb. The scene was set for me shivering violently while trying to stretch my lower back and the others trying to warm me up with layers of clothes. At this point they decided to lead me below the clouds to recover some body-heat. The direction was wrong though and we ended up using the next five hours getting back to civilisation. It’s been a very long day. Lengthened by having a sleep in a service station at Sandbach to avoid the rsik of an accident driving after mid-night following our adventure.

Poor Rosie was just as cold as I was, but I was there by choice. She was because I took her when she could have spent the day snoozing in a nice warm house. I felt quite guilty about that, especially since she was so hungry up there.

I have one or two pictures that could be posted, but right now- I daren’t switch on my camera until it’s dry.

Installing Windows

Posted on by
Reply
20°C, cloudy then pure SUN!

Installing: windows on the other machine as I write. So here I am, all geeky, setting up a computer that is also plugged into this monitor. It’s a long, slow process but this time I have net access so any questions that comer up- get answered after "Googling". Usually, installing windows winds me up- but not today. It promises to be a super-fast machine but needs a little more work before it takes over.
It says on one website consulted that you can partition a Hard drive using windows 2000? Surely not!
 
Tomorrow: Climb Scafell Pike.  That means an early rise- 05.00 hours then drive to Cumbria. It looks like a complex route from the map. Obviously I will report here after the trip.