atypicalpen

robin redbreast for Christmas

2007-12-27T13:56:00.000Z

doves

2007-12-21T20:17:00.001Z

Collared doves

I know they're not as glamorous as collared doves but these wood pigeons are still rather beautiful in their own way.

more Starlings...

2007-12-18T15:19:00.001Z

Tone took this excellent photo.

Starlings - daily visitors

2007-12-18T15:15:00.000Z

brilliant ideas!

2007-12-17T19:07:00.000Z

save paper, save the planet...

from WWF - worth taking a look at their tips for a greener Christmas...

Thrush

2007-12-17T16:34:00.000Z

I was really pleased to get these shots - the new lens we have - a VR 70-300mm is fab and allowed me to get a steady image of the thrush on the roof opposite. He looks really proud.

Goldfinch

2007-12-17T16:25:00.000Z

blackbird

2007-12-10T14:19:00.000Z

fieldfare

2007-12-02T20:50:00.001Z

This was really exciting - we've never seen a Field Fare before and it came really close to the house - ideal to capture a quick pic!

blue tit

2007-12-02T20:45:00.000Z

magpie

2007-11-20T22:29:00.001Z

dunnock

2007-11-20T22:26:00.000Z

birds in our garden

2007-11-03T17:45:00.000Z

We have recently found that the number of different species of birds visiting our garden has gone up a lot. I am so excited by this that I have decided to share some photos of them with you. It's good to have a great new lens that helps to get better pics - it's got VR and that stops the camera shake which helps to take pictures at full zoom in dingy autumn afternoon light!

So here's the chaffinch - the first in a series of not-so great pictures......!

Free Burma

2007-10-04T17:04:00.000Z

a cause for celebration...

2007-03-09T22:00:00.000Z

I am bloody chuffed to read today that Gormley's "Another Place" is to remain on the beach at Crosby forever. Just needed to say how great it is - go there!

PS - this is a link, thanks to the Valley of Lost Things, to other weird works of art - air powered robotic sculptures.

our allotment.....

2007-03-05T18:18:00.000Z

is not actually ours, it's Patsy and Mark's.
But they have generously given us a share - which will help them out of course.

Even better than that, it's near Jude and Al who have two plots, one of which is a share of Will's.

And the icing on the cake is that Scott and Cath have a share of someone's, just across the way, by the gate.

It's fantastic! Fresh air, exercise, the promise of fresh organic veg and with some brilliant people including our best friends. What more could we ask?

We first worked on it 3 weeks ago, we cleared some couch grass and picked off litter.

Last week I went with my Dad to pick up a load of horse manure from the people who keep horses opposite his field. We bagged up 8 sacks of it, and loaded up the campervan. It was in there from Friday to Sunday when we unloaded it..... only to find that the paper sacks did not have sealed bottoms, only stitching and so the liquid that had settled to the bottom of each sack had leaked out onto the plastic bags that I had stood the sacks on, and beyond. There was a stream of brown liquid horse poo running down the edge of the carpet and cupboards of the van! Oops! (It did not smell at all, thank goodness).

On Saturday, in beautiful weather, we spent 2 hours up there, spreading out the manure, and the compost that we had liberated from one of our 2 garden compost bins. We also took that empty compost bin up to the plot. We planted 6 fruit bushes and marked out 6 small planting areas according to our initial planting plan. I have consulted Bob Flowerdew, Alan Titchmarsh and Geoff Hamilton as well as Gardening Which and Jekka McVicker. Everyone says something slightly different and contradictory, but we have settled on a basic rotation plan with companion planting.

Tone has started some crops off as seeds in a propagator. We should be getting my Dad's old home-made cold frame. And thanks to freecycle we have an offer of a free water butt which I plan to collect tomorrow, that will collect water from a drainpipe off a shed. All we need now is the shed!

(photo by Tone)

lists....

2007-03-05T18:00:00.000Z

I love 'em.
You'd think, therefore that I would have followed in Tone's footsteps and done a list of the month on this blog.
But I haven't.
Yet.
So I'm going to give it a go......

This is a list of my most memorable performances (the ones I can remember right this moment).

Singing with the Moorlands Music Youth Choir at the Albert Hall when I was about 13.
Being in "the Hired Man" with Stoke Amateur Operatic Society Youth Section when I was 19.
Playing drums at a gig for the first time ever with Tone, Scott and Cath in a pub in Clayton a few years ago - I'd been playing drums for exactly 12 months at the time and we played "Moondance".
Singing "Ozymandias" in the same youth choir at the Victoria Hall in Hanley.
Being Pitti Sing in "the Mikado" at school.
Singing "Here There and Everywhere" for my Mum's 60th Birthday accompanied beautifully by Tone on guitar.
Singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables" at a concert when I was studying music at Stoke Sixth Form College.
Performing a monologue of the first part of "the Color Purple" for my first year of drama at University.
Being Florence Nightingale in the local NHS show to celebrate 50 years of the NHS.

freecycle

2007-02-03T23:48:00.000Z

I offered the wood on freecycle yesterday. Within half an hour of posting the offer on the site - I had two replies and within 3 hours had a total of 7 replies. It has been taken today by the first person to respond, who had it for their father's coal fire. Brilliant that is!

Freecycle is an international network of local groups. People can offer, or request items - for no charge, on the group's website. It's based on the principle that one person's waste is another person's need. We have had a futon mattress from the local group. People have had 3 bikes and firewood and we have offered and are waiting for collection of a film camera and some very small-capacity compact flash and SD cards.

A couple of people have asked for help with jobs like bricklaying. I have suggested to them that they contact the Potteries LETS group, but I don't think it's still running. One freecycle member has said she is interested in helping set up and LETS group again. Tone and I are considering joining her to do so. LETS is a local exchange trading system based on a non-monetary currency. You offer your skills and people pay you in LETS currency. You then pay other people to do things that you need with your LETS currency. Skills offered include babysitting, bricklaying, baking, music-teaching....... Good eh?!

Climate Change......

2007-02-02T18:01:00.000Z

is a fact, a human-made fact and a scary one.

The IPCC report was announced today. It's a vast report on the science of global warming written by the experts of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The science report is the first of three major IPCC reports this year; similarly weighty analysis of the impact and possible solutions will follow in April and May respectively. The full triumvirate will then be given a final once-over in November, in time for key UN climate talks in Indonesia in December.

The report states that the weather is likely to warm by between 1.8 and 4 degrees c in the next 90 years and it could be as much as 10 degrees. It forecasts a rise of between 18cm and 58cm (half a metre!) in sea levels by the end of this century, a figure that could increase by as much as 20cm if the recent melting of polar ice sheets continues.

"This is just not something you can stop. We're just going to have to live with it," co-author Kevin Trenberth, the director of climate analysis for the US-based National Centre for Atmospheric Research, said in the Guardian today.

Another article in the Guardian last week which pre-empted the report said "Crucially, the report points out that a lag in the global climate system means that average temperatures would continue to rise by 0.1C a decade even if all sources of emissions were frozen today. And it says various positive feedback effects - such as forests, oceans and soil becoming less able to absorb carbon dioxide - could contribute another 1.2C of warming by the end of the century."

So no matter how much recycling and energy saving we do, the change is unstoppable - all we can do it to limit the scale of the change. The scale is very important. A 1 degree increase is frightening. a 3 degree increase means "In southern Europe, serious droughts occur once a decade. Between 1 billion and 4 billion people will suffer water shortages. Agricultural yields will be higher in mid-latitude countries such as Britain and the US, but there will be sharp drops in the tropics, putting 150-550 million people at risk of hunger. Between 1 million and 170 million more people will be affected by coastal flooding. One study suggests that between 20% and 50% of species will face extinction. On current trends, temperatures are predicted to rise 2C-3C by mid-century, which would result in 150-200 million climate refugees."

A 5C rise or above is called "Catastrophic impact - This is equivalent to the temperature rise since the last ice age. Most Himalayan glaciers will disappear, depriving 25% of China's population and hundreds of millions of Indians of water - melt water provides 70% of the water in the Ganges, for example. Sea level rise threatens cities such as London, New York and Tokyo. Rising ocean acidity will disrupt ecosystems and fish stocks. Feedback effects such as carbon dioxide release from soils and methane from permafrost kick in."

"This day marks the removal from the debate over whether human action has anything to do with climate change," Achim Steiner, the head of the UN environment programme, said - according to today's Guardian article.

This needs massive political commitment - it's useful to all do our bit, but we need to put our time and energy into calling for systematic change. December 2007 sees the UN climate talks in Indonesia. This will be the big chance for world governments to show that they understand the urgency of the problem.

our garden (2)....

2007-02-02T17:40:00.000Z

is looking great this afternoon.

We could not resist the blue sky and warm air, so we got out there and did lots of sorting.
Over the last week Tone has been going out there and doing a little bit at a time - trimming back the damaged trunks of pittosporum. Today he got his circular saw out for the first time in years and cut it all up. This is what's left of the tree and the space where it snapped off.

I loaded it all into the back of the car, except the thick trunks - which we realised would be good firewood for someone. I put the back seats of the car down - it's a hatch-back, and it was full to bursting. Then I popped down to the tip/ recycling centre and chucked it in the garden waste skip. It felt really good!

Whilst we were out there I saw 2 ladybirds and we heard a wood pigeon cooing. There are irises flowering. It is very strange. Is this Global warming?

Update - Tone has posted about this today - Sat 3/2/07 - even more strange and beautiful spring-like phenomenon.....

our garden....

2007-01-21T14:12:00.000Z

is in a bit of a state at the moment.

We have not done any real gardening for months - most of 2006 it was largely ignored, or at least I should say I didn't do much apart from sit outside on the days it was dry and not too scorching hot. Tone did some weeding and we both mowed the lawn when it got too long.

But it has now got to the point where it is in minor chaos. The pittosporum which is about 35 feet tall (it's only supposed to get to 20 feet max) has split in half and one half has collapsed over onto the garden. It seems to be alive - it has not snapped off, nor has it uprooted, it appears to have bent at ground level! It's a real shame. It's one of only 4 trees in our small garden and it's the only evergreen one - which of course is why it suffered in the wind. And the birds love it.

Two of the fence panels on that side of the garden were already knackered - and they our neighbours responsibility, but he disagrees, so they've been down for a few years - since the last very high winds. The one behind the pittosporum has gone now too.

Tone has already planted a few bulbs last week, so today I have finally got round to planting a lot more - rather last minute as the earliest should flower in about 8 weeks time. There are still some left to plant, Tone will do those tomorrow - weather and RA permitting.

Altogether there are around 170 crocus, 20 tulips, 75 narcissi, 75 iris and 10 allium. We also have the large pot on the porch with white tulips from Jude and Hywel's wedding (see pic taken by my Dad), that we added narcissi and crocus to that are shooting away.

Most of them were bought cheap, because it's late for planting them, from either Garners or a stall on Hanley outdoor market - yesterday I got 6 packs of bulbs for a fiver - bargain!

It should be a riot of colour from late Feb to June! - I'll post photos as they progress......

Gill

2007-01-06T20:56:00.000Z

Gill Gill died last week.
Gill was so full of energy - where has that gone now?
She was Director of B Arts from the start in 1985 when they were a co-operative, and what a wonderful organisation they are now. She was a Loud Mouth Woman* and that is how I will remember her - the last time I saw her we were singing the bass line together. Thanks for your voice, your laughter and your energy Gill.

Loud Mouth Women is the singing group that I am a member of.

Happy 2007

2007-01-01T01:27:00.000Z

It's a new year and you deserve to be very happy throughout it and beyond!

Tone and I didn't make it to Zoe and Warren's earlier. Tone hadn't the energy and although the sky was beautifully clear all evening and the moonlight was very bright he couldn't even face getting his telescope out. We went to Scott and Cath's for a couple of hours. It was lovely seeing lots of friends. It was a big effort though so we came home at 11 ish.

Tone got a second wind so I encouraged him to get out his telescope as the sky was still clear. I also had the idea to take a photo of the moon. Tone took some pictures and this is the best result. We saw the moon through the telescope - it was fantastic - all the craters at the edge of the shadow looked very high. We tried to find the three stars of Orion's belt but the scope was not aligned so we couldn't - we plan to take the telescope to Cumbria when we go. If we get a clear night, we should see a lot as there will be a lot less light pollution.

the sound of the lake district

2006-12-31T19:08:00.000Z

We're off to the Lakes for a couple of days soon. I've just been trawling the net for ideas for things to do in the rain - there is plenty of it forecast!

I found this sound clip of a peaceful lakeland valley - albeit in summer, which is very calming. It's on this this page. You can listen to other wonderful sound clips. I hope you enjoy it...

The site that it's on - golakes is very helpful indeed.

3 days a week....

2006-12-29T19:06:00.001Z

I'm going to be doing a job share at Staffordshire University - it's been agreed! I am still waiting for my written job offer, but the 2nd choice candidate has agreed to take the job share..... I should be able to start in February. I intend to make the most of it. Amongst my plans for what to do with my other 2 days a week are:

get away a lot in the campervan that we have recently acquired...
take a lot of photos - hopefully getting paid for some of it - with Cultural Sisters, Planet Sound and other local community arts organisations
take up drawing again
make lots of music - in particular get good at the piano accordion
sing a lot - with Loud Mouth Women, Kate and Greg of the Boat Band and others, especially with Tone and Cath
walk and swim
support Pan the local group that I am a member of to develop and seek funding
blog....

Think I might struggle to fit it all in but I'll give it a try!

plenty more fish in the sea?

2006-12-28T18:27:00.001Z

I am a new subscriber to 43 things.
I read some comments by people who like me have committed to reducing their environmental footprint. One comment referred me to this excellent article in the Guardian by Lucy Siegle

Both Tone and I have been vegetarians in the past. I don't eat any mammals anymore. I often eat vegetarian meals and try to buy organic food. I find organic food very expensive and hard to come by locally. We have been eating more fish recently - for health reasons as well as for the taste. We have found a fantastic fresh fish stall in Tunstall - the owner buys fish from Liverpool dock every morning that he opens. The provenance of all the fish is known and labelled - e.g. Iceland, Faroes etc. However I'm certain much of it is farmed although I have not asked. He does sell organic salmon. (Having said that the Soil Association have decided to label farmed fish as organic - which makes a mockery of the idea it seems to me. This could mean that the organic salmon sold by the fishman in Tunstall is farmed.)

The article has concentrated my mind on a few things. I am shocked to discover that farmed fish is often fed on wild fish - 3 tons of wild for every one ton of farmed. Farmed fish is ecologically unsound. I am concerned about over-fishing. I find it hard to conclude anything other than only buying organic wild fish, if any at all.

Lucy Siegle concludes like this -
"Although I now understand how hard it is to turn a profit from ethical fishing, the alternatives are unappealing. There's still no overall strategy to maintain and develop ocean ecosystems. Partial fishing hasn't worked, total allowable catches are set too high, prone to abuse and do not allow species to recover.
I'm not given to breaking into restaurants to rescue crustacea, but I can't get over the thought that ranching a large oceanic predator (which essentially means keeping it in a cage) is wrong. Add on the problems in the supply chain, doubtful provenance and food miles involved in shipping certified fish and I arrive at the conclusion that I no longer want to eat it. I will not, therefore, be following the FSA's guidelines on two portions of fish a week, and I no longer subscribe to the view that there are plenty more fish in the sea. There aren't."

It's Christmas day...

2006-12-25T20:12:00.000Z

and I'm just settling down to check emails and the like. We've had a big dinner, and all the visiting rellies have left. All the dishes are washed/ in the dishwasher. We've just put telly on and got a cuppa.

Just thought I'd point you in the direction of our family newsletter on Tone's blog......we've had a couple sent to us this year as usual and felt compelled to follow suit!

Regarding the job - I have had it confirmed that I will be offered 3 days a week job share.... just waiting for the written offer, having returned the medical form (which asked so much medical history it was hard to believe!).

Planning a relaxed few days now - lots of DVD's to watch - the brilliant "My Name is Earl" from the wonderful Scott and Cath, and from ourselves to ourselves - Coast series 1&2 & Planet Earth - hands up who has not received that for Chrimbo?

Probably get round to posting again soon - in the meantime - enjoy the holidays!

bellowhead on TV.....

2006-12-03T17:15:00.000Z

- they were on Jools Holland on Friday night. They played 2 numbers from their album "Burlesque" - "Rigs of the Time" and "Jordan" - both upbeat (I would have preferred one to be a contrast - a ballad ("Courting Too Slow" -a personal favourite) or a dance number ("Sloe Gin" set).

But it was great to see them on the box, with the likes of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers - whose lead singer Anthony Keadis said he liked them a lot! Well done folks!!

new job

2006-12-03T17:12:00.000Z

having said that RA is dominating our lives at the moment, actually my efforts to gain a new job took over from that for a few days last week - and it was worth it - I got the job I was interviewed for on Tuesday!

I have been offered the job of senior lecturer in community engagement and regeneration at Staffordshire University!!!

I am waiting for the written offer because I am still negotiating working hours - I don't want to work full time - partly because of being around for Tone, partly so that I can do other things - such as photography and music.

They have said that I can do some lecturing on the community arts course about photography.....brilliant!

Excited? Very!

RA - from my viewpoint

2006-12-03T16:08:00.000Z

RA - Rheumatoid Arthritis - is somewhat dominating our life at the moment.
Tone has it. It's an auto-immune disease - the immune system attacks your joints (the fluid and membrane) as it thinks they are the enemy. This leads to joint pain, stiffness and swelling. The immune reaction creates flu-like symptoms, which are made worse becuase of the inflammation and the breakdown of proteins that occurs. So basically Tone feels ill most of the time. He is often in pain, always tired and then of course there's the effects of the drugs he's taking.
The main drug - taken to slow down his immune system - is methotrexate - mtx. It causes nausea and diarrohea amongst other things.
To find out more about his experience read his blog here.

I went through a stage of doing lots of things for him including some essential things like helping him out of the bath when he was very poorly. Now he seems a little better - certainly he is more mobile - that's less the issue. More significant now is feeling like there's not a lot I can do - sometimes giving practical help is better! I feel frustrated sometimes - mostly about the lack of physical activity - although today - astoundingly - we have cleaned the windows, sorted the bookshelves! That's a very good day!!

Ho - hum - we just have our fingers crossed that the unwanted effects get less.....and soon!

Shrewsbury Folk Festival

2006-12-03T15:28:00.001Z

The line-up has been announced and tickets are now on sale for the Shrewsbury Folk Fest 07.
If the line-up is anything to go by, it promises to be an even better festival than this year's inaugural spectacular.

We took some good photos this year - despite Tone being very poorly at the time. Hopefully Tone will be fully fit by next August and we'll have a photo-fest!!! Take a look at this year's photos here. There are 3 galleries.

E Chambre Hardman's house....

2006-10-29T16:46:00.000Z

is open to the public again in March 2006. It's a National Trust property - Hardman was a photographer who left his house to them with all it's contents before he died. The house is in Liverpool right opposite the imposing Anglican cathedral.

It's a fascinating place - particularly for photographers - although we were told that not many visitors are photographers - odd that. It is the only known British photographic studio of the mid-20th century where the photographer’s entire output has been preserved intact.

It's full of cameras and has the old studio still set up on the first floor, as it was in the 40's. His personal images are reasonably good - mainly landscapes and streetscapes. There was an exhibition of portraits of performers at the Playhouse. Some were taken by his wife Margaret who was equally skillful. They worked together on the business - portraits in the studio and weddings and the contract with the local theatre.

There is an archive of photographs and some more information about E Chambre and Margaret here on the Mersey museum gateway.

We visited on Friday and it closed today for the Winter. Well worth a visit.....

ch..ch..changes

2006-08-11T17:18:00.000Z

Tone and I are experimenting with a new blog on Shutterchance. It's a new project, that is still developing and have some bugs, but has lots of potential.

Tone is also trying a new programme from Adobe called Lightroom. I've not tried it yet - I need to put aside some time to have a good look.

We are still blogging on atypical. We create this blog ourselves using frontpage and have a webhost. We publish to an old domain that we Tone used to publish a website for a friend's band called Texas Flood on. We pay for the atypical.me.uk domain, but haven't got enough space there to migrate the whole of our photoblog over to. But we have now run out of server space anyway.

This has led to me spending quite a few hours transferring some of our galleries of photos over to flickr. We have atypicaltravel which is photos of our travels in the UK, travelatypical which is our overseas travel photography and atypicalblog which is general stuff, in particular performance, plants and portraits. They are all free accounts and so there is a low monthly upload limit and we can only have 3 sets in each account. We are thinking of upgrading to a pay account but as flickr is such a huge company with so many accounts, we are don't get much benefit from being part of the flickr community compared to say Shutterchance. It is easy on Shutterchance to get good feedback from other bloggers - that is the aim of the project.

So - your views would be welcome.

High School fun day...or was it....?

2006-06-30T15:05:00.000Z

Tone was paid to photograph Planet Sound last week at a local City High School in Stoke-on-Trent. It was badged as a fun-day. The place itself was so depressing - a tall grey building dominated the site and the fence all around made it feel like a prison.

The fun-day was far from fun as far as I was concerned... I blog about it here at Yclepta.

Anyway - I was pleased with some of the photos I took at the event - including this one of two of the dancers in Planet Sound sitting waiting to perform in the brilliant costumes made for them by the fantastic Ruby Sufi from Cultural Sisters.

busy growing...

2006-06-30T15:01:00.000Z

Tone and I went to visit his Mum in Suffolk a few weeks ago. She has a large garden and grows quite a lot of veg. We came home with a couple of bags full of beautiful small fresh broad beans. It really inspired us to plant our own stuff in pots on the patio again so this year we have got more than ever - raspberry canes, carrots, salad onions, cut-and-come-again salad leaves and tomatoes - all in containers. Yum!

my debut!

2006-05-31T19:28:00.000Z

As part of Burslem Festival on bank holiday monday this week, Tone, our friend Cath and I played a short set at a strange little event at Ceramica as a fundraiser. It was my debut on the piano accordion in public proper (the most I had done until then was joining in a couple of sessions at the Greyhound in Penkhull with The Boat Band).

It was really lovely - and I felt really good about how well I played, especially considering that we had one 40 minute practice in total immediately before the gig! We played country blues/ jazz type stuff - Moondance, People Get Ready, Dear Mary, Dimming of the Day, and a Norah Jones number I can't think of the name of. We really enjoyed it. Unfortunately we are all so busy that we rarely get to play together, we do play very well. Thanks Tone and Cath for encouraging me.....

wedding

2006-05-31T19:15:00.000Z

My step-sister got married last weekend. Tone was the official unofficial photographer. My Dad also acted semi-official and I took a few. Between us we got over 1000 shots!
Tone spent 5 hours yesterday editing about 100 to print as "proofs". What a marathon!

I took one of these pictures at Jude's hen walk at Ramshaw Rocks near Leek, Staffs.
The other one was taken by Tone - it's me in my bridesmaid frock dancing with Black Dog Molly who we got to dance at the wedding - it was fantastic.......

in action....

2006-05-07T22:18:00.000Z

at Shugborough at Hallowe'en dance out in 2005. I have decided to use this photo for my blogger profile - Tone took it and I love it.

IRIS

2006-05-06T17:18:00.000Z

Iris is the Research centre within the Faculty of Arts, Media and Design at Staffordshire University with a focus on:

the initiation of conferencing, publishing, exhibiting and educational projects within the field of contemporary women’s’ photographic practice, and
broadening access to the medium through books, exhibitions and educational activities.

Today was the launch of an exhibition curated by IRIS called Masquerade, at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Masquerade brings together the work of 7 women photographers from Britain and the USA, and features all kinds of contemporary portraits. The show also compares photographs in Masquerade with paintings from the Museum's collections.

The show has already been in London and Birmingham. It is heartening to see an exhibition of national significance led by Staffordshire/ Stoke-on-Trent women and organisations.

There are some challenging pieces - one artist photographed her mother in her last months with Alzheimer's. The 6 portraits of women with moustaches are truly beautiful. Apparently when the exhibition was in the MAC in Brimingham there were complaints about these portraits including "disgusting". Why do openly hairy women offend people so much?

Masquerade is on until the 9th July. Get there if you can.

new camera

2006-04-28T20:47:00.000Z

The Coolpix 4500 that we had repaired doesn't work properly - the autofocus doesn't work at full wide angle.....and the repairers have moved to another town. We will try to track them down and take it in, but I got so frustrated I got a new compact camera. It's the Nikon Coolpix P2. It has a relatively large screen and has quite good macro capability. It's pretty small and much easier to carry around with me than the old Coolpix.

I took this photo at work, at a meeting in the city hall that I organised - which as you can see was very well attended - I was the only one there!

sunshine

2006-03-10T21:27:00.000Z

It has been quite wet the last few days after the snow last week. I went out and took some photos in the garden for the first time this year earlier.

The frogs have been busy for the last 3 days and there is now a small amount of frogspawn in our small pond.

I am registered with the Phenology network and the Woodland Trust and as part of Springwatch they ask you to log when you notice changes and events for the first time in your area. There is a live map showing event across the country. Ours seem to be late this year.

Spiers and Boden....

2006-03-10T20:02:00.000Z

are on at Whitchurch folk club in Shropshire tomorrow night and we are off to see them. We believe there are still tickets if you're quick....

I have just had a look around their website and they now have a blog on Myspace.com It doesn't seem to be working properly and won't let me download music.

Jon Boden also has his own blog on my space and has some tracks to download from his new solo electric album due out in April... I am looking forward to being able to download them! Thanks to Simon from under the green hill for telling me about that one.

But the most exciting thing is that Bellowhead are playing at Poynton Folk Festival and we are dancing/playing there with Black Dog Molly . We are on the same bill as Bellowhead!!!!

We're back

2006-03-10T19:56:00.000Z

and we've got some 700 photos to sort through!
We have posted some here on atypical and will create some galleries.

Here's one of the pics I took that I really like -

We did not see any live music unfortunately, but on a drive out to look for the northern lights on our first evening we were taken past the studio that Sigur Ros record at!! We then went on to see a spectular show of the aurora for over an hour. It was the first time they'd been seen since December 2005. We were very lucky.

I feel so privileged to have been. Iceland is an amazing country and if you can get there, you should go.

Iceland.....

2006-02-25T22:41:00.000Z

soon!
In 2 days!
Excited!!

We are busy packing so this is a short post just to let you know that Tone and I have set up a new blog on Wordpress for the occasion - atypicaltravel.

We will try to blog whilst we are in Iceland and hopefully upload some photos if it's easy to do that.

I don't know if we'll get to see any live music - I hope so. We plan to take a trip north of Reykjavik to try to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), and to sit around in naturally heated pools a lot. Sigur Ros are from Iceland, so at the very least we will listen to them on our MP3 player!

I stumbled across.....

2006-01-08T18:13:00.000Z

..... The SU periodic table - a photographic website, today.

It's really well done - the photos all have something in them with letters on and the thumbnails for the pictures are all sections of the larger picture focussing on the letters of an element in the periodic table - nice idea eh?

I found the site using stumble. Tone signed us up for it - see bloghawk soon for more info including how he found it. It's great - I just chose the topic "photography" and then clicked - I have not found any complete crap yet! I just need to learn how to use it to make favourite lists and tag sites myself.

I think I will probably blog here a bit more now - I seem to have lost my motivation whilst off work - I don't think I need the distraction/ relaxation/ outlet as much when I am vegetating at home.... and I thought I would do it more, as I had more time over the Christmas break.

Anyway - I think there are more reasons for blogging coming up soon - Black Dog Molly are dancing out tomorrow night as it's Plough Monday - the traditional day for Molly apparently.

We booked our next holiday yesterday - to Iceland - it's really exciting - it will be an amazing photographic opportunity. We go in early March with Discover the World Arctic Experience ethically responsible holidays!

Whilst I'm here - just thought I'd let you know my dead camera is now back to life and back home from the menders. I will get round to using it soon I promise. i have taken a few pics with the D70 recently. One of them is this -

It's a picture I have been meaning to take for months. I kept driving and walking past it on my way out of our estate and either didn't have my camera, didn't have time, or the weather conditions were wrong, to take a pic. I finally did it last week when we were on our way back from a walk round our local woods/ streets. Tone called it enigmatic.... I just like the odd buildings on the slope - I think it's a water table.

It's on atypical - so whilst you're there, why not take a look at some of mine and Tone's favourite pictures from just over a year of atypical? Well I am sure you have better things to be doing, but go on, and leave us a comment, that would be great!

keyhole surgery

2005-11-22T20:55:00.000Z

you'll need the skill level of a surgeon to work this one out!

Go to Clare Sudbery's site Boob pencil and see if you can guess which house belongs to each one of the 13 bloggers. One is mine!

Go on.... have a go.......you've got 'til Friday 25th Nov 05

I'm still here....

2005-11-16T21:08:00.000Z

blimey I didn't realise it's been so long since I posted here.

I bet you've given up on me.

I have been back at work a while and that has kept me away. I have now done 2 and a bit weeks of my new part-time regime - I now work 4 days a week. I am feeling some benefit.

In the meantime I have done my first dance-out with Black Dog Molly - see our best pictures on atypical here. Tone was the official photographer.
This is me - I was very excited and so I was hitting hard! Chris was facing me and was suprised.

We had white faces and false cobwebs on our hats because it was hallowe'en, in case you were wondering.

There are more pictures here on BDM Fotki.

I was 36 yesterday and my main pressies were a new piano accordion - a nicer sound and smoother bellows (but smaller range - 2 and a half octaves) - and a new MP3 player - my other one died the night before my birthday!!! It is essential so I can listen to Spiers and Boden at work! Thanks Tone, Phil and Rich xxx

Talking of J&J we went to an amazing gig at Northwich folk club two weeks ago - I will remember it for a long time. They were awesome.

By the way - we have found a receipt for one of our broken cameras and persuaded the insurance company to repair it so we get it back in a week or so. What a wait!!! As a result of the long wait I have taken hardly any pictures. I took a few on my D70 at the apple festival at Reaseheath College in October.

music and dancing

2005-09-28T21:29:00.000Z

Tone and I have joined Black Dog Molly - a Molly side, a type of Morris dancing. It is such fun...... Tone plays guitar and I play piano accordion when I am not dancing. The dances I have learned so far all involve sticks!! but there are no bells or hankies in sight....

We will wear black and red and paint our faces black when we dance out (perform in public). The next dance out is the 29th October at Shugborough Hall for Hallowe'en. Hopefully we will be good enough to join in!

It is such a huge motivator to me for practising my accordion..... and I am also dead keen to find some local tunes and songs. I am hoping the Boat Band can help. I have found some names of tunes from a search on Mudcat discussion forum and think that the library archives might have something......

The other thing that motivates me, also tends to make me feel very inadequate and like giving up - is listening to amazing musicians like John Spiers (Squeezy) and Andy Cutting. We saw Andy last week playing very sweetly and warmly with June Tabor who has the deepest roundest voice I know and such emotion.

This is one of my favourite photos that I took - it's Squeezy's boxes at Fylde.

John Spiers is my idol along with his musical partner Jon Boden. We saw them first at Fylde Folk Festival in 2004 - twice in one day, and then with Bellowhead their band at Middlewich Folk Festival this year, and with Eliza Carthy as two of the Ratcatchers (wonderful festival, dreadful website...they have asked Tone if he is happy to let them use some of his photos!! which will definitely be an improvement).

Bellowhead are so exciting and I CANNOT sit/ stand still when they play - I HAVE to dance with ALL my soul......but it's hard to hear John's playing in many of the numbers. We saw Bellowhead again at Bridgnorth Folk Festival in August so now it's time to see them alone and I booked today to go to Northwich Folk Club on the 4th November. It's going to be a long wait. I love listening to their CD's. There is a new one due out in 3 weeks - have a listen to three MP3s on their site and see what you think........

Eliza is also fab - and her Mum Norma Waterson is brilliant too. We saw them at the New Vic and it was a beautiful evening. Not so keen on her Dad Martin Carthy but he writes well and he went up in my estimation when on watching a great programme last night about Bob Dylan it turns out they were bestest buddies!! Bob is the most amazing songwriter ever! and his early performances were so moving - I wish I'd seen him.....The new Scorcese film "No Direction Home" is so atmospheric and I can really understand why Dylan opted out of the scene - fame was no fun.

The first year we went to Middlewich was mainly to see Kate Rusby - who had Andy Cutting with her. We have seen Kate play a few times now including in Derby and Stafford. She introduced me to contemporary British folk music - I heard a snippet of Sir Eglamore on the radio one evening as I drove home and rushed into the house to turn it on and find out who she was. I was amazed at the energy and beauty of her voice and playing. She has a fantastic set of musicians behind her.

Having said that I first saw Eddi Reader in Fairground Attraction at the Queen's Theatre in Burslem in about 1986. That was probably my first ever folk gig, but I didn't know the genre. Brian Kennedy supported them and I was knocked out by him. I waited 4 years for his album The Great War of Words to come out! He has now sadly become a famous crooner in Ireland who gets women throwing their knickers at him - eeuugghh!!!

We saw both Eddi and Brian at Middlewich this year. Eddi was ace - she had Boo Hewerdine with her who wrote many of her best songs. We are due to see Boo at Biddulph Folk Club this Friday and he is doing a song-writing workshop on Saturday at Newcastle library that we are going to. The best thing about Brian was his bass player James Blennerhassett.

There are loads of great photos on atypical folk galleries that mostly Tone took - he's getting good at the hand-held low light action shots y'know!!!

So - I hope that's given you some idea what floats my boat musically in the folk scene...... I love loads of other stuff too - but I just had to tell you all about these people and encourage you to have a listen. A good place to get some ideas about what you like is the BBC2 radio website folk pages. The Mike Harding show is available to listen to if you miss it live on a Weds eve. The discussion forums are fairly interesting if a it obsessive! If you really want obsession take a look at the minute detail in which people compare notes about tunes and songs on Mudcat cafe. It is a good place to find out about particular music you are looking for, but can be overwhelming......

Tone's camera

2005-09-18T19:03:00.000Z

I took Tone's small Canon IXUS with me to London yesterday when I went to see the fabulous Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Tate Modern.

I also went down to Trafalgar Square to see the new statue on the fourth plinth - a statue of Alison Lapper and I was amazed - it is so beautiful and fits the site perfectly. The marble is white with pale grey veins and looks like skin.

I took a few photos and this is one of my favourites. I have also posted one on atypical and on yclepta.

Just after I took these photos, I dropped Tone's camera and buggered it - and I was so angry at myself - that means we now have 2 non-functioning cameras!! Can you believe it?

I just hope our insurance is worth the money we have paid into it over the years and pays out......

oh how I miss my camera

2005-09-16T22:40:00.000Z

I know I have the D70 too but I can't carry it around all the time when at work etc.

I am off to London soon so I am going to borrow Tone's Canon IXUS. I am looking forward to being able to be creative.

Being back at work for the full week this week has been rather hard. I have been thinking a lot about Work Life Balance - this is a particularly NHS policy name. Tone and I went along to Black Dog Molly on Thursday night and had great fun - I played my piano accordion properly with other people for the first time and that was a challenge! I also learned a dance.... and we are definitely going back next week.

We also tried the new Community Gospel Choir that is meeting nearby last weekend. It was ok - it's good to sing with other people - but we didn't sing very much and the songs are not quite my sort of thing.....

the next thing to do is join a T'ai Chi class on Wednesday - we were going to go this week but had too much to do.

Blimey - I should be so relaxed and happy - what's wrong with me! I had a migraine on Monday, a dizzy spell on Wednesday and sinus pain all day today.

However - we have been to see the Scottish Ballet tonight and that really entertained me for a couple of hours so I feel a lot better. The dances called The Pump Room and 32 Cryptograms were amazing. I still feel tired but hopefully I am up to the trip to London.

If you see pictures here in the next few days, you'll know I was ok..........

damaged...but not beyond repair

2005-09-09T20:15:00.000Z

that is assuming the insurance pays out....

The Nikon Coolpix 4500 that I try to keep with me when I'm out and about, particuarly for sky and cone shots is poorly.

When I wanted it to take a photo on Tuesday evening it made a terrible noise and a juddering when I turned it on. I had to take the battery out to turn it off again.

The quote for repair is £240! The Autofocus motor is part of a single sealed motor and lens unit that has to be replaced. So we are going to make an insurance claim.

Hopefully it will soon be better - fingers crossed......

sky

2005-08-30T19:00:00.000Z

I love the sky and the endless variety - I seem to have taken a lot of sky pictures lately.
Here are a few of my favourites.

inspiration...

2005-08-24T22:28:00.000Z

I am in awe of the ability of some photographers to see the world from perspectives that I fail to see for myself. Pixibition by Poramit and Michael Singer's a visual notebook are a real inspiration. I try to be open-minded but often really struggle to not be obvious.

This picture was taken just before the picture of cones on atypical. I am pleased with both of them - they are the sort of thing I mean, along with the Sainsbury's shot a few days ago.

coneflower

2005-08-21T16:34:00.000Z

I have not been taking many pictures of flowers in the garden recently.
This is for 3 main reasons -
1 - I took a lot last year and feel like I'm repeating myself.
2 - the new lens has a low success rate - I take get one good photo from about every 10 I take.
3 - Being at home and in the mood at a time when the weather is right - if it's windy it is VERY hard to get good photos with the lens at 1:1 close-up as the depth of field is so small. I took a few yesterday - in the wind, but with late sun. Only a couple turned out - one of which was this.... echinacea or coneflower just coming into bloom.

.

sky over Sainsbury's

2005-08-21T16:09:00.000Z

Tone and I have just come home from a weekend T'ai Chi for beginners course. I am feeling very dozy. It was challenging, fun and cleared my mind rather successfully.
On our way home we called at the supermarket for the ingredients to make our own ice cream and nice things for tea with our friend Kim.
We had the camera with us, as Tone took some photos of the teacher and the class - which I guess he will post later to either bloghawk or atypical.

sky over Sainsbury's
Originally uploaded by atypicalblog.

I saw this photo on the car park - I like the dynamic angles of the porch against the sky. It is a hot bright day. I don't usually like supermarket architecture - and the rest of this shop is a large corrogatedmetal shed - but this feature drew my attention today.

grass

2005-08-16T23:01:00.000Z

grassbw[1]
Originally uploaded by atypicalblog.

Well... this is my first time with flickr - Tone and I sat together for hours tonight setting up an account and uploading pictures. I needed to test it out before going to bed. I chose this one as it's black and white - it was taken with the D70.

flickr is grt!

Gormley

2005-08-09T16:46:00.000Z

On friday night our neighbours came round for a meal - then they moved house yesterday to a place about half an hour away. We will miss them all - Dawn, Andrew, Jacob and Alysha.

On Saturday though we had a cheery day visiting Ness gardens with Jude and Alastair. The gardens were mildly disappointing although we took quite a few snaps. So, we went across to Liverpool under the tunnel (aaaggghhhh - don't like long tunnels much!), to Crosby. There is an amazingly splendiforous art installation by Antony Gormley of Angel of the North fame there.

Gormley

It's one hundred iron casts of the artist standing upright facing the sea, placed along the 3 km beach.... and we have posted some pictures here already to give you a sense of it. Take a look at these websites for more info - BBC, Visit Liverpool, Sefton Coast, The Lightbox, and get yourselves down/ up there from wherever you are - especially if you are into photography - it's very inspiring with the industry, the beach, the Wirral and North Wales mountains in the distance and then the fantastic figures.

Dorothy Clive

2005-07-31T16:44:00.000Z

The Dorothy Clive garden is a beautiful, varied and peaceful garden open to the public in North Staffordshire next to the border with Shropshire. We visit a couple of times a year. Today we went with our friends - James,Mandy, Chris, Jude and their friend Noe. We went in Chris and Jude's vehicle which is they bought as it converts to a sleeper/ camper. That may be the type we will get. Chris and Jude are about to move to Cumbria - they hope the move is next weekend. We had a really relaxed afternoon - Tone took a lot of photos - James and he love to talk photography.

I will miss Chris and Jude a great deal - and I hope we will be able to visit them often in the Lake District - which is at least a fabulous place to have to go to to see them. Bon voyage friends... x

Bare

2005-07-28T11:58:00.000Z

I've just bought Annie Lennox latest album - Bare - and it's wonderful beautifully produced. The cover photo is fantastic. It prompted me to go to her website to try to get a picture - I could not download one as it's all flash, so this is from another site. However - go there and visit the gallery- the photos are amazing - she is so beautiful - more so with age I think...and she has worked with a friend of hers to do the photography herself so you see what she really wants you to see.

The description she gives of this photograph includes the lines "I have exposed myself through the work to reveal aspects of an inner world which are fragile.. broke, but not entir$ely smashed... I am a mature woman facing up to the failed expectations of life and facing up to the "core" issues. I don't want to represent myself visually in some kind of cliched, air-brushed, saccharine kind of way. I want to reveal myself as I am....The image is timeless, genderfree and racially ambiguous."

annie lennox

Alison Lapper's photography - buy it!

2005-07-28T10:23:00.000Z

Alison Lapper

yclepta has posted about Alison Lapper - I also saw the programme about her - I have done some research and found that she uses photography and other media to explore herself and perceptions of others. I also saw a programme a few years ago - I think it was Child of Our Time - about her pregnancy and bringing up Parys as a baby. She is a true inspiration - celebrating her body's beauty and using her skills to show that she is more than able - society disables her by our attitudes. There are some beautiful images here. They are for sale too.

And did you know you can get an interest free loan from the arts council to Own Art yourself - up to £2,000!

Elizabeth

2005-07-27T12:56:00.000Z

As you can see I have joined a webring for people with Elizabeth in their name - it's my middle name. I like it - as a child I got called Pennyliz by my uncle who called his daughter Jane, Janeyliz. I did not like Penny and called myself Mary Elizabeth for a while - why Mary I do not know - and it's not that much different.

I hope I get some visitors to my blog now I'm on a couple of rings.

When I got the black and white photos back I was disappointed - they seem dull and lacking in contrast. Tone explained that they have lots of contrast the main problem is the sky was very blank a lot of the time. So everything looks like shades of grey - little white or black. I am not sure but the processing could be a factor as the film was C41 - it was developed using colour processing - quicker and cheaper.

Having a second look there are a few that I really like. Of course the other issue is that I am used to taking 100's of pictures on the digital and only really liking perhaps 10-20%, and even though I used 3 b/w films on holiday which seemed like a real extravagance, that's only 96 photos altogether and I've not got the 24 film processing back yet. (Hopefully tomorrow). So I can only expect about 10-20 reallly good ones.

We have now put up 4 galleries of pictures from the digital - mostly Tone's because I focussed my efforts on the black and white. The sheep in Northumbria, the pics with Tone on (obviously), a few pictures on the Cumbria page (foxgloves, fern in pool of light, parasol at Windermere) and the close-up of the gunnera flower and the turbo at the hydro power station in Scotland are mine. They are not very exciting - I like the sheep best I think - not usually an interesting subject - it helps that there are clouds in the sky.

I carry the Nikon Coolpix 2500 around with me most of the time - in the car or my bag. Last week I had not got it and the sky was really black with some sun peeking through on my way home from work. I am still thinking about that - I know it's pointless - but the camera is back in my bag now..

feeling low and tired out?

2005-07-24T14:07:00.000Z

Yes - me too.

I have got 2 weeks off work, sick, thanks to my GP.

I will take some time to be creative and to rest - therapeutic activity.

That may include blogging and taking pictures.....

Summer holiday..

2005-07-20T22:37:00.000Z

We've just been on a summer holiday...
to some most beautiful parts of Britain - Dumfries and Galloway - via Cumbria - and home via Northumbria. We truly loved Galloway - Portpatrick, the Mull, Glentrool - and Kirkudbright in Dumfrieshire was a real place to escape to - perhaps permanently!

Here is the first picture on atypical - one of Tone's. I did not take many on the D70 - I took my Retinette and used black and white film for the first time in about 6 years - it was great fun. The fixed lens was really liberating - I had to do all the composing by moving around, rather than zooming in and out. I can't wait for the results. If I like them, Tone suggests we get our own developing kit...

SNAP!

2005-06-30T17:46:00.000Z

yclepta posted about Learning Disability Awareness Week. Last Saturday I was staffing a stall in the Potteries Shopping Centre to raise awareness of learning disability and promoting the inclusion of people with learning disabilities. It was a great day. I love the photos here. They really tell a story of how much people with learning disabilities have to offer our community life.

'Andy and Marc duo'
Entered by - Andy Ledbury
Story behind the picture
"I sometimes find music lessons easier than normal lessons because all I have to do is read the music. It is better than handwriting.
Playing the cornet makes me feel like a musician. I feel proud. "

Birmingham photos

2005-06-26T22:40:00.000Z

I went to a meeting in Birmingham - it was a regional network meeting run by the Valuing People team - for people who plan and pay for services for people with learning disabilities.

It was baking hot and a fantastic day for taking pictures. I did not have much time so I just took a few shots as I walked through the bullring on my way to the station. Take and look at more pictures.

spots and stripes

new lens

2005-06-22T22:25:00.000Z

We bought a new lens last week - Tone got it when he was in London. It's a Sigma 50mm DG EX f2.8 macro. One of the main reasons for buying it was so that I can improve my close-up shots of flowers/ plants. The Nikon Coolpix 4500 has a fantastic macro facility, but it lacks flexibility - I cannot easily adjust the ISO and the aperture.

I have been experimenting -

euphorbia

Take a look at the clematis pictures and let me know what you think.....

Sanity Fair

2005-06-22T22:15:00.000Z

We went to the 5th annual Sanity Fair a couple of weeks ago in the Stoke-on-Trent city centre. I took a lot of photos - I had good fun and I was pleased with my efforts.

cult sis
What do you think of this photo of the Cultural Sisters street performance?
Tone usually does the majority of the photography at the event, but this year he played guitar with About Dylan and showed the new elected Mayor round. Tone took some great pics too - what do you think of our sanity fair gallery?

Sanity Fair is an annual event that includes a street festival and a conference. It demonstrates to the wider community that people with experience of mental distress do make a valuable contribution and we can, together, combat stigma and prejudice at a local, national and international level. The planning, design and delivery is by people who have direct personal experience of mental distress - Media Action Group for Mental Health.

My new blog

2005-06-15T22:13:00.000Z

Hello there

Welcome to my new blog - I am going to be doing random writings - mostly related to the photography, places, people and events that you see on atypical the photoblog I publish with my partner Tone.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Pen