What a sad day!

Today, 29th October 2010, we sold the plane.

Yes, Alliance Aviation, from this Sunday coming will no longer own an aircraft. The reasons are obvious, and in essence the decision was a no-brainer.

• WP is a big, heavy, expensive gas guzzler.
• The group itself is depleted, we never managed to find any new members after one emigrated and one retired so instead of costs being shared amongst 7, it was amongst 5 and with correspondlingly less income as fewer members means less flying.
• The appetite for long trips, for which WP was ideal, seemed to have diminshed amongst us all and the number of hours per year flown by each remaining group member just fell and fell.

So having had the aircraft up for sale for around 2 years, we succumbed today and sold it for not much more than scrap value to a dealer. Weather permitting it will be flown away from Barton on Sunday

A last look at a lovely aeroplane - we've owned it from 1999, I've loved flying it, it's looked after me and never let me down - a sad farewell to an old friend.

 

WP before the respray

and resplendent afterwards

I've joined Twitter!

Read my Tweets!

Why? That's a good question, and one to which I have no definitive answer.

It seems to me that blogging and tweeting are very much the same thing, casting your thoughts to the wind for no other reason than that you can.

Maybe, just maybe such exercise, being one that requires thought and some degree of manual dexterity (just to type) will contribute to the well being of participents. There was an article on Today on Radio 4 earlier in the week describing a study into dementia which suggests that keeping an active intellectual life reduces the risk factors for the onset of Alzheimer's. Perhaps there's a study to be done correlating numbers of bloggers and tweeters with dementia sufferers?

A fun family day

Society moves on and becomes more secular year by year (and what a good thing that is), but with that comes fewer formal occasions - weddings, christenings etc. But if not a formal christening (for which of course one should be a christian, I wonder how many are?) then what?

The answer - a Naming Ceremony. And that's what was organised for Seraphina - Here are a few photos

There are more in gallery 29 on my photo site:

www.ianj49.co.uk

 

  

  

 

 

 

and then the party was over:

A Photographic Afternoon Out

It was my Grandson Quinn's birthday a couple of weeks ago, he asked for a digital camera. After much deliberation a family decision was made to pool resources and get him one which offered more than a simple point & shoot as he's expressed a real interest in photography. So Fuji Finepix in his grasp, and Olympus E-P2 in mine we set off along the Bridgewater Canal in the direction of Astley Green.

I thought I'd just post some pictures of "the snapper snapped"

Checking those leading lines!

Looking for the next shot

Photographing Grandad
















Small Chap - BIG Engine

Learning to use the E-P2 (and some new Software)

Well, a day off work yesterday and as the weather cleared a little in the afternoon I drove through the little village of Belmont and parked up, then walked through the ruins of Hollinshead Hall.
There's not too much to see there apart from the Well House which does make a great subject for a moody photo:

 

is just how it looks (the out of the camera jpgs from the E-P2 are just fantastic!!).

But that then leads me on to the new software I've discovered, LightZone from LightCrafts the most intuitive way yet of post processing - here's a "tweak" done with LightZone:

 

But of course the E-P2 has capabilities of it's own, a set of "Art Filters" for all sorts of effects, the Well House just seemed to lend itself to the "Grainy B&W Film" filter:

 

Some more shots, looking up the lane that wends it's way through Tockholes Plantation first the "out of camera" shot, then a B&W conversion, again done with LightZone

 

Then onwards through the woods, following the upper reaches of the River Roddlesworth before it enters the Roddlesworth Reservoirs - more excellent photo opportunities

All in all, a very pleasant couple of hours and the more I use the E-P2 the more I like it !

A New Camera and a Handsome Subject

Well I took the plunge and decided to sell off all my Sony & Minolta DSLR gear - so far all the lenses and various bits & pieces have gone (and amazingly I've got back more than I paid!) - my new camera an Olympus E-P2 arrived on Thursday last.

So here's the first picture - as shot, straight out of the camera jpg - no post processing other than a resize and little sharpen after the resize!

Thursday 24th Feb - A sad post script - our Gold Laced Wyandotte (for that is the breed she was) died yesterday - we'd had her for nearly 5 years, so not a bad innings for a chicken - I suspect the chicken equivalent of a heart attack or stroke, but at least it was quick. On opening up the chicken house in the morning she didn't come out, just sat in the nest box, which was unusual for her then later that day just went - very sad.