Hipstamatic – Fraggle's Otherverse

365 2023 ~ Hipstamatic week 5

February 6, 2023February 5, 2023Posted in 365, Hipstamatic, Iphoneography, PhotographyTagged 365, 365 project, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, Kaleidoscope Hipstapak, Photography18 Comments

This week I decided to try one of the more avant garde Hipstapaks and chose the Kaleidoscope combination which consists of the Kally X3 lens, a multi-lens that captures several images and gives you a kaleidoscopic photo, and the Brewster 1817 film which adds a rich and amorphous black matte to the image.

So, without further ado…

Sunday, 29th January
Phil’s son Carl visited with his herd of kids including his eldest daughter Katie, who we rarely see as she’s at University now and having her best life by the sounds of it. I took a picture of her with Phil for him, proud Grandad that he is. I’m not sure I’m keen on this effect for people shooting, so I also kept a straight shot, and decided not to shoot people with this set up.

Monday, 30th January
Back to work but nothing floated my boat there. When I got home though and stood at the back in the conservatory with my cup of tea, I noticed some clouds in the distance that looked as if they were fading Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds on their way out. I quite like the effect on the houses, like castles in the sky, but houses 🤣. I resolved to shoot more buildings.

Tuesday, 31st January
The building works in the field beyond our little patch at work, have resulted in a ‘Marketing Suite’ in the corner of the land we’re on. I’ve been watching it come together, and this is the result. Our car park is going to be a nightmare when people start coming to it. There’ll no doubt be strongly worded emails going to our estate manager, who’s about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. The businesses in the units do not like their spaces being usurped.

Wednesday, 1st February
ASDA day today, after an easy morning at work, shouldn’t say that too loud, it’s a rarity. Still had it in my mind to find buildings, and next door to ASDA is our local cinema complex, Cineworld, which I think is quite an attractive building, though it’s been a long time since I went in it. It used to have a long advertising board up where the Cineworld letters are, with posters of all the movies showing, but that’s gone so I’ve no idea what’s going on in there.

Thursday, 2nd February
Chores and laundry day today, as well as writing the next episode of Prudhoe remastered for the Sunday post on the Universe blog. I resorted to experimenting indoors, with mixed results. Tried the cats but that was a mess, so a simple window shot seemed to work best. I like how the Teddy squad are elevated to look out of the window and you can see the dip in the bedclothes where Winnie had been ensconced.

Friday, 3rd February
I needed to finish off a film before going out on Sunday with Sophie for our next adventure, and as the weather was bearable I drove up to the Angel and took some pictures in the spooky memorial hedge thingy. But of course, shot the angel too, which I think worked quite well.

Saturday, 4th February
I was hoping for a decent sunset to shoot the houses over the road at the back, but you get what you get and it didn’t turn out too bad.

So that’s another week over. On the whole I enjoyed it, it made me think differently as to what might work and what wouldn’t and I like the surreal results, mostly. Now to choose the next film and lens combo for week 6, arty-farty or straight up, hmmmm, decisions!

Hipstamatic 365 out~takes

January 31, 2023January 30, 2023Posted in 365, Cat, Christmas, Hipstamatic, Iphoneography, Photography, UncategorizedTagged 365, 365 project, cats, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, outakes, Photography22 Comments

I’ve been taking more than 1 shot a day most days, so figured I’d do a monthly post of the outakes I liked best. Which probably will mostly be of the cats.

Liddy in her giant Christmas coverall PJ thingy.

C’est tout!

365 2023 ~ Hipstamatic week 4

January 30, 2023January 30, 2023Posted in 365, Hipstamatic, Photography, UncategorizedTagged 365, 365 project, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, Photography24 Comments

This week I chose the Monti Hipstapak which consists of the Sergio lens, which enhances cool tones, and the Maximus LXIX film, which adds a warm grain.

Sunday 22nd January
I know, I know, another cat picture, but I can’t help it. You should see how many I don’t post! Phil was at work until 9pm so a quiet day for me. Winnie always likes to supervise my blogging, or prevent it from happening entirely. Here she was just sitting quietly with me so I got a bit done.

Monday, 23rd January
Back to work day! 🥴 I finish work on Mondays and Tuesdays at 4pm, and at this time of the year the sun is just going down. Today when I got in the car I noticed 3 crows in a tree silhouetted agains the sunset sky, so drove to the back of the car park and got out to take the photo.

Tuesday, 24th January
Another day another dollar! This is part of the converted farm building I work in. I like the curvy land, and how the low sun casts light on these two units.

Wednesday 25th January.
As well as leaving work just as the sun is going down. I’m getting up in the morning just before it rises. Yesterday and today I noticed the colours out of the window whilst I was putting my face on and had to stop, mascara half complete, to run downstairs and out into the garden to see it better.

Thursday 26th January
My favourite view in the house, from our bedroom window. I love it when the sun illuminates the trees at the back, especially when there’s doom clouds behind them.

Friday 27th January
Phil went to the eye hospital today to do the health checks prior to cataract surgery in a couple of months. He’ll have to wear an eyepatch after I guess, so I might buy him a Pirate hat to cheer him up. When he got back we took a walk over to the little shopping bit of Pelaw, and I took some photos along the way, of course. This is Kirkwood Gardens, not sure why it’s called Gardens, it’s not very gardeny really. It’s the main road through the estate and we walk it to get to the metro station, which is behind me here. I’ll get another shot of it in spring when the trees are all glorious.

Saturday, 28th January
Sophie is back from Spain for a couple of weekends and today we went out with our cameras and did another Art Trail, which will appear on either the Fragglefilm blog or the Universe Blog or both at some point as I’ve used both digital and analogue cameras. And also took this..

And so, that’s another week over. I really like the dreamy, soft feel of this Monti combination, my favourite so far. But onwards!…

📱😊

365 2023 Hipstamatic week 3

January 23, 2023January 23, 2023Posted in 365, Hipstamatic, hipstamatic, Iphoneography, Photography, UncategorizedTagged 365, 365 project, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, Photography, week 325 Comments

This week I chose a Jane lens, which boosts contrast and saturation, with Robusta film, a textured discoloured matte film.

Sunday January 15th
Shelley and Liddy came over in the afternoon, and of course I had to take a picture of Liddy eating her way through a huge piece of rainbow cake whilst wearing pink headphones, as you do.

Monday January 16th
Nothing out of the ordinary when I got up for work, still in the dark here. I washed and had breakfast, looked out of my window and ka-boom, severe snowing going on. It lasted for about 20 minutes, stopped, and was all gone by the time I got home from work. Poor show really, sigh. I know other parts of the country got a lot more for a few days, but we missed out.

Snow Day! Well Snow 20 minutes at least.

Tuesday January 17th
I tried to get a decent picture of Teddy, my boss’s dawg, but everytime I bent to take a shot he came trotting forward for a fuss, so he’s blurry. Serves him right!

Wednesday January 18th
I don’t have a sweet tooth, and me having a cake or dessert is rare as rocking horse poo, so when Shelley brought cakes on Sunday I left mine sitting in the fridge. On Wednesday I didn’t have time for lunch at work and it was way past lunchtime when I got home, so I bit the bullet so to speak and had this. It is white chocolate (which I don’t really like) cream, (which is OK in soup, curry & chilli etc) and packed tight biscuit crumbs, making this a cheesecake apparently. Being that cheese is the only part of this I would like, I couldn’t taste any at all, but I have to say this was bloody lush! I’m a convert!

Thursday January 19th
On Thursday Phil and I did chores. The biggest one clearing out one of the kitchen cupboards which had got to a point where you couldn’t get one thing out without another falling out with it. It’s all very neat and dejunked now, and to celebrate we took ourselves out to lunch at the Red Lion in Boldon. Had the awesummyummiest scampi and chips with mushy peas 🤣, you can’t beat 70’s pub grub! They do it really well at the Red Lion.

Friday January 20th
Friday was a busy day, Phil at work in the morning and I got more housework done, then spent the afternoon doing a post for the Universe blog. I got a cyclamen not so long ago, and it’s a bit quirky compared to normal houseplants in that it likes to be cool, doesn’t like the sunshine, needs moist soil all the time, and goes dormant in summer so you have to hide it away in the shade. I mean, what’s that about? Anyhoo I’m renowned for causing death to houseplants so getting a complicated one probably wasn’t my greatest idea, but encouraged by my continuing success with a spider plant I took the plunge. So far, so good.

Saturday January 21st
Friday night is always music night here and we play youtube videos of bands/singers we like, CD’s and vinyl until the wee hours and imbibe a few sherbets along the way. So Saturday morning is the one after the night before and a gentle day is required. It is a cold but blue sky day today and I took another shot for my ongoing House Across the Road series.

The House Across the Road, and visiting magpie.

So week 3 is over, and I really like this lens and film combo. The lens is sharp and clear and the film has warm tones and a nice bit of texture, but not too much. Onwards though….

📱😊

365 2023 Hipstamatic week 2

January 16, 2023January 16, 2023Posted in 365, Hipstamatic, hipstamatic, Iphoneography, Photography, UncategorizedTagged 365, 365 project, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, Photography27 Comments

This week I’m trying a combination of Lumière Lens with Delauney 1941 film. The film is named after Sonia Delauney, a French artist who co-founded the Orphic Cubist art movement, and the film adds a cubist filter to pictures and does funny things with colour.

Sunday January 9th
Phil and I went over to the coast and had coffee in Marsden Grotto, a gastro pub now, it started out as a home for a chap known as Jack The Blaster back in 1782.

A lead miner from Allendale, Jack Bates and his wife Jessie moved to the area in 1782. It is alleged he moved into a small cave at Marsden Rock either after refusing to pay rent on his house in Allendale or simply having nowhere to live. Using explosives from a local quarry, he blasted the small cave into a much larger one, earning his nickname “Jack the Blaster” in the process and creating a rent-free and landlord-free home. The dwelling was accessed by zig-zagging stairs down the cliff, thought to be built by Jack. The unusual and eccentric choice of dwelling attracted visitors, which the couple supplied with refreshments at a cost. It is suggested that he became involved in smuggling activities – offering refreshment to smugglers using caves of the coastline to hide contraband cargo.

Monday January 10th
Back to work. The converted farm building in which I work, the land it sits on and surrounding fields are owned by the Duke of Northumberland. He is building 310 houses on the land next to us and last week put up a prefab sales office in our car park. This chap was laying slabs for a path to the office door.

Tuesday January 11th
The rains came, and didn’t stop.

Wednesday January 12th
I finish work at 2pm on Wednesdays and go straight to Asda to do the weekly shop. The car park in our Asda is down a slight gradient, and it was still raining.

Thursday, January 13th
Once a month I go to my pal Kendal’s place to have my nails done. I’m not really bothered about them any more but I’ve been going for over 10 years and I’d miss her if I didn’t go, plus she needs the money! This is her 18 month old son William, and a bowl of spaghetti in tomato sauce. He scoops some spaghetti into his spoon nicely, then picks it out of the spoon with his fingers and shoves them in his gob. 🤣 He is quite adorable.

Friday, January 14th
I was hoping to do my blogpost for yesterday at this point on Friday. Sigh.

Saturday, January 15th
Went to the local shop for a few bits and bobs, a blue sky morning but cold!

And that’s week 2 finished. I quite like this combo of lens and film, but next week I’ll be moving on.

😊 📱

365 2023 Hipstamatic 1

January 9, 2023January 8, 2023Posted in 365, Hipstamatic, Iphoneography, Photography, UncategorizedTagged 365, 365 project, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, Photography25 Comments

Yet again I’m embarking on a one photo a day for a year project. This will be my fourth, the last one being in 2021. This will be the first time though that I’ve used the iPhone for it, and specifically the Hipstamatic app. If you don’t know what that does, and do want to know, there’s a short explanation HERE.

Doing a 365 project is not easy, especially as time goes on and you are struggling for ideas, but it’s good discipline and keeps photography at the front of your mind. My photography of late has been in the back of my mind, especially when Sophie my shooting pal is away for a few weeks and the weather is not so good ( which is a LOT of the time!). Last year I started shooting with film a lot more and going forward will still be doing that, but that’s not cheap so a 365 with the Contax is not an option, and I’ve done all my other 365’s with my digital DLSRs.

So this will be a deep delve in to what the Hipstamatic can do. I’ll post my week’s shots up, probably every Monday, I’ll also be putting the details of what lens/film combo’s I used. I’ll be using one combination a week to keep each week in a uniform set. There will be pictures of cats, grandkids, Phil, trees, places I go and (hopefully) people I meet, and a few words to go with them.

So without further ado…Welcome to my life ~ 365 days in photographs.

Week One ~ Kantō HP lens, Ina’s 1935 film

January 1st, Sunday. New Years Day
Phil’s daughter Shelley and her daughter Liddy came for a sleepover, as her hubby and son had gone off for a football match and were staying away overnight. I cooked a Sunday roast dinner and then we did music videos, watched a DVD of Liddy in her Drama group end of year all singing/dancing review and had a lovely family evening together.

January 2nd, Monday
I never tire of being amazed how Winnie navigates Phil’s model desk and the blinds to get on the window sill.

January 3rd, Tuesday
Is it too soon for another Winnie shot? I don’t think so, snuggled in her radiator bed.

I’d meant to keep going with the same settings but accidentally changed to Odakayu film instead of the Ina’s 🙄. Same lens though.

January 4th, Wednesday
Today was my first day back to work after the festive break, though I’m then off until the following Monday so it wasn’t really a hardship. It was nice to arrive home in proper daylight and with a blue sky for a change!

January 5th, Thursday
Phil was on a late shift today and I had my Grandson Callum to look after whilst Shelley was at University. It was a great day, we did shopping, went to lunch and then down to Marsden Rocks for a coffee, coke and some photography! I love spending time with Cal, we talked about lots of stuff and had a few laughs, can’t wait to do it again.

January 6th, Friday
A day for housework, blogwork and a bit of shopping at Lidl in Pelaw. Pelaw is the residential area over the tracks from Wardley. If you’ve ever seen the movie Get Carter you might remember the Post Office scene

As you can see, the Post Office is now a Greggs Bakery 🙂

Saturday 7th, Saturday
A quiet day today, cold and showery weather. I’ve been mapping out photography outings for when Sophie returns at the end of the month. I couldn’t finish the first week without a shot of Lord Vincent though.

So that’s the first week done. Onwards……

Tales from Fraggle Towers ~ October 2022

October 31, 2022Posted in Cat, Halloween, Hipstamatic, hipstamatic, Iphoneography, People, Personal History, Photography, UncategorizedTagged family, Fraggle, Halloween, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, October, Photography34 Comments

It’s been a funny old month here at Fraggle Towers with health issues to the fore. Phil had his Corona booster and Flu jab at the beginning of the month and was not well for 3 days, I had mine later on in the month and apart from one day being wierd got through that Ok. But I’ve had a couple of visits to the Doc’s for blood tests and other stuff. Then just this week I twisted somehow getting up from my sofa and did something to my back, with the result that I’m having time off from work. Can’t remember the last time that happened, and if I was able to drive I’d have still gone in. Sigh. Getting old and decrepit is just no fun. I seem to be improving anyway, fingers xt.

Winnie has been to the Vets as she has chronic cystitis they’re trying to get to the bottom of and she’s now on a daily dose of Loxacam which seems to be helping. None of this stops her being as mad as a box of frogs! Out in all weathers and doing a cracking job of rodent disposal.

Lord Vincent is hale and hearty, and in between patrolling the perimeter of our bit of the estate and eating for England, he spends most of his time on the bed ~ not one for rain and cold weather. He can’t even be bothered catching a mouse.

It’s been great having Sophie back in the country and we’ve had a couple of outings which has given me a good bit of fodder for the Universe Blog and for Fraggle film, though I’m still waiting to receive the scans back for that.

Work has been so busy, I’m getting through 40 people a week on average and I only work 2 & 1/2 days, so it’s full on, but I still get 10 minutes here and there to have a bit of lunch or take Teddy for a quick trot around the carpark. He is such a happy little soul and makes me smile.

Tonight is Halloween, and all the Grandkids turned up to go out trick or treating, which really is ‘begging for sweets’ apparently, but most of our estate get involved so I have sweets at the door ready and I get to take pictures, though use my iPhone now as the Fuji freaks people out 🤣. Phil and Shelly went with the kids to do the rounds and I stayed home to answer the door. Liddy and Livvy made a good effort at dressing up! Phil tells me that one house had made a fake cemetary on their front lawn, and another had a spooky figure that spoke to the kids as they got near to it and made them jump. Another had a giant spider across the front of their house. ALl good fun and the kids loved it.

The boys are ‘too old’ to dress up being 11 and 12 (pfft!) but are happy to have the sweets of course! To anyone moaning about copying the USA, or commercialising Halloween, or begging for sweets etc I agree, it’s true and I don’t bliddy care, as having the grandkids round laughing and being happy for a daft evening is fine by me. One day they’ll be in their teens and this will just be a memory.

Some neighbourhood kids

Not sure who he’s supposed to be, ? Pennywise

So that’s the end of the 10th month and we’re going into Outer~Christmas Land now, as people are mad for it up here. I’m off down South at the weekend to visit with Ben and Lewis, fingers crossed my back has recovered as it’s a long old drive, and I’m dreading sitting still in the car for 5 hours doing it in case it sets it off again, but am thinking pink thoughts, like that’ll help.

Back next time with a November round up so stay tooned!

Tales from Fraggle Towers ~ August 2022

August 29, 2022Posted in Hipstamatic, Iphoneography, Personal History, Photography, UncategorizedTagged Fraggle, FujiX-T2, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, movies, Northumberland Zoo, Photography21 Comments

The end of August is nigh, and the official the end of summer. According to meteorological seasons, the first day of autumn arrives on 1 September and then according to the astronomical calendar, autumn will begin on Friday 23. Oddly, The Meteorological Office, which forecasts our weather (or tries to anway) uses the astronomical calendar. 🤷‍♀️

My autumn begins when the green leaves turn gold/red/brown and that isn’t happening yet, so I’m still in Summer, albeit the latter stages. August has been full of the drought, and then torrential downpours which did nothing to alleviate the problems drought is causing. Up here we haven’t had too bad a time of it, no hosepipe bans, and the crops and fields look healthy when I’m driving about anyway, though ponds have dried up across the way.

I got the results of the lung screening back, and whilst I haven’t got lung cancer, there’s a different issue shown up which has to be addressed, and is being. My hedonistic past catching up with me 🙂 . I may, or may not write more about it later, but it’s all a bit new at the minute, anyway I’m not at death’s door so yay!

Work has been mad busy as always, there’s a lot of ear wax in this world! I’ve got a week off coming in September which I’ll be glad for, it will be a staycation as no-one sensible would try and look after our cats, but we’re having a night in Edinburgh as the Scale Scotland Model show is on and it’s one of Phil’s faves. We’re only staying for one night and our lovely next door neighbour Cheryl will come in and put food down for them.

August is when the schools shut for summer, and I had Cal and Liddy to stay and took them out for a trip to the Northumberland Zoo whilst their Mum went to a funeral.

Liddy loves horses and has riding lessons everyweek, but on bigger ones than this chap.

They loved the marmasets and Cal turned his camera round so the little guy could see himself! 🥴

This is a Scottish Wildcat, and the first time I’ve managed to see it as it hasn’t appeared on the other occasions I’ve been, it’s usually hiding, which is pesky, surprise surprise. Caught it at feeding time though.

The café at the zoo is pants, so I took them to Northhumberlandia which has a nice one, and hadn’t expected it to have 300 Harley Davison riders in it’s grounds. I got chatting to one of them in the café queue and he was telling me that most weekends, chapters of the riding groups meet up and go riding to places together. Their next event was the following weekend in Scotland, which is apparently the most anticipated and best of the year.

Angels of Hell, (and Scotland and Wales).

It was nice to spend some time with the kids and they had a sleepover.

Winnie and Lord Vincent have been enjoying the nice weather

also their assassination rates have gone up somewhat. Winnie has brought home 3 shrews and a rat and left them on our dining room floor mat to be admired, her modus operandi is unknown as they are always perfectly intact with no sign of damage.

Lord Vincent is a different matter. He has caught two small mice which he announced by mewing loudly so we’d come and look, but he wouldn’t give them up and ate them 🥴. Sigh. Vinnie also caught a small bird, parts of which we found one morning in the living room along with copious amounts of feathers. I don’t mind about the rodents really, they’re not endangered species, (well maybe to Winnie and Vinnie), but I hate it when one of them gets a bird. What can you do? They both have noisy bells on their collars at least or it would be a massacre out there.

It was my birthday last week and I got taken out to dinner, to an Italian Restaurant over the train tracks in Pelaw. It’s called the Olive Verde and is above a rough and tumble pub in the main street, it does a small but very nice menu, has friendly staff and the food is good quality and (so far) is reasonably priced.

The big plus is it’s only a 10 minute walk from home and we were treated to a little sunset over the metro station on the way home.

I haven’t done much with my Fuji, and Sophie has only been home for the Raby weekend but I’ve been employing the iPhone camera and hipstamatic app when necessary, and am still taking my Contax Aria in hand, with a film sent off and one on the go. But I do belong to The Scavenger Hunt group on Flickr where there are 50 items to shoot within a year’s timeframe. I particularly liked my attempt at ‘Spices’.

I’ve watched a few films this month,

The Gray Man starring Ryan Gosling.~ Netflix. A so-so action movie, a good review HERE by Dix/Eddie/the Pesky Scot, delete as applicable.
Samaritan starring Silvester Stallone. The reviews I read liked it better than I did- nicely filmed, minimal CGI but hokey script and acting veering between OTT and wooden. Still, it’s Sly, so there’s that.
Dog starring a wonderful dog, and Channing Tatum. Highly recommend it, did I mention the wonderful dog? She is fab, Tatum does OK too. Eddie has an excellent review HERE.
The Railway Man starring Colin Firth, Jeremy Irvine and Nicole Kidman. A true story about a chap called Eric Lomax who becomes a POW in a Japanese POW camp in Singapore and has to work on the Thai-Burma railway. In spite of being tortured for a spurious offence, he manages to survive the war, but suffers PTSD for a long while after, until there’s a reconciliation at the end. (Trying not to do a spoiler but it’s a true story so that doesn’t matter really 🙄). Phil had read the book, and felt though it was told in a different way than the autobiography the movie was based on, it was all there, the flashback sequences being particularly good. Definitely recommend. Eddie wasn’t as keen so for a different POV his review is HERE.

So that’s about it, I’ll be back when September ends, so stay tooned.

Tales from Fraggle Towers ~ April/May 2022

June 3, 2022Posted in Cat, Hipstamatic, Iphoneography, Personal History, Photography, UncategorizedTagged cats, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, iPhone11, Photography18 Comments

I’ve been rubbish at keeping up the monthly Fraggle Towers posts, but hey-ho, life and all that. Anyway here is a potted update on our doings.

April saw Phil and I attend our first gig since the Covid thing began, and we went into Newcastle and met up with Phil’s son Carl and his Missis Karly, to see the band Stone Broken, which I’m sure you’ve all heard of 🤣. Phil and I started out in our regular pub Rafferty’s on Pink Lane, which has cheap alcohol and a floor your feet stick to.

The venue was The Riverside, which is beside the river Tyne (not being funny, we have a Lakeside pub that’s nowhere near a lake 🙄) a small venue which gets packed. I must admit to a certain amount of trepidation at being stuck in a room with a few hundred people, none wearing masks. I had one on, but it seemed overwhelmingly pointless as I had to remove it to have a drink so ended up maskless too.

Newcastle at night is lush for photos

The Band were great

and a good time was had by all, plus we didn’t get Covid and die, so result!

Phil and I went back there in May to see a brilliant American Southern Rock/Soul band, Robert Jon and the Wreck and they were fantastic.

We’ve been checking out a couple of local restaurants we hadn’t been to before, the first one was pretty poor food-wise, though a nice looking pub, in a lovely setting near our wildlife reserve. It was cheap, which was probably why we got oven chips and frozen veg with our main course, Phil had a microwaved pie (soggy pastry) and I got away with scampi which it’s hard to ruin really. Won’t be going back.

The other one is called Le Olive Verdi and is a lovely Italian restaurant on the top floor of The Pelaw Inn, had a fab dinner, steak in 3 peppercorn sauce and it came with fresh veg, not cheap, but worth the money, and we can walk there so it’s all good and we will be returning.

The cats:- Lord Vincent has been his usual zen self, eating, sleeping, sitting under bushes and plodding about.

WInnie has been on a killing spree. I came downstairs one morning to find a dead mouse on our dining room mat, it wasn’t mauled, just looked like it was asleep. A few days later Phil found a dead blackbird in the TV room. Then one day whilst Phil was at work she came running past me with something in her mouth, I chased her upstairs to the bedroom where she had something under the bed which was tweeting. It must have got free from her and hid as she came charging around to the other side of the bed whereby I picked her up and evicted her. I couldn’t see anything under the bed and it’s too heavy for me to move so I shut the door and left as I had to go out for a couple of hours. When I came back I could hear a constant tweeting from behind the bedroom door. I opened it and something ran very quickly under a chest of drawers, so I left it alone again. Still could hear the tweeting. I tried again a couple of hours later and this time it ran into the bathroom.

I shut the door and waited for Phil to come home. Phil managed to pick him up and gently carried him into the bushes over the road, where, we hoped forlornly, his mother would hear him and come and fetch him, but Lord Vincent had sneakily followed Phil outside and as soon as Phil’s back was turned, well, need I go on?

Finally I came downstairs one day and saw

which was a bit of a shock. I couldn’t believe Winnie had managed to catch this big magpie and get him through the catflap without a sound or feathers being every where and thought he must have managed to get himself in through it. But then when I checked our hedgehog camera, well… you need to set it to a slow playback speed to see it as she’s fast as fek! Keep your eyes on the top right corner right at the beginning.

So she dropped it through the catflap and it must have got away from her pretty quickly. Her ambition is boundless and I dread the day she decides Woody the wood pigeon is her next victim.

Even though she’s lethal, she’s still cute.

and also makes us laugh

Work is still full on, and I’m busy as a tree. Little Teddy is worming is way into my affections and I take him out for a walk when ever I have 10 mins spare, which is about twice a day. He mainly sits with Lynn our office manager barricaded in as he’s apt to escape.

Phil’s Giant Tank is coming along, and this weekend is his clubs model show, so I’ll be attending on Sunday to photograph the competition tables and winners for the club’s Facebook page.

Entertainment-wise I haven’t seen any movies I’d recommend, maybe The Contractor as it has a good cast- Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Kiefer Doodah. It’s a serviceable action movie, but nothing new. Bird Box with Sandra Bullock started out well, and she was great all the way through but there were too many good coincidences at the end. Phil wanted to re-watch Oblivion with Tom Cruise as he got the blueray but we gave up before the end as we’d had wine/whisky and couldnt get our heads around what the fek was going on. I’ll wiki it one day. 😃

TV has been better, we got through to the end of Ozarks and are currently in the last season of Better Call Saul, both have been outstanding. We are now rewatching the first 2 seasons of Das Boot as the 3rd one is out and we forgot a lot of 1 & 2 as it was a couple of years ago, looking forward to seeing the 3rd, it is excellent.

Reading, well I’ve read all 47 of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series twice, and am starting again at the beginning, I just love these books. I have bought other books in the meantime, but as yet I can’t let go of Wolfe to read them instead. A strange addiction!

That’s all folks. More tales from Fraggle Towers to come, eventually. If/when I remember!

📷 😊

Jan 6th – Movie Monday

January 6, 2020Posted in flowers, Flowers, Hipstamatic, Iphoneography, Mondays, Movie Reviews, movies, Photography, UncategorizedTagged City of Life and Death, Fraggle, Hipstamatic, iphone7, Marvel, Movie review, movies, Spiderman Homecoming27 Comments

Here at Fraggle Towers we have 2 movie nights a week, Phil’s ‘Grim Movie’ night on a Thursday, mostly consisting of war movies so far, and my ‘Fun Movie’ night on a Saturday, so this year I’m going to tell you what we’ve been watching, and maybe you’ll be inspired to see one, or most probably inspired to miss them!

Last weeks Grim was possibly the grimmest yet that Phil has subjected me to, the title of which is City of Life and Death (2009. It is a chinese production directed by Lu Chuan and is set in 1937, not long after the start of the 2nd Sino-Japanese war. It tells the story of what happened when the Japanese Imperial Army overran Nanking, and the dreadful acts carried out over several weeks by the Japanese on the Chinese civilians, and captured soldiers, historically known as the Nanking Massacre. The only other film I’ve seen about this is another chinese movie, Flowers of War (2011), but that had Christian Bale starring as John Rabe, the priest trying to save chinese refugees in the city, so that it would appeal to western audiences. City of Life and Death does not pander to Hollywood. It is beautifully shot in black and white, and won several awards for the cinematography by Cao Yu. There is no music soundtrack, and it didn’t need one, you can’t set this much awfulness to any score. The acting is far beyond anything I’ve seen in other chinese movies, and the actors and actresses involved invoke emotional responses that touch the depths of the soul. It caused a fair bit of controversy in China when it was released, as part of the movie is told from the perspective of a Japanese soldier, and he is humanised, compassionate even, and conflicted by the events unfolding around him. It was nearly pulled from theatres and the director received online death threats. The movie is both brutal and gentle at times, visceral and sensitive. It is one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and if you can handle it, so worth seeing.

Most of you know I’m a Marvelholic, and for several Saturdays now we’ve been doing the MCU movies starting with Iron Man, and we will eventually end with Spiderman Away From Home. This Saturday we watched the first in the new Spiderman movies, Spiderman Homecoming (2017). Firstly I’m going to have to say Phil is not a Marvelholic, but he has a softspot for Spiderman from when he was a lad and he has mostly enjoyed the movies we’ve done so far. Unfortunately this version of Spiderman in the MCU is really disappointing, and neither of us were sad to see it end. The cast is fine, lovely to see Marisa Tomei as Spidermans Aunt, and Tom Holland as the new Spiderman does a good job with what he’s given, but for us it was all a bit juvenile (I know, he IS a teenager!). Spidermans sidekick Ned is played by Jacob Batalon, and the dialogue between them is annoyingly superfast and hard to follow, and quite asinine , unless you are under the age of 12 when perhaps it sounds cool. It was funny though to see a former Batman, Michael Keaton playing a bad guy in a ridiculous flying wrap around tank. Spiderman Far From Home has had a much better reception, so I am hoping it is a damn site better than this junk. I have seen the earlier Spiderman movies with Andrew Garfield in the 2012 and 2014 versions, much better than the 2017 one, and also the Tobey Maguire 3 movie series which kicked off in 2004, and those are far and away the ones I would recommend.

Back to work today, and the rather droopy plant, (some kind of orchid I think) that I chucked some water on before I left my clinic, has produced a copious amount of flowers whilst I was away, somethings are better left alone it seems. Especially Spiderman. 🙂