Dehydration blues

I overdid the sun yesterday (I'll not inflict a picture of my pink-and-peeling nose on you, but just to give you a hint, it's nearly the same colour and about as rough as the concrete at the bottom of that picture up there, I'll leave the rest to your imagination!).....and the wine consumed after the sun sank below the yardarm didn't help either, suffice it to say I've got a bit of a sore head this morning. So that one's from yesterday..... I couldn't work out what the 2 guys in black in the foreground were up to, the one at the back had a metal rod that he was using to poke things with....maybe they were council officials checking the outlets from the Table Rocks pool on the left (Whitley Bay's first open air swimming pool, Victorian but now disused, but the local dogs like it!) Next up a couple from this morning's bread run....and there's a couple more on Flickr


3 FISHERMEN


OLD MAN AND THE SEAWEED

In need of a nap

Sultry weather and I'm feeling a Sunday afternoon snooze over a good book/trashy film coming on.....that or I'm coming down with something.....it was an effort just getting down to the sea-front and hanging over the railings this morning. But these 2 walkers somehow reminded me of the Abbey Road live webcam where you can watch an almost constant stream of tourists re-enact that famous Beatles LP cover.....strangely enough a lot of them seem to be Spanish......it comes with a sound feed so expect plenty of irate horn action from motorists! OK, I'm off for that nap.............

Another one bites the dust.....

Yep, that's right.....EzHighway has been suspended at the other place for the heinous crime of linking to extra-large (ie bigger than they do) images on his SmugMug Pro a/c........to be honest, I'm lost for words.

Mixed bag

This chick (what a whopper!) was taking it's chances the other night strolling nonchalantly along the road, his/her mother/father was perched on a nearby roof squawking fit to burst and dive bombing cars as they came around the corner.....luckily no lives were lost!

I could take a variation on this picture most mornings.....this fishing boat, the Stacey E, does a regular-as-clockwork sail-by around about 10 o'clock......top marks from me for colour coordination!

.....just a random chap with a dog on the beach.

OTHER STUFF

Haven't tried this game yet, but it sounds like a good stress buster, y'know, like after a Virgin train journey.....

"Virgin Trains have built a fantastic Street View zombie killing game to promote train travel in the UK.

In the game you have to follow directions in Street View to your nearest train station. But watch out for those zombies because just as you think your journey is going OK hordes of the living dead suddenly appear.

When this happens you have to grab your ticket machine and blast the zombies to kingdom come. As every zombie killer knows, just as werewolves can only be killed with silver bullets, zombies can only be killed by train tickets."

Play Don't go Zombie...go Virgin

BLAST FROM THE PAST

I've only had time to watch the first 10 minutes so far....but it looks good!

"Reporter Martin Young follows the fortunes of a group of Glaswegian holidaymakers as they spend their annual Glasgow Fair holiday in the seaside resort of Whitley Bay, Tyneside, during the blistering July of 1976. There's crazy golf and a trawl around the arcades, followed by a drink at the club and a snooze on the beach. Refreshments of cheese rolls and drinks from a thermos flask complete the picture."

Watch it here on the BBC website

To the North

Today was my first 'officially retired, no longer on the payroll' Monday, up until now I've just been on holiday.......haven't worked out a new regime yet.....therefore I've done sod all but written lots of lists and made zero decisions.....except maybe to take full advantage of the 3 months left to run on the all-zones metro travel pass!

ANOTHER THING

Sundry Sunday pics.....

.....a bit short on narrative......just pics from the morning bread run........

Surf's up

New camera.....this was taken from the bottom of the street looking North maybe a mile or so....

.....and this one looking South from Marconi Point (on the Whitley Bay/Cullercoats boundary) towards Tynemouth (about 3km as the seagull flies)

So I bought myself a little retirement present, a Fuji Finepix HS10 with an in-built 30x zoom lens (I know my limits, I'd never, ever get around to changing a lens and anyway my camera bag....one of those re-usable Co-op carriers, yep, I'm a class act!.....is always filled with onion skins, semi-sucked sweets and half-done crosswords) But the compact still has a safe place in the broad scheme of things, for one thing it fits in my pocket!

Snapshots....

Not a lot to report, still in holiday mode, getting up late and not doing much......

Onwards and upwards.....

Funny old day on Friday.....last official day at work. I'd really hoped I'd be able to 'leave the building' quietly but it looks like I'm committed to an official 'leaving do' in early September (partly to bail out my boss who I'd instructed, under no circumstances, to arrange anything of that nature under pain of death.....but apparently he'd had no end of grief and dark looks).....not really looking forward to that. It's not that I'm antisocial, I just don't go a bundle on the 'big goodbye' and all it entails.

So anyway.....the next phase....building repairs....lots of 'em......bring it on!!

PS......oh, and an end to getting up when the alarm clock goes off!

Living in the past.....

.....3 more from yesterday because there ain't any from today!

Top 2 from the Winter Garden, the 3rd one is looking down on the shop in The National Glass Centre.
Last official day at work tomorrow........

Into the badlands......

A bit of a daytrip for me and the firstborn today.....yes, we pierced deepest Sunderland, pasty capital of the UK, I truly believe there's no point anywhere in the city centre where you CAN'T see at least one branch of Greggs! This is the glass platform at St Peters Metro station on the way home (minor incident on the journey back when a young girl got her elbow stuck in a metal handle contraption on the top of a seat.....but luckily the firstborn was equipped with a tub of vaseline, she goes prepared for all eventualities, no lives were lost!) One from the before lunch (and no, we DIDN'T do Greggs) trip to the Winter Garden.....

And another one on the way home......

Midgie attack

So I had 2 possible projects today.....finish off the wallpaper stripping (postponed....way too humid for anything physical indoors) and sorting out the shed/hosing down the backyard (postponed....swarms of midgies congregated under the overhanging ivy, I could do without bitey bit) Only thing achieved has been picking up the wallpaper I ordered last week (came home like a damp rag, panting gently) But at least I took some pics on the way.....here's a couple.....

THE LIFEGUARDS MORNING COMMUTE

ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE

It looks like the night shift might have been a tough one...............

(almost) random image

....an afternoon of housework for me (but on the upside it's possibly the last Sunday before a Monday at work.....well, maybe, ever!) Now there's a thought to conjure with........

OTHER STUFF

Martin Wilson says.....

"My pictures are painstakingly created frame by frame on 35mm film. I get the whole film developed, scan it, then piece the final image together on the computer, making a large contact sheet. It's only when the completed film strips are laid out side by side in the contact sheets that the final image appear.

Each work usually takes months to complete, as each frame is obsessively taken in sequence. No pasting together after the event, no cheating in Photoshop! If I make a mistake or take a frame out of place I start the film again from the beginning"

Worth a click to check out his work....it's impressive!

Strip joint

It's a naff picture but I'm making no apologies......that little corner took me 4 hours this afternoon and it's still not finished. Luckily I don't have to strip the rest of the room, after I've re-papered that bit it's just (!!!) a paint job. As you can see I had assistance from the original perpetrators of the damage that necessitated the stripping marathon.....they don't know it yet but they'll be banned when it's finished....guaranteed they won't be best pleased......

Supersaturated Sunday....

....with lots of leaping.....no, not me, that would be Daizy in the distance.....luckily she has a foghorn voice.
'NOW Grandma', did you get it?' (me....'hmmm, not sure.....do it again, didn't quite catch it')


much later..........(I'll leave you to fill in the gap)
'3,2,1, I'm jumping.....' (me...Diz, can you do it just ONCE more?)
Bigger on Flickr

Waiting for Miss Daizy

Quick pic of the Hebe in the garden....it's feeling thundery out there. Hope it holds off for a couple of hours because I've got the granddaughter coming for a sleepover and I'm on a promise for a trip to the beach later....it could turn out to be a damp business if we time it wrong.......

I suspect I won't get much computer time after she arrives........

EDIT.....The Daizy has landed

Let joy be unconfined.......

.....because I know what I'm going to be watching tonight, seeing as it's just arrived in the post from the kind folks at Amazon! I'd almost given up hope of Tutti Frutti ever coming out on DVD (there's been a copyright battle running for years, it was first aired in 1987...I'm guessing one of the protagonists must have died!) Anyone else remember it with fondness?

Rant alert

Grrrrrrrr......most of the morning wasted on the phone TRYING to speak to the taxman......and then, when I eventually got to speak to a real person rather than hitting random buttons and listening to a crap music loop lasting about 15 seconds (I think it was supposed to be a happy beach 'snapshot' with plinky-plonky guitars and a background buzz of happy sun-worshippers......but it didn't fool me!) only for the phone to go dead after about 10 minutes (presumably when 'they' thought I'd lost the will to live and wouldn't notice) it turned out I needn't have bothered DESPITE what their bleeding website said........dammit, I need a drink, and I don't mean a cuppa!

20 - The Beatles - Anthology 2 CD1 - Taxman

Found at: - FilesTube

Pre-platypus

It was one of those days for going through old books.....I didn't know platypus ducks duck-billed water moles were venomous.....

Not much to report......

Some ivy on the backyard wall.....it's growing.......

Currently watching....'Bonekickers', one of those dodgy downloads that I don't like to talk about, just 1 episode to go.....definitely a mistake, but I've started so I'll finish.......even though an archaeologist friend of the firstborn's said he almost died laughing.....but I'm made of sterner stuff.....kids today huh, no application?

NOT THAT I RIDE A BIKE.........

.....but there's an interactive 'live feed' google map of the Tour de France here if you fancy doing the trip without the puffing and panting........