Autumn Draws On

A beautiful late autumn sky first thing in the morning lit by a rising sun, a wonderful sight when opening the front door

Magnumlady came across the Hull last week to visit the sights and sounds and unfortunately I never got to meet her which was devastating for me and the lesson learned is, life gets in the way of too much and I need to learn to be able to say - 'I am cancelling this, I have something more important to do!' Perhaps I should pop across and visit the Sligo area, all ideas for places to visit gratefully received. I am very sorry Val.

Life marches on. My garage conversion is complete barring the painting and decorating, one bedroom is already occupied by my youngest son, the utility room and store room in in full flow and the front room (was a bedroom, now an additional lounge because my middle lad moved out quicker than expected) just needs a carpet and curtains and a settee, all due at the end of the week.

There was a frost this morning on the cars and grass and although there is no breeze, there is a chill now and a lot of the trees are already devoid of leaves, mostly divested in my garden! Still, I've got it down to a fine art. My leaf blower is both cumbersome, heavy and time consuming, particularly when you have to take the bag off every 30 seconds to empty it.  We have some big leaves, Norway maple for example so it's a pain in the... back to use it. I've now reverted back to the old fashioned method, raking up into piles and manhandling it into cubic metre bags using the old fashioned grass rake and a snow shovel. 

My brother in law next door composts his leaves which take two years to break down but I don't have any room to store it so the local authority waste site gets mine and I understand they compost it and give it away. I do compost all my kitchen green waste and grass clippings and that fills my bin completely. In a couple of weeks time, I will empty the bottom part of the bin of composted material, and pop it on the borders. I do find that actually it's not enough to feed plants next year although it does improve the condition of the soil. This summer, I didn't put any Growmore down (other feeds are available) thinking the compost would feed the plants but it wasn't enough. Coupled with the bad spring and wet summer, my bedding plants were a disaster for the most part.

Our method of keeping warm with a mystery pair of hands to the left trying to feel the heat (my son Ben)

On Saturday night, I had a few friends round for an evening with a buffet, a hot chiminea burning cut up broken wooden pallets. There were a few small fireworks. The atmosphere was cosy and friendly and I was delighted to have such good friends and one of my sons to share a few hours together with good chat, tea and coffee. The fireworks were really disappointing, lasting only a few seconds and despite there being a variety of fireworks, they all looked the same.

Spent Roman candles and burnt grass!

Only seven weekends to Christmas now and I have to buy a secret Santa present for a colleague at work that is both humorous and apt for the person, cost no more than £8. Any ideas (I can't say which gender - it might give it away).

I hope you had a good weekend

Chat soon

Ta-ra

Freedom

The weekend is well underway and what a fabulous day for weather on Saturday, good stuff, got a lot done outside and feel much better for the sun shining and the warmth. Not so warm today, the cloud has returned with a cooling breeze.

I got a call from my brother in law last night to go out and take some night shots (photographs!) again and this time, he wanted to take pictures of the fireworks display marking the Freedom Celebrations in Hull this year that have been coupled with the round the world clipper race. We decided to go around the River Humber to the south bank (Goxhill) so we could get an uninterrupted view of Hull which was gridlocked with hundreds of thousands of people.

The river was calm although the breeze was up and when we arrived, there was only five people there. By the time of the fireworks starting at 10.15 pm there were many dozens in this very isolated spot. For those of you who don't know, Hull is on the north bank of the Humber and we went to the south bank and the river at this point is about two miles wide, give or take a few bob.

What a spectacle we were treated to - it was brilliant. To all the detractors who belong to the 'Whingeing, Whining, Miserable, Complaining and Bigoted club', who write negative comments on news stories published on the Hull Daily Mail website - I say to them - 'Get a life!'

£28,000 for fireworks to entertain hundred thousand people at the events and hundreds of thousands more like me who watched from afar, it was worth ever penny, in fact per head only a few pence for 15 minutes of glorious technicolour pyrotechnics. With all the other events, like free music in Queens Gardens including one of my favourite bands, Florence and the Machine, Hull has done its citizens proud in remembering the exceptional work done by William Wilberforce.
On a technical note, the camera used was a Canon 40D camera with a Tamron 70-300 lens on various time exposures on a 'bulb' setting and all mounted on a tripod.

Chat soon

Ta-ra!