Day 281 - Lazy Day

disturbed

I've had a lovely lazy day today, watching the Grand Prix, sorting out video's from our Font trip, and even playing on my Xbox for the first time in months.

At one point I had to take a break from all this sedentary activity to go and sit in the sun for a few minutes with Anna and the Cats (there's that band again)...

Loz took up what has oddly become her usual position - under the kitchen window, just next to the drain chamber, in the mud of the border.

She looked so chilled basking in the sun that I took the opportunity to take a quick snap of her on my phone (the decent camera is still packed!)...or at least, I intended to - then the sun went in, prompting Loz to open her eyes, stop looking quite so chilled, and start looking annoyed at both the loss of warmth and at being disturbed by me.

So I just got this photo instead.

In keeping with today's theme of idleness and inactivity, I'm going to leave this one right there...

More tomorrow, of course...see you then!

:-)

Day 267 - Dog Plants

jazzpots

We shed a few tears today, as we potted up Jazz's memorial plants in the warm, late summer sunshine.

We've been putting it off for a while, but today there were no excuses.  For my part, I think I'd been avoiding opening his lovely cardboard urn and facing the truth of his ashes...and sure enough, I find I'm still quite emotional, and I realise that I still think of him often...every day I suppose.

We're going to go up to the woods and carve his name in the tree with Bluez's, one cool evening this week...it would have been too warm for him this afternoon - he would have struggled on the long walk up the hill, so it seemed somehow inconsiderate to go today...

But we spent a melancholy half an hour pottering and potting and pondering, quietly contemplating our old boy as we sprinkled some of his ashes into these pots.

As a ritual, it works nicely...I can't look at these plants and not see Jazzy B strong and clear in my mind.

Similarly with all of our growing collection of lovely pots...they're not all specifically for Jazz or Bluez, but together they invoke (for me) a striking nostalgia for my boyz. 

dogzpotz

We have all of these in pots, but our plan is to plant some of them in the ground when we get into a home we own (or have sold our souls to the banks for).

Our lives are undergoing transformational change this year, it seems...everything has been coming undone, and the turbulence has been a little nauseating at times...so far it's mostly been a process of deconstruction, as our settled home life has slowly imploded, coincident with the loss of the dogs. 

But now things are starting to fall into place, as our plans are solidifying...the way forward is starting to emerge from the mists of uncertainty and doubt...

I guess more of that will come out over coming weeks and months, and by the time I complete this series of blog posts - everything could have changed!

Hence, having spent much of today looking backwards with fond nostalgia, and sweet, painful reminiscence, I'll now see the day out looking forward...

To a week in Font, leaving in a few days...

To a new home...

To...who knows what else?

;-)

Day 252 - Walking Dead

it's alive!

Over at my brother's house this afternoon I thought I'd stumbled into some dystopian nightmare when this lumbering zombie shuffled, moaning, into the room.

Turns out it was just the BirdZombie, reanimated after a miraculous display of self-healing, defying all the doctor's predictions, and back in the land of the living.

I recommended getting into cosplay immediately and heading for the nearest ComicCon...he looked at me blankly, and for a moment I was concerned that he is actually zombified...but no, he was just being a teenager!

Anyway it was fantastic to see him up and about, and I hear he's enjoying daily visits from the nurse, so you know, I reckon he's living the teenage dream! 

;-)

Following that we visited Kim to see how she's getting on setting up her new business.  Roob had built this elaborate light stage to get professional quality photo's for their website. 

light show

I'm really impressed at the quality of the work they're producing between them, and I'm sure they can make a go of their business...can't wait to see them progress!

Meanwhile, our local sparrows seem to be joining forces to make a lovely big flock that flit around the gardens and hedgerows...it seems as though several families are enjoying the safety in numbers, and the flock is now around 50 individuals.

superfly

This morning, they all appeared in the hedgerows outside my lounge window, and before long a clutch of them were in this loose, fine soil, where drainpipes have just been laid.  Some were grazing on the grass seed that's been sprinkled on the disturbed lawn, whilst others were taking the opportunity for a dust bath!

There are around 30 sparrows in this photo...whilst the flock includes two or three tree sparrows, I can't spot any in this picture...

(update - Anna spotted a tree sparrow, on the far left, just below the centre line of the photo) 

Anyway, to end this rambling weekend post, for those (hopefully few) of you who are still with me, here's a rare treat...

fro

This is Kim and I, around 1990, give or take...Kim just gave me this photo today, so I felt obliged to post it here for posterity...

I'm not proud...

:-/

Day 243 - Gardening Buddy

tiny ball of cute

This is a really terrible photo, but it has proven quite difficult to get a shot of this little chap, so I'm claiming it! 

He's one of our local wrens, and I just happened to notice him in the hedgerow this morning (I say him, I've no idea of gender, in truth...).  

After admiring his cuteness for a couple of minutes, I suddenly realised I was missing  a golden opportunity to make another addition to my Different Species collection.

I dashed back with the camera, as bleary eyed as you'd expect before 8 in the morning, and rattled off a couple of grainy, badly focussed shots. 

Honestly, I've no idea what I was doing with the camera...

On the first shot the aperture stayed open for ages, so my mind went into spasm trying to debug that little problem.  The only thing I could think was errrrrm, f-stop?

So I wheeled the f-stop to the opposite end from where it started, and this seemed to help.

Unfortunately it didn't help with my framing or my ability to see clearly.  

The net result of all of which is this reasonably poor shot of a really lovely little bird.

Wrens are tiny birds - I think only goldcrest are smaller in the UK.  They are remarkably noisy, and can sometimes be seen sitting on a gatepost giving off loud, strident peeps, and doing an amusing little dip with each call.  I guess this is a territorial thing...at other times they sing beautifully with a clear, high tone.

Anyway we regularly have them around our garden, and they often nest in the ivy outside our bathroom window. 

I'm very fond of them...they seem, along with the robin, like my little gardening buddies, that hang around chirping encouragement (on the odd occasion that I'm out there working without noisy machinery). 

But they flit about a lot, and I never seem to see them at an appropriate moment.

So even though the photo is sub par, I'm pleased to have finally got a snap of one.

In other news, TFI(nearly)F...I'm tired and hoping to catch up on sleep sometime soon...

B-zzzzz

Day 242 - Dark Magic

perfect patio

Today the renowned cowboy contractors came around to restore order after their wonderful drainage installation work.

We were delighted to find dubious looking workmen wandering around the garden when we got up.   It was gratifying to know that our agents had maintained their long standing tradition of failing to notify us of the visit. 

What are tenants rights (codified in law) for, if not for being ignored when it supports your commercial interests?

We are lucky to have an agency that with impressive discipline, fully embraces the efficiencies to be found in skirting neatly around your clients rights at every opportunity. 

Those pesky laws, like the one that allows a tenant to live undisturbed in their home...they're really not considering the negative impact on local small businesses!

And those others that say you can't just turn up on your tenants doorstep unannounced...how, in this day and age, would it be remotely possible to communicate a simple message to another individual?  This isn't some medieval fantasy world where voices could be sent using some dark magic, or thoughts psychically conveyed from one consciousness to another in an instant!

That said, as you can see from the image above, they've done a marvellous job of putting our patio back just as it was...I can only conclude that this miraculous artistry is born of some form of dark magic...

...so perhaps this is some medieval fantasy world?!

They've even faithfully recreated that pile of mud that our barbecue was partially buried in (or was it just standing neatly on a clean, tidy, flat patio, I can't quite remember)...

If you squint carefully, you can just about make out the invisible repair they've done to the lawn...

And that's not even the end of it, so extensive and exhausting have been their efforts today...

perfect path

Look at the craftmanship in that pathway...it's the one that leads from our carpark to our house...but I'll hardly dare stand on it, now that it's been so meticulously blended into the landscape...

It would seem like an insult to their mastery to spoil this work of art by walking on it in clean shoes!

We so lucky!

;-)

Day 233 - Death By Cat

deadvol3

Cats are great and all, but they do have a bad habit of assuming you want the same things that they do. 

Anna was away overnight, so I got up and fed the cats before work this morning.  They were both hassling for breakfast, and once I put their bowls down, they went after it with gusto.

Not five minutes later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a cat wretching, and found Loz being sick in the doorway to the lounge.  I shooed her outside and set about cleaning it up.

Not five minutes later again, and I sat in my chair briefly to have a slurp of coffee...as I turned round to stand up, I found this poor, dead little vole slumped on the carpet behind me...

No cat to be seen.  

Picking him up, it was immediately obvious that he was very freshly dead.  As I took him out to the garden (for the crows), there was Loz, back on the hunt again around the borders of the lawn. 

She must have gone out and chanced upon the vole, and quickly taken it...as it was an easy kill, she then decided to present it to me before nipping out to pick up another one...

I know she's just a cat being a cat, and that the local vole population remains as healthy as ever, despite Loz's voracious kill rate...but I still feel bad every time, and rescue them when I can. 

It was too late for this little one...if it's any consolation, at least in death it provided me with a photo of the day (once my brain kicked into gear).

Voles are the most common prey for Loz, but there have occasionally been more impressive (sort of) kills.

Once or twice she's brought a baby rabbit home, looking immensely pleased with herself.

And one memorable day two years ago, I got home to find spots of blood here and there on the carpet, and this very dead weasel in the middle of the rug in the lounge...

deadweeze1

Weasels commonly take prey such as large rabbits, many times their size...they're ferocious warriors - it must have been quite a battle!

Beautiful animal, in any case...I still have guilty pangs about his unfortunate demise...

Still, the price of every life, and all that...

:-/

Day 229 - Down the Hatch

raging torrent

We had a deluge of rainfall this afternoon across the Midlands, and as it was still raining when I got home, I thought I'd check how the new drainage system was holding up.

The old system here took both foul waste and storm water to the septic tank, but apparently this is not the usual arrangement...so the plan was that the new system would deal specifically with foul waste, whilst the old system would continue to carry off storm water.

I'd raised several concerns regarding the old system, as it seems likely that they've dug through pipes here and there; they've only vaguely connected the downpipes to it in the loosest of senses; and they've filled in one inspection chamber, thereby (presumably) blocking off the system beyond that.

Whereas the estate agents are desperately trying to see the positive side, those of us closer to the action are highly sceptical over whether the storm water system will work at all.  

As it hasn't rained for a while, we just don't know.

Yesterday the owner and the estate agent came for a look at the work that had been done, and to assess the extent of required remedial work.  

It quickly became clear that whether or not the storm water system works isn't the only thing we don't know.  It seems that nobody really knows what's been routed where, which pipes are still intact, and which ones are theoretically still in use.

The plan is for the agents to contact the contractors and get some detailed schematics for what's been put in place.  

Again, to those of us observing the work as it happened, this is a laughable notion.  They only had the vaguest of plans, which was incomplete, and which they didn't even vaguely follow.  To all intents and purposes, they were just making it up as they went along. 

So there's no way the contractor's manager is going to have any idea what his men did.  The only guy who could probably say is the eastern European guy, who seems to barely speak English, and in fact barely talks to anyone at all.  He completely blanked his manager when I saw him being given some instructions (which he took little or no notice of).

Anyway it had yacked it down ('scuse the jargon) here this afternoon, and was still raining early evening, so I pulled up the inspection hatch in the lawn to see what the flow was like, as I'd promised the agent I would. 

As you can see, there is no flow!

The pipe coming from the bottom centre leads back directly to the now filled in next chamber along, so there's no real surprise that there's only the faintest trickle from that direction. 

Slightly worrying, as it should be carrying storm water for 75% of the roofing of the 2 cottages.

The smaller pipe coming from the right covers the West facing half of our house...and is completely dry.

There must have been some storm water fed into the system from the rooftops, but where it's all gone is a mystery!

At this point, I'm pretty much expecting our house to up and float away during the next heavy rainfall season. 

Anyway, the good news is that there was a busy little ants nest in the top of the inspection chamber, teeming with activity.

free range eggs

You can barely see any ants in this photo, but the little white grains of rice are tiny eggs, attended to by an army of scurrying carers...

I'm still claiming it as another animal for my blog photo collection.

I know I've had ants before, but they were a different species.  I'm not sure what this one is, but the eggs are much paler and smaller, and of course it's a couple of months later in the year, yet they're at more or less the same stage.

Anyway, sorry to have disturbed you, little colony...at least you have a nice dry home in all this rain!

;-)

Day 228 - Tai Chi Yang Style

that's a big beachball

I took a sort of duvet day from work today...I'm owed over 30 hours so I felt it was reasonable to take a day for myself.  

I spent the day at home, tidying up and finishing off those videos (see Day 228b), dozing with a cat on my lap, and practising a little Tai Chi Yang style.

Really, I have no idea what I'm doing...I learnt a little from an Xbox fitness game that uses the Kinect to tell you when you're doing it correctly, and some of it has stayed with me.  I find it really helps with balance and control.

Since mentioning it in a blog post the other day, it's been on my mind again, and I thought I might try to take it up a little more seriously.

I enjoy the peaceful, meditative aspect of it, as well as the balance and control.  It's supposed to be very good for your health, and it's surprisingly tiring, despite the apparent lack of activity. 

Also, it looks really cool...when done properly!

reasonable form

And I'm really not suggesting that I'm doing it at all properly - I'm an absolute beginner with no real experience.

So I found an instructional video on Youtube, and spent half an hour learning the first few moves.  They're really hard to remember, as well as being hard to do (or hard to do well, at least)!   

It seems that it's important to be in full control and awareness of all four limbs, your core, your centre of gravity, and the orientation of various body parts (knees, feet, hands, elbows, head, torso)...then add constant planes of motion and the interactions between all of the above, and it becomes quite the multitasking challenge!

Consequently, I think there's a fairly steep learning curve.

go away

I took a short video of myself so that I could check my form, and sure enough I can see a whole number of things I'm doing wrong...although overall, I'm reasonably happy for a first try... 

And it did give me the opportunity to snip these stills, giving me some interesting and different (if poor quality) photo's for the day.

you dancin'?

I'm going to try to be diligent and practise for a few minutes daily...you should feel free to regularly ask me how I'm getting on with it!

I think it will help me to remain spiritually, psychologically and emotionally centred, balanced and grounded, which is my preferred mode of existence...

More simply put, it helps me to retain my inner peace, no matter how crazy and chaotic the world around me might become...(tho' it doesn't, most of the time, to be fair)...

I guess you can be the judge of that, dear readers...you can decide whether my life appears chaotic or stressful, and how calm I seem in relation to it...if I can persist with the Tai Chi, then it will be interesting to discover what impact, if any, it has on my blogging. 

But no, you're not seeing the video at this point!

It's feasible that the stills are giving the lie to the level of form I have attained...so we'll keep that video firmly locked away, thanks...

;-)

Day 226 - Make It So (Please)

nice cat, though...

Those of you who are paying close attention will have realised that over the last few weeks, our lovely summer garden has been essentially destroyed by a team of inept and careless drainage contractors.

I haven't talked about it much because it's been fairly painful, but they've "finished" (and I use that word in its loosest possible sense) and gone now, so I'll just give you a brief update.

For context, you should know that the house we've rented for the last 8 years or so, is a small, semi-detached farm cottage in the corner of a wheat field in a small hamlet in South Warwickshire.

It's very plain, with no mod cons, but is a beautiful place to live, especially in the better months of the year.  

Two significant mod cons that it hasn't got would be a connection to the gas supply, and a connection to the sewage or drain systems.

With only electricity as a power source, we at least have the benefit of open fires all winter, which we really love, so we've learned to live with that one. 

For drainage, our house and the one we're attached to are on a discrete system, with all of our storm water and foul waste feeding into a large, brick built septic tank underneath our car parking area. 

There have been minor issues with this system for years (rodding blocked sewer pipes is not funny, believe me), and the landlord has now decided to replace it entirely.   That is, a new, large, modern septic tank, and new pipework to both houses.

So far, so good...

But then as it turns out, that's as far as the good went - from that point on it has been a painful descent into what has now become kind of a hilarious purgatory.

The photo above shows our lawn where we socialise the most, and the little patio area where we (used to) barbecue.  As you can see, the lawn is pretty much ruined, stones all over it, dead patches, nothing cleaned up - they didn't even brush the mud they got all over the decking off...

at least it's sunny

...here's another section of the garden, which really doesn't do justice to the ridges, holes, dips and lumps that cover it all...

mud path

...this is our main route in, the path from car park to house...the slabs are all broken or missing, and the ruination of the lawn continues throughout...

why, exactly?

...this is where Anna parks her car - or where she used to park her car, when all of these slabs were intact...

That's just a few random samples - and I can tell you it looks much worse in real life...I could easily take another 20 or 30 shots of additional examples of the damage and destruction...

But it doesn't stop there...check out the ridiculously amateurish joining of the old system (the green downpipe) and the new...

seriously?!

The whole job has been done to this shockingly laughable standard, supposedly at a cost running into five figures...

And these shots are how they left the job, when their remit was to leave it as it was, to make good the usual upset of laying some pipes.

As a reminder, the photo on this page gives a hint of how the garden felt before...watch the video with sound for the full effect of how lovely, peaceful and pretty it was here just a couple of short months ago...

Anyway I won't dwell on it, what's done is done.  I'll hopefully have some more positive photos of whatever remedial work we can squeeze out of the landlord, before we give up and think about moving on.

Maybe we'll get a new lawn out of it...and a gate, and the car park resurfaced?!

It could happen!  

I'll take that image forward with me, I think...if I expect it all to get sorted, and act and behave as though that will happen, it can only help to nudge the universe towards making it so...

It's going to be really nice when the carpark is mud free for the first time ever, and the lawn is smooth and easy to mow!

Can't wait!

;-)

Day 220 - Witches Brew

hide and sneak

Late last night, just after blogging, I found this little intruder, in full camouflage, storming the front door!

He seems to have red eyes, but I think that's an artefact of the camera flash...he is a Common Toad (Bufo bufo) and his eyes should be yellow to golden brown.

He's pictured here on the grotty, grimy concrete path that skirts the outside of our house...and isn't he well matched to it?!    I'm not sure if that's sand all over his head, but it's certainly enabled him to hide on the path very effectively...when I told Anna to come and look, she had no idea what I was gesticulating at, until I got in so close that he realised the game was up, and initiated a hasty retreat.

Little fat, warty thing...brilliant! 

I always used to have a toad living in the garden here, but I hadn't seen one for a few years now.  I'm really pleased that they're still here, although I'm concerned that he's been disturbed by The Cowboy Contractors, as they're now known.

I suppose the pedantic amongst you will be pointing out that these photo's are from last night, not today...well, yes, you're right. 

So continuing our Witches Brew Ingredients theme, here's another member of the creepy crawly genus for your viewing pleasure...

grade f9b+

I think he's just sitting there on this overhung arete (dodgy camera angles notwithstanding) in order to taunt me with his superior climbing skills. 

He's a Giant House Spider (Tegenaria duellica), and is nearly 3 inches from the tip of his highest leg to the tip of his lowest, in this photo. 

He lives in our lounge, normally behind a large wall hanging.  But lately he's built a little web down behind the floor light by the fireplace.  We're happy to have him here, in the hope that he'll take some of the annoying flies we've had in here lately.  

There is at least one beetle hiding away in here too, and sometimes when both the beetle and the spider are out patrolling in the evenings, they almost cross paths...and I find I have a strong sense of morbid curiosity about it...

Will they fight?  Are they competitors rather than predator and prey?  If they do fight, who would win?!   The beetle is chunkier and presumably heavier...but the house spider has good range, good speed and maybe a good bite?

What about Toad vs Spider vs Beetle?!

Hey, at least it's feasible that these creatures could meet up...unlike the usual Tiger vs Shark or Giant snake vs Dinosaur speculative match-ups...

Anyway, my money's on the toad...his weight advantage should outweigh his general blubberiness and lack of weapons.

Though I don't actually want to see them fight...

Why can't they all just get along?

Peace, little dudes!

Day 218 - Does Not Compute

no jazz...

In due course, I will a write a full celebratory blog post in honour and remembrance of our old boy...but here, today, all I'm aware of, through tear-filled eyes, is that the world is full of holes shaped just like Jazz.

He's not by my feet...and nor is he by Anna's feet...

no jazz...

...but he's not under my chair by my desk either...

no jazz...

...and he's not on the sofa (with or without Loz)...

no jazz...

...he's not even on the rug in the kitchen, begging for tidbits...

no jazz...

...he's not in his bed...

no jazz...

...and he's nowhere to be found in the garden (I've looked)...

no jazz...

The world seems to be short of precisely one Jazz...

...and all the worse for it...

:-(

Day 207 - Troublemaker

lookout point

This little lady has been the cause of much trouble around here...in fact, such is her significance, I think she's featured on my blog before!

The Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) makes it a criminal offence to disturb a nesting bird. 

This protection stands regardless of whether the bird is nest building, or the nest contains eggs or young dependent fledglings.

In one of the hedges between our cottage and next door, a pair of blackbirds have been nesting for some weeks...for the last two or three weeks, they have been diligently feeding their young on juicy fat worms and other insects that they find around the garden. 

Our garden makes for a wonderful food rich territory for them, and we believe this is their second brood this year. 

One drawback, however, is the Killer Queen, Loz.  At the weekend, as Queenie was hunting voles around the decking, something in the hedge caught her attention. 

The blackbird nest is low in the hedge, maybe only 1m above the ground, although the hedge is so dense that the nest is not easily visible - I haven't managed to spot it yet. 

Anyway I found Loz totally focussed on the hedge in the approximate vicinity of the nest, in full on targeting mode.

As I shooed her away, she hardly even noticed me, instead treating me like some kind of roadblock and merely adjusting her position without losing focus on the nest at all.

We had to shut her indoors (much to her chagrin) for 48 hours, before she seemed to forget about the nest when let out under our supervision. 

The blackbird has a variety of strategies for defending itself against predators such as Loz, of which the Prime Directive is:

Never let the predator discover the location of the nest.

The blackbird achieves this by only entering the nest when they're sure they are unobserved...if a cat is around they will sit on the lawn in full view, just a few feet away, and wait for the cat to pay them some attention...at which point they'll take off directly away from the nest.   This both draws the predator away (both physically and psychologically), and as a side bonus, offers their mate a chance, quietly and unnoticed, to enter the nest.

To some extent they are testing the predator, to see whether it is in hunting mode, such that they can adjust their tactics appropriately.

For pure prey animals, they are remarkably brave where their young are concerned.

Anyway, as I briefly mentioned in an earlier post, we had to interrupt the drain digging operation in our garden because the new underground pipes were to be routed directly below the nest.

For several days now works have been halted (although in fairness, the nest is not the only reason), and we are watching and waiting to see what develops with the nest. 

I should note that we're not keen to protect the bird because it's illegal, but simply because it's morally right - the Law is simply a convenient way of forcing the uncompromising and uncaring drainage workers to cede to our personal standpoint. ;-)

A couple of days ago, our neighbour claimed that the young had fledged...but since then we've seen the mother and father blackbirds go back to the nest, and they're still making the soft clucking sound they make to reassure their young...so they don't seem to have fledged just yet.

Somewhat worryingly, this morning I saw the mother blackbird in the photo above enter the nest with a beak full of dry grass...nesting material!

We're hoping this simply means they're making a few running repairs...and not that they're starting Round Three!

I'll keep both my eye on them, and you posted...

:-)

Day 198 - Eyup...

...me duck

They say that a lot around Leicestershire way, where I used to live. 

Eyup, me duck!

It just seemed like a long winded way of saying "Hi!"...but generally I found it to be sweet and affectionate.

All that said, they weren't talking about this sort of duck at all...

This is a Mallard, a female.  She's been hanging around a bit, with her mate, for a few weeks now.

Mostly, they've been on the little pond over the road, but on several occasions recently, I've seen them on the verge over on our side of the main road...and when I got home this evening and pulled off the main road, here she was, wandering along looking a little confused and alone.  

I'm quite concerned...our landlords in their (utter lack of any kind of) wisdom (whatsoever), have employed a local farm building company to replace the septic tank and drain system at our property...it's a long and very painful story that I won't inflict on you...

The long and short of it is that today they started in earnest, and they've completely destroyed large chunks of hedgerow and general wilderness, alongside the stream.   The amount of damage they've done in a day has to be seen to be believed...

Anyway I'm concerned that me' duck's mate has somehow become a victim of the hurricane that apparently passed through whilst we were at work today...

Here's another photo for no reason other than that I was experimenting with cropping and framing, and saved it:

walks like a duck

I'm too angry to talk about the havoc outside, so I'll just leave it there...

I will of course let you know if the drake shows up again...

Fingers crossed!

:-/

Day 183 - Halfway House

tada

June 15th - exactly equidistant between my 50th, and 51st birthday...my 6 month blogaversary!

183 days in, and I have still to miss a day - it feels like a milestone, and I'm really chuffed to have made it this far.

To celebrate, we spent a couple of hours messing around in the garden...can you guess what we're all doing?

directing traffic?

Kim looks very focussed...

thunderbirds are stop

Whilst Christina looks like a puppet on a string...

holding his tongue right

Roob seems to be getting down and funky...

don't shoot

Anna gives herself up...

gimme five up high

Whilst I solicit an optimistic high five...

ba-doom tish

And Kim finishes with a flourish...


Those of you who have been paying attention will of course have realised by now that we've been slacklining...and great fun it's been.  

It's quite hard but we all made some progress...and it's notable how stable you can appear in a still shot!

poise

Kim looking graceful...

ease

Christina asking what all the fuss is about...

radical, dude

Roob casually surfs the line... 

the tao of anna

Anna demonstrates her perfect balance... 

halfway there!

Whilst I seem to be heavier than everyone else...

Those pictures belie how difficult it is, though...these action shots are more representative, and more fun!

touchdown imminent

Kim's controlled dismount...

tai chi feet

Anna's ninja pose...

still waiting on that five

Am I getting on, falling off, what?!

banzai

Anna attempts an extravagant french dismount...

And so, a good time was had by all...I expect we'll feel it in the morning!


And there it is, the halfway mark...

6 months down, 6 months to go...I can do this!

:-)