I blame Sean
I started with a txt from Sean. He'd spotted a flyer for a "music festival for people that don't do music festivals".
Not to be out done, I quickly searched up the twinkling lights we'd seen the night before while crossing the Camel at Wadebridge. Aha, some festival thing, a combination of music and… food. Hardly surprising in the land of the rising PadStein.
Happy 81
Happy 81 L!!!! The birthday swim is becoming a tradition. Hopefully the post-swim Thai meal will too.
Cove with a view
Cove with a view. A view of the three people and two dogs getting cut off on the sand bank by a rising tide across the estuary. Fortunately "swimming for it" was successful.
Congratulations H
Celebrating with H - two very proud parents, and a proud little brother. A tough covid three years at uni. Well done super star!!!!
It's a dog's life
E is so happy with the bed under the breakfast bar that he's pretty much moved in permanently. He nearly missed the evening walk because he was so chilled.
Brightwell Run
F was walking the boys with H so I cadged a lift to Brightwell and ran home over the hill. Puffed.
Out and about in Oxford
Starting at Redbridge Park and Ride with EV charging powered by some massive "grid scale" battery that was installed at Cowley Substation. Perhaps that's why you pay for parking and the park & ride bus, which together is more than parking at the Westgate. Genius!
It's a bit warm
"It's a bit warm" said Yogi.
Scorching might be a better description.
Randall illustrates why this is a problem in xkcd 1732 below…
London - Amsterdam & Back
Work trip to Amsterdam via the Eurostar. St Pancreas to Amsterdam central in ~4 hours which is a bit crazy considering home to Liverpool Street used to be ~2 hours. (Although that was bike-train-bike 😉) Connecting from Paddington to St Pancreas was a whizz, what with the Elizabeth line taking about 8 minutes from Paddington to Farringdon. Would have been quite handy for getting to Chancery Lane back when that was my commute.
My next bike?
Maybe. Possibly something similar. Maybe not.
Because:
Cool yes?
Team meetup in Amsterdam
A short trip via Eurostar to Amsterdam for a couple of days with the lovely product team. Super.
Lunch @ Prawn on the ~~Lawn~~ Farm
Lunch at Prawn on the Farm. Scrumptious food. Great service. Almost perfect company and a lovely view across to the monument. Again?
Morning Walk Mono
Up early, but it was already hot. The same walk is also available in colour if you prefer. Vote in the comments.
Morning Walk Colour
Up early, but it was already hot. The same walk is also available in mono if you prefer. Vote in the comments.
Good Night Padstow
A wander around the inner harbour to the Friday evening sounds of something from the Harbour Inn. I wonder what it will look like tomorrow?
End of the pint
A silver lining story. H & D had to hastily rearrange their holiday when the transport to Montenegro suddenly wasn't. Instead they're on a touring trip of Cornwall which meant we got to spend a lovely day with them as they made their way to the Minack. A lovely bonus to our week. D took a marvelous group selfie, while I got this shot of the glass on the pub table. Go figure.
CCTV watching the view
It was probably sometime in 1992 when I heard Wally Axford describing the lens-less camera of the future. It was in the Photo Science labs in the basement of Riding House Street and, I think, during an extended image processing practical session with an Acorn Archimedes something or other. Wally's theory was that the future camera would just be a GPS device. All you needed to know was where you were.
It would generate the perfect picture by composing something from a combination of stock imagery for where you were with the curated images of the people you were with. His theory was that a) most people couldn't capture a great landscape photo, b) most people didn't like most pictures of themselves, and c) no one cares really about the actual picture, more it's the memory it evokes or the message it sends.
At the time there was some Kodak research floating around that the most common photo was granny in front of a bin in the garden. So Wally's idea would give you the best photo of granny with the best bits of the garden (without the bins, or a telegraph pole sticking out of grannies head).
Tech went in a different direction, with computational cameras in every pocket. But I can't help wondering if the highly curated feeds on facebook, insta or wherever are telling us that we'd be better off with something closer to Wally's vision.
But then there's deep fakes, which is pretty much exactly what Wally envisioned. Except they've not (yet) reinvented and replaced the camera.
Fork in the path
Random walk dog walks: every time there's a junction with a choice we follow Ewok. One day we might end up at Bodmin Parkway.
Tree Fern
Awesome pressie from G J A & F. Thank you.
Beach Not Constantine
A little walk from Trevone to Harlyn and back for a) fuel and b) to decide to go boarding at Constantine.
The surf was a little bigger, but much, much messier. Low tide and we nearly ended up in Boobys.
