Year End

At the end of 2015 we find ourselves playing a few games and having fun within a non-televisualised landscape..! Pop to the Shops is an old fave game that probably is a bit juvenile for even the youngest members of the family, but have to give it a run around.

Lots of other games were played, the least successful was a version of pontoon for money. Cash and harmony do not mix.

Leggy things clad in fabric; present from Gran to Miranda. Those who can recall the picture my father held in his purse, of my mother, would note the similar pattern.

Obviously if you are paying attention Gran, they do fit...

Christmas Presents

Can't go wrong with socks at Christmas, especially socks from Prince Charles' favourite sock maker.

Corgi Hosiery made in Ammanford, West Wales.

Blown away

David Barb and Jonny came to see us today and before lunch we had a blow on the beach at Calshot. Too damn windy for sailing but fortunately Paul Rapson brought his flexifoil kites for us to play with. Suffice to say I still can teach Lewis a few tricks!! We had great fun trying to tame the tubocharged sleeping bag, even Jonny (Evans) had a go proving there is life in the Evans' yet...

Tief, tief...

I turn to pick up my iPad, but it's not there, so I have to go walkabout to find it...

Hidden on the landing out of sight but within WiFi range I discover the culprit and collaborator. Guilty as charged m'lud.

Free Range

If you consider that the New Forest is essentially 27,000 hectares of open range beautiful countryside, and the Solent is similarly one huge freedom zone afloat, you could say that we were quite lucky and #free

Training at Calshot

Kids Adventure Stories

Mip looking at some original Enid Blyton book cover illustrations from a few weeks ago.

daddy

Miranda's lovely place names for our Christmas Dinner with Ron and Ann...

Coal Mining

"Bernard Hare recalls the day his dad took him on a terrifying trip down a coal mine - and how it changed his life" http://goo.gl/jY0o27

Boys in action

A report on why not to jump off lampposts

 Today's blog posting is by Miss Miranda Brown 😋 ...
 
You should not jump off lampposts because you could really hurt yourself like I did. I really don't recommend it! Some people can do it because they are very agile and can jump across buildings that are meters apart. My next reason is that you will probably end up in A&E which won't be the best night ever plus  it isn't very fun waiting. And if you're a P.E fan don't try it because you end up with no P.E:( when you could be doing🎾🏀⚽️🏇🏼🏆so that would be A shame!

 

Grafham next event

Team Aquaholic29er training for the Inland Championships in a few weeks at Grafham Water near Cambridge, we don't think the water should be as choppy as this although the wind was up at 35 knots last time we sailed there. And it's December.... so who knows!

And even more windy

Today was a bit different, we went to see an exhibition of pictures by one of Enid Blyton's many book illustrators. Her name was Mary Gernat-How and she lived with her family in Milford on Sea, and since we often read the books thought it would be fun. Meeting her son, who features in her illustrations was a little like mirror phasing, and the picture below is coincidentally is almost exactly where we took the photo above. Read this article for more info.

 

Windy

A good days training at Calshot started bright and early as the wind was forecast to build. What a great way  to start the day, although it was freezing and blowy sitting there drinking my hot chocolate ... having one of those "I can see clearly now the rain has gone ..." moments

By lunchtime the wind was screaming and the boys came off the water, "Did you see us we just covered three miles in about 5 minutes....!"

The World of Work

Greg's first experience of the world of work, and what a day. He started out at Merchant Marketing Group http://merchantmarketinggroup.com/ as a Junior Designer and has worked on a top secret campaign, which they are pitching tomorrow... thanks to Paul and his team for a great day, and taking him out to lunch at a trendy burger joint (Seven Bone)

And as a bonus we happened to meet one of our sailing chums, who happens to be Mr Oyster Yachts http://www.oysteryachts.com/, so we've had a guided tour of the factories and design studios. Not often you get the chance to see 6 eighty footers being built in the same space at the same time. If I was excited, I wonder what little Greg made of it all, school will be very boring tomorrow I think!

Sail Training

 A good training session with Ben Batten as coach at Royal Lymington SC, and four other boats.  I was on rib crew duty picking up the boats and laying marks etc for the racing. So this meant I could take some photos too!

I have offered GRANDAN a ride with the boys ths week, and his interest level was high, so maybe we'll have to arrange this sometime!! He must be feeling better...

Now I am Ten

Popsie with presents as she passes into the realm of double digits. Today she's been out to the cinema and the ice cream parlour with Alfie, her partner in crime.

Just eaten lasagne verde, and sent little Alfie back to base...

Wind today been ferocious, huge white horses on Southampton Water even.. 40kts+, so Greg and I went for a nice bike ride together, whilst Lewi took the camera and walked, taking photos for his Graphics AS.

Selfie du Jour

Lewi has been doing photography at College as part of his graphics studies, so off he went this afternoon to create some new images. I have been helping him edit a few this evening so I'm sharing something new!

The wind in the willows.

We had a whole weekend planned; supposedly doing the Inland Championships at Grafham Water but the weather forecast has been bleak to say the least. Eventually it was cancelled on Thursday night, as people travel from Scotland and Ireland with a boat which means a whole day's travel in advance.

The boys still thought they wanted to go sailing at LTSC anyhow on Sunday morning but I had my doubts especially as I woke, and looked out the window. We went, and racing was cancelled there too, which really pleased me having dragged myself out of bed and down the road.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and since I had my kit already in/bike on the car though we'd go for a bike ride with Popsie instead. What a great ride we had, picnic in the forest etc. Lovely leaves tumbling everywhere and we chattered all the way round. Popsie is very excited as I have promised her a camping trip in the Spring on our bikes.

Cotton Tops is not well

She threw up violently on her passage to the bathroom late last night, a task I could have done without as bedtime approached for me. Fortunately I managed to clear up and rid us of the smell, but a veryn damp carpet remains.

Overnight we had a few more episodes so a little deprived of sleep this morning, and I had a busy day ahead.

Today she's been at home with me, but poor little Popsie has not been herself. We tried lunch of a few beans on toast, but that came back up. By suppertime slight improvement but sadly not better. Nothing really bad, no big temperature or anything, but certainly not well.

Let see what happens tonight...

And now for something a little different

I normally pop my arty stuff on Flickr, my family social stuff on Mippy.co.uk, and my iPhonology stuff on Instagram. Oh yes, and I push any of the above towards Facebook..!

This is a double exposure of Miranda with grassy forms from a recent walk at Rans Wood, and it was intentional before you doubt my intents. She looks like this most mornings when she wakes and I cajole her into the bathroom for a wash!

Retracing footsteps

My brother Christian is to be thanked for arranging this trip down memory lane, which sits in the context of a different recent event.

My parents met at Swansea School of Art, but both were too shy to strike up. A night out was arranged to the cinema by their mutual friend Robert, who then stepped aside at the last minute, leaving the rest to history.

Chris managed to get this photograph outside their old haunt quite recently, so it has to go up on the blog!

Kids on the beach at Weymouth

Whenever I get a chance to have all three in one frame at the same time , I jump. I have even stated tagging the #allthree so I stand a chance of finding them in years to come. What do you reckon on tagging the relevant files #awkwardsob or #smilewouldBnice

Hardy's Country

The boys have been racing at Weymouth this weekend, so it's been an action packed weekend again. Yesterday it was very windy, certainly pushing their upper limit, although them did almost have smiles when they came in.

I have been out on my bike, as this shot is designed to remind me. The legacy of the Olympic Games as Weymouth was host town for the sailing events, was a much improved road and cycle trail system. I had noticed various tracks suggesting there was a network, but not until this recent had I tried it out. This weekend I pushed the envelope to every corner and would like to give the planners a big pat on the back for building such a great resource for Weymouth. I have spoken to lots of locals and other bike riders on my travels, and everyone sings its praises. The trails are often completely separate from the roads, and well sign posted, although like all things added after the evnt need a bit of working out.

This was on my trail out of Weymouth past Upwey towards Dorchester which you can see in the background here. Dorchester is a great place with so much character. Some great food and drink places, for those with money in their pockets and time to burn! I had a tasty spot of lunch at Finca an independent coffee shop, before headed over to Poundbury to explore some photographic potential.

My trail took me past Hardy's Tower with its splendid views over towards the boys sailing on the sea, and back inland towards Dorset. A blast back along the ridge towards Upwey and back down to Portland just as the boys came off the water. Perfect, five hours in the saddle - sun sea sand...

After 4 Grand Prix Events the boys are sitting at 41st out of 89 boats, which is a good improvement on last year, with plenty of scope to improve in the year ahead.

One of many

When I'm taking photos I am either in the zone or not in it. What I mean is sometime I can't be bothered, but when it's working I'm like a prize fighter stabbing away. So when I come to cull the out-takes, sometimes I can't bear to loose one particular image although we all know too much crap become a mountain to steer around. So I processed this one and it's a keeper! Ain't she lovely

I'm listening to Fracture and Chimpo...

Greg for a change

Greg's playing a great new song at the moment on his guitar, it's called Cancion. It's my favourite time I think when he's trying to get to grips with something new, and it all sounds a bit jagged, and you can tells he's trying to read the music. Usually it's only a few days before he's got the gist of it and then it sounds like a tune then, and although it's always enjoyable, it's not quite like those first few days of working at it afresh (for me anyhow)

Lewis has been home for the day as he's broken up for half term; didn't get out of bed until gone 9, and then work his PJ's all day. To be fair he did do some homework, and coursework, so no grumbles!! Lunch together peacefully was enjoyable too.

On the mend, and round the bend.

My Mum and Dad earlier this evening, from a photograph taken by my brother Chris. My father has had a short visit to hospital, and tronight he's just back from his 100,000 mile service and cam belt change. At one point he had six doctors stood around him conferring before they signed him off. He says he was honoured to have such great personal attention during his visit, and is ready now for another burst of service.

Plans being made for some new activities, I was told when I spoke to them earlier.

Rugby Girl

Not content with merely being the team mascot, Miranda likes to be in amongst the action. We've had a fair bit of nationalistic banter in the house of late, and as you can see she's in the Welsh strip. Well who would support the English given a choice?

You'll notice she's wearing jodhpurs to mix and match, always ready for any opportunity!

Action Stations

Photo taken last weekend at Hayling during the Grand Prix. It was a lovely day and the wind was hovering around 10 knots, but as always at HISC the tide rips through. The boys had good fun especially on the Sunday, so we came back with a smile.

Very nice sunset on Sunday, and we had chips in the beach. This weekend Lewi has two days Team Racing near Oxford with Peter Symonds College. They are competing in the Eric Twinane Team Racing Cup against the likes of Winchester College and Sevenoaks School in the Firefly. Is he ready for a boat with so little power I ask myself!

Quilter Extraordinaire

Not sure of the photographer, but clearly not myself! This is another fragment of my Mum's eightieth birthday party, and the moment my mother opened the beautiful quilt made by Joanna. All around the perimeter is embroidered the names and dates of birth of us all, and our respective children. Must have taken a few hours to make this, a real labour of love.

HISC

Two days racing at Hayling Island SC, nine races in total. The weather has been great and when topped off with a sunset and chips on the beach like this, life doesn't get any better. I have been riding my bike, and Lewis has been doing his homework in and around the sailing; we're getting the hang of this!

Clan Gathering

My Mum's surprise birthday party on the weekend, masterminded by my sister Joanna, was a big success. The sun shone and the sandwiches and cakes and tea (and fizz obviously) kept coming!

Another notch on the belt

It's my Mum's Birthday, a significant one too! She told me that alike the thirty transition, she wasn't looking forward to this one. She added that once she thought about it, she realised how lucky she was to have such a lovely family. It's us of course who are the lucky ones to have had such a faithful, loyal and loving guide through life. This is one of those magic moments from my childhood that proves the camera never lies, we really had it all!

So Happy Birthday Mum, you're the best....

Souper Soup Maker

I discovered at 8.30 this morning that Miranda had yet another inset day. So we got stuck into some fun activities to make the most of things. To be fair I'd already done our 'Times Tables' before she even went to school, so that left me with an art lesson, followed by Daddy Soup Kitchen.

Mip turned out to be an epic peeler, chopper and slosher, and I have the photos to prove it. Eating the soup was even more fun that making it and Mip spent the afternoon playing Moshi Monsters inaudibly - one wonders what she's up to?

Standing Tall

I was looking at Greg this morning as we crossed in the bathroom, just a few inches shorter than me.

Not a new photo but a newly processed picture, as I am trying to tidy up my archive a bit, getting rid of lots of junk, asking myself whether it deserves to be seen or not.

Messing around in boats

Last one off the beach!

The Welsh Job

Tearing around the countryside on two wheels, leaving a trail of devastation... gold bars tipping off the rear into oblivion.

All she needs is a boat

...but she's happy enough skipping along the shore!

Waiting for the off

British boats, New Zealand Boats, Dutch Boats, Spanish Boats and more...

Nature Watch

I don't recall why her fingers were stained orange, but they were! Mucky Miranda and the dendochronology of the New Forest.

Boat Building

It's amazing what gets built in our street, this is just the latest project to emerge from the boat sheds known as Green Marine. It's Alex Thompson's IMOCA60 which will compete in next year's Vendee Globe... World Class!

Portsmouth Naval Base

Had a great day at the Naval Museum at Portsmouth to see in Greg's birthday. We revisited the Sailing Navy Gallery which we built as a work project about twenty years ago, and is still going strong. This one was taken in a newer section, which was all about radio signalling and morse code.

We visited loads of naval boats, and could easily have stayed longer, but we were out of time!

Bramble Bank Cricket

Miranda will probably best be able to tell you all about the LAT (Lowest Astrological Tide) but this is CSC staking our claim on the landmass otherwise known as Bramble Bank in the middle of the Solent yesterday! Greg was the first man to find solid ground underfoot although our daggerboard touched down slightly earlier...!

This was the scene of the cricket match which happens most years between the Island SC and Hamble SC, for about half an hour whilst the sandbank is exposed. We joined in the fun by sailing over as Calshot SC and were photographed by fellow sailor Paul Rapson.