Black ice and white ice

Had a knock on the door last night at 11:00pm followed by the usual,
"I wonder who that is?" "Answer it and we might find out!". There, looking a bit forlorn was one of SWIMBO's bellringing chums who we had left outside The Cricketers around a half an hour earlier. It turned out that all the roads around Redbourn were closed by the police due to black ice, so the poor woman could not get back to Harpenden.
We then had an unexpected guest in the spare room last night,
and provided B & B.

Below, are some interesting patterns (click picture to enlarge) in the ice caused by the gradually receding flood water around the greenhouse. Unfortunately, Poppy was standing on this very piece of ice when it suddenly cracked and she fell through the ice - luckily, by this time the freezing water was only about an inch thick.

Night photography

The Cricketers pub, last night - not a very good attempt.
Lesson No.1 - take a tripod you fool!

One of Granny's pictures

Uxbridge Lock at 1:00am taken by Andrew Denny












See what I mean?

Granny Buttons

Saw 'Granny Buttons' (who?) on Sunday lunchtime in Apsley.
She's the narrowboat of No.1 canal blogger Andrew Denny.
There was no sign of Andrew at the boat or in The Paper Mill pub.















Andrew takes brilliant photos, and some of his best are taken at night using long exposure times and also a handheld torch to 'fill in' the shadows.

According to his blog, on Saturday night he moved his car to Berkhamsted and walked back to Apsley to the boat. He left Berkhamsted at 11:00pm but got engrossed with taking photographs and didn't get to Apsley until 4:00am!
I expect he was asleep then? Don't blame him.

Southbank Symphonia

After the delicious meal we braved the icy wastes of Berkhamsted
to go to a concert.




















Despite our worries about the state of the car park, we found it had been almost totally cleared of snow for us - how kind.
Founded in 2002, the orchestra of young professionals is now established as Britain's orchestral academy, providing the most talented players with a much needed bridge between conservatoire and the profession.
All the soloists were members of the orchestra and re-took their places after their performances, and carried on as if nothing had happened.
This was the "new intake's" first away gig, and very good it was too.
We were told we could adopt a member of the orchestra if we wished.
I found a nice blonde swiss girl in 2nd violins but thought SWIMBO might not totally approve.
The only disappointment was finding in the programme that my technique of tuning a viola a semitone sharper to five it a more brilliant tone, had in fact been tried by that young upstart Mozart in 1779!

New noodle bar in Berkhamsted

Went to dinner last night with a well respected
ex-colleague from the laboratory.
Nothing unusual in that you might think, except that the meal was cooked beautifully by her 12 year old daughter Roo.
It was a stir-fry with noodles which would have had Wagamama's quaking in their boots.
I understand they are no longer planning to open a branch in Berkhamsted due to the stiff competition!

Still lots of snow

Not much in the frozen food department is there?















Ice blanket

"By the way ...

... if you want to photograph me again, you'll have to do better than that cheap old Aldi cat food".

Bl * * dy Dog!

We had a surprise visit last night from some very dear friends.
They came with their new dog who got a bit excited and had an accident on the carpet - not too serious, though!
When Poppy emerged from her 'hidey hole' after they had left, as you can see, she was not happy.















After a while, she seemed to be a bit happier...















Then, it was all forgotten apparently?

What a difference a day makes!

Sunday February 1st















Monday February 2nd













































They were putting the new roof on the cricket pavilion despite the very heavy snow which was coming down.

Whoa!

Within 45 minutes of my last post, all these people had visited this blog:

Oslo: Lisbon, Lisboa: Lima: Piracicaba, Sao Paulo: Brazil: Jakarta, Jakarta Raya: Shanghai: Saint Louis, Missouri: Bilbao, Pais Vasco: Bloomingdale, Illinois: Madrid: Bucharest, Bucuresti: Milan, Lombardia: Espoo, Southern Finland: Ingersheim, Alsace: Baarn, Urtecht: Angra, Azores: Gurgaon, Haryana

Blown it! - only £1.41 left

There we are, I've spent my leaving present from N.W. Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and have bought a state of the art G.P.S. system for footpath walking and geocaching.
It's a Satmap Active 10 - and it's pretty amazing, so far...
The system uses Ordnance Survey maps on SD memory cards and I have bought a 'custom built' map covering the area I think I will need locally. When I planned it out on a paper map it turned out to be 80km x 50km and happened to be centred on Luton Airport.

O.K. the map alone was over £100, but look at what it does...



















Initial screen before unit obtains 'home co-ordinates'



















Zoomed in on Redbourn



















Redbourn common



















One of the roads around the common.
It is possible to zoom in even further but obviously a lot of detail is lost. At this level you can easily see which side of the road you are walking on.
The beauty of this unit is that you need no longer worry about straying from a footpath and walking through a farmyard which is 'out of bounds'. As soon as you stray from the footpath, it's immediately obvious on the screen. Just to left of the road below, you can see a footpath across the common clearly marked in green.

Who else was it bought for then?

Hmmmm...














I was going to go into an antique shop today but it looked like they were stocktaking and I didn't want to be counted.

Pavilion ready for rebuilding

Cricket pavilion with its new straight girders:

Back to WORK already!

Well, voluntary work anyway.
Helped out with the printing of the Parish Magazine this morning. Made 300 copies of the magazine on the photocopier. This month the magazine consists of about 16 double sided A4 pages with a colour cover sheet back and front. The copier collates all the copies and is supposed to staple them as well, but it seems the stapling side of things is too flimsy and isn't really up to the job. So, I did the stapling this morning - luckily we have an electric stapler!

Had to get to the Church for 9:30 (am!) - look it was still foggy (for "heavens" sake!).















1000 of the 1270 copies required - last 270 to be done tomorrow!
Then, the distribution side of the organisation takes over...

More visitors from exotic lands

All these people have visited the site recently:

New Zealand: Evora, Evora: Bangkok, Krung Thep: Montpellier, Languedoc-Rousillon: Florence, Toscana: Bogota, Cundinamarca: Warsaw, Warszawa: Bergen, Hordaland: Quincy, Illinois: Houston, Texas.

Spring is springing

Just back from our 'free' night at The Noke Hotel where we had a superb room - but no hot water! We drew this to the attention of the duty manager who apologised profusely, of course.
We have do produce a review of the hotel and say if we would recommend it to our friends - with no hot water! I shouldn't have been too surprised as I had previously read a review of the hotel on one of the travel websites where an American visitor had complained that there was no hot water, and that was on the 19th January. Maybe they had the same room as us?

The hotel has 111 bedrooms but we were the only people eating in the restaurant! We ate in the cheaper bar/restaurant as the "one with the AA rosette" isn't open on Sunday nights. The food was O.K. but overpriced for what it was.

There were a couple of business meetings starting as we left this morning, but it seems their main trade is 'funeral teas' as they are very close to Garston Crematorium. We were told they did at least one a day.

Never mind funerals...on our return home the garden was springing into life...

Residents First Weekend

This weekend gives local people a chance to enjoy all that St.Albans City and District has to offer.
Many attractions and places of interest are open 'free of charge' to those with an AL postcode.
SWIMBO and I have just been to St.Albans and joined a 'Crime & Punishment' tour.
Firstly we visited the cells beneath the old Magistrates Court.








































Then into the courtroom itself, which operated until 1964.















We had to admire the ceiling.















This is the 7th year of 'Residents First' and seems to be getting more and more popular.