Tuesday 27 October 2009

Clothes without lycra...

...no good to anyone. Come on clothes makers someone invented it for a reason. Use it!
And now I've just looked it up. Joseph Shivers I applaud you for this marvellous invention.

Baking


Today I felt like getting into the Christmas spirit.  I did some baking with my son and we made a gingerbread family and put together and decorated a gingerbread house.  As you can see we're not the most talented decorators in the world but it was great fun.  I think my son munched through more than his fair share of cake decorations and gingerbread men anyway.  The gingerbread daddy on the right of this photo is carefully hiding a few bites out of the roof so now it is no longer something we can share with other people particularly as I look back on the photos at his dribbling nose.


In order to decorate the gingerbread house I purchased a fantastic cake decorating tool and I think you'll agree that it looks great.  Really easy to use especially for children.  Believe me this is not a simple tool especially if you haven't got the mixture just right.  It is either so stiff that you cannot squeeze it out of the tube or its too runny and doesn't hold its shape.  I really think I'm going to have to practice with this a bit more.  I'll let you know if I come up with a good ratio of ingredients.



Well they are pretty tasty and it is such a fun thing to do with children especially if you don't mind the mess and them eating far too much sugar.

Monday 5 October 2009

Not a Green Roof in sight!

I went on a tourist attraction in Sheffield at the weekend - a giant ferris wheel in the centre of town.  It was a lovely day and you could see, well not quite far and wide due to Sheffield's topography so you couldn't really see beyond any of the 7 hills that make up the landscape of the city, but it was really interesting.  Despite Sheffield having a policy of requiring 80% green roof coverage on new major development in the city I didn't notice any green roofs.  The roofscape [if that's a word] was disappointingly grey.  If you click on the image you get a nice shot of Park Hill in the background. 

Sunday 4 October 2009

Spiders


Incy-wincy spider spun its web on a tree
In came the wind and blew poor incy free
down died the wind and out came the sun
now incy-wincy spider its catching flies and having fun.

New Camera

Yey - I got a new camera and I love it. This is an example of the high-speed filming and yes its nothing special but its such an excellent feature. This is a very windy day by the way and its slowed down and captured so you can see the detail. It works better on things that are moving really really fast like popping a champagne cork or a humming bird for example. I din't have either to test it on but the weather was blusterly. I'll work on a better example.

Thursday 1 October 2009

spiders

I have to admit that I really, really don't like spiders.  Seriously I really have a deep loathing of them but I can't help photographing them especially their webs.  I am really down this week as I don't have a camera and its really getting to me.  Suddenly everywhere there is a photo opportunity for something amazing and all I can manage is the piddly little almost pre-historic camera put into to my mobile phone.  I would point out that this is a major failing on the part of HTC - come on guys this is a state of the art phone.  Not only can I get my email, browse the internet, use bluetooth, wi-fi, gps, google maps and pretty much anything else you can think of, my phone can do and I love it for this but it has the worst camera.  Not a problem when you have a perfectly good camera to hand.  Oh what a bum!  Having said that here is a pretty nice picture it took today after the dust created by the man doing the plastering.  Not as good or as close as I would like but okay.  I know, it no prize-winner but the webs did look amazing all around the garden.

The last film I saw at the cinema

My son is only 2 and a few weeks ago I took him to the cinema for the first time.  His eyes certainly lit up when we went in, possibly all the lights and colours but mainly all the sweets and pic 'n mix on display.  Anyway I really enjoyed taking him.  We went to see Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.  I do love modern animation especially pixar films and whilst I only managed to see the first hour of the film I did enjoy it but I can't really give it a rating.  All in all a good experience for us both though.  It had been so long since I went to the cinema that I can't actually remember the last film I went to see before that.

I think the film makers were too anthropomorphous with the characters in an extremely american-centric way.  I guess that's what makes the film funny.  It pokes fun at the everyday foibles of life.  I do think this side of the film was lost on my son though.  I'd say not as good as the first two Ice Age films but okay.  I think I'll take him to see Toy Storey 3D - see what he makes of that.  I'll let you know.  Still no camera but I have an itchy trigger finger that's just not satisfied with the camera on my mobile phone.