Category Archives: Photo

Relaxed Phoenix ramble

18/10
2020

Still working on basic fitness. Bursts of power, getting better at judging what I can and can’t do (actually, on a decent bike it’s all possible, if you don’t bottle it). Hampered by my general lack of fitness and my desperate need to take tourist photos of everything, as if you wouldn’t believe that I had actually done all of it. I took one of my more traditional routes, which is either sort of clockwise or in reverse, basically whether I go left or right on entering the park at the Halfway House gate. It makes little difference, really. I marvel at how long it takes to clean my bike afterwards; it could be worse, but the tyres are not good at clearing mud. If you’re on Strava and we’re mutuals on some network, hit me up.

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16/10
2020

I know, another crumble! Easy to make, and tasty! I improvised a little, a jazz crumble if you will (that works on several levels for an apple crumble by the way, so it’s even more clever than you realise) by adding a thin shortbread base and some frozen junk from the bottom of the freezer (that’s better than it sounds), if a little dry for crumble. The problem that I have is this; I like cake, and now I’ve discovered that I can quickly and easily make a lot of cake that I like, myself. All the time. If I wanted to, I could just eat cake, becomes a metaphor for the decadence of middle-class privilege.

Anyway, it wasn’t too bad.

Back on the bike and into the mud

11/10
2020

Haven’t been out on the bike in ages, that was good. It was mucky and a bit slippery but good to be out and somehow some skills improved? Maybe just from not knowing what I think I shouldn’t be able to do. Wrecked now, though. I went via the Tolka river trail, which is a slippery, mucky mess at the moment, then to a little wood beside the Fingal golf course, then the canal, to the Phoenix park.

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01/09
2020

Imagine that! I took a photo of something I did, and posted it everywhere other than here! Self-defeating! With the caption ’I’m a Renaissance man, y’all! I’m into all of it!’ which is outrageous but I was feeling productive and outrageous after having posted photos of my cake, which is the pinnacle of achievement for me this year. I’m not that good with a sewing machine, but I do enjoy working with it. It’s a skill that I suspect is not in such wide use.

Masks. I’m making masks, having calculated that I need cotton of two different thread densities in order for it to work better, so I bought good pillowcases from IKEA and dismantled them. That’s probably an expensive crime, but anyway, it is done.

I’ve even tagged this post with ‘hubris’, so, self-awareness. I’ve grown as a person.

31/08
2020

I went there, and I brought it. Behold!

I just love the textures. It’s like the surface of the moon or something.

It tastes magical, and I’m a harsh critic of my own efforts. I don’t know if I’ll do it again soon though, this is pure badness. Here’s the recipe I worked from: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/ultimate-lemon-meringue-pie – it didn’t go so well last week and I was dubious, but this week I bought a hand mixer and better sugar, and it all went lot better.

Yeah, no, I didn’t eat all that myself, we both had some, and then I sent off a big slice with Smalls so she could get some dessert out of it. I still have some! Sadly, the number of you that are ever going to get to taste this stuff is vanishingly small, and you already know who you are…

By the way, this is all somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It did go well, and it does taste great, but I’m no match for even the most modestly skilled baker. I’m learning and following instructions meant for idiots. I’m just pleased that I didn’t kill anyone.

31/08
2020

It is Rowan berry season, which can only mean one thing; masses of Starlings facing off against the mighty Thrushes, who jealously defend their chosen trees from other birds. The Blackbirds get in on it too. Even the Magpies stay clear of this mess. I had noticed the Thrushes starting to gather some weeks ago, although the berries were far from ripe. But they knew. Photos from last week:

An upshot was that I discovered that the Starlings could, after all, get into the feeder cage without too much difficulty, although I noticed one anxious youngster hopping around outside, wondering how the adult got in so easily.

Also, I got new feeders. I gave up on the bottle conversion strategy. It’s never going to compare to a proper feeder, even a small cheap one. One of them is a Nyger seed feeder…

…which promptly brought Goldfinches into the garden. Beautiful little violent thugs. They’re not interested in anything else, even peanuts. One paid a visit a month or two ago for a minute, but that was it. Nyger seed, however, is for them like peanuts for every other bird. They’re constantly squabbling over the two stations now.

The other feeder empties very quickly, but… I don’t think that the Tits are eating all of it. I suspect that there will be a very thick lawn there before long.

30/08
2020

It’s a bad habit, posting long after the fact. It was a relatively busy Friday (I forgot) and Saturday and today were pretty busy. Friday was a wet morning’s walk around the park, but as always, good to get out.

I was playing around with the exposure settings in the first four photos; the camera tends to make bright photos even in darker settings, so I manually compensated. The first two are underexposed, it wasn’t quite that dark.