It’s hard to believe, but rainbows are actually full circles, just most of the time we are not high enough to see them!
Here are some photos of beautiful double-rainbows that I took on my road in April after some really heavy rain!
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This week’s Travel Theme is Circles
I love the illustration of Patrick Moore in this obituary, portrays him perfectly, the man we all believed would always be there, with his monocle & his telescope. We are all stardust, he is now with them
Patrick Moore‘s death should surely be marked globally, because it is the passing of a man who as an amateur had a greater impact in his field – specifically planetary astronomy – than many professionals. Are there any others left in pure science who can claim that?
Patrick Moore is most likely to be remembered in Britain as an eccentric populariser of astronomy, and as the presenter of the world’s longest running television programme, the monthly “The Sky at Night”. And he certainly achieved greatness as a populariser.
But his contributions to science should not be forgotten. His earlier claim to be the discoverer of Mare Orientale was mistaken – as Moore himself appeared to recognise later in life – but his contribution to the mapping and understanding of the Moon in the pre-space flight age was a real one. Indeed NASA are reported to have used his charts.
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One of the Endcaps of the ATLAS detector at CERN
The worlds largest man-made circle is in Cern. CERN is not a place, it is an organisation, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. CERN is an international laboratory for particle physicists, providing some of the most technologically advanced facilities for their research into the basic building blocks of the Universe. One of these is the massive 27km long Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is a gigantic instrument which circles 100m below the ground in a huge loop that travels through Switzerland and France
Before the LHC was completed, a group of my particle physics class went on a trip to see the tunnel & one of the detectors (ATLAS) before all the final adjustments were made & the detectors sealed. It was hard to capture the scale of the tunnels & of the detector itself, but I had a go, while standing in the worlds largest man-made circle 🙂
Looking down into the earth 100m to the ATLAS detector below
The other endcap
A map showing where the LHC runs below the ground across the border between Switzerland & France
This is a scale model of the OPAL detector
A strange spherical building
Old instruments make great sculptures
Looking up into an old ‘spark chamber’
This floor lights up in response to cosmic rays hitting sensors and triggering lights to come on
A strange looking instrument
A bin of discarded aluminium strips made a great photo subject!
To find out more about this weeks Travel Theme, hop over to ‘Where’s My Backpack?‘
This week’s Travel Theme is Circles
In summer we spend all the time we can down on the boat hoping for some good weather, some swimming, some sunbathing. I take photos of swans & seascapes & swimming & other boats & sunsets at sea.
In Autumn we go for lots of walks, I take loads of photos of the changing colours, and the low light brings out the intense colours in nature.
In winter I take photos of snow, floods, and bright days, or we go on holidays to somewhere warm & I take thousands of travel photos
In spring, the colours are pale, small, delicate, buds on trees, baby ducks, swans, lambs & other baby animals fill my memory cards
But the place I photograph the change of the seasons the most is in my garden. Below are two photos of parakeets in my garden in different seasons. I love that we get parakeets in our garden, all year round 🙂
Parakeets are not native to England, but in Surrey, in the South East we have a population of 30,000
For other interpretations of this week’s theme have a look at:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons
Swan & Cygnet, Black Pond Esher Common
Yesterday we went for a walk in Esher woods. The frost on the ground was showing no sign of melting, and our breath condensed as it hit the cold air, but the light was lovely so I kept this weeks Challenge in mind when we were walking and was looking out for interesting reflections.
Here are a few of my favourites
Black Pond Esher common
‘No Dogs Allowed’ Lake, Esher Common
Frozen Marsh, Esher Common
Black Pond, Esher Common, December 2012
For other interpretations of this week’s theme have a look at:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections
When our summer finally comes and we’re hiding from the noonday sun, it is hard to imagine ever being able to wear jeans, let alone woolly jumpers, hats, scarves & gloves. When the frost stays on the ground all day long, the opposite is true, it’s hard to ever imagine being warm enough to walk outside in sandals, or to need to hide from the heat of the sun.
At the temple of Abu Simbel, Upper Egypt
For our honeymoon last year we went on a 17 day tour of Egypt. Our wedding day was the first warm day in England that year, so arriving in temperatures of 25°C in Cairo the next day was not such a shock to our system. Visiting the temples on the banks of Lake Nassir from Aswan on the Tropic of Cancer was however a different story.
The first temple we visited was The Temple of Isis a short drive from our hotel in Aswan, and then a boat trip out to the island of Agilkia where the temple was moved by UNESCO and the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation the 1970’s when the high Aswan Dam threatened to flood the old site completely.
Sheltering from the searing sun at the temple of Isis
The temple of Abu Simbel is a lot further south, and just getting there involved a four hour bus journey starting out in the middle of the night so as to arrive at the temple before the heat of the middle of the day. Disembarking from the air conditioned bus at 8am into the 40°C dry heat of the desert was something it is impossible to prepare for.
The temples of Abu Simbel, Upper Egypt
There was no shade anywhere, and even inside the temples were warm, so we just moved very slowly. We were very relieved our tour guide had insisted on leaving so early, I can not imagine what it would have been like there later in the day! I remember as a child watching the incredible rescue and stone by stone removal of this impressive monument 65m higher, 200m back and safe from the rising waters of Lake Nassir. I had never imagined that I would actually be able to walk around these huge monuments that took King Ramses II 30 years to build!
At the feet of Ramses II
To find out more about this weeks Travel Theme, hop over to ‘Where’s My Backpack?‘
This week’s Travel Theme is Hot
The Thames has been flooding for a few days. Not to the extent it flooded in 2002 when many of our local roads were closed, but it’s been climbing the tow-paths & the speed that it has been racing has been disturbing the ducks.
The persistent rain this week has meant that I haven’t been able to get any good photographs, but yesterday afternoon just as the sun was getting lower in the sky, the conditions were perfect so I went down to the weir to see how high the water was.
I was really happy with my photos, so I have spent today working out how to watermark them with free photo-editing software. I chose GIMP as it came highly recommended on CNET, and I read a few different tutorials and blundered my way through! I am very happy with my very first attempt at ‘owning’ my photographs! Please don’t ask how I did it, none of the other people’s versions of GIMP seemed the same as mine, so as usual, I ended up making it up as I went along!!
River Thames in flood by Desborough Island
Without further ado, here are my pictures, click on any of them to see them full size
These photos don’t really fit the instructions in this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections however I did focus on the reflections of the sky, trees, boats and ducks when centring the images, so they are a loose fit 🙂
This is a theme I have played with before, but not for a photo Challenge
I would be interested on people’s thoughts on these two photos!
I took them at Broadwater lake, which is a very overgrown lake near our house in early October, before the leaves began to turn. It would be nice to go back there now to see what it is like with golden leaves, but it was very muddy then, I expect it would be impassable now!
For other interpretations of this week’s theme have a look at:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections
This afternoon it rained, really heavily. The roads were flooded again. I am tired, we went for a long walk on Chobham Common yesterday and I took Wilson for a 2 mile power walk in Horsell Common in Woking this morning. I’ve also been a taxi mum today, and have been speed shopping, and have been working on looking for a job which is much more exhausting than actually doing a job.
So I was tired and it is cold and wet.
The last thing I wanted to do was to get into my running gear & go out
This is not what I looked like tonight! Me all dressed up ready to run, July 1992. No rain, no middle age spread!
But, I have a dress hanging up in my room that I want to be able to wear by Christmas. I don’t need to lose weight to fit into it, I just need to tone up! It’s an unforgiving material, shows every bulge. Would have looked great on me in 1992, but I would have noticed imaginary bulges in it then too. I wish I could look in a mirror and see myself as others do. I still have anorexic eyes, even if i don’t behave anorexically or bulemically any more.
To cut a long story sort, I geared myself up, got into my running clothes & put on lots & lots of layers (6!) gloves, hat & scarf & headed out. Arriving at the meeting point and seeing lots of other women jigging around in the cold staying warm, ready to go, and already I felt less tired. Christmas dress firmly at the forefront of my mind, I was off
45 minutes of circuit training later I felt so much better, positive, energised, physically enlivened & utterly unable to do one more press-up, not even the girly ones. I pushed myself, I worked hard, & I’m determined to go back for more on Wednesday! Thanks Melissa & Nel & all the women who turn up rain or shine & are so inclusive & welcoming 🙂
Some photos below of me in 1992 when I used to run 200m for Belgrave Harriers Athletics Club. It would be nice to be that shape again, A pity I never appreciated it at the time!
Other posts about my progress since September 25th this year (2012) when I joined Fit4mum 🙂
Oh Help (PS I’ve lost half a stone at least already)
Winter in England is usually wet. Summer is often very wet too. Normally we do not have to travel far to come across liquid in the form of water. We spend quite a lot of time keeping it out of our houses & shoes! This week we have been feeling the tail of Hurricane Sandy, so we have been experiencing high winds and lots of torrential rain, weather we are more used to mid June.
Today we took Wilson out for a walk on Chobham Common. Since the common is a grassland heath with sandy soil we thought it would not be too muddy, but we hadn’t remembered how much rain we had experienced recently.
Most of the footpaths were more liquid than solid, reminding me of this week’s Travel theme, so I had a go at capturing the dampness of the walk. The weather was constantly changing as we walked, from bright sunshine to heavy rain, so I managed to capture some rainbows & interesting contrasts in colours due to the changing light.
Chobham Common, Liquid footpath
Some more photos from our lovely walk.
To find out more about this weeks Travel Theme, hop over to ‘Where’s My Backpack?‘
This week’s Travel Theme is Liquid
Day One 