7th February

Get to meet the Earl of Wessex

More pictures here!

10 Seconds later we shook hands and spoke!

Just to make sure that Family tradition was maintained. Here is a picture of my mother showing Edward's dad (Prince Philip) around some RSPCA do. 

My Mother and Prince Philip
It does look like she's holding his hand! - just grab it Phil and pull!

Just thought I would throw that in. I guess my mother had maintained a certain amount of decorum unlike me.

Added this after the Diamond Jubilee. Maybe I should start a Royal Blog.....  Perhaps not.

Well the 17th of Jan!

First of the running - done about 10 runs - didn't stop on any of them but all within a comfortable distance - sort of running every other day - should be running tonight but awaiting new shoes! My right hip hurts. Maybe its throwing the leg out a little bit. The old Sauconies seem a lot fossilated to me! Bit like their owner!

2 more Kiva loans - again Paraguay - just seem like worthy loans - but again they all are: Probably appear in the right  panel. 2 loans because the click throughs are working.

Kuña Arandu Group

Mujeres Emprendedoras Group

Milly and I have been out too, did a bit of photography with the new lens on - not sure I'm impressed at all. Picture here below. Still an 18 to 55 Canon lens with IS

Picture below. Its actually close to vignetting on the wide angle and I don't think the other did that.

Ashton Gardens - at least there are no ugly purple rings around the branches

Finally Curly Poodle cards is now off the ground - Di's passion has gone global - within 20 minutes of going "live" she got her first order 

Click Here!

Just past Midnight! Next year's aims

Finished about a week of running, ordered my beautiful new lens - hope its as good as the reviews say! I have got lots of pictures on the hard drive - just a matter of editing them and getting them in the blog. Possibly a new body - both the camera and maybe me! Possibly experiment with a big flash gun and get inside some places I really want to!

Target is to get to 500 posts - looking deeper into the sights (sites) that I find. Maybe discover some new places that have not been photographed yet. Improve my skills too! The local area is absolutely teeming with interesting stuff! I still don't understand why the Smithy Lane Milepost has the largest number of hits - weird! Do more reviews and build more links!

Will need to look at LazylikeSunday to try and streamline that too.

Make sure the solar kit pays as well as I hope. That will be covered in the Active Particle blog!

Look at shares that give a yield to feed back into LazylikeSunday too. 

The Fellsman is still the number 1 target! Doing a good job at work is also important - the more time I can get the better the springboard will be when I do this full time! (1100) in 2 years.

Lastly currently making a Kiva loan every month. I can afford this until at least March with funds coming in!  The new blogsite will hopefully help this along!

And lastly - the other woman - got to keep her in good fettle - she's an old girl and needs looking after - got to plan summer soon!

Final Post of the Year - Goodbye 2011

Not a great year - but not too bad - survived at work! Thanks people if you are reading this - you are seriously the best! Don't forget staff development! Dealing with challenging behaviour (like an inspection!)

Quite a lot of biking - spent on bike too - felt a bit stronger too, no long rides Run a bit more too - Not so many marathon walks, but felt pretty pleased with the Rossy Way and the Gingerbread. Did not really like the Beacon Bash - bad attitude from the organiser. Loved the Peelers too - back on home turf! Got up Peel Tower!! Highlight of year - sorry really bad pun! Another of the old stalwarts gone - Boyd will have been waiting for you Bill!

The 2 unexpected trips out! The first to Edinburgh  - Thanks K & J, rats to forgetting the camera on the last day . Obviously not a pro - must never let THAT happen again! The second to London - thanks too - not for this blog. (There is no way I would have been to the places I went - really grateful and appreciated)

Great acquisitions - Shares that are going well against the flow if the BKIR picks up Whoopee! but the others are doing OK too.

Strange spending all that money on Solar Panels, never stopped raining for - well it seems weeks! Now obsessed with the meter thing - bluetooth argh - cant believe it won't talk to my phone - its a metre apart, my phone talks to the lift at work??

Mildred - you and I are going to have a great meaningful relationship - "menage a trois" with the Lady of my Life.  Hard to believe I've just used French!!

Figures for the blogs  187 posts, 7510 hits. 3 payments, unexpected progress from Amazon. I have broken even financially. This really was only 7 months. But lots of great feedback from an appreciative audience. My next blog will outline the targets for the year 2012.

Goodbye 2011! you were great!

Well its Christmas!

Its almost time for all those New Year Resolutions and the dreams that go with them. A complete of the Fellsman is the number 1 challenge - this may get me to the Wenlock Olympics - we shall see.
Had payments from LinkGrand and also Clixsense as well as Vale - Wordlinx is coming along too!
Think I will add a page on these really dependable sites and circulate it on a new page. Every click through payout has gone into Kiva.  - Its a great way to save and play my part.

No Snow - Mildred has now a new battery in the engine compartment too. Bit cleaner and all the habitation area is cleaned up too. Faced with 4 or 5 new tyres - as well as welding. Have to see my Mech about the welding - could be dear.

Money over Christmas spent on tools 3/8 sockets for the Millie van - possibly some into the current account for the general web bills and stuff.

Incidentally this build of Ubuntu is just flying along!

Linux and all that!

Well - have to be honest Debian was just toooo fiddly - nice distribution and all that but almost everything has to be fiddled and I really don't have the will to dive in through the terminal for almost everything. Tried Fedora very likable, elegant but not really me. Quite liked the Gnome 3 desktop - some strange quirky stuff there -but OK. Took 8 mins to install !!!!
Jumped onto Suse the green chameleon thing. Loved the desktop but the KDE job is really mysterious - decided to persist but getting the flash p;ayer to install was a real pain - sometimes it worked and other times it kept asking for codecs that didn't exist.

Finally loaded Ubuntu 11.04, took time to install, but worked a treat - really happy everything worked - now I just have to figure out how to get the network printer to work I shall be a happy bunny.

I will load up another PC with some other distro and see if I can get them to talk to each other.


Well the Fellsman is the 28th and 29th of April. Could easily my only chance of a completion. I got further each year.

The Logo from the Fellsman Website

Felt quite good on most of the runs last year.Training starts Boxing Day - a week early.

Have pencilled in some runs before this event to see how they go? And I want to have a go at the Jake of Winter Hill challenge! as well. As always this time of year is optimistic as far as the running is concerned!

Shortest day of the year!

You can tell its Christmas - its dark - but it means so much more! New beginnings - running again perhaps, looking forward to the Fellsman - my major event of the year - I hope. Not sure I will get many more attempts at this.

Been to the Bike meeting - not one person turned up on a bike!

However made another loan on KIva. This is my 9th loan.

La Esperanza Group

They market and sell milk in Paraguay!

We got a nice letter of thanks from a lady in the Philippines about her loan. - It's great to know we are helping people. I shall save that for another mail.

Thanks to Clixsence providing me with a payout I have passed it along, someone else will benefit.

Perhaps I should make a page in my blog about PTC sites and also traffic generators.

Managed to solve the leaks in Millys roof, discovered the air in the tyres was only 28 psi when should have been 40 - 45., Varnished the floor and started putting the curtains up. Few major jobs to do - like Cambelt and tyres. Next year a good run and possible welding.

I'm back

Playing with Anti-Matter

Still nursing a gigantic cold - did Edinburgh, that was fun. Went to places I have never been to before. Plans went astray but spent a seriously great 3 hours in the light thingy next to Edinburgh Castle. Played with AntiMatter - see photo. Got my run in and managed to get to the Dean's Cemetary but it was closed at the unearthly hour I was there in the morning.

I had forgotton how steep the hills were there. But other runners were pretty friendly. No cyclists are on the pavements there! The pavements are pretty well laid too. But the cobbles are seriously slipy. Rats didn't take my camera - quite racked off as I visited some interesting stuff on the way back, but I didn't catch it. However Edinburgh is still going to keep me busy.

To my follower, managed to run all the way way up from Waverley station up the secret stairs to the top - back along the bridge and to the hostel on Market street the same day. Going back for my lungs later! Going to update this with some more photo's later when prepped. Off to London tomorrow on a Family History job, but not sure that I can publish that STUFF here!