Christmas/New Year 2022

 Tuesday 27th December 2022

Compliments of the season to all

Over the years I have done a pre-Christmas message for my readers, usually incorporating some hopefully humorous Photoshop manipulation.

I just never got round to that this time due to an accumulation of circumstances.

Having surfaced this morning at around 9:00 am I am now motivated to write. I recognise the symptoms: finding something else to do to override the main, but undesirable task which needs attention, that is clearing up from the aftermath of the family Christmas Day and Boxing Day activities.

With son Will, and daughter Jill and granddaughter Katie we have had an enjoyable get together. As always the most rewarding part was seeing Katie having fun and also appreciating her own natural willingness and pleasure in being helpful and joining in with everything with much cheer. 

I have never seen anybody so taken aback at receiving a present that was beyond expectations, as Katie comprehended the contents of an Apple box revealing a new iPad. 

The big attraction for Katie was being able to download  xxx (can't remember the name at the moment) painting app which is similar to Photoshop Elements and probably more user friendly, but nonetheless sophisticated including the indispensable Layers function. Katie's only previous involvement with xxx has been watching You Tube videos showing how it works and with that knowledge only she was launched straight into action with no problems.

See below two examples using different techniques:

This started out as her first experiment and was just a mass of fluffy whites and blues as per the "cloud" now seen in the picture and created with no intention for any representation, merely a doodle. I said to her "make this into a landscape" and within less tan two minutes green grass, a trig point and a sun/moon were added, not a completed picture but just a quick demo to satisfy my suggestion.

This was created using Layers.Katie imported a photo of herself and that was the base layer. A blank white layer is placed on top and then its opacity reduced so that you can see the photo through a virtual mist. The outlines of the photo can then be drawn sufficient to provide the basis for a painting on the white layer. The opacity is then eliminated and you continue to use the app's tool to create the colours using different brushes and many other tools available within the app.

Another Resistance agent dropped in France,

 Sunday 11th December 2022

This Lysander kit was bought ages ago and was shelved because I was not confident about the construction of what is a fairly advanced kit. Now it has been completed along with only the second diorama I have attempted.

With its short landing and takeoff ability this aircraft was used in WW2 to drop off agents for the Resistance in France and to bring back downed RAF pilots who had been sheltered by the Resistance. Remote landing strips such as village football fields were used and most operations carried out under cover of darkness. These Lysanders were painted black

My diorama depicts a Lysander having landed at night-time in France - the pilot and a new agent are being greeted by a Resistance man from a hut.

Daylight view just to show context and more of the finished model

I hope this video captures the atmosphere I was trying to create which was the motivation for buying this kit in the first place. Hopefully you will be able to select Full Screen. You may see the first pages for the next You Tube video but ignore and just open my video. I can't find how to stop that on You Tube.

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I am still afflicted with the breathlessness which did improve quite a lot after the antibiotics but it is still not right and I am undergoing various tests with the doc. I can walk round the block here, just over a mile, but more adventurous walking is on hold.

A bit longer walk from home

Sunday 27th November 2022 

I have been more than concerned about the breathlessness mentioned in my last post. Since that post the antibiotics eight day course finished and they have had a marked effect. I have walked steeply over Arnside Knott and a couple of other circuits each day of around two miles. I still feel increased breathing on the slightest gradient. On the steeper climbs I can keep going at a steady plod without stopping, but it is hard work. It was only a couple of weeks or so ago that I was completely breathless walking downhill to the local shop and stopping for rests every so often. At the moment I don't see me setting off on the seven to eight milers I have been doing over the last twelve months and I do not know whether permanent lung damage will have been caused or if I may get more improvement with regular exercise. I intend to have another conversation with the doc. about all this before the second x-ray he has scheduled for me between Christmas and New Year.

Yesterday my walk had a second objective. Derek,  a fiend of Pete,  who I also know on a less personal basis, recently lost his wife and obtained permission from National Trust to place a memorial bench on Arnside Knott, and I decided to have a look. As a skilled and qualified carpenter Derek made the bench himself (National Trust veto any written dedications on these benches.) The location was close to another bench that I have had earmarked as one of the three best viewpoints in my area. One doesn't see my bench until almost on top of it and many is the time I have approached hoping that nobody is sitting there on my bench. I found Derek's bench just round the corner giving just as good a view as its companion.

Typical Knott scenery catching a modest ray of sunshine

Derek's bench. The photo majors on the bench and gives almost no indication of the splendid view which would not have been possible to give justice to anyway in these murky conditions.

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Lysander update.

The photo below shows the model completed but I am now embarked on creating a diorama with the plane having landed on a remote field in France to drop off an agent and pick up a rescued RAF pilot. The lights on the Lysander's wheel spats work and there will be a wooden hut with lighting inside and a floodlight on a pole on the outside so all this can be hopefully photographed in semi-darkness, so better photos will follow - you may see more detail if you click to enlarge.

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Katie's art update

I say, a strikingly powerful image. I have not been informed of the raison d'être

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A short walk from home

 16th November 2022 - Arnside

It seems a long time since I last posted. It has all been a bit fraught.

The pain which started in my upper back then migrated to my lower back, then to my upper left leg has now more or less subsided and I can walk normally for that part of it. When that was nearly better I went for a cataract operation which has turned out ok, except until I see the optician on 25th November. I can't make up my mind to use my old varifocals or nothing and keep switching and changing while reading, watching tv, or computing but I can tell all will be sorted and a general improvement will have been achieved when I get updated specs.

Of late I have noticed an increased breathlessness and have seen the doc. with a thorough examination and an x-ray (I can't praise our local surgery and its GPs enough.) It seems there is some indication of small infection and I am on antibiotics and booked for a further x-ray in six weeks. All that could have a been a lot worse so fingers crossed.

I have not walked any meaningful distance since 27th September at which time the problem had not been apparent. Today I walked from home tentatively down to the local shop and then back over High Knott Road and Redhills Wood, a distance of 1.3miles and that was enough. What all that means for future walking I do not know.

The model of the Lysander aircraft is now nearly complete and I will do an update shortly. I have an idea for creating a modest diorama. 

Just down from my house. That tree has been a source of pleasure for many years

A glimpse of Whitbarrow across the bay

Looking north up the bay to the Kentmere and High Street hills.

Children's playground and our cricket field. When Katie was at Arnside junior school I would pick her up and come back here with her friends to spend an hour. The school is amongst the buildings in the background

Our local shop. It had a first class comprehensive refurbishment a month or two ago and it is now much more frequented. The owner also has another store and post office down on the front - all great assets to our village

High Knott Road. It is lined with large Victorian mansions on the right with views across the bay. It terminates and continues as a woodland path through Redhills Woods.

The Arnside viaduct and Whitbarrow beyond

Into Redhills Wood

Out at the other end of Redhills Wood to Silverdale Road and Arnside Cemetery. The building is used for parish council meetings.

Work in progress on the Lysander. I am fitting LED lights to the landing gear

Lysander build

Wednesday 26th October 2022

Bad weather and my muscle spasm affliction have kept me from the outdoors but I will be back as soon as as the stars are re-aligned. The muscle spasm I'm glad to say has more or less disappeared, and in any case the physio encouraged me to keep walking.

In the meantime I have made a start on my Westland Lysander model. I bought this a long time ago and then thought that I had not enough experience to tackle what is a difficult kit.The interior cockpit is very detailed and the  canopy in particular will be the greatest challenge, it looks like a major greenhouse from Kew Gardens.

The Lysander was used in WW2, often to drop off agents and pick up rescued air crew in France using its short take off and landing attributes. Operations were usually carried out at nighttime using remote fields and improvised landing strips. One of the options with the kit is to paint the aircraft black as it was used for those missions. and that is what I intend. 

Progress so far is shown  below.

Not a model. Here you can see some of the complexity of the canopy and also in the shot below

This shows the black livery used for clandestine missions to occupied France in WW2

All the parts that are to be Cockpit Green. I wasn't happy with this colour and later re-sprayed them in the authentic RAF colour as below

Here part of the cockpit module has been primed and painted and partly assembled. Note the pilot's seat with the detailed harness (click to enlarge) - very fiddly. The length of the cockpit sides is 7.5cm.

The now completed pilot's module showing the instrument panel and...

...the pilot's seat. The two centre silver boxes are fuel tanks. The top one is an auxiliary only used on  longer flights into France.

Here I have started on the rotary engine. difficult to eliminate the shadow

To be continued.

 

Thanks for the NHS and bad news for cats

Saturday 22nd October 2022 

Just over a week ago I was afflicted with acute lower back pain which came on quickly. I suffered a couple of days before phoning my GP's surgery. Your call at our practice is normally answered  in less than five minutes. One gives brief details to an experienced and sympathetic receptionist who logs you for a call back by the GP within that morning. I fielded the call and had a positive conversation and was offered an appointment with the surgery's physio one week on. From what I read that is pretty good. I saw the physio this last Wednesday after increased suffering. He gave me a through examination taking my complaint seriously. He booked me for an x-ray and gave me a sheet of individual exercises compiled there and then  from his main list on the computer, and he also booked me in for blood sampling the next day-but-one (Friday.) On Thursday I went to Kendal hospital for the x-ray. I only had to wait ten minutes and the radiographer was pleasant and welcoming. The pain had become much worse but I stuck it out until my appointment today, Friday with the nurse for blood taking at 11:00 am.

I told the nurse that I desperately needed further examination and help from the qualified GP, not that I was dissatisfied with the physio, but I had to make something happen. Nurse said that there was only one GP on duty and she would get him to ring me later. At that point I'm afraid I burst into tears, so off she went to speak to the doc. After waiting another five minutes in the waiting room the doc appeared and saw me. Again he was sympathetic and thorough. He examined the source of my pain and concluded that it was "muscle spasm" whereas the physio had been more on the track of something orthopaedic, The doc prescribed me: Diazepam, Tramadol and Amitriptyline, sending the prescription electronically to the chemist in our village. I drove straight there and only waited ten minutes for the tablets. Back home I took the doses as indicated and sat in my large comfortable armchair stretched out and so dosed up I drifted off to sleep and awoke four hours later after very deep sleep. The pain had almost gone. Well, that is for the moment and I will have to see how it goes.

My reason for detailing the above is to illustrate that I doubt if there is any other country in the world where you would get such good treatment for free, ok I know we pay National Insurance but that is now so firmly embedded it tends to be hardly noticed. We do also have to pay for prescriptions up to the age of 60, so for me they were also free.

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In the evening I was still comfortable enough to listen to some music which included Nicola Benedetti playing Elgar's violin concerto. The music with the London Phil was of course moving but in particular I was struck by the bewitching tone of Nicola's violin which took me to an even deeper level of that emotional pit of the stomach feeling - that is how some music does for me anyway, others talk of goose pimples or back of the neck hair raising.

Curiosity prevailed and I found this on the Classic FM website.

3. How much is Nicola Benedetti’s violin worth?

The violin Nicola plays is called the Gariel, made in 1717 by Stradivarius. It's worth an estimated £2m and previously belonged to an ancestor of Princess Diana. Nicola has said if a fire broke out in her home, she would grab her violin before her cat. "In an ideal world, all three of us would escape unscathed," she says. "But if I had to choose between the cat and the violin the £2million Stradivarius would have to come first."  

Watching the news

Tuesday 11th October 2022

Every morning I read the BBC News and the Guardian News on my computer, whilst munching my toast and marmalade and taking onboard several cups of tea. I also watch the Six o' Clock News on BBC and often the Ten o' Clock News on ITV as well as other news and current affairs programmes from time to time. 

News is mainly bad and of late it has become increasingly worse with obvious global disintegration, and with old age ever looming and other problems I have found myself becoming increasingly depressed (quite seriously.) But I continue to feel that I should  keep myself properly informed. The occasional snippet of light relief in the news therefore is more than ever welcome.

I am a sucker for a good animal story and this morning The Guardian for a moment side stepped missiles in Ukraine, the UK going bankrupt, and famine and drought worldwide providing me with a little chuckle over my breakfast.

Read the article as well as watching the video.

You will need to copy the link and paste it into your browser. I couldn't make it work the normal way.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/11/larry-the-cat-fox-no-10-downing-street-chief-mouser-pm