Calais 2 Casablanca Street Rally
560 days ago
OK, a friend is joining a little group of people helping to raise money for CLIC Sargent, the UK’s leading children’s cancer charity, supporting children, young people and their families through cancer every step of the way.
Now, it seems they also have compassion for ageing Vauxhall Astras as well – they have a sub £100 car and they are going to do their best to give a fitting send-off somewhere between Calais and Cassablanca – good luck chaps.
If you would like to donate to this cause, please click on the photo of ‘Astral Turfers’ below, thanks.
UPDATE: 28 June 20:40
They’ve just successfully made Cassablanca – fan trouble, but nothing else to worry the intrepid party – 2320 miles from Leeds.
Open Country
565 days ago
Just been listening to Lindsay Waddell on Radio 4’s Open Country . He was (with others) talking about the Black Grouse and some of the work I was involved in. At the moment he’s whistling Golden Plover, just as I was doing a few weeks ago in Scotland.
I worked with Lindsay in Teesdale for 10 years, fabulous country.
Moments and eclipses
676 days ago
Finding inspiration for painting is never hard, or far away. Rather bleary eyed (I’d had a late night) stumbling up the lane this morning with Rufus, twelve Magpies peeled out of the hedge as I approached. As it was a bit misty, it gave a great tonal aspect to the scene and a photo I took many years ago came to mind of a snow-clad terraced hillside in Wharfedale, which suddenly fulfilled it’s purpose as the ideal background to the scene.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s Lunar eclipse – it’s meant to be a good one – I remember the Solar eclipse when I was working at Raby Castle (11 August 1999) all the birds stopped singing and the deer in the park just seemed to stand still looking aimless. I can’t resist quoting a bit from my friend Neil’s “Exciting and accurate eclipse diary” (sorry Neil) that he he emailed the night before, with similar predictions over the weather:
Enjoy trip to Land’s End, and coastal walk therefrom, in conditions of (amazingly) astonishing beauty. At 11.11, precisely twenty-fours hours before E-hour, the sun is shining for all its cotton-picking worth, the better to get my hopes up. It shines for the whole of the rest of the day. It is shining now, as I write. (6.51p.m.) But every single weather forecaster on UK TV and radio is predicting utter, total humiliation for astro-geeks like me who have risked all by making their way west. “Cloud,” they say, and “cloud” again in their stinking, communist fashion, before making their way back home to their wretched families in their wretched two-up, two-downs and their rotten, wretched goldfish, and their rotten, wretched…arrghh…arrrghhhh….. I must finish. Pray for me. Off down to the bar now. “Hi girls – may be able to get you up on a chopper – Producer’s like putty in my hands…”
International Polar Year
686 days ago
After a week of being deprived of a landline i.e. internet access, this week sees over twenty nations around the world celebrating the launch of the fourth International Polar Year 2007-2008. The first IPY was 1882-3, but these launches are just the tip of the iceberg, scientists from over 60 nations will be taking part in hundreds of projects that will actually span 2 years to include Artic and Antartic regions.
A friend I mentioned in a previous post (my main posting re this was unfortunately lost in a database error) was a member of the team, led by researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany, which found a number of likely new species and gained an insight into the dynamics of the polar ecology. The areas of study became accessible only five years ago, following the collapse of the Larsen B ice-shelf.
Besides discovering more about our past and our survival under artic conditions, this IPY is important for looking at the changes in snow cover and sea ice and it’s consequences for terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Linking through to the global impact on sea levels, the affects on our coastal cities and low-lying areas, and the influence upon millions of people whose daily use of water for personal consumption or for agriculture depends on these sources. However, more immediately, those inhabitants of northern regions that face rapid environmental change at a rate that could be described as being ‘unnatural’.
As far as my local stomping ground is concerned, this last week saw the return of flocks of Lapwing on the 21 and a Curlew appeared on the 22 February. There were more around over the weekend, good hear their stident calls again.
Just a Drop
919 days ago
A friend (Bea) I sponsored, has completed her trek in Jordan. Completing 60km a day for 5 days, along an old Bedouin path used throughout the summer by shepherds.
She (along with the other 16 participants) managed to raise on average around £3000 each, making it a very useful charity event for Just a Drop.
Sudden flurry and Polarstern
1056 days ago
A sudden flurry blew-in as I was working in the studio and I grabbed this shot.
Not as cold as Steve down on the Polarstern I know, but quite impressive for an otherwise wholly too wet winter so far. Little screen grab of the google map’s track of Steve’s little Antarctic adventure – click on image to see where Polarstern is now.