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New Camera

Actually it’s not (bought it 2020), it’s taken me this long to pluck up the courage to read the instructions, connect all the kit and learn how to use it (must get a little tripod, you’ll see why), anyhoo much as I love film I can’t afford either it or the developing costs so I’m forcing myself to use digi…interesting (still like a view hole though it’s weird getting used to on-screen viewing). Hoping I might “nab” some of my feathered friends (cherry just coming into full flower, only in flower a few weeks this one, hoping for some spectacular shots to show you…yup…that really is the view from inside my kitchen through the window…this little compact Sony has a decent zoom and can take video -of-course-), …

The only bind at the moment is having to bio-disinfect the feeder almost every refill…we’ve had an “avian flu” warning from the authorities so I’m being scrupulous…

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Did you ever worry about ‘avian flu’ before the scamdemic, G? Me neither. Nor am I about to start now.

Great view from your window! That’s Forsythia too, innit?

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There’s a school of thought that avian flu is another bioweapon aimed at discouraging people from keeping chickens and reinforcing dependency on frankencrops/worm burgers from your friendly globoagrocorp of choice.

See also ASBOs for people with a goat in their garden, one-use seeds that produce sterile plants, various regulations making it impossible to keep pigs/sheep etc, unavailability of allotments, etc.

But some people just have Nasty Suspicious Minds.

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… mind you this snow is definitely Putin’s fault

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I think so…the yellow flowers? Check out these…great light today…I’m still learning but well worth going out and having a crack #WalkingintheWildWestEnd #StBarbeBaker

Pleased as a puppy with two tails…!

Telegraph Road and the Wild West End…? I’ve been in Dire Straits a while…

CNV00018

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K, I foresee a lot of those bureaucratic sillinesses just being ignored by a lot of punters, and being quietly allowed to moulder unenforced by the jobsworths, once they see that they’re unenforceable in the changed - read seriously crisis-hit - circumstances.

Be interesting to see how the technocrat careersworths above the jobsworths in the bureaucracies will react, though. The current foam-flecked idiocies about cutting all the lifelines from Russia will bring these local-government decision-time crises on quite a bit, I think. People will start growing and small-stock-keeping for survival after all, do what the worths may.

Here in the relatively unregulated sticks beyond suburbia, guerrilla gardening on land deemed formally to belong to some distant cement-making multinational, is thriving; just put in my tater chits two days ago on such a plot; not formally my land, nor even rented by me; but speaking realistically: available and never inspected by the ‘owners’; in Mexico, apparently.

And this adds on to the guerrilla fuel-wood collection in ‘their’ woods with which I’ve been heating and cooking, free, apart from collection-and-sawing-up labour costs, for over quarter of a century.

This is part of the reason why, even whilst living officially below the British poverty line, I can afford to give my grand-daughter the better part of a hundred quid a week from my state pension; don’t need it. Well, not yet anyway. (I do notice the prices rocketting in the food coop shop here lately though…) I also gave up cars - entirely withdrawal-symptoms-free - years ago. Bikes, bus pass, and a set of rain-slickers does it for me!

This is what JMGreer means by his famous downsizing, embracing-voluntary-‘poverty’ slogan: “Collapse early, and avoid the rush!”

He’s writing about precisely this, this week: qv - it’s today’s post at ‘Ecosophia’, titled: ‘Slack. An Irreverent Proposal’. Fun read… :slight_smile:

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Great woodlands near your place, G. A spiritual life-saver, I imagine; they would be for me if I lived there! :slight_smile:

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Quite literally old chum…there was a Burma Star there last time we celebrated Armistice Day together (second time), and I got to sing to that audience…!! #OrdeWingateEyeRastafari (I’m not joking…I’m sure I’ve seen that face before…!!!)

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Some great pics there G. We’ve some early blooming trees making a good go of it in the far East (of UK) mainly magnolia and fruit trees so far. Spring seems to start in Wales/Cornwall then gradually move east and north so you’re probably a week or so ahead of Kent.

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You know K…I’m a “Man of Kent” rather than a “Kentish Man”…

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I’ll head over to Ecosia shortly, JMG is a good 'un.

Apropos of guerilla gardening, this was a recent read that I enjoyed, though there’s a bit of Wokey crap towards the end. (I suspect a Critical Friend from the publisher suggested a few sops to the righteous.)

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I’m embarrassed to say I can never remember the difference. I migrated here from Wessex. Swapped the West country yokel accent for Dahn From Lundin…

I did a bit today…but to be honest there was no other way to pic some of this stuff…WW2 (Canadians prior to D-Day and other stuff);

Some wonderful shots there, GKH. I will state the obvious by saying that not only should you save images to whatever hard drive you’re using, you should always back-up files on a memory stick, or whatever. With various hard drive crashes over the years, I’ve lost loads of stuff because I didn’t make back-ups.

From what you’re saying, you’re not that au-fait with digital stuff. One of the best basic free image editing programmes is Ifranview. It’s not a full-blown image editing software, but it does allow you to resize photos, enhance photos, etc (the Edit menu gives you most of this).

With regard to modern technology, I’m still trying to get used to the drone I’ve recently bought. Once mastered I’ll have to send it to your neck of the woods.

Do you have a shotgun?

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East you are a “Man of Kent”… west a “Kentish Man” (pls. see below), …

I’d use a catapult…hehehe…I’m considering starting to copyright…too good for idiots to exploit methinks!

A man of the Cantweara…?

“Cantawarburgh?”

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/are-you-a-man-of-kent-or-kentish-man-228500/

“[Kent’s largest river is the Medway which divides the county vaguely east and west. Its source is in the High Weald Sussex. Its mouth flows in to the Thames estuary. Hasted wrote in his encyclopaedic work The Historical & Topographical Survey of Kent that the ancient Britons called the Medway Vaga (travel) to which the Saxons prefixed Med (middle). If you are born on the east side of the Medway you may call yourself a Man of Kent. If you were born to the west a Kentish Man. The female equivalent being Maids of Kent or Kentish Maids. When the Men and Maids terms first came in to use is uncertain. Some say its from the invasion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes who called Canterbury Cantawarburgh. The Anglo Saxons occupied West Kent whilst the Jutes, settled East of the Medway.](https://Kent’s largest river is the Medway which divides the county vaguely east and west. Its source is in the High Weald Sussex. Its mouth flows in to the Thames estuary. Hasted wrote in his encyclopaedic work The Historical & Topographical Survey of Kent that the ancient Britons called the Medway Vaga (travel) to which the Saxons prefixed Med (middle). If you are born on the east side of the Medway you may call yourself a Man of Kent. If you were born to the west a Kentish Man. The female equivalent being Maids of Kent or Kentish Maids. When the Men and Maids terms first came in to use is uncertain. Some say its from the invasion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes who called Canterbury Cantawarburgh. The Anglo Saxons occupied West Kent whilst the Jutes, settled East of the Medway.)” https://www.kfhs.org.uk/kent-history

In-fact Pembury Hospital falls south (or east as the above would have it), of the Medway indeed making me a “Man of Kent”! Pembury is close to the source of the river according to the maps, quote; “Turners Hill is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The civil parish covers an area of 1,390 hectares, and has a population of 1,849 increasing to 1,919 at the 2011 Census” Turner’s Hill is near Crawley.

Above is my “panoramic” (still learning the kit), of The West End (St James Church) Cemetery and War Memorial, on Remembrance Sundays they close the roads and there is a gathering and open air memorial service (the congregation and clergy of St.James’ Church -see pics.-, process to the site from the church).

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hhhjjuuii

They have a truly terrific choir (something I know something about), comparable to the very best (I was very pleased I chose to attend midnight mass Christmas last!), and an all female clergy. The church is less than five minutes walk from my door.

Snowed here a bit too…the trouble is that even although I miss the cold and snowy weather I am very much aware that neither I nor many, many others have the resources to cope with it properly anymore…

I have a mixed accent but catch myself saying; “Saaaaaafamton” often enough…