Mikes weather bits & Photo Blog: How "Smart" is your phone? & birdfeeder pics and the 5p loaf

Here's a great little article to make you realise How Smart your Smartphone is Gone are the days when a mobile phone was as big as a shoebox and needed top be plugged into the mains to work for more than 5 minutes on its own power, remember those days? Well maybe not after all i'm talking 1990's!!
The pocket sized communicator carries a wealth of gizmo's and this story tells you how to unlock some of them. The lead piece though showing how to make your Smartphone into a microscope has more than a hint of "Blue Peter and sticky backed plastic about it - - - lol - - -

The cold weather temperatures around the UK are big stories in most news media. Locally we are around -3.5c now and the snow which fell on Boxing Day is still around and looks set to be so for a few days, although a peak at the Metcheck forecast seems to indicate it will be +11c on New Years Day

A slack news day at the Express resorts to telling us that pensioners are going to be responsible for house prices soaring - - - again - - -

Down at the Fun Factory (Matlock Sainsbugs) we are being treated to waves of shoppers buying anything available in response to the current bad weather. A number however were not amused to find no bread or milk deliveries on Boxing day. The following day bread was in but the milk vehicle was stuck in our Dronfield shop and once again this caused a bit of grumbling.
Our shop manager, "lets call him Matt announced a little prematurely that "Milk will be available in 5 minutes" only to discover the truck could get into the unloading yard because another larger vehicle was trying to get out. 20 mins later above the "stampede" for the white gold, a voice was heard to cry "let me through!" as some self important idiot demanded to be first in line - - -

Using ones initiative in the Fun Factory is often frowned upon and sometimes actively discouraged so it was a brave "self" who suggested we reduce some bread of which we had far too much. The reason i voiced the suggestion was that it had the following days date on and under normal circumstances would not have been reduced until that day.
So 110 loaves were reduced from £1 to 50p and liberally displayed in the isle. Even then because of the lack of shoppers due to the weather it only moved very slowly.
The following morning i wandered in to see about 4 trays (48 loaves) still in the isle and repositioned them ready for the shop opening. It was at that point i noticed the price stickers i had put on for 50p had been covered by one for 5p!!
By way of an explanation: It is normal procedure that as the shop nears closing time previously reduced items are knocked down to very cheap prices just to get rid of them and avoid the waste.
The colleague on the evening shift, "lets call her Anonymous" had failed to notice that the loaves carried the following days date and therefore could be left at the 50p price until that day.
I didn't bother to point out the error and directed colleagues who were shopping to this "bargain". The colleague who does the shifts when i am absent, lets call him Steve", wanders in and loads his trolley with 5 loaves when i point them out.
At this point the Store Manager wanders up and starts chatting - -- eventually and with a look of horror on his face he notices the 5p loaf and demands an explanation. This I do as, said manager says "Your not selling my bread at 5p" and reaches into Steve's trolley and puts the bread back onto the stack and tells me to get the bread off the shop floor and re-price it! - - - Steve's face is a picture and i chuckle for ages spreading the word to anyone who will listen! - - -

the weathercam camera has the snow piled up in front of it the other day

while Mr Squirrel enjoys a cold breakfast on the bird table

even the blackbirds are finding it hard locating food under the snow and resort to visiting us

while the Robin is always somewhere around

A jackdaw comes along but most of the fayre has already been taken

even at 11:17 the sun is already near the point of leaving the valley, the solstice point of the pic is at far left so we should start to see the sun in the pics again very soon