Migrant fiasco & do you have a male or female brain?

The Express highlights the plight of a widow facing deportation amongst the migrant tide flooding from the EU - - - 

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This is from the Mail yesterday do you have a male of female brain?  - - - 

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mild once again at 10.5c with a forecast for sunny periods until late afternoon

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Its an early start on my "Alternative Activity" today so no weathercam this morning as its still very dark 

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06:25 now

and a nice weathercam pic showing a little mist in the valley
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Enjoy the day 

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  Live webcam - - Birdfeeders

Benefits for everyone & A wet and windy walk for us

 Another example of our "more than generous" benefits system on the front of the Express this morning 

and a scarcely believable headline on the Mirror! 

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Undeterred yesterday by the, "light rain" forecast we set forth on yet another walk we haven't done for ages 

 starting on one of the only River Derwent bridges not to have ever been washed away in Baslow we head west over the fields towards Hassop 

 this Lama/alpaca takes an interest in us as Sally spots the Ink Cap mushrooms on the right of the pic 

 The "light rain" is being whipped into a frenzy from the South as we traverse the fields and look across to the route back  

 the Autumn colours a washed out by the rain in this shot 

 gaining the road we walk on, its not a far as it looks up the road! 

 at last we hit the forest path and turn North out of the wind even with the rain its quite pleasant up here 

 the colours are more vivid in a brief lull from the rain but the next band is coming along 

 the old quarry above Hassop look like it might have been closed down as we notice it now looks like more of a storage area 

 Off the ridge now and walking down a sunken lane 

 once again some nice views of the Autumn colours 

 looking back up to the forest we have walked through the rain is easing now 

 back down at River level now and walking through the very edge of Baslow where the swish large houses are situated 

 on the other side of the river these houses have a pleasant riverside aspect 

and this must be the site of an old mill .  

We make it back to the van as yet another band of rain sweeps over us - - - so much for the forecast of "light rain" 

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an amused look on the face of this Jackdaw joining us for breakfast a couple of days ago.  The pic was sent to me by a friend
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Back to the "Alternative Activity" for today and tomorrow then time for a trip to the Lakes!
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Enjoy the day 

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  Live webcam - - Birdfeeders

Well done the R Marines & Sally gets a Kindle Fire

 The Express has the sad state of the "Maddy" investigation on its front page 

while the Mail has support for Sgt Blackman front and centre.  I noticed in the comments at the bottom of the story in the Mail a person pours scorn on the BBC for not covering the protest at all (!)- - - 

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A story covered by the BBC is about 4 UK bird species facing extinction an RSPB official is quoted as saying "A global wave of extinction is lapping at our shores"  it sounds rather dramatic but the facts speak for themselves and are staggering - - -
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Sally gets a Kindle Fire HD.  It has long amazed me at the speed Sally can read a book and testament to that is the huge collecting we have around the house as she refuses to throw them away.  I have lost count of the times i had suggested a Kindle for Christmas for Sally but in the end it never happened.  Out of the blue she mentions the Kindle Fire which in essence is a Kindle with a computer amongst other things, bolted onto it.
It was delivered yesterday for the princely sum of a few pence less than £50 and promptly set to work.  Quite a natty little machine with a camera as well as internet and the only difficulty was hooking it up to her e mail account.  A book was downloaded and read last night and the whole thing is now trumpeted as a success.
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I had a few hours on the book yesterday and popped in a number of photographs.  My ideas on publication are forming now but it will be a while before it hits the bookshelf! - - -
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 Another mild breezy morning for us

Grey scudding clouds on the weathercam and the forecasters are hedging their bets by suggesting rain during part of the daylight today - - -
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njoy the day 

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  Live webcam - - Birdfeeders

Dont eat sugar! & Green Tomatoes in the greenhouse

The Express repeats one of its favourite bits of health advice this morning, Dont eat too much sugar and it will reduce your blood pressure - - - 

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nice pic in the Mail of the Autumn colours in Cambridge yesterday, the story hints that it was 20c in Southern England.  The weather in the next few days is predicted to to be quite wet and the temp around 14c.  We shall see a return to 20c for halloween though! 

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This story from the BBC  says that "the era of routine patrols by the police has come to an end" In our rural area patrolling has not been evident for a long time and the only sight of the police we get is as they flash past the house sirens blaring, a sign of the times i guess - - - 

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Another sign of the times is the apparent waste of food, specifically Vegetables as laid out in this BBC story 

these parsnips in the pic above will never reach the supermarket shelves they were destined for because, "They just departed,sometimes by a matter of millimetres, from some bizarre set of specifications that defines, with apparent omniscience, what it is that we, the customers, demand our parsnips to be" 

Its no surprise that the middle person in the above pic is Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall who champions that 50% of all all food bought by us is thrown away - - - 

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I'm musing here on a point of view that might not be politically correct but is purely personal and not meant to insult anyone - - - Listening/watching a programme on the  PBS America TC channel yesterday a black lady was talking about a serial murderer who had murdered 6 woman as 4 "African American Woman" and 2 Whites" .  Pondering what she had just said about, "whites" i thought, surely if the Black woman can be called African American why cant Whites be called something like "Second Nation  Americans" ? - - - 

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Lunching at The Grouse was a misty foggy affair yesterday.  On the drive up, through 4 sets of temporary traffic lights! the fog was with us one minute and gone the next but up at the pub it was not showing any signs of receding in the breezy conditions.  Arriving promptly at opening time is a boon because 40 minutes later it is a noisy thronging crowd that are lunching! - - - 

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We had intended to change the pond filters and "garden" a little after lunch but the weather was so gloomy we settled for indoor activities.  The garden though did have a little attention the day before, we have had a large wooden tub, actually an old pond complete with liner, with a lilac in that could be better displayed.  

In the afternoon sunshine we decided to move it and with a little distraction from a large lump of concrete it finally was replanted at the top of the garden.  We are hoping it will enjoy the sunnier aspect! 

The small green house at the bottom of the garden has been home as usual to the grape vine this year but its time to get rid of all its foliage and it can be clipped right back in spring.  A rogue tomato plant sprung up from the greenhouse gravel floor, some time ago, obviously a previous years tomato having fallen off the vine. There are lots of fruit on it but alas we dont think they will ever ripen so that can go today - - - 

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 mild to warm once again but as the ran stats show its been raining overnight

the weathercam shows up the mist on the other side of the valley and it is raining lightly at the moment.  The weather peeps are indicating that it will be rainy for the next few days. - - - 

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Enjoy the day 

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  Live webcam - - Birdfeeders

Bacon is bad for you - again & must by a crossbow! lol

The Express, along with others is banging the drum once more about eating processed meat and says it is as bad as smoking although in the text this is refuted - - - 

An in depth account of what is behind this headline is here  - - - 

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This Sky News story says this dog, curiously named "trigger" managed to shoot its owner, reading the tale/tail (!) the staggering ineptitude of the owner is hard to believe - - - 

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i tripped over this BBC article about British preppers, ( he said smiling, "knowingly")  that like their US counterparts are completely bonkers.  There's a preppers shop on a farm in Bedfordshire where amongst other things they sell crossbows.  The article quotes a militarist theme and a survivalist attitude amongst preppers.  They even have their own vocabulary -- - a Prepper = an individual who prepares for a catastrophic event - - a Zombie = the unprepared and aggressive masses who may want to steal a preppers resources.  Loonies! - - but wait a minute i have a tent and a load of what could be called "survival equipment" - - - note to self - - order a crossbow! 

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the upturned boat is one of many of the Hurricane Patricia's  "casualties" in the aftermath of the superstorm though the death toll apparently stands at a staggering Zero - - - 

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 My dalliance with Zorin was, informative and interesting and it certainly does what it says on the tin (linux but like windows XP) but i will leave it at that for now - - - 

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 very mild out this morning at nearly 11c 

the mist/fog is covering the upper parts of the valley and forecasters are promising a breezy cloudy sunny day with an increasing possibility of rain towards late evening - - - 

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Enjoy the day

Follow this link to see  our Darley Dale weather website

Or this one just to see  Live webcam - - Birdfeeders

House price rises - again & Zorin? whats Zorin?

 Must be a slack news day at the Express with another revelation about house prices soaring by 25% - - - The guardian covered a similar story in June? - - - 

The Mail however tells us that a month of the booze is good for us Mmmm- - - 

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Having completed one of our old walks in Chatsworth the other day 

we decided to do another one which we hadn't done in a number of years 

Hartington  is a 25 minute drive away and deep in the Dales and normally swarming with tourists 

Luck was with us though as we managed to find a parking space by the duck pond in the centre of the village

 remembering the walk wasn't as hard as i though and we wandered past this really old fashioned corner shop with its jars of sweets in the window 

 we were soon up on the top of the high ground above the village 

 and striding along the familiar path 

 another great view but the path here and at a number of points now is very stony and Sally is finding it uncomfortable 

 we hit the top end of Biggin dale and there is a little respite 

 with a grassy patch or 2 but the stony path lasts all the way down to the river just up ahead

 thankfully the walk up Dovedale is a well used path and quite flat 

 Sally puts on a brave face 

 its surprising how few people are about if this was summertime the track would be very busy 

 i make a mistake on the route out of Dovedale and we end up climbing back up the side of the Dale 

luckily we can see our destination and soon enough emerge only a few metres from the normal end of the walk.  This stone figure is outside an art studio on the edge of the village. 

Driving home we decide that today should be declared a wine day and we pop into the shop before settling down in front of the log burner.  I measure the walk and its a shade under 6 miles - - - 

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poking around on the internet i come across a site that says Miss windows XP? - Get it back  Its an article on an operating system called Zorin.  Having been an XP user on many a machine i peruse the content and decide to give it a go.  I download the system and install it on an old Windows Vista machine and at first look its very user friendly.  Its a Linux OS but with a "normal" windows front end and it does react a lot like XP - - - 

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 a bit on the cool side this morning and a bit breezy to boot! 

the weathercam view looks ok and the forecasters are predicting just a little rain throughout the day 

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Enjoy the day

Follow this link to see  our Darley Dale weather website

Or this one just to see  Live webcam - - Birdfeeders