Removing the stone from an avocado

When a friend cut her thumb quite badly while trying to remove a stone from an avocado recently (who hasn't been there and done that!) another friend said to use a fork instead of a knife to get the stone out. I've been trying this and so far (4 avocados) I have to say not only is it safer but it's also easier to get the stone out. The hardest part is to remember to put the knife down after cutting the fruit in half and to pick up a fork to remove the stone.

Driving over to Bath yesterday afternoon we beheld a wonderful sight - seagulls and rooks following a tractor that was ploughing a field and more birds on the freshly turned soil. This is quite a rare sight now (I can't remember when I last saw it) as many fields have been ploughed so much and had so much artificial fertiliser added that they are dead and there are no worms or invertebrates for the birds to eat.

Foxes

We've seen the Whitecliff foxes out enjoying the afternoon sun a couple of times this week. On Thursday we saw three together, a record for us, although I could only get two in the frame.

This afternoon we saw two. This one in the usual spot...

...and this very cute looking fox a little lower down the bank. Mark took this photo with his camera which has a better zoom than mine.

Last night's partial eclipse

Well, the cloud thinned enough last night so that we could make out the moon and partial eclipse. And very partial it was too! There was just a sliver sliced off the bottom right. Disappointing, but hey, it makes a change to actually have had weather conditions that allowed us to see anything at all.

This morning I've had my first cuppa in my Bird and Bee Moon Mug 2010. It has all the moon times, lunar phases, solstices and equinoxes for 2010 in silver on a dark blue background. So even if I can't see the sky at least I will know what the moon is upto each day.

Blue Moon and Lunar Eclipse

Just to remind you that there is a blue moon tomorrow evening (second full moon in a calendar month) and a partial lunar eclipse at 19:23. Lets hope we have clear skies!

Sunrise at Stonehenge Shortest Day 2009

Stonehenge at Sunset Winter Solstice 2009

Images from our Winter Solstice Walk Amesbury - Stonehenge - Woodhenge

Winter Solstice 2009

Way back in the summer we booked a couple of nights in the Travelodge just north of Amesbury so that we could visit Stonehenge for the Winter Solstice. We drove up on Sunday afternoon and just got there in time to see the sun setting over the henge. That was the last we saw of the sun until we got home! I also bumped into an old friend that I hadn't seen in a while which was a lovely suprise.

Here are a few pictures - if you have x-ray vision you may be able to spot the sliver of a new moon above the henge!

The following morning, after a hearty breakfast in a Little Chef, we set out for a walk through Amesbury, across the fields to Stonehenge, along the Caucus, down to Woodhenge and back to Amesbury. It was supposed to be 8 miles but we actually walked a mile or so further as I misinterpreted the instructions in one place. It was a very cold, grey day and by the time we reached Woodhenge it was quite dark and snowing. We had thought that we would walk back to Stonehenge for the sunset but time was against us plus we didn't fancy trying to find our way back across the fields over frozen, icy fields in the dark. So we drove over and stood by the Heel Stone while, unseen, the sun set. It was still snowing and quite magical. Later that evening we walked through the snow into Amesbury for our solstice feast at a Chinese restaurant in the town. Very fetching we looked too in our thermal trousers and walking boots.

The following morning there was free access to the stones for the sunrise on the shortest day. There was freezing fog and it was very cold. You couldn't even see the stones from the car park! We had plenty of layers on and walking boots so we didn't notice the cold except for my toes. No sign of the sun so we had to rely on watches to know when the moment arrived. I had planned that we would go up to Avebury later in the day but as the weather was so atrocious we decided to come straight home after another good breakfast in the Little Chef.

I am putting the photos that we took on the walk, at sunset and sunrise as 3 slide shows in 3 separate posts as Blogger gets upset when text and an embedded slideshow get put in the same post so please remember to have a look at them. Mark's camera seemed to cope better with the freezing fog than mine. The first shots I took look like I was in a blizzard - quite atmospheric but the weather wasn't that bad - quite.

Farewell to Borders

Yesterday morning we walked from Coy Pond through Bournemouth Gardens into the town for what will probably be our last visit to Borders. The bookstore is in Administration and there is a massive sale of all the stock. Mark bought some CDs and I bought three books, a couple by Osho (Maturity and Body Mind Balancing) and The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands which looks pretty unputdownable. We bumped into several friends in the store.


It will be sad to see the end of Borders. I feel sorry for the staff of the store and Starbucks which will also have to close. For me there will be no real reason to go to Bournemouth to shop any more. There is a Waterstones in the town but it's selection of books in topics that interest me is definitely inferior or non-existent.

Holiday snaps

Mark's new website

For the last week or so I have been slaving over a hot computer creating a website for Mark. It went live today. The domain name is www.yogawithmark.co.uk Although I took my own website as a starting point it took a lot longer to develop than I thought that it would and I hit a few problems along the way. I have to say though that as a result I've learnt quite a bit! I use Publisher to create and maintain my website (yes, yes, I know it's ****, but it's what I've got and know and I'm not ready to bite the bullet and change) The most important thing that I've learnt to do is how to link to images rather than have them embedded in the document. This makes the website more efficient and quicker to load. I spent ages searching MS documentation trying to find out how to do this to no avail. Eventually I found this basic article which put me on the right track. From there I searched the web to find out more about the 'img' element. As they say "If a jobs worth doing, it's worth doing well" so I decided to define alternative text (alt attribute) and width and height as well for each image. Specifying the height and width makes the loading of the website more efficient. The alternative text is displayed if the browser cannot display the image for some reason.

Having finished the website I previewed it in Firefox, our default browser, and was very happy with the result. Feeling pleased with myself I loaded the site into Mark's webspace and checked it out with IE. Eeeek! My heart sank. No pictures. Or rather each picture was replaced by a thin line. There followed hours of frustrated tinkering trying to find out what was upsetting IE. Eventually I managed to right click on a line and read its properties. It turned out that IE was interpreting the width correctly but was setting the height to 1px! More trawling of the web followed. This time I was searching, unsuccessfully, for a solution. There are many requests on message boards for help with various problems to do with IE not displaying pictures correctly/at all and a lot of 'ill will' directed towards MS, IE and Publisher. Most replies to requests for help were to advise not to use Publisher. No help to me with my site already developed and looking great, though I say so myself, in Firefox! I was resigned to having to embed the images after all and took myself off for a bath before going to bed to sleep on it.

Eureka! As so often is the case inspiration came to me as I sank beneath the water. The banner to Amazon displays correctly in IE so maybe looking at the HTML fragment for that would give me a clue as to the way around the problem. I discovered that Amazon specifies the height and width in a style element. I tried it and it worked! If you should be having the same problem (and in case I forget) here is an example of the HTML fragment that you need to put in your Publisher document.

<img src = "domainname/directoryname/imagename" style="width:140px;height:105px;" alt = "Your alternative text" />

The imagename is case sensitive so make sure that you type it exactly as it is in the directory listing. Replace 140 and 105 with the dimensions you want.

Another couple of tips to ensure that you keep IE happy are

1. put the element and attribute tags in lower case (img rather than IMG) and 
2. ensure that there is a space followed by / before the closing >

as I have done above.

Having learnt how to link to images I now need to alter my own website. That's going to be a slow and laborious task which I don't relish. I think I will have to break it down into more manageable chunks!

Warning - developing a website can be addictive! I've not achieved much else this week.

Images from our trip to Arne

The World's Healthiest Foods Website

A quick word about a really useful website that I came across recently. It's called The World's Healthiest Foods and it is a database of healthy ingredients with nutritional information, cooking articles, recipes, and cooking methods. I came across it whilst looking for some advice on how to increase Omega 3 in our diet to help my husband's eczema. If you are interested in a healthy, nutritious diet I recommend that you have a look at this site. 10 million visitors a year can't be wrong! The site is written with enthusiasm and it encourages you rather than preaches at you. I found the Recipe Assistant particularly useful. This assistant helps you search the database for recipes based on your personal needs. You can select foods to include, foods to exclude and nutrients that you require. A nutritional profile is given for each recipe. I have tried several of the recipes so far. They have all been quick and easy to prepare and, most importantly, delicious! You will have to translate the recipies from American. They use cups for measurement and some ingredients are known by a different name than we use here.

Youtube video of Red Squirrel burying a nut - fantastic

Now I've found out how - here are Mark's videos of Red Squirrel on Brownsea!

Mark's Video Clips of Poppies at Fontmell Down (best with sound turned off!)

Poppies growing in a field on Clubmen's Down near Compton Abbas Airfield, Dorset

Poole Harbour & Brownsea Island

Yesterday was another glorious autumn day. Mark, Mum and I went over to Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour. We took a ferry boat from Poole Quay, close by the statue of Baden-Powell, across to the island. When we set off it was still overcast and quite chilly on the water but as the day wore on the sun came out and it quickly warmed up.

We saw our first red squirrel shortly after leaving the quayside. It ran across our path as we made our way towards the church. The reds are easy to spot on warm days at this time of year as they are busy feeding on the beech mast and sweet chestnuts. One squirrel spent a long time scampering around in an large relatively open area and we spent quite some time watching it, absolutely spellbound. This squirrel was getting its darker winter coat but has a red band around its tail! I managed to get a couple photos and Mark, who has x40 magnification on his digital camera, managed to get a couple of video clips.

If you don't know Brownsea Island or anything about Red Squirrels then you can take a Red Squirrel guided walk (morning and afternoons until 25th October) which will take you to the best places for seeing the squirrels. For those less able visitors there is a free tractor-trailer trail which runs twice a day (again morning and afternoon).

I hope that you enjoyed the slideshow of our pictures in the previous post. For some reason Blogger has a fit when I try and put text in the same post as the slideshow so I've had to split the post into two! Blogger also doesn't allow video clips any more so I can't show Marks video of the red quirrel eating at present.

P.S.
I have put Mark's video clips of the squirrel eating on youtube. Here are the links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1EmHx5yz1M and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_DYDu7dws8 

Check out this clip that's been put on youtube of a Brownsea squirrel burying a nut - soooo cute! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8FNeUZXlwM

Brownsea Island & Poole Harbour Slideshow