Archive for September 2008

It’s easy, Sue!

It is easy, Sue. When you have written your post, click the “Code” tab and then type the instruction <font size=”3″ color=”blue” face=”ariel”> before the first word of the first line of your post. Then click the “visual” tab and you will see everything in blue just like this. 

If you change the “blue” in the command to ”red” the text becomes red like this.

Or  you can change it to green by putting ”green” there instead.

If you change the “3″ to “4″ the type gets bigger, like this.

And “5″ makes it bigger still.

Easy, peazy! Have a go.

Dear Uncle Andrew

You noticed my message because it was different so my secret ploy worked!!! Some of us have very important and busy jobs to do and don’t have the time to sepnd trying to work out what a htm thingy is and how to tie tags or whatever i am supposed to do with tags. I am the first to admit I A, technically challenged but perhaps when I am retired and have time on my hands I will lear alll the tech blurb and be able to post lovely coloured messages. In the meantime just enjoy what I do have to say to my family……

HELLO EVERYBODY. HOPE YOU ARE ALL WELL AND SURVIVING THE CREDIT CRISIS,WEATHER ETC. ALL IS WELL HERE IN FANGFOSS BUT I HAVE HAD TO SEND BRYAN BACK TO WORK, AS THE HOUSEWORK JUST WASN’T UP TO SCRATCH!!!

LOVE TO YOU ALL

TECHNICALLY CHALLENGED AND COLOURLESS SUE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Photos posted by Fly-on-the-wall

swan-and-cygnets.jpgsnowdrops-in-the-wood.jpgblogstuff005.jpgblogstuff007.jpghodbarrow-lake.jpgmum-and-barbara-at-stainforth.jpgmum-and-horace.jpgblogstuff008.jpgchristmas-at-austwick.jpgmillom-from-hodbarrow.jpgmum3.jpgthat-swan-again.jpghorace-and-mum-at-morecambe.jpgwinter-at-shawbirch.jpg              

                Posted by Fly-on-the-wall (with permission).

What a ‘Cutie’

Give her a BIG kiss and a cuddle from us at Barrow and tell her we think she is ‘GORGEOUS’.

Nadia started school too this September so i will try and post some photo’s of her.

Love and XXX

Andrew and family.

Gabriela’s First day at school

First day at schooldscn1018-1.jpgdscn1024-1.jpg

Update

Just to let you know that I have deleted the post “How to post BIG and in colour” and you can now permanently find the info in the Menu on the RH side now entitled “Write a POST and/or change FONT Size, Colour and TypeFace”. Please re-read this as i have discovered that the editor does not actually care whether there is an END html tag at the end of each paragraph (or one liner) or even if there is NO End tag at all. Just insert the start tags at the beginning of each paragraph.

Andee XXXX

PS.Nice red text Richard. SUE is obviously NOT TRYING - tut tut!

Edward - nice discovery about the thumnails - makes it much more tidy AND bigger pictures displayed properly. I can’t believe that chappy uses an outboard motor on the park lake!

The people who awarded Barrow park the green flag award obviously dont mind walking around with 4 inch thick soles on their shoes. (accumulated Duck poo!)

Birthday greetings

Hi Mark and Paul, I know you look in on the blog site now and then so had to come on and say ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ to my twin brothers. This is it the last one in the forties! You will be joining me in the joyous 50s next year, although being the first born I am a little way ahead of you and will always remain so!!

Hope you both had a great day.

Lots of love from us all

Big Sis Sue xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (should be 49 there - so double it that’s 49 slobbers each)

Breaking news from Barrow Park

praise-for-barrow-park-1-003.jpg

Click to enlarge

Thought you might like this

I dreamed death came to me last night
and heavens gate opened wide,
with kindly grace an angel came
and ushered me inside!

and there… to my astonishment
stood folks I’d known on Earth,
some I judged and called “unfit”
and some of little worth;

indignant words rose to my lips
but never were set free;
for every face showed stunned suprise….
not one expected me!!!

unknown

An easier way to upload photos

Upload “thumbnail” photos.

Then “Publish”. 

To view photo full size click on the  ”thumbnail”.  A second click makes them larger still. Have a try on the ones below.!

rimg0012.JPGrimg0016.JPGrimg0015.JPGrimg0036.JPGrimg0021.JPGrimg0003.JPGrimg0005.JPGrimg0006.JPGrimg0011.JPG

A chuckle from Austwick.

I was speaking to Aunt Clarice yesterday and she asked me, “Why can’t you find aspirins in the jungle?”

I didn’t know so she told me that it was because the paracetemol. (Parrots eat ‘em all!)

Photos from Black Coombe.

Hi Andee and all family members,

Sorry I missed the adventure on Sunday, Andy,  but glad you made it back OK.  I bet you would have had me over the side pushing if I had been there. My new wellies still haven’t been worn.

I put my new boat on the water last Sunday and had a few problems, but nothing to compare with yours.

You mention about time passing!  I had a sobering thought recently - my birth certificate asserts that in four months I will be 75 years old. I can’t believe it! At that age

one is getting on a bit - to put it mildly - and for it to relate to me just doesn’t seem real. I just don’t feel anything like that.  But then, again, how would I know what it feels like to be that age as I have never been it before. But it set me thinking a bit - all the things I still have to do and all that.  “No time to say ‘hello’, goodbye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late” as white rabbit sang in Alice in Wonderland - and probably still does.

Anyway, one of the things I am getting on with at the moment is making a radio-controlled duck to put on the water in Barrow Park. Got the idea a few weeks ago.  The lake in the park is awash with ducks and geese who all treat the boats very cautiously - glancing over their shoulders whenever a boat is about to make sure that it keeps well out of the way.  Anyway, one little duck, bolder than the rest, came paddling past the place where we all stand with our transmitters and I said, jokingly, to Mike “Who is controlling that duck?” - and, suddenly, the idea was born.  Since then I have bought myself two decoy ducks (well, a duck and a drake) which are amazingly life-like, and have today ordered the bits and pieces to equip them so that I can guide them around the lake by radio-control.  Should be a lot of fun, specially when I get a dozen of those little yellow ducks that they float down rivers for competitions and tie them on a string behind for the duck and drake for them to pull along after them. I’ll just sneak them onto the lake and not tell anyone that they are radio-controlled.  Be a few weeks yet but I will put a photo on the blog in due course. In the meantime here is one of the female duck decoy.

radio-controlled-duck-001.jpg

I made the trip up Black Coombe this morning the weather was so nice. The Coombe was absolutely beautiful.  It took an hour and twenty-five minutes to get to the top.  Used to take me just over the hour in my youth - happy days!  I took one or two pictures on my way up and down and will put one or two on the bottom of this post to stir the memories of all those who have likewise made the trip.   I met a chap when I was coming down who described it as a bit of a hill.  He said he was finding it harder than usual because the wet summer had prevented him getting up as often as he likes. But everything was pretty much the same except that someone has stolen the Ordnance Survey brass plate with the height of the “hill” on it.  I wondered if the “hill” had got higher as it took me that bit longer this time, in which case the Ordnance Survey might have taken the plate to put the new height on it. Anyway, here are a couple of photos. I have to squash them up a bit to get them on the post.  If you click twice on the photos they open out to give a better view.  That applies to ALL blog photos - except this first one for some reason. Hmmmmm!!!!!!! Strange! (Double click on the “Autumn leaves in Barrow Park”  photo and see them in all their glory.)

black-coombe-23-sep-08-016.jpg

This is the top, of course

black-coombe-23-sep-08-021.jpg

And the view from the last shoulder.

black-coombe-23-sep-08-020.jpg

Sorry about the haze. This one is looking North-ish.  The village at the foot of the hill is Bootle and in the distance Sellafield is visible - minus the cooling towers now.

Incidentally the breeze was from the East this morning and on the way down I was sure I could smell the fish and chips in Bridlington.

Must go,

Love to everyone,

Ted. 

Greetings All

Hello everyone,

Summer seems to have arrived at last - must be one of them ‘indian’ ones. Does that mean indian as in red indian or indian as in sacred cows type of indian? Would appreciate any info on that from someone ‘in the know’.

Edward Re:- Nearly had a run out with Andrew on his proper boat on Sunday.

It’s a good job that you did’nt, sailed about halfway down the front of Walney about 4 miles out then decided to turn round and head back. As i was heading into the wind and the tide was ebbing i decided to use the engine. After about 10 mins the revs suddenly dropped to about half and the engine did not sound happy oh oh! Anway i did get back but it took me ages as i was doing about 1-2 knots against the tide, about 200 yds off the mooring the engine pretty much died but i managed to make it - phew! So you did not miss much. I am pretty sure it’s just a blockage in the fuel line but going to leave it now as the boat will be coming out soon. Well apart from that event lifes been reasonably quiet.

Bye the way there is no desultorily but there is a desultory defined thus:-

1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.

I know what you are thinking - he obviously is bored out of his skull if he can be bothered looking that up. Well thats not true. I just liked the sound of the word if you must know. I envisioned dropping it into a conversation at some time to impress someone with my extensive vocabulary.

Sometimes when i am typing on the computer keyboard i type in a load of text but when i look at the screen it is just a load of rubbish (i would have put gobbledygook but i was not sure of the spelling). This to me is one of the great mysteries of life. It’s like your fingers are disconected from your brain and just type in what they want even though it seems OK. Does this just happen to me or is it a common phenominum……..phennomminum……OK lets not go there again.

Smokie Joe has gone very quiet down there in Worcester - wake up boy! When i started at Millom school i remember Chimpie Barlow’s (metalwork teacher) reaction when he found out i was smokie joe’s brother. He sort of groaned and put his head in his hands. Richard had left by this time and he thought he was OK at last. Then little brother turned up. Richard got his nickname because he spent most of his breaks smoking behind the bike sheds, did’nt you bruv? Happy days.

Is’nt life short. When you are that age life seems to stretch out endlessly before you, but one day you just pause and wonder ‘where did all those years go’. When you stop and think you can remember certain events but most of the time just seems to have ‘gone’. Right i am going to find a razor blade because i am really depressed now. I always find that having a shave helps…..

Anyway i’me off because Janette’s just put a bowl of cauliflower cheese in front of me which i am now going to sort out.

Lot’s of love and (XXXXX for the ladies)

Andee.

PS. Nice piccy’s Ted AND i must say that i am impressed with the very colourful post.

rimg0001.JPG

                        Autumn leaves in Barrow Park.

rimg0004.JPG

                            But masses of flowers too.

Answer to ‘How about this one’.

Mmmmmm ……. the letter ‘E’.

Whoops - have to go. Ted’s coming.

Hi from Ted at Millom.

Greetings families.  It has been lovely and busy on the blog just lately - and then suddenly all is quiet again. So I thought I would have two-pennyworth of input.

It is still raining here in Millom - has been doing so for weeks and weeks.  Yesterday, apart from a brief trip into town to keep an appointment, I spent the day finding things to do in the house because it was so yucky (the weather - not the house!).  So, believe it or not, the house got dusted and vacuumed (is that spelt right?) as well as the weekly wash getting done.  Wow!  The spiders wondered what was happening.  Normally I keep a laissez-faire attitude to them and let them get on with whatever spiders do.  Occasionally I rescue one from the bathtub but apart from that leave them alone. But I haven’t seen any since yesterday so I guess they’re still in hiding. They’re probably plotting to sue me because housework is against a spiders equivalent of human rights.

Talking of spiders - and nothing at all to do with it - I have bought myself an electronic cat-scarer for the garden.  The “moggies” had decided that my back lawn was the area communal toilet and grass cutting was getting a bit smelly.  Since installing it I have been cat-poo free though, of course, they may use somewhere else out of the rain when the weather is like it is - like …… WET!!!!!

This morning, of course, the weather was as bad as ever and I desultorily (is that a real word?) resigned myself to another day indoors.  Then I thought, Why should I? and put on my walking boots and wet-gear and had a lovely long walk in the rain.  It were lovely! The air was like wine. Because of the rain people haven’t been out blackberrying as usual and the hedgerows were awash with fruit.  I didn’t eat any though because there is an old Cumberland (that was what Cumbria was called before they messed about with its name)  saying  that in October the devil gets into the blackberries - a fly actually lays its eggs on the fruit which in October hatch out into tiny maggots which you don’t see until you’ve bitten one in half and the bit left is seen waving at you in protest.  (Which reminds me, What is worse than finding a worm in your apple? Answer: Finding half a worm.)  But it was a lovely walk and I sat on the seat on the Knott high above Millom in the pouring rain and watched a solitary sparrow pecking away at the side of the road and thought how blessed I was to be able to be there.

Hey, and what about the financial crisis, eh?  Not funny, but it just shows how little we can trust the institutions we have around us. The only authority person I trust is Jesus - there is no depression with Him.  He is MY treasure. If the situation gets you depressed have a look at  “Depression? Huh!” on www.talboticus2.wordpress.com  There is a www.talboticus.wordpress.com and www.talboticus3.wordpress.com also if you are interested.

And the archbishop is apologising to darwin.  What a turncoat. And I heard on the news tonight that some nut cases have come up with a new theory that antisocial behaviour is nothing to do with how you are brought up but is down to not having had a spoonful of cod liver oil every morning.  So I suppose they will be apologising to all murderers and rapists and muggers and even Hitler - and maybe the devil - to say, Sorry, We thought you were bad, but we now realise that it was really because you didn’t have your cod liver oil.

These egg-heards with their potty ideas do my blood-pressure no good at all!

Right, must go.  Time is awasting.  I assume my role of Skipper of my model boat tomorrow so I have to get my bits and pieces together.  Nearly had a run out with Andrew on his proper boat on Sunday but I had to be in Millom for my appointment on Monday so had to forego it. I was sorry about that. And thank you Andrew for all your research into HTML and the post showing us how to do it.

OK? Love to everyone,

Ted.

PS. Anyone seen Fly-on-the-wall.  He has escaped from his box again!

Breaking news from Barrow Park

submarines-in-barrow-park-cropped.jpg

We had a Submarine Regatta in the Park on 7 September 2008.Above are some of the model submarines taking part.

submarines-in-barrow-park-2.jpg

 

And here they are all at work in (under, of course!)  the water showing off their paces.

 

What can I say?

schooner-at-barrow-park-for-blog-2.jpg

Isn’t she a beauty?  Belongs to my friend Mike.

Memories

birthday3.jpg

It is three years ago today since Gwen went leaving so many lovely memories.

Who created the creator

Smokie

Here is one for you - What started the big bang? How can a universe come from nothing? How can nothing exist?

To quote a renowned physicist on the telly - “There is not a physicist on earth who can truly give you an explanation for what existed before the big bang, we can tell you what happened nanoseconds after the big bang but before that we have no explanation.”

The best they can come up with is garbage like the singularity where all the matter that makes up the universe was at some time squashed into infinite density ie. it did not exist.

Don’t get me wrong, i believe in the big bang, i just differ as to how it got started. I love science - the more they discover of the complexity of everything natural, the harder it is for it to be explained away by ‘theories’ like evolution. All of nature screams out ‘design’! and yet because man is desperately trying to write a creator out of the equation his eyes are blind to the evidence. The truth is that it requires as much - if not more - faith to believe in the scientific theory of the origin of the big bang and evolution as it does to believe in a creator.

When Darwin evolved his theory nothing was known of the structure of the cell the basic biological building block. To them it was just a lump of jelly that ’somehow’ worked. A leading biologist of the time Haeckel, refered to the cell as ‘a simple little lump of albuminous combination of carbon’.

We now know that the cell is an incredibly complex structure. A self contained chemical works with its own power station (mitochondrion), selective raw material delivery and finished product despatch ports, communication system, internal transport system, biological micro machines(enzymes), central processing unit(nucleolus) including the database (Chromosomes containing DNA). Each cell is dedicated to fulfilling it’s own particular function in the body producing complex bio-chemicals from raw materials (using the INFORMATION encoded in the DNA database) as well as multiple other functions. It can also reproduce itself, and destroy itself when necessary. The various componants of the cell are refered to as ‘organella’ because they are functionally self contained units within the cell performing dedicated tasks much as the major organs do eg. liver. We have around 100 trillion cells in our body, usually all working in harmony with each other.

How does evolution explain complete complex systems that are found in nature. Every single event of evolution happens randomly. By the ‘laws’ of evolution if a newly evolved bit is useless then it naturally devolves.So a system that requires all the pieces to be in place before it can perform a useful function can never happen. And even if it were possible the odds against so many individual pieces being in place at the same point in time - by chance - are so huge that the number becomes meaningless. By comparison winning the lottery would seem a certainty.

For instance many bacteria have a device called a flagellum motor which is used to revolve it’s tail and propel the bacteria forward. This device is a biological motor complete with all the bits and pieces that you would find in an electromechanical motor - very complex. Quote from a scientist “This highly efficient flagellar motor that is far beyond the capabilities of artificial motors”. You can read an excellent secular article about it here.

http://www.nanonet.go.jp/english/mailmag/2004/011a.html

Before this highly complex motor is of any use, all of it’s individual componants have to be in place (in the right order) and fully functional, this would be impossible through the process of evolution and there are thousands of these complex systems to be found in nature.

If i have a pile of raw materials available that includes everything i need to build an outboard motor this does not make them an outboard motor. The materials have to pass through many processes before they form the various componants necessary to construct the motor then they need to be assembled in the correct order etc. This requires ‘INFORMATION’ without this information - a design plan - the motor will never happen. Things are designed because of a definite need. The need leads to a design. The design leads to production. If the theory of evolution is to be believed, information is not necessary as it is possible for the tail to wag the dog - hugh? Think about that.

Imagine removing the physical universe so that we return to the state of ‘nothingness’ whatever that is. If you believe in heaven then remove that too. In effect we have removed everything that exists. So what is left. The answer is God. God is Spirit - He is not limited by time or space ie. he fills infinity and exists eternally, without beginning or end. His knowledge is without bounds and His wisdom is perfect. He can create anything. By His desire He brings things into being, creating or destroying matter and natural laws at will, or creating spiritual entities that exist in ‘heaven’ a place where He chooses to manifest His presence. A place that exists all around us but one that we naturally do not have senses to detect. One of God’s names is “I AM” and this really says it all if you think about it.

Remember that kids film I think it was called ‘The never ending story’. Because children had stopped believing in the fairy tales, the fairy tale world was gradually being swallowed up by the ‘nothing’. The concept used to intrigue me, that the existance of something could be dependant upon belief (or lack of it).

In truth ‘the nothingness’ does not really exist. All things exist in God and He is the life in all things

It is hard to get your head round, without a doubt but it is no harder to believe than ‘everything coming into being from nothing’.

So who created the creator? - no one.

Andee XXX