Too Young To Be Grumpy

I have a list of things to do. The first of which is to apologise for lack of updates. This week has been hectic - both from a work perspective (yes, I know I'm supposed to be on holiday, but I've been putting in at least 4 hours work a day), and a social perspective (yes, I was only helping to entertain one person, but it's harder than I always imagine).

During the week, I've been busy working on some websites as part of a new venture into website design. I seem to be able to do it, and certainly have a good understanding of what makes a good design, so it has become a second venture alongside my internet retail enterprise, which has yet to start. I will probably start up a secondary blog where I can "talk web", and it may just be interesting. I found this blog of another web-designer, actually not far away, who seems to be doing ok. His sites seem ok, but he's making a good move in going CSS. It's far more accessible to those less able to view the web.

During the week I made another three cakes. I made the flourless chocolate orange cake again (originally from Esurienties Blog) - and I made it twice, one for me, and one for my Dad who's wheat intolerant. Last time I made a hash of the ganache, but this time I put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes prior to spreading it and it worked much better. Unfortunately, I'd missed a few pips and they were a little bitter when you came across one. Anyway, here's a picture of the better one:


Flourless Chocolate Orange Cake

On Friday my wife and I went out and lay on the sunloungers and tried to get a moon-tan. In fact, we were watching the Perseid meteor shower that happens every August. It happens because the earth passes through the trail that the Comet Swift-Tuttle has left in space. It's called the Perseid because the centre of the meteor shower (where all the meteors appear to originate) is in the constellation of Perseus. This is in fact the direction the Earth is travelling through space. We saw about 10 meteors and a similar number of satellites, including some that were spinning causing a flashing effect as the Sun glinted off them. I took some photos, but didn't catch any meteors. Here's a nice photo of Cassiopea (the W-shape top middle) and Perseus (the arc of stars underneath):



Anyway, we've just got back from convoying my Mother-in-law back to the Severn Bridge, from which point she is able to find her own way home to Monmouth. It was a very nice day today, so I took some photos. In fact, on my 256Mb card I can only take 44, and I took all 44. Here's some nice ones:


It's "Combine" season and there's alot of churned up fields around, which actually make nice photos.


The Severn Bridge was opened 8th September 1966, but has now been augmented by a lower, longer one. I still prefer the old one. It's like our very own version of the Golden Gate Bridge.


At the Severn Bridge, the new Moto services have been built in front of the old ones, that are now offices. The old spy-scopes are still there, but unusable.


There's my lovely missus watching over the lethal straits of the River Severn. The River Severn effectively ends here at the Severn Bridge and becomes the Bristol Channel.


On the northern side of Bath, there's a small town called Pennsylvania, and from there you get a great view over Dyrham Park and towards Wales. This is what the Severn Bridge looks like from there.
[incidentally, the mountains in the background are around the Trellech area and are approximate 24 miles from where I took the photo!]


Bath is a beautiful old Roman town, and I've driven around it so many times on my way to Wales. I'm glad I made the stop to take some photos of this lovely place.


Nearer home, there's more hay bales. I stopped and headed out into a field to get some other harvest shots. It's a shame all this harvesting gives me a fever!


There'll be more photo intensive posts on their way, as I've just been out getting photos of the current state of our gardening!