doof.me.uk

I’ve been stubbornly ignoring the recent updates to Firefox and using 24 ESR instead as the new Australis changes ruined what was a perfectly nice minimal UI. The biggest problem for me was the inability to move the address bar into the title bar: once you’re accustomed to this having it hanging below is a heinous waste of screen real estate.

Today I decided to give the new ESR version 31 a go and after half an hour or so tweaking with Classic Theme Restorer I managed to make it look like my old Firefox! The “customize” interface now lets me drag the address bar up into the menu bar and get rid of that giant “back” button. For reference, here’s version 24:

And here is what I’ve got in version 31:

I went for a walk down to the seafront in Hastings after lunch today. The late afternoon sun was beautiful, if rather cold. Here’s one of the local fishing boats, just recently returned from a day out working. I actually saw some fishermen carrying their catch off another boat later.

There’s no harbour at Hastings so all the boats have to be pushed in and hauled back out every day. That’s what the little tractors in the photos below are for.

I spent ages faffing about trying to take macro shots of stones on the shore. This was the best of the bunch. The bokeh makes it look like the beach is covered in gold.

More of the same below. One day I may try to get up early enough to watch the boats being launched. I’ll leave that till the summer perhaps.

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I took some photos of things growing in my mum’s greenhouse while I was waiting for Christmas dinner. Here’s a pretty pink flower!

This one is is a stumpy spiky cactus. He looks quite happy sitting there.

It’s the shortest day today. As a sort of celebration I went for a wander in Maidenhead Thicket this afternoon. The trees looked so bare and the overcast clouds were very gloomy. Never mind: summer soon! Also only four days until Christmas.

Is it a truck?! Perhaps a TRAIN or some kind of tractor?! I rather like it, whatever it is.

In what’s become something of a winter tradition I walked along the Beeches Way last Saturday. It’s roughly 18 miles long which is a good distance for the available daylight in December. Although you do need to get up early.

It started off in this eerie fog on Cookham Moor but that soon disappeared and the rest of the day was chilly and incredibly clear. The first half or so is mostly woodland like this leafy path near Hedsor:

The second half goes through two parks: Black Park and Langley and then over the M25 into the outskirts of London. Unfortunately the bridge over the Grand Union Canal that I found demolished last year still hasn’t been rebuilt, hence the odd loop near Iver on the map below.

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I was in London last weekend and took some photos along the Thames near Chelsea. This one is the Albert Bridge.

And this one I think the Chelsea Bridge.

And a really pretty sunset later on.

We’ve been hard at work in our office rating the 2014 mince pie selection. The Fortnum & Mason “traditional” pie is the current front runner. Although the M&S regular pie is a good choice on a more modest budget.

Really pretty sunset near my house this evening.

Fellow admirers of the humble telegraph pole may appreciate this website.