doof.me.uk

Everyone knows squirrels are stupid but this one seems extra doof: he has climbed up to the top of this tree (I’m on the third floor) and is swaying around in the wind!

Last weekend I was having a rather uneventful day out exploring the western end of Berkshire when I was caught in a sudden and unexpected downpour. Afterwards there was this totally awesome rainbow! It looked like the end was about 100m away in neighbouring field. Unfortunately as I chased after it it retreated further away so no gold for me. :-(

There must be some special technique for photographing rainbows as all the photos turned out mediocre while the real thing looked amazing.

Here’s where I went: in a sort of fish shape from Cholsey back to the train at Goring.

I was pleasantly surprised today when I did a dist-upgrade on Debian Jessie today and it upgraded xcowsay to version 1.3 which was released a mere four years ago.

Alarmingly, there appear to be bug reports! :-o Methinks I should be working on a 1.4 release…

The Bootsy says it so it must be true: warmest Halloween ever! I went for a walk to Bexhill with my parents and it was positively summery.

Also, much to my horror, I turned 30 today. :-o

And now for some happy news! You might remember almost exactly four years ago on this very blog I reported on the burning down of Hastings Pier. But now thanks to a huge fund raising campaign it’s being rebuilt and due to reopen next summer!

…you’d better watch out for the abandoned rusting circular saw and canister of unidentified hazardous liquid! This footpath has FAILED its health and safety inspection.

So I was out adventuring near Henley this Saturday. I figured I knew the area well enough that I didn’t need to bother looking at the map. This turned out to be a little optimistic. However I think I’ve managed to reverse engineer my route:

Here’s a rather elegant tree that marked the northernmost limit of my explorations. Maybe in a few hundred years it can compete for Tree of the Year!

On the way back to Henley the sun came out! Making the most of the last day of British Summer Time.

I’m pretty sure I took a photo of these sheep earlier in the year when I was last in these parts and they were considerably smaller.

This is the funniest thing I’ve heard in ages:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pd34q/episodes/player

My previous visit to Staines generated quite some comment in the blogosphere. And now Staines has officially been renamed Staines-on-Thames surely it deserves a repeat visit?

It’s been wet and dreary here for weeks so rather than head off somewhere remote and exotic I decided last Sunday to walk from my house over to Staines-on-Thames. The only interesting thing I came across on the way was this monument to the Magna Carta at Runnymeade that I forgot to photograph last time.

Trivia time! When King John went to sign the Magna Carta he travelled from Odiham Castle which I visted a few months ago.

Staines seemed largely the same as before. The museum was still closed. But I did notice a poem on the side of the lino sculpture! It’s called “Release Every Pattern” by Richard Price and Leona Medlin and reproduced here for your perusal.

Roll out the lino
from Staines to the world!
Release every pattern
from chessboard to twirl!
In every hopeful kitchen
let life unfurl,
bathrooms are artrooms
from soapsuds to swirl!
Roll out the lino
from Staines to the world!

Inspiring stuff!

I forgot to post some photos from a few weeks back. Here’s the Kennet and Avon canal near Midgham in Berkshire.

The canal stretches all the way from Reading to Bath. Might be fun to adventure along sometime. On this particular outing I walked north east to Pangbourne through a forest covered in conkers! ‘Tis the season.

After a three year hiatus my work trips to Oslo have happily resumed. Our company recently moved into some office space at Fornebu just outside Oslo which is coincidentally quite near the Lysaker offices of my former employer. The office itself is inside a refurbished terminal building of the old Oslo airport. The new airport being inconveniently located about a zillion miles in the other direction.

The terminal is now a “hip” and “trendy” space for start-up offices with lots of “edgy” features like exposed pipes and half-finished stairwells. Definitely nicer than our grim London office.

Nearby is the massive headquarters of Norwegian state-owned oil company Statoil. It’s built like a huge Jenga tower: each of those blocks is three storeys high! Even stranger, underneath the blocks is a mix of brightly coloured panels and TV screens showing psychedelic videos. Nice to see some modern architecture that isn’t all glass and steel.

I managed to have a totally cashless trip using a combination of credit cards and this amazing pay-by-phone app called RuterBillet. You just pay for a bus ticket via the app then show the driver the “picture of the day” before the timer expires. I was very excited.

We stayed right in the centre of Oslo and I was up on the 27th floor with this totally awesome view over the train station and fjord. As usual everything in Olso was horrifically expensive: glad I’m not paying!

Here are some more photos I took during evening sightseeing:

Last Sunday I went adventuring in the downs near Newbury. Obsessive fans of this blog may remember I last visited Newbury five years ago but I only did minor exploring of the surrounding countryside.

The highlight of the whole trip was when I unexpectedly stumbled upon a large encampment of friendly piggies! The piggies came in three varieties: tiny; medium; and gargantuan. Here we see examples of the first and third categories:

The little piglets are soo cute! Also the most energetic: the big piggies are mostly sleeping off their dinner. Alarmingly the piglets are able to wander out onto the footpath. Presumably the farmer is aware.

The elusive medium sized piggy! For some unknown reason there are far fewer of this sized piggy than the other two. Suspect negative correlation with the availability of bacon in the vicinity.

Here’s where I went: it’s in an area called the “North Wessex Downs”. I wandered along a river valley for a bit then over the M4 into the downland which feels incredibly deserted for the south of England.

Some typical scenery in the area:

As always happens at this time of the year, I totally forgot it gets dark before 9pm now and ended up arriving back in Newbury after sunset. Lucky I packed my super awesome LED torch! It was really atmospheric at Donnington Castle above the town with a full moon and the lights in the distance. I tried to take a decent photo with an improvised tripod but the results were a bit disappointing.