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Archives for January, 2016

Dunstable

January 28th, 2016

Last Saturday was the most gorgeous winter day so far this year so obviously I wasn’t going to spend it indoors. Instead I embarked on an epic quest to reach the far away city of Dunstable in the county of Bedfordshire. One of my most exotic destinations yet!

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This was early morning leaving Chesham on the start of my adventure. From there I walked slightly in the wrong direction before joining up with the Ridgeway and doing the last little bit of that, so I can at last say I’ve walked the whole thing.

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Ivinghoe Beacon in the mid afternoon was wonderful, if a little cold. North of here it’s all flat until… er… the Peak District perhaps? My geography gets a bit hazy around the middle of England. Although this could be a good excuse for further exploring.

I wanted to snoop around the edge of Whipsnade zoo and see some animals but as it was getting a bit late I decided to take a “short cut” down the side of busy road and managed to tear my down jacket while dodging some cars. Oops. Not my best idea. And by the time I got to Dunstable downs it was dark anyway.

Dunstable itself didn’t seem particularly interesting and I made a beeline for the bus station. The bus travelled along an exciting new innovation… the BUSWAY! To where does the busway lead? Luton. Which, I think, deserves its own adventure on another day.

Youtube Comments

January 21st, 2016

This is the most succinct summary of every Youtube discussion ever:

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Found Photos

January 17th, 2016

I booted up one of my old PCs over Christmas and found some photos taken on my old Sony Ericsson camera phone. They were all from around 2005 or 2006 when I was living in Winchester. Phone camera technology has moved on a lot in the last ten years: this one had VGA resolution and seemingly no EXIF (although I may have accidentally clobbered that later).

This is the legendary Horse Monument from the first time I visited it with Pete. (I went back there more recently.)

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Some of the photos have an unintended Instagram-esque quality due to the lameness of the phone. Like this one from when I was walking home along the river Itchen on a misty morning.

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This is St Cross Hospital on the edge of Winchester.

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And this one is a seagull on Eastbourne pier.

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Finally, this one I rather like but I’m not sure where it was taken. It’s possibly Portsmouth or near Portchester castle.

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Flowering Tea

January 10th, 2016

The first time I was in Hong Kong I bought some “flowering tea” which I just re-found in my tea cupboard. Here it is in its packet. You get two in a tin.

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The first time I made it in my friend’s glass teapot which works rather better than a mug, but I only have china pots so this will have to do.

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Here it is hidden inside its little tea-pod. Apply boiling water and something magical happens!

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Bubble bubble bubble. The flower is about to burst out!

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Tada! Wow! The flower is reborn.

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They’re made by wrapping tea leaves around a picked flower and letting the whole thing dry out. No idea why anyone thought to do this originally.

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