Looking back...

One of the minor problems I've found since getting the new camera, is that it does rather eat through memory cards. That 18mp sensor is lovely, but particularly when shooting RAW files, rather than jpeg (and as I do a fair amount of the time now) it only takes a few hundred shots to have my previous stalwart 8GB cards showing "full". There's no way around it, this beast really needs feeding on 16GB cards at the least.

My previous methodology has been get home from a trip out with the camera, shove the memory card into the reader and download to the laptop or PC, and then once I've processed the pics, delete the shots from the card retaining those that have been deemed as "worth keeping" as a second backup. As and when a further "hard" backup gets done, then the cards can be cleared, but not until then. A new way of working is having to happen now though, or all my disposable income will be going on small plastic squares of memory! As a result I've knuckled down to check on my hard backups, and clearing down some cards as I've been going along - I've managed to clear 64GB of memory so far - which should at least see me through our upcoming Hebrides trip. One of the plus points of this is that every now and again you find some shots you forgot you had - last night it was a whole load of bits from a trip to the Eastbourne Airshow "Airbourne" in 2010...

The one that first caught my eye was this:

The Breitling wingwalkers - apparently the world's only formation wingwalking team! Always good to watch, with their Stearman bi-planes trailing smoke - and that orange colourscheme looks so good against a nice blue sky, too!

Next up the Gnat Display Team...

Local favourites to us, these, as you might remember from my recent post. They're based at North Weald Airfield and this was the first time I'd seen them displaying, as opposed to just flying about the local area, I believe.

Next up, another firm favourite...

The Blades are one of the most accomplished and professional display teams out there - since they first took to the skies at displays in 2006 they've flown over 4,000 displays with their Extra 300 planes and their team of ex RAF Red Arrows pilots. I particularly liked this blue paintscheme as well - it was great to photograph as it really jumped out against a sunny sky.

From one of the newer display teams on the circuit, let's jump to some of the grand old ladies - the planes of the RAF Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight...

There is something particularly poignant about seeing these beauties flying around the white cliffs that fringe this part of the English coast - it does rather make you think.

Sticking with an RAF theme then, but rather newer, and indeed LOUDER...

 Yep - it's a Typhoon - or the Eurofighter Typhoon to give it it's "proper" name. Whereas the Americans like to give their planes numbers, and use those first and foremost, we do like a good name over here - hence the new Joint Strike Fighter - technically the F35B - is mostly going to be referred to in these lands as the Lightning II. Anyway, back to the 'Phoon - this is one of my favourite pics of that particular beat - I love the "spluff" or water vapour over the top of the wings. Seafront airshows tend to be good for that, and it does make for a nice picture.

Finally, and possibly the shot I was most pleased to find, as I had absolutely NO recollection of having taken it - this is another North Weald resident, albeit I've only seen it fly a couple of times out of there and on neither occasion have conditions been right for photos...

She's a 1952 De Havilland Vampire - believed to be the only airworthy example of her type left in the Northern Hemisphere. Much as I'm pleased to have the photo above, it's not her most flattering angle - the sleek bullet-like lines can be seen far better when she shows a bit of topside. I'm hoping to get a chance to get some more shots of her soon - either at North Weald, or during this years display season.

As I go through the old stuff, and the backups, I'll see what else I find - I suspect there's a blog post or two to come yet, though!

Robyn

Hebrides Countdown...

Last week's countdown post about the South Glendale walks got me thinking, about some of the walks we have done over there and some of the fantastic views we've seen from hills. first off, I looked out a picture of that view I mentioned last week - across to Lochboisdale...

I quite fancy timing it to get up there this year on a day when the ferry is coming in over opposite. I might get another picture in the same vein as this one...

That was from North Lee - we're considering climbing it's next door neighbour, imaginatively called South Lee, this year. Another hill we talked about climbing for a long while before finally getting there two years ago was Burrival - you remember it, AKA Eaval's humpy little friend...

...The views from up there were quite special as well. Those houses you can see scattered along the centre of the picture? We've had holidays in two of them - nice to have those sorts of views within walking distance! Of course the nice thing about the Hebrides is that you don't always have to climb any sort of notable hill to get a decent view. Take this one from Rueval on Benbecula as an example...

...Pretty good, eh? We'll almost certainly be up there again this year, along with several more of our old favourites, as well as perhaps a couple of new ones.

Robyn

Gnat Display Team - North Weald

A couple of weeks ago I was idly browsing on twitter early one Saturday afternoon - MrEH was out at rugby, and I had the afternoon to myself. Suddenly I spotted a tweet from our locally based aerobatic team saying that as the weather was clearing, they were getting ready to get their three Folland Gnats airborne - after my very own "Scramble! Scramble!" moment, I found myself in the car with camera and stepladder, heading in the direction of North Weald airfield. 

Not being sure exactly how long they'd take to get ready and head away, I started off "landside" as it were - the car-park side of the runway fence - with the "non-live" side of the airfield being used for the Saturday market there were a fair number of folk there just having a look to see what was going on and I was able to let a couple of them know that something a bit special was going to be taking off in a while, and sure enough, before too long this happened...

That gives you some idea of the sort of blast you get behind three jets taking off! Takeoffs from that direction at North Weald are fab as jets are still nice and low as they come past you...

 

Once they'd headed off to go and do their display practise (they're currently getting ready for the 2014 display season) I hopped back into the car and drove around to the "live side" - there's a car park round there for the cafe MrEH and I like, and I'd been told you could park there and then walk back around the perimeter road to the Gnats hangar. The first thing you pass, pretty much, is this...

...yes, our local Air Ambulance. Note it's "G-HAAT" registration - Herts Air Ambulance Trust is the name of the charity that runs it - good eh? (The London one currently bears G-EHMS - standing for Emergency Helicopter Medical Service) Apologies to it for cutting it's tail and rotors off by the way - I couldn't get any further back than that!  Thankfully all was quiet for them on this particular day and I was pleased not to see it lift at all while I was over there.  

I wandered on in the direction of the Gnats - they'd arrived back by this time, and the first thing I came across was this sitting basking in the sunshine... 

...G-TIMM (XS111), painted in a Red Arrows coloursheme to represent the plane flown by former, legendary Reds team boss Ray Hanna. I will admit I dug in my pocket to get at the 50mm lens for this one, she just looked SO good sitting under that rather fantastic sky! On then to take a look at the newest member of the team - meet G-MOUR...

...and I think you can see from that just how lovingly these grand old ladies are polished - this one (XR991) will have her 50th birthday later this year (the youngest of the team's three aircraft, in fact!), yet you'd never know it to look at her! She wears the colourscheme of the Yellowjacks, one of the forerunners to the Red Arrows, and will be performing her first display season with the team this year.

The engineers were busy turning the planes around for their next sortie - the fuel truck did the rounds of all three of them...

...and once that was done preparation for another takeoff began...

...crewing in G-TIMM...

 ...then time to get the engines going - a fantastic sound always, but from that range, frankly even more so - wow!

Time for canopies down and taxi out...

...and this is the third member of the team G-RORI (XR538) wearing the paint scheme of No. 4 Flight Training School based at RAF Valley. No. 4 FTS still exists, now flying the Hawk T2 instead, the Gnats having been retired as the RAF's jet trainer in 1969.

As the three jets taxied out, we wandered across the grass to get as close as we were allowed to the runway - still a fair way back but thankfully my 100-400mm lens has enough reach to allow for some close shots nonetheless...

You can really see the three colourschemes there too, and how well they work together - I'm thoroughly looking forward to seeing the display at an airshow this season!

Finally the three-ship came back and did a nice pass over the airfield with smoke on before their break to land.

 It was absolutely superb to spend time around these three fabulous jets. It's truly fascinating watching the engineers getting the planes ready to go out, and there is truly nothing quite like those engines up close, and the smell of jet fuel. Hopefully I'll get back over to North Weald again at some stage when they're up - it's definitely an advantage of having a "local" (just a few miles away) airfield!

Robyn

Thanks to the Gnat Display Team for being OK with this - and I hope my efforts at staying out from underfoot were good enough! Thanks also to Richard for information about where was OK to walk on the live-side.  :-)

Frugal Friday...

...and a wee update on our planned "cost neutral" jaunt later in the year this week! We're moving beyond the planning stage into the actual booking of things now - all very exciting, and I'm writing this down as much to crystalize everything into one place for us, as for you lot to read. As usual with this sort of thing it suits us to break it into sections...

Accommodation - is now booked - a little two bedroom self catering bungalow-type place on the island of Benbecula. Bargainous price of £250 for the week and that includes all electricity as well as towels, bedding, and a rather well fitted out (by the look of it) kitchen. We ideally wanted somewhere with a real fire - either peat or coal or log, we weren't fussed, however seemingly that sort of thing adds in the region of £100 to a rental at that time of year - fancy that eh? Real fires are of course glorious, but £100 of glorious? No, probably not.

Barra Airport...

Travel: we were hoping to fly up from Stansted, and fly back from Stansted - as we only live around a half hour drive (at the most) from Stansted, this was the most hassle-free method we could think of, but with not all that many flights into the Hebrides each day, we knew it would be touch and go if we could make it work. Flybe have now released their flights for December, so we checked out Glasgow > Benbecula earlier this week and found that the prices were far above what our tight budget could cope with. Time for thinking caps! MrEH proved once again that he's a champion thinker by suggesting that we flew to a different island - well why not, eh? Sure enough there were flights available to take us from Glasgow to Barra, and if THAT place rings a bell, then it well should, as that's the place where the plane lands on the beach! Taking a flight that lands there has been on our list for a long while, so this really does work for us on a lot of levels. So the flights were booked - £40 each - and now we just need the rest of the travel to fall into place. Using the parking at the airport for the car for the week is looking favourable - as is coming back via ferry and train if the Benbecula flights don't reach a sensibly priced level. The key thing we've bought ourselves is time though - the flights have already doubled in cost just 24 hours later, so clearly moving fast for them was the right thing to do. There is a concern around ferries and bad weather, but it's a risk we're just going to have to take, realistically.

Loganair/BA Twin Otter on approach...

Our budgets:
£300 Accommodation - Done this for £250 SAVING £50
£300 Travel - So far, £80 flights, £70 diesel (home > Glasgow > Home) Still to book: Parking, overnight accommodation, trains (back to Glasgow at the end of the week) Ferries. In theory we could still *just* do this to budget. 

£200 car hire - I've had a quote back for £168 for the full week SAVING £32
£60 - tank of fuel for the hire car - no way on earth we can make a saving on that BUT the hire car is diesel and we may not use the whole tank...! 


 Our "Extra Hebrides Holiday" savings account (aka the "virtual sealed pot") is currently running at a balance of £689 meaning on the current figures we've only got in the region of another £100 to find for this exciting adventure - pretty good eh? As planned we'll raid our groceries account for food and general spending - so we're not counting that within the budget as such. 

The only airport where the runway is washed twice daily!

We're very excited about this extra jaunt to our very favourite Islands. It'll be lovely to see the Hebrides - at least that bit of it - at a different time of year, but also to catch up with friends, and over Hogmanay, which should be a very cheery time indeed to be about there. It will be all the better if it can be paid from saved and effectively *free* cash that we don't notice the going of - who knows, in years to come we might be able to do something similar with our VSP money again, either to pay a chunk of our main holiday expenditure, or to finance another short break somewhere else, who knows. A holiday is always an exciting thing to plan, but a free holiday is even better, don't you think?! 

Robyn

Hebrides Countdown...

It's MrEH providing the inspiration this week for our countdown, as I asked him to come up with the subject matter. "A Walk!" he said - leaving me a little exasperated, truth be told. "Yes, but anywhere specific?" I asked. After a bit of thought he said - as I suspected he might - "South Glendale".

South Glendale can be found at the Southern end of South Uist. There are two cracking walks from here - the first, across to North Glendale, gives great views over Lochboisdale - we've eaten lunch up there many times, watching the comings and going at the ferry terminal and just people going about their business. The second involves a hill (as a lot of our Hebrides walks seem to) and this view...

...that's the bottom of South Uist, the Causeway and almost the whole of the Island of Eriskay you can see there, and a view like that is always well worth the scramble to get to it! We quite fancy the idea of doing both of those walks again this year, and looking at the map there is a chance we might be able to do them together too - coming back from North Glendale via the hill.

Lots more planning and chatting about walks we'd like to do going on here too at the moment - with all the walking I've been doing I feel a lot more enthusiastic about it too!

Robyn

Frugal Friday...

This week, many bloggers have been blogging about "Live below the Line" - a week when you allow yourself £1 a day per person in the household for 5 days for all your food and drink, to raise awareness of the 1.2 billion people globally who live below the £1 a day line which the world Bank describes as "extreme poverty". This is a far cry from what is defined as poverty in the UK

I've thought about taking part in this challenge before, and indeed, I thought about it again this year - however, for various reasons I've decided against. Firstly - we prefer (and this is not intended to be in any way contentious) to donate to UK based charities. The current situation with an awful lot of the aid that goes overseas from this country is that too much of it doesn't end up directly helping the very people it's given to assist, and less money goes into the UK charitable pot as a result. We try to give as locally as possible, both by way of donations, and by using charity shops etc. I'd rather the limited amount of spare cash I have can go to help - for example - the hospice who were so wonderful when my Great Uncle was dying, or charities who have provided help and support to family or friends. The second reason for not "living below the line" is that in order to do so we'd have to compromise the way we've chosen to eat. We choose not to buy cheap jarred sauces, cheap packet bread, or jars of jams and similar loaded with additives - we choose to buy decent (and where possible local) meat, and free range eggs. I applaud the cause, but no, I'm not going to compromise by eating rubbish that I'd never normally dream of buying for this challenge.  Glancing through the blogs of some of those who took part last year I've seen the cheapest of cheap packet bread (our home made bread actually works out cheaper per loaf, but buying the initial ingredients to start us off would cost close to a week's budget for one of us, so that's out), lemon curd of such a violent and dubious shade of yellow I'd want to run a Geiger counter over it, and instant noodles of the type that look like a bad 1980's perm and come with their very own little sachet of chemicals as flavouring....errr..no, not for us, thanks. Credit to anyone who can do this and still manage to eat high or at least reasonable quality food - there are a few out there, mostly those who are in at least some way self-sufficient and can incorporate that.

Keep your eyes open for an upcoming blog featuring these grand old ladies...

Anyway, in spite of deciding not to take part in the challenge, it did get me thinking about food stuff generally, and more specifically food that we have. In our larder, cupboards, and freezer. LOTS of it. Yes, I know that part of the purpose of Frugal February was to run down what we had in the freezers - and it worked, we managed to get the second freezer emptied, defrosted and turned off, and it's stayed that way since. we do, however, still have rather a lot of edibles knocking about, and that in itself means there is scope to spend comparatively little on food for a while longer yet. The second thing that made me think was that we used our food account (which accumulates a positive balance as we put into it more than we spend each month) for our spending while we were in Orkney, and have also extracted from there our holiday spending money - that's been paid across into the holiday savings account. As a result we came back with it having a rather threadbare appearance - and still with several weeks shopping to get from it before the transfer goes across to refill it. No problem though - we do after all still have one freezer crammed to bursting point with lots of food, don't we? Well....yes. And No, as it turns out. Lots of food, for sure, but not all of it very helpful when it comes to the "making 7 evening meals in a week" thing - we have sausages aplenty (thanks to a good deal recently on some very tasty local ones) but nobody can eat sausages every day, can they now. (NO MrEH - they CAN'T!). We also have lots of pots of stewed fruit, several bits of bread related stuff (think muffins, crumpets, tattie scones, garlic bread) and several pots of frozen chicken stock.  Time for some lateral thinking and a bit more digging, I feel!

Window at St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall

First thing out was a breast of lamb. Boned out and rolled, ready for roasting. A tasty cut, breast, and super-frugal too - if anyone wants more than about £2 for one laugh in their face and look elsewhere. Pop it in a small roasting dish, tuck some rosemary underneath, drizzle with the tiniest smigeon of oil and a light touch of salt & pepper. Seal the dish over tightly with foil and pop in a low oven for...well...how long have you got? Ideally a good three hours, you'll get away with a little less, just expect a little more chewing. It can be fatty but the slow cooking renders all that out and just leaves lovely tender meat. That sorted Sunday lunch out there - with some Approved Foods bulgar wheat and some frozen veg. The other half of it (yes, when meat's this good and flavoursome you don't need so much of it - also a super-frugal tip) was cut into chunks once it had cooled, and added to gently fried chopped onion, mushrooms and a couple of handfuls of frozen sliced peppers, plus a tin of tomatoes. All simmered together for a while with a squidge of tomato puree and a shake of dried thyme. Finally stirred in was the last two blocks of frozen spinach from the freezer. Once it had cooled a bit I fed it into cannelloni tubes, lobbed the remaining sauce over the top, and set it aside to be baked for the following nights dinner. A great tip for getting use out of dried cannelloni tubes or lasagne sheets - make the dish up a day or so ahead and it means less cooking is required as the pasta is already softened. One £1.50 breast of lamb, two days main meals for two people, one of which is the often-expensive Sunday lunch - not bad eh?!

The two pots of chicken stock have also been used - providing the liquid for an Orzotto using some more from a bag of Orzo pasta that I had. Garlic bread was eaten with the cannelloni, and a loaf of turkish bread got demolished with salad. Finally this morning some of those sausages saw the light of day along with tattie scones, and some slices of black & white pudding - yep, we're having a fry-up tonight!

Cheese scones - surely one of the best storecupboard standbys ever?

We'll be continuing to go freezer-diving for food for a while yet -  I have my sights set on putting the final piece of the whole lamb we bought last year into a tagine for one day next week, and stewed fruit is coming out for adding to yogurt as weeknight puddings when we want them.

What are your storecupboard standbys for those times when you have a freezer full of food but nothing to eat? All inspiration welcome here!

Robyn

Island hopping and an adventurous coat!

So, as I think I mentioned recently, we spent Easter in Orkney with my brilliant pal Fay, her lovely daughter, and of course Peedie & Haggis the Cairn Terriers. Amazing really - we spent best part of a week up there at the same time last year and STILL got invited back - I reckon it's because while Haggis is jumping on OUR heads he's giving Fay a break!

Small furry lunatic...

As last time, our adventure started with the sleeper from Euston up to Aberdeen - not quite so bargainous as last year but it got us where we wanted to be, when we wanted to be there, and worked out a LOT cheaper than flying up, so all good. From there it was a train to Inverness, then another train to Thurso - we love Inverness but sadly the 6 minutes we had to change trains didn't allow for anything more than hoping anxiously that train 1) wouldn't be late (it wasn't) and that if it was train 2) would wait for it (it would have done). We stepped out at Thurso into much better weather than last year's blizzard, thankfully, and got ready to meet another chum for tea & cake...always good, tea & cake! First though a minor panic to deal with as we discovered that MrEH's brand new all-singing-all-dancing waterproof coat had fallen off his bag as we got off the train - aargh! Of course by the time we realised this the train had pulled back out again - heading round to Wick, it's final destination - I shot up to the ticket office praying for it to be manned so we could get them to ring the station at Wick to ask them to look for it, and thankfully it made a return trip on the very same train (which comes back to Thurso again before heading back "Sooth" as Fay would say) and MrEH was able to collect it from the lady with the refreshment trolley who'd kept it safe for him. Phew! So - tea & cake then....Caz had recommended the Surf cafe (or cafe Tempest, to give it its proper name), and what a great recommendation it was. A seemingly endless pot of tea between myself and MrEH, and a brownie of just perfect crunchiness/squidginess balance each, and Caz had a veritable bucket of hot chocolate and what she said herself appeared to be half a chocolate cake....it defeated her in the end in fact, yes, it was THAT big, I think MrEH would have struggled with it!

MV Hamnnavoe at Stromness - seen from Graemsay

After cake-overload we wandered round to the ferry...now it was getting a bit choppy by this time, Fay & I had already agreed that we "weren't mentioning the weather" (you need to think of that in sort of Fawlty Towers-esq tones) as MrEH gets a bit green around the gills in anything more than a light breeze when on water. Tricky when you're walking into rather a still head-wind and still trying to make cheery conversation about how nice it is!  We boarded the ferry, and before long were ready for the off - somewhat reassured by the Captains assurances that there was a bit of wind forecast so we were going through the flow rather than round the edge (he worded it more technically than that) so he was expecting a fairly smooth crossing. Can I just say, here and now - he's a big fat liar! He might have been EXPECTING that, but it sure as heck wasn't what we got - and we were very glad to just close our eyes and go to sleep as by the time we'd been sailing for 25 minutes or so even I was beginning to feel slightly....unsettled, shall we say? Thankfully we both slept through the worst, and awoke just a short while out of Stromness.

Relief Graemsay ferry Golden Marianna

Our first day involved spending time with yet another friend - this time Sian whose Life on a Small Island blog you might know. Great fun getting over to her particular small Island or Graemsay too - the sort of small ferry which not only carries passengers, but also shopping, and newspapers, and car tyres....in fact although we didn't know it, our crossing was being shared by Sian's own shopping, including food for the lovely Button, who we've now been privileged to meet! A lovely cheery half-hour or so crossing (nice and smooth this time, to both Fays & MrEH's relief!) and we stepped off onto the pier at an entirely new Island to us! After a very tasty lunch, we set off to do some exploring. Graemsay was home to a Battery in WW2 - at near the lighthouse at the north-eastern tip of the Island there's some fascinating remains showing where the troops were housed...

...now admit it, you'd not expect to find a fireplace in the middle of a field, would you? The lighthouse itself is attractive as well - the attached building are now privately owned and apparently came up for sale recently - can you imagine living in such a fantastic building?

(Apparently the views from the house itself are nothing like as good as you'd expect though thanks to the high wall surrounding it).

On the way back the ferry went via Hoy - calling at the pier at Moaness, situated directly in between the two highest points on the island - it wakes for quite an impressive arrival! The wind had got up a bit again by this time too - and the second stretch of the trip back to Stromnness was.....let's say I'd call it fun, Fay & MrEH most definitely wouldn't! They were both rather pleased when we got through the rough patch and back to calmer waters!

The following day we headed off to Kirkwall - a nice little town with plenty to see. We started off spotting these rather cute Long Tailed ducks...

Funny looking things, aren't they! After a bit of wandering we decided to take a proper look at St Magnus Cathedral - we walked right around the outside of the building last year but weren't able to go in. TYhe cathedral was founded in the 12th Century, and is the property of the People of Orkney. As well as religious events it also plays host to community events, including classical concerts.

The cathedral also houses the memorial to those lost in the sinking of HMS Royal Oak  in October 1939. The wreck still lies on the seabed in Scapa Flow, and is now a designated war grave. Each year a boat takes survivors out over the wreck so wreaths can be laid on the water in remembrance of the 834 men lost.

The 7D was proving its worth in the dimly lit interior of the building. I'd always prefer not to use flash where at all possible as it tends to suck the life out of these sorts of scenes, rendering stonework flat and washing out colours. I'd set the ISO to Auto before going in, and mostly left it to do its thing, with me just setting the aperture I wanted. the shots above and below were at ISO 1000 - a level where you'd have seen significant noise from the 40D.

I was keeping a close eye on it, not wanting it to creep TOO high and risk ruined shots (for the non-photographers, what we refer to as "noise" is the faint speckling effect you sometimes see on photographs taken in low light conditions) - however I must have got distracted while taking the shot below, as the file info tells me this was at ISO 3200 - a really impressive result, and great to know that I can ramp it up to that level if i really need to.

Lots more photos to come - I've barely scratched the surface of them yet, so expect to see another post on the trip probably in the course of next week sometime. There may even be more pictures of the two furry fiends - who knows?!

Robyn