Random

Just a random bunch of pictures I've taken or collected. They have no specific category, so I've bunged them all into here.
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Erin - 1st week (2)
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Erin 2 months (1)
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Erin 2 months (2)
Wow - that African fertiliser is working wonders check how big she's got in two months.
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Hamper from Mum
The lovely hamper mum sent Claire and I for Christmas this year (2004). It contains oat cakes, shortbread biscuits, duck pate, fudge toffee, fruit loaf and a bottle of wine.
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Col
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All the Boxes
My Mac Mini and new screen in the boxes they came in ready to be unpacked and setup.
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Tidy Desk
The ulimate in minimalist desk space usage. Everything has been carefully wired and positioned for maximum spaceav availability.
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Sunrise This Morning
It's getting light later this time of year, but it does mean I get to see to pretty cool sunrises, like this one this morning.
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One of Our Neighbours
A cute little hedgehog that was wondering on the grass outside the block of flats across the road.
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Big 5 Puzzle
It took about a year to actually get started and then nearly another year to finish it, but I finally finished my Big 5 jigsaw puzzle.
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Cooked Mince Parcels
And here are my mince parcels fresh out of the oven. They look a bit like sausage rolls.
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Raw Mince Parcels
I'm not a big fan of the pastry mince pies are made of, so I thought I'd make my own with puff pastry. And, just to be different, I thought I'd make parcels instead of pies.
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Sunflowers (1)
This summer we grew our own sunflowers in a pot on the balcony. They didn't grow huge, but flowered beautifully.
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Sunflowers (2)
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Sunflowers (3)
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Sunflowers (4)
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Funky Caterpillar
Who says you need to go to Africa to see wild life. This beauty was found in our bathroom in sunny England.
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Free Dinner
Don't you love Air France - these are the sandwiches we got as part of our dinner when they let the plane to South Africa go without us. Notice how the competion is to win a holiday to South Africa - I think someone is taking the p**s.
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Find the Spot
I can't remember who the artist is (let me know if you do), but I've seen this on TV before. These lines appear a bit randomly placed and also Photoshopped in, but the idea is to find the
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Claire and the Sacre-Coeur
Just a bit further up the stairs. I think I need a bit more practice with the aperture settings :-)
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The View From the Sacre-Coeur
This is the view out over Paris from the top of the stairs in front of the Sacre-Coeur.
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Notre Dame (1)
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Notre Dame (2)
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Notre Dame (3)
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Weavers Nest (1)
Mr Weavers obviously wasn't too pleased with just sticks and grass. She wanted some lovely green leaves in her nest too.
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Purple Carrots
I found these in Sainsburys today. Carrots as they originally were before the Dutch changed them to orange.
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Weavers Nests (3)
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Completed Rubiks Cube (1)
I can now say I've successfully solved a jumbled up rubiks cube - without resorting to peeling the stickers off.
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Completed Rubiks Cube (2)
I can now say I've successfully solved a jumbled up rubiks cube - without resorting to peeling the stickers off.
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Snow - 24 Jan 07
Wednesday morning we woke to a lovely dusting of snow outside. I took this just before I headed off to work on the off chance it would come out, and I'm pretty impressed with the results.
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (2)
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (3)
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (4)
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (5)
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (7)
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This Much Snow
I think this gives a good indication of the amount of snow we received. This is on top of my car. It's a little blurry and out of focus as I was freezing my arse off and shivering like crazy.
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (6)
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (8)
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (10)
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The Car Park At Work
And yes, those are horses in the picture. I have no idea where they came from, but they weren't there when I left work this evening.
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (11)
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The Eiffel Tower
If you get into just the right place, you can even see the Eiffel Tower from the Sacre-Coeur. Not really surprising though.
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Chasing Flies
I really hope for the neighbour's sake that this cat has 9 lives. I regularily see this cat on the roof across the drive whilst I'm sitting at my desk, but today was the first time I've seen the cat being
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Snow - 8 Feb 2007 (9)
You get to see such pretty sights when stopped in traffic. I took this through the car window, hence the slight blue hue.
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Cat's Playground in Perspective
That's a long drop if the cat misses a step whilst chasing flies on the roof.
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How To Substantiate Owning a 4x4
What better way to substantiate owning a 4x4 than to dig up your driveway and still park your 4x4 on it. It's a little blurry as I had to perform a drive-by.
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HMC's New Recruits
Henley Management College (where Claire works) has a new set of recruitment criteria - cuteness is a must. I think these little guys are suitably qualified.
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Heron on the Moat
Look what we had wandering around the office this weekend. A heron. I took this first thing on Sunday morning as I was arriving at work.
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Getting the Deco's Out Early (1)
Two little girls in our block of flats are making 100% sure Father Christmas knows where to stop. The decorations have been up for a week already. The inflatable Father Christmas is new this evening.
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Getting the Deco's Out Early (2)
The same pic without the flash. Excuse the lack of focus - I don't have a tripod
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Squirrel (1)
A squirrel basking in the spring sunshine on the lower branches of a tree outside the flat.
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Squirrel (2)
A squirrel basking in the spring sunshine on the upper branches of a tree outside the flat.
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Neighbourhood Spring Flowers
I happened to noticed the vibrant colours of one of our neighbour's front garden today. A true sign spring is in the air.
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Snow Snow Snow
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Someone's Been Playing in the Snow Already
The only indication that anyone has been playing in the snow today - bird foot prints.
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Just over an Inch
Probably not the most scientific way of measuring snow depth, but it'll do for me. Looks like just over an inch.
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Pretty Dead Plants
Who'd have thought a bit of snow could make our dead pot plants look pretty again.
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Snowy Trees
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Snowy Tree (1)
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Snowy Tree (2)
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Feisty Snowman
This snowman just won't give up the ghost. We've had 3 days of glorious sunshine and he's still hanging in there.
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Red Kite (1)
You don't want to be a rodent in Earley/Wokingham at the moment. We've currently got a lovely pair of red kites in the area. I'm not sure where they are nesting, but I've seen them circling for several weeks now and even saw one go "in for the kill" (came up empty handed though) on Wokingham road near The George pub. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, but it was pretty amazing.
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The Old Mill
The Old Mill part of the building houses the bar and this is the side the evening reception took place.
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The Mill Room
This room was cleared of all it's furniture and used for the dancing area. It's nicely sectioned off from the rest of the Old Mill.
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The Garden Room
This is the room that is licensed for civil ceremonies and overlooks the River Blackwater. It's a little cluttered in this picture in preparation for an event taking place that evening.
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The Front of the New Mill
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New Mill From the Garden
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The Bridge
Claire made her grand entrance in over this bridge. It leads to the court yard outside the Garden room.
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Garden Room Court Yard
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Bridge From the Garden Room
This is the view everyone would have been looking at whilst waiting for Claire to arrive.
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A little bit of the snow jung around for morning.
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Snow in October in the South of England
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My First HDR Image
This is my first attempt at HDR and I'm quite impressed with the results.
I used a single RAW image and then exported it at three different exposure settings from Lightroom. I then used a trial version of Photomatix (hence the watermarks) to create the HDR image.
I'll need to do some more playing before I decide if it's worth shelling out, but for the moment, I'm quite impressed. -
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My Second HDR Image
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My Third HDR Image
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Christmas on Courts Road Looks like someone's bucking the credit crunch this year.
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Trees At Sunset
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No Kite Flying
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Reflections
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Flapping Duck
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Swan
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Tree At Sunset
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Tree Silouette
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Geese At Sunset
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Half Moon
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Sunset Pylon
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Pylon
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Pylon on Blue
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Hungry Spider (1)
This is what happens when a fly isn't watching where he's going and stumbles upon the web of a hungry spider. I got to witness this first hand thanks to the spider building his web right in front of the bedroom window.
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Hungry Spider (2)
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Hungry Spider (3)
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Hungry Spider (4)
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The Braai Kit
In the beginning we had a shiney new Weber braai, firelighters, starter and briquettes.
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Firestarter (1)
Looks a bit like a jet engine when you first start the fire in the fire starter.
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Getting to Temperature
With the coals very hot, it was time to put the lid on and let them cool a bit.
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Raw Wors
Time for the wors. The scewers make it much easier to flip and doesn't cause a loss of moisture either.
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Beer Time
Well, the wors is on, so time for a sit and have a glass of beer (homebrewed ale for me and Bud for the lady)
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Braai Ketts
Look what I found at the garden centre down the road. I didn't buy it just to be patriotic either - it was the cheapest too.
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Dirty Anya Salad Potatoes
Our first ever crop of "balcony potatoes" fresh out of the ground. We grew our potatoes in a 1 cubic meter lined cane box in the corner of our balcony.
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Clean Anya Salad Potatoes
Look how good these guys look and what a brilliant return. 12 seed potatoes produced 1.75Kg of potatoes.
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Homemade Tomato Sauce
The last 1kg of our balcony tomatoes went into this gorgeous bottle of homemade tomato sauce (in a reused Mrs Balls chutney bottle). All Gold, watch out.
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Partly Decorated
This year we're taking the progressive approach to dressing our tree. We've started here and hope to add as we approach Christmas.
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Mini Christmas Tree
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St Peter's Church
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Neked Birch In The Snow
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Chocolate Box House
This house looks like it should be on a box of chocolates or a Christmas card.
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Snow Clumps
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Cold Doves
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Blue Tit
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Snowy Dove
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Snow Laden Trees
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Where'd the Road Go?
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Snowed In
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Heavy Snow Fall Sadly the slow shutter speed doesn't do this shot justice, but hopefully it give you an idea of the rate at which the snow is falling.
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At Least 2 Inches There is at least 2 inches of snow balancing on the railing and more is falling.
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Neighbourhood Snowman At the current rate, this chappy will be covered by a thick blanket of new snow by morning.
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Up Our Road
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Top of Our Road
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Coconut Blackberry Slice - Fresh Out The Oven
This is what I did with all those blackberries Claire and I picked in the summer. Here is the tray fresh put the oven (after a bit of cooling).
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Coconut Blackberry Slice - Close-up
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Aurora Borealis or Just Green Clouds? (1)
Is this the Aurora Borealis I see over the south of the UK or just unexplained green clouds? Maybe it was a UFO.
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Aurora Borealis or Just Green Clouds? (2)
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Aurora Borealis or Just Green Clouds? (3)
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Aurora Borealis or Just Green Clouds? (4)
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Aurora Borealis or Just Green Clouds? (5)
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Aurora Borealis or Just Green Clouds? (6)
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Barefoot Cufflinks
Look what my lovely wife got me for Christmas. These are brilliant and I love them.
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Footwear Must be Worn
I don't believe it: the Wheatsheef Pub in Virginia water expects you to wear tops AND footwear at all times in the garden and inside. Inside I can understand, but must wear shoes out in the sunshine in the garden? You must be joking. I took my Vibrams off as soon as I saw this (I put them back on whenever I went inside).
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This is what it looks like outside our bedroom window right now.
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