The Frumplingtons

Shana spotted this luvverly pair of rainbows earlier this evening, just after 7pm. See how the colours are reversed on the fainter rainbow. It just occurred to me that I’ve never seen a rainbow after dark. That would be quite something, wouldn’t it? Imagine how well the colours would show against a black background.

Professional photographers take pride in how well they compose their pictures. Time was when they all used film and did their own developing in (get this!) dark rooms. Nowadays though, with an ordinary digital camera and a bit of computer trickery, keen shutterbugs can get great results regardless of their level of experience. Shana and I fall somewhere in between the two extremes. We do enjoy the ease of digital photography but we don’t like to over-tweak an image after we’ve taken it. This morning was a gift though: once we saw how foggy it was, we just had to take a pic of our plants. And, thanks to the weather conditions, we didn’t have to spend half an hour finding the right settings for opaque backgrounds. It was simply a case of point ‘n’ shoot and ‘job done’. I mean, really, why waste time learning the software when you can just wait five minutes for the weather?

Just coming downstairs this afternoon, the light coming through the upstairs landing window was casting pretty patterns on the stairs. I called to Shana that it might be worth taking a picture. Shana, however, looking up the stairs rather than down, saw something quite different. Five minutes either way and we’d have completely missed what seems to be an angel making its way quietly upstairs. You can clearly see the curve of the wing there on the wall.

The last time our stairs were featured on this blog, they were groaning under the weight of hundreds of books. A dab of paint and a few horse brasses and you’d hardly recognise the place.

Now, I wonder where that angel was off to…

Just in case you wondered whether it was true what Shana said in her recent post about my having a pink kettle, well, yes actually, it is. And here’s the proof: this is me pretending to be an astronaut.

Of course, the glass does tend to distort my features horribly. I really look much better in real life…

Honest, I do!

Passing the TCM Evangelical Baptist Church on Lincoln High Street this morning, we noticed that something didn’t seem quite right on the front of the building. A simple case of the ‘t’ coming unstuck was all it was of course, but it did look awfully like an inverted cross for a moment. Too much exposure to Hammer Horror fillums years ago would no doubt explain my thinking that. A quick look at the church’s website soon put my mind at rest though: definitely none of those pagan goings-on there, I’m pleased to report, and, by the look of things, a decent number of regular punters too. Hit the big picture below with that mousey thing if you fancy taking a look at their site.

Chris

Update: 15th September 2007 — It’s fixed! The errant ‘t’ is now rightways up. Yes, thanks, we’re happy now.

There’s not many who get to see the inner sanctum at Frumplington Central, but here’s a quick glimpse of what it’s really like at, if you will, the ‘blogface’. Note detail of big beefy speaker at bottom left, ideal for serious music fans. Note — and this time, drool — at comfy office chair, with plenty of padding for those intense relaxation moments. Our new computer workstation, dubbed ‘the idlestation’, is clearly visible to bottom right.

You’re not taking any notice of the furniture though, are you. You just want to know about that copy of Steven Pearson’s 1972 classic, Wings of Love, don’t you? It’s very us, don’t you think? You know: timeless, fascinating, stylish. Yeah, I know it’s very Seventies as well, but it goes well with our leopard print sofa covers, which just happen to be out of shot in this photo.

Oops, cat’s outta the bag now!

Chris

Had a stroll down to Boultham Park this morning. It’s the first time I’ve ever been there and it was worth waiting for. We went down for a brief visit this time, sat and watched the ducks on the lake. Saw a coot as well; that’s another one to tick off in the Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe, I joked.

The best moment though, in fact something of a classic, came as we were leaving. We were not far from St Helen’s church. “Look!” I said. “Squirrels!” There were easily half a dozen squirrels under the fir trees and probably a dozen more hiding close by, ready to bombard us with half-chewed nuts. Shana managed to get this shot of a squirrel eating a nut. On the one hand, she was trying to hurry, wanting to get the camera out before the squirrel scarpered, but at the same time we were both trying to stay as still as possible so as not to scare him off. We needn’t have worried though: the Boultham Park squirrels seem quite happy to pose for the tourists. On any other day we could have waited hours for a picture like this. Seems like today our luck was in, doesn’t it?

Chris

It’s still chaos at Frumplington Central as we continue slowly getting our new home redecorated. Meanwhile, we thought it best to remove our books from the living room, where they would be likely to get covered in dust, bits of old wallpaper and assorted other debris. The safest place, we decided, would be on the stairs. I guess, if you’re a bibliophile, like us, then this must be the stairway to heaven:

Trouble is, it takes us ages coming down to breakfast in the morning. There is an almost irresistible temptation to browse en route. Look at this lot though: that yucky peach paper has really got to go, hasn’t it? Wouldn’t have been our choice, that’s for sure. The sun, though, is ours, rescued from a life of obscurity in the depths of a Lincoln bric-a-brac shop a couple of years ago.

Some would say you’re not a proper blogger till you’ve posted a photo of the sunset on your blog. Either that or a picture of your cat doing silly things. Well we don’t have a cat. And if we want anything silly doing we’ll do it ourselves, thanks all the same. Meanwhile, here are a couple of — what’s the technical term? — tasty shots of our local sunset, taken by Shana at around dusk o’clock. If the old adage is right, there’ll be a few delighted shepherds around this evening. Not sure what the sheep will think of it all though.