Were at the start of Easter Events here at the Dorm not being far off tucking into ones Easter Eggs as I file a report after I'd been out for a walk nearby.
Sunday saw the Cheshire Cat sportive that started at Queens Park, Crewe pass through the edge of our village enroute for Scholar Green and then on to the Staffordshire Moorlands over Congleton Edge toward Leek in a route that takes 174.3 kilometres in total.
From there they go around the edge of Northwich, Tarporley, Nantwich before cycling back to Crewe.
The highest point they will be climbing up to is Mow Cop which is 515 ft above sea level and clearly visible from the upper room windows which will be a bit taxing having been up there few times in the past and is home to a famous Folly, Mow Cop Castle.
The day had started off quiet foggy but by the time the first riders were passing through the fog lifted allowing the sun to shine through as I cheered them all on.
Tuesday wasn't a good day for me not least for an incident that I hope never to witness ever again on our estate just out of town.
As I think I mentioned on here I do walk quite a bit on a daily basis even though it is pretty tiring for me with my difficulties because quite simply not only would be likely to put on weight but also because if I did not, my muscles would start to waste away becoming less and less able to even get around the house.
Anyway, it was the afternoon and as I had been taking care of stuff for Mom had eaten about a half hour earlier I decided to put my winter hat, coat and shoes on to have a gradual walk around the estate and adjoining countryside.
When I do, I don't have a fixed distance our route in mind,preferring to listen to my body, the terrain and the weather instead and having just turned to a housing around passing the sinking village green (Brine Subsidence is marvellous!) as coming the other way on the opposite sidewalk (/pavement) stood a man in his fifties, and two adult daughters around late twenties, early thirties and a head of them a small Scottie type dog that had no lead on it but clearly was theirs.
I decide the best approach is to continue along walking where upon the Scottie runs across the road that is the main thoroughfare through the estate and starts jumping up yapping at me refusing my attempts to persuade it to leave.
At this point having tried to call it over owner dashes across after it and it runs into oncoming traffic and this goes on and on with the daughters joining in with the squeals of quickly applied car breaks being applied four times as dog and car wheels narrowly avert a road traffic accident between which said dog is jumping up and down pawing my legs.
I am stood their hands over eyes expecting the sound of crunched dog.
A quarter of an hour later, eventually the owner is able to pick up by by the collar muttering about it being a naughty dog with no apology..
The dog may of been out of control but the thing was they were not in control of that dog who could of caused a traffic accident resulting in injury or death to others because they for whatever reason chose when taking it out not to put a dog lead on.
They have a far higher responsibility for all that did happen than the Scottie ever did.
The whole incident left me very shaken up.
Please if you do own a dog put it on a lead of a suitable length when walking it in built up areas as well as in fields. Thank you.
It's been a bit blustery and wet here in the last few days so I've had to wrap up and make sure I'm kinda waterproof when I've been out of doors going for a bit of a stroll around our district.
That's a favourite building of mine here, Ye Olde Black Bear and no your eyes are not deceiving you, it is a bear on the thatched roof of this Seventeenth century public house that serves food. Much of this district is like old as in Sixtieth century or later and actually at the far right just out of view is two objects that are Ninth century, namely Saxon crosses that were full restored after being destroyed during the Civil War.
I have been purposely quiet over the business that saw Sergie Skripal and his daughter become seriously ill on March 4th in Salisbury in England's West Country, a policeman attending been taken ill due to contact with the use of Novichok nerve agent used on Mr Skripal, a former secret agent exchanged in an organized 'swap' between western powers and Russia.
The nerve agent has been identified as coming from a Russian laboratory not being made anywhere else in the world that was part of program that was meant to have been stopped and supplies decommissioned.
It would seem reasonable to conclude that either it was used by persons authorized by the Russian State as no one else would be allowed to have it OR stocks are insecure and held by others that ought to be of grave concern to all including the Russians.
Given a deadline to say what had happened, Russia refused to answer preferring to make boastful comments with sarcasm, treating the matter of attempted murder of two people, the making seriously ill of a another and the potential risk of what in effect would of been a chemical attack on UK soil as little more than a joke.
That is why 23 Russian Embassy staff will be removed together with other measures from the UK - it is that serious, the deployment of Chemical Weapons on UK soil - and frankly I fully support this. It's a long way from agents at midnight with pistols settling scores between themselves and their bosses.
Canada, Australia, The United States of America and some EU countries all agree this and will be consider what (additional) measure they wish to take in concert with the UK.
A sample of the nerve agent will be lodged at the International Chemical Weapons Research Facility in the Netherlands for the record.
Thank god we have a leader with some backbone who is prepared to act even if retaliation is likely because the Russian behavior in all this is totally unacceptable.
For some of us the Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon was one of those pivotal albums that as we went beyond more simplistic pop tunes usually in the form of 45's (aka "Singles") we explored usually with some support by older siblings to more deeper lyrical concerns and musicianship not that I didn't love (and still love) my Mud and Bay City Rollers 45's.
Sooner or later you move from hearing it a few times back then from tape to buying yourself the whole package and this album was such a thing being in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics, two posters and stickers.
The album explores the nature of the human condition specifically loneliness and mental illness using what were start of the art tape and electronic instrument techniques of the early 1970's.
My copy was a Canadian Capitol pressed edition with different posters I learnt several years back that Brits had in their own which to limit wear I taped to cassette for portable use and open reel tape for home use. You're welcome to try lugging such a machine and changing 7" tape reels on the move!
In the ever so fantastic plastic 1970's it wasn't enough to be thinking about sound from two speakers but four so a special four channel "Quadraphonic" mix was made and by some quirky math based science you could get four channels into the two channels of a stereo lp and (paws crossed) get four channels back out to impress the neighbours by surrounding them in sound!
They called it SQ standing for Stereo/Quadraphonic.
That lp jacket is of the UK Quad edition Q4 SHVL 804.
Quad had to everywhere like in our car so we had a Q8 eight track four channel tape player that was pretty swell and special four channel tapes were issued that offer better separation between the four channels than the fancy four into two and back as four electronics could manage from lp record and radio.
This is the UK tape, Q8 SHVL 804 that used the actual four channel mix direct as Capitol in making theirs took that funny 4 to 2 processed version for the SQ lp and decoded it before putting that on their tape which was silly as the actual four channel master existed and technically poorer but hey it's Capitol Record USA and they do stupid stuff at times.
Roll on March 31, 2003 and it's the thirtieth birthday of Dark Side of the Moon in an era that has seen the establishment of the compact disc as the pre-eminent sound carrier and the start of attempts to improvement on the sound it's had since the early 1980's.
It was decided to issue it in the Super Audio CD format that I mentioned on "the other blog tm" in the form of one disc with a regular stereo cd layer and a Super Audio cd (sacd) layer for both stereo and an improved form of surround sound called 5.1 often used for movies with a special remix being done for that version.
At the time only a few people had sacd players and because of this few heard that layer of the disc so when so-called audiophiles started debating all the 5 cm disc versions of this album all they heard the slightly compressed when it comes to the loudest and softest sound regular layer which has become a common trend since the mid 1990's and dismissed it.
I bought this sacd at the time and was very much encouraged to ditch it for a much older version by a certain forum but that ignored one thing. The regular cd layer and the super audio cd stereo versions were done separately and actually the stereo sacd layer sounds better than any of the cd only issues when played back on a machine like mine.
That ironically is why a decade on I ended up rebuying this disc and believe me its fantastic with clearer instrument sounds and effects like the heartbeat and chimes in "Time".
One moral of this story is don't let others tell you what to like and buy as they may be wrong.
We've been having some ahem, extreme weather this week of which this picture kind of sums it up as that temporary advertising hoarding shown is for the local Snow Drop walk at our magnificent Georgian Hall held for charity but the grounds covered by snow. Snow chance of seeing much today.
Actually as I'm typing this up we've had nearly two inches land in less than an hour and that was followed by even more which is a good deal more than I can easily get about in to be honest so I'll have to see what happens in the next day but at least I was able to get to the Post Office and use its ATM before this latest lot came down.
That is good for me given I'm unstable on my feet and I struggle at times with fears from when I fractured my upper arm when I was younger which was excruciatingly painful.
If that wasn't enough the overnight temperatures dropped to minus 8.5 overnight which I could feel in my bones despite having extra layers on in bed with Emma's winds howling around me.
I was glad to see our mailwoman get through with some things for next weeks around the sun activity just a half hour later than usual which is pretty good going actually having come out some three miles with the van to deliver.
Yesterday although the snow was powdery, there was sheet ice formed from the previous days snow melting and freezing over night that made it too slippy for me to venture out.
When will it end?
