Marc's Walk for our Furry Friends

Has everyone finished throwing buckets of water over their heads? Yes? Good. Now can we have your attention please? To paraphrase what they say on the BBC, “Other charity events are also available.”

Marc in training wearing the
Thames Path t-shirt...

Marc, a long time friend and editor on the Karl trilogy, is endeavouring to walk 100km in a 24 hour period as part of the Thames Path Challenge in September. He will be walking to raise money for the Celia Hammond Animal Trust.

This charity walk/run takes place over a 24 hour period and goes from Putney Bridge to Henley over weekend of the 13th/14th September.

...and in the Celia Hammond vest

As far as I know he is the only entry raising money for Celia Hammond at this event.

He has chosen this charity because of the special care they provided for the boys during their lives, two little furry fellows commonly known and Bertie and Pilch. (You can find out their full names on his JustGiving Page where you can also help by sponsoring him. You can read more as well on his Facebook Event page)

I absolutely adored these two, and so did everyone else who met them.

Celia Hammond Animal Trust run clinics in Canning Town and Lewisham, and have a sanctuary in East Sussex and a branch in Tunbridge Wells. They provide refuge for cats and kittens who for various reasons cannot be taken elsewhere. Provide low cost neutering and veterinary services for those for those unable to afford private veterinary bills and do not qualify under other charities, and help rescue and re-home animals in need, amongst other things. 

You can find out a lot more about them by visiting their website:   http://www.celiahammond.org/

Bertie taking up editing duties

Some of you will already have seen a photo of Bertie in the past. On occasions when Marc was away the boys would come to stay with me. Even after Pilch had passed away Bertie still came to me for his holiday and on one occasion took up editing duties on book 2 of the Karl Trilogy.

Until recently the internet was only good for one or two things, cute cat pictures being one of them. So here I present some cute photos of the boys along with some fond memories I have of them. I know there are plenty of warm, loving, affectionate little critters out there, but in my experience I have never met another pair like them.  

Two brothers planning something.

It’s in their memory that Marc is doing this walk and it’s in their memory that I post this and ask that you do more than just like the post but make a donation, no matter how small, every little will help Marc reach his target.

Or you can text your donation by sending a text with the code MMCH69 and the amount you want to donate to 70070.

For example: text MMCH69 £5 to 70070

I remember one time staying over at Marc’s, whilst selling my flat and buying a new place. Now selling and buying is very stressful. The woman I was purchasing from phoned me on the Saturday morning and practically screamed at me that she had heard my buyers were pulling out – which was complete rubbish. As a result she would be pulling out and was going to put the place I was buying back onto the market. After the call I was on the point of cracking, two little furry heads appeared at the window – they had gone out to play earlier – and within seconds they had both bounded over to give me kitten cuddles.

Two little terrors at dinner time.

Pilch was quite a cheeky boy at times.  But it was harder to get him to pose for a photo.

Bertie decides to take up the WiiFit.

If ever I stayed over I would always wake up with either or both of them snuggled up against me. Even in summer when it would be too warm, Bertie always made sure he lay in touching distance. It’s this sort of trust and affection given by an animal that to me is very humbling.

Whatever it was Aunty, we didn’t do it. Promise.

He might have always been slightly smaller than his brother , Pilch could sure eat. 

‘Please Aunty Derek can I have some more, my brother ate mine.’

We got here first.

No idea where you're going to sleep tonight.

Now which of these do I want to listen to?

Bertie and I posing for a selfie.

Whenever I went over to Marc’s, Bertie would always dash into the living room from 

where ever he was, leap up onto the arm of the sofa and wave a paw at me, meowing profusely 

until I sat down so that he could nuzzle me then snuggle up against me. What a welcome.

https://www.justgiving.com/marcmajor/

https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/933124803368160/

Many thanks,

Derek, Marc, Bertie, Pilch, Karl & everyone in Miltonburg & Esmay

Bitten by Dracula at The Pleasance.

I’m more of a werewolf boy than vampire myself, but when the Edinburgh Fringe Preview email arrived from The Pleasance Theatre the other day one show stood out as intriguing. 

This was Action To The Word’s Steampunk adaptation of Dracula. Not quite sure what to expect we were presented with a rock opera/steampunk electrifying production, that delivered so much more than I could have dreamed of.  

This seventy minute production delivers a fast paced telling of the story, true to the original, but with an injection of originality. Jono Davies as Dracula is the first new vampire I’ve seen for a very long while that I can believe is dangerous because of his power of seduction. If he turned up on your doorstep you would let him in rather than say ‘not today thank you,’ like the reception I feel most cold calling vampires would now receive. I had no problem believing how Jonathan Harker would have originally been captivated by the Count before he literally rocks up in Whitby and claims his dominance there.  

Performed by a magnificent musician based cast who play all the music live this is a must see for anyone who like vampires, rock opera, steampunk or any combination thereof.

Written and directed by Alexandra  Spencer-Jones, supported by a fabulous creative team this show is amazing, with wonderful atmospheric lighting, set design and costumes - this show really must go a lot further than this year’s Fringe.

Dracula staring Jono Davis and Rachel Bright is on at the Pleasance Theatre Islington until 27^th July before moving to Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh, 30^th July – 1^st Aug (previews), 2^nd Aug – 25^th Aug (not 11^th) 

For more details go to: http://www.actiontotheword.com/shows.php?s=dracula

Mystery Model - Completing the Basic Structure

And so we come to the part where I put the last pieces of this 3D jigsaw puzzle together.

The roof pieces which I started with quite some time ago are now ready to be fixed into place. I find sticking the tiles on can be quite laborious at times, often left as late as possible and often causes me to slow down the work. This time I decided since the model was being built in pieces I could get this done and out of the way first.

 

I've stuck on the last parts of the towers, including the projecting rear tower. I've also added some triangular supports for this tower which were not in the original design.

The only piece not yet attached is #22 this is the stone column support from the first floor at the front of the building. Since this piece is very likely to get knocked off as I twist and turn the model I'm leaving it to last to attach, so you'll see some photos where I've pinned it in place and others where it vanishes whilst the rest of the framework is completed.

Previous article in this series: Mystery Model - Top Floor

Next article in this series: November Update

Mystery Model - Top Floor

The model is growing - the second floor pieces get added on.

Piece #19

The second floor really was a jigsaw puzzle since this one was created in many pieces and I had to refer back to the original photos to try and identify which parts went where.

No I still have not found the book I drew up the original design in and listed all the pieces.

Here we have the central main section (part #3) just above the entrance.

To the right a rear room with its own roof and the front tower continuing up. Between them is going to be a section of just sloping roof.

To the left are parts 15 a rear tower and #19 a sloping extension extending the main section.

Rather than build the internal walls on these I've used strips of foam-board on the interior joins. This gives me something to glue together but does not use the whole sheet of foam-board up on internal walls. The strips I think will give the model enough internal support. They also give me something to hold onto on the inside of the model when twisting it about to work on at different angles.

Previous article in this series: More Wood

Next article in this series: Mystery Model - Completing the Basic Structure

Postcards from Miltonburg

Over on Karl's Facebook page I've been running a series of 'Postcards from Miltonburg'. I've included one or two on this blog from time to time to give some colour to recent posts. But it's not an easy thing to achieve living in a suburb of London, to generate a series of photos that would fit a theme of Ye Olde Worlde. You have to avoid modern housing and constructions, people clothed anachronistically for the period you want to represent, buses and cars thundering past, in fact anything that breaks the spell.

This really leaves me with very few options locally, just the local park, hopefully when there are not too many people about and a few holiday photos that reside in the collection that can be adopted and manipulated.

Parsloe's Park has become the edge of the woods around Miltonburg, photographed from very tight angles to avoid parts of the Becontree Estate in the distance popping up through the trees. Photos in the collection come in a variety of shapes and sizes depending on how much I've had to crop. A visit to Cornwall gave me images of Bodmin Moor and Tintagel which have found their way into the collection along with The Bishop’s Palace in Lincoln.

That's all well and good, but not only is this world from the books Olde Worlde, it's also somewhere else in the universe, with a different sun, planets and moons in the sky and hence different light.

So now we need the additional tweaks - I need to adjust the brightness, contrast, colour depth and tone of the picture. A few years back that would have been quite a task. Getting the photos printed and then scanned and the amount of processing effort to get them adjusted based on what you had to work with in the first place would have been incredible. The photo editing tools were out there, but I find I could spend hours in front of the pc struggling with these tools not really knowing what was going on and not having the time to work through and comprehend some of the tutorials.

Now we have these mobile phones devices which do just about everything except make the morning coffee. (I’m not much of tea drinker.) They have apps, which are quite simple and quite powerful for image manipulation that would have taken some computers from my youth ages to achieve and process. There are quite a few of these apps out there but I’ve found PEStudio (Photo Effect Studio) does just about everything I need from cropping, re-colouring,  light manipulation plus the odd special effect thrown in for good measure. However I cannot find it the App Store any longer to tell you who made it, and there are no credits on the app that I can find. However I’m sure there are many others that can provide the same. And what’s more the image is transformed into a whole other world within a matter of minutes allowing me to post it direct to the page in question. So different from how things used to be.

Dungeon in Bishop’s Palace (Lincoln) becomes the Dungeon in Esmay

The Hurlers in the distance on Bodmin Moor (Cornwall) becomes Karl’s long walk home

Parsloes Park (Dagenham) with some cropping becomes secret way to Gerranthaul’s

View from Tintagel Castle (Cornwall) becomes a coastal climb for Karl & Spiker

Own model stone circle becomes gifted with special Solstice light

Karl's adventures are available in paperback and on the Kindle from Amazon.

More Wood

Not a lot to say really, I’ve worked my way around the ground floor of the building. The basic framework has been done and the sections that are just wooden panels. 

The other sections which will include windows and the door will be done later.

This allows me to add on the pieces for the second floor.

Next article in this series: Mystery Model -Top Floor

Previous article in this series: Starting on the Woodwork

Starting on the Woodwork

Thought I’d get one last post in for June, since I’ve managed a few this month. I didn’t get as much done this Sunday as I would have liked, for various reasons. 

One being the need to take some faulty goods back on Sunday morning – and transport on a Sunday is not good taking twice as long to get anywhere. 

After that it was a game of dodge the showers in order to use the garden table to cut the strips of wood for the beams used to build the framework for the ground floor. These beams are made from the old firework rocket sticks stored up since last year.

I started to fill in the panels that are just going to be planking using the good old fashion coffee sticks, but the panels where windows are going to go I’ve left for the time being.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance later in the week to get this basic set of features completed for the ground floor.

Previous article in this series: Piece #7 the Corner Tower.