Ever Decreasing Circles

It’s been a while, to quote, oh I dunno, probably hundreds if not thousands of songs. Lots has gone on including me getting nothing more than a frankly mediocre C grade in my As-Level photography course (which reminds me I must pick up the certificate and my coursework), and we move house. Over 12 months on, we are still making do and have onyl finished one bedroom (not even the one we’re sleeping in, it’s the guest bedroom we’ve finished!) and two bathrooms. We haven’t even been in the front room downstairs other than to dump boxes and scurry out again!

Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to witter on, but to stick up The. List. This is The. List. of ski resorts that we think we might want to visit over the coming years. If you ski with us, feel free to add resorts or tell us which ones you don’t fancy. The. List. is in no particular order by the way….

• Europe

• St Anton
• Verbier
• Baqueira Beret
• Grand Valira
• Gressoney
• Ste Foy Tarentaise
• La Thuile / La Rosiere
• La Plagne
• Les Arcs
• Saalbach Hinterglemm
• Schladming
• Bansko
• Cortina d’Ampezzo
• Kitzbuhel
• Selva Val Gardena
• Chamonix
• Alpe d’Huez
• Les Deux Alpes
• Bareges
• Kranskja Gora
• Flaine

• North America

• Red Mtn
• Silver Star
• Big White
• Revelstoke
• Whitewater
• Aspen
• Utah
• Jackson Hole
• Grand Targhee
• Mt Baker
• Big Sky
• W*******

• Exotic

• Japan
• Cat Skiing
• Alaska
• Chile
• New Zealand
• Kashmir

Rod made me put in the resorts in the States. and if you don’t know which resort is starred out, count yourself lucky you haven’t heard R&R rabbitting on for hours on end about how much better it is than whatever resort you’re currently in / considering….

Update: Phil made me add several “exotic” destinations….

Oh well. Like so many other things in life, blogging (and this blog in particular) starts off all fun and exciting but then fizzles out and is soon ignored.

We’ve had a few good rides recently, including a weekend away camping on the North York Moors, but of late cycling has been curtailed: Jane had a spill and came away with bumps and grazes, while something upset my achilles tendon causing it to flare up again - at which point my physio advised me to lay off for a while. Discretion is the better part of valour and all that, so I’m off the bike for a while to let it recover. Hopefully won’t be too long as I’ve already packed in frisbee while I recover, so my fitness is already suffering.

Still, I have something to fill the time - in a fit of what can only be termed as optimistic stupidity, I’ve started a photography AS-level. Although I enjoy photography (as a sideline to whatever I’m doing rather than as an activity in itself), I am honest enough to realise that I get it wrong far more often than I get it right, and on top of that I’m not prolific eneough to be able to get a decent amount of good ones. So, I signed up hoping to learn more about the dark arts of exposure and composition. I was rather disappointed at first then to realise that the course I’ve signed up for doesn’t really have much to do with the mechanics of photography - for that, I learnt, I should have signed up for a City & Guilds course. Instead, the course is more about the arty side of photography.
Still, I’m deciced to give it a go despite not actually having a very arty inclination normally. I am glad I did so - last night’s lesson was very enjoyable. First half we covered exposure control in terms of f-stops and shutter speed (and film ISO of course) in about an hour, the frustrating thing being that I more or less knew all the answers anyway as I’ve been reading photography books like they were going out of fashion. Knowing these things does not mean though that I’m able to put them into practice though, while was the whole opint of doing the course… but back in track, the second hald of the evening was much more interesting as we went off to a large room and split into groups - each group had one big studio light and we had to take pics on the theme of disguise. We’re shooting on Black and White film and the plan is that next week we won;t actually be taking photos, we’ll be developing our films. Since I spent a large part of the lesson excitedly rummaging through my box of bits, I only shot 10 photos from a 36 roll film, so I need to take plenty of pics this coming weekend!

On the plus side, I used my long lens for a portrait (somewhat like this image but with a strong side light on the opposite side of the face from the gun to cast shadows), I used my extension tube for an abstract portait, and I used my Hoya multi-filter to get a weird effect. If the photos turn out half way decent I’ll see if I can get them sanned (or even better scan the negs as I’nm hoping to pick up a scanner off a fellow Cheekyrider)

In the words of Porky Pig then, that’s all folks. More next time.

Finley in full flow

From my Flickr Site.

Not bothered managed to log on for a few days now - didn’t help that we had an internet outage at work for most of Friday. Being as we’re a web development company it wasn’t really helpful, but we seemd to survive and I don’t recall hearing too many screams.

Thursday evening was spent at the in-laws, “watching the football”. It was rather boring so we went out to play with my 3 year old nephew on his scooter. Rather more interesting and amusing and Imanaged to get a great photo (well, I think it’s great)!
Yesterday we went off to Darley Bridge with Captain Arse aka Martyn - on Friday night we had a phone call to say he’d pick us up at 9.30, but we’d have to pop via Matlock Bath to drop off Claire. “Are you sure we’ll fit four people and three bikes in your car?” I asked. “Of course”, he replied.

As expected then, he phoned yesterday morning to say that he was indeed wrong and we’d have to drive ourselves. Oh well, I was expecting it anyway. I wasn’t expecting the A6 to be closed at Buxton, which increased the journey time, nor was I expecting Hora Hora Poo Poo Pants to turn up in addition to Marcus and Pauly Paul.

Top ride in very hot weather - 36km in just over 4 hours, which is about average speed. Hora Hora Poo Poo Pants dropped out after about 22km and rode back on the road, while we enjoyed the rest of the ride then a couple of pints in the nearest pub (via a quick game of car park naked of course). 2 pints after all that exercise was a bit ambitious and I ended up droppng off in front of the telly *again*. I’ll learn, one day, eh?