Right, I've been putting off writing on account of my preference for being a lazy sod. As a result, the amount of stuff I've wanted to write about has gone up and up, leading to me wanting to put this off even more.
But hey.
Chapter one: The Mystical Wizard's Garden
Okay, so my nephew's been spending a lot of time up here recently. On one such occasion, we took him to a local garden center in Wentworth.
The management of this place have long ago figured that if you give people ideas about what to do with the stuff you're selling, they're more likely to want to buy it. That, and the fact that some of the center seems to have been built onto/into a local stately home's estate, has resulted in something that is far more than just a place to buy trees and stuff. Wentworth garden center has some very very attractive and well maintained gardens, featuring everything from topiary mazes, duck ponds and old statues, to fountains, a field of deer and a secret grotto type thing, the original purpose of which escapes me completely.
We took the opportunity to engage my ickle nephew's interest though, by telling him it was a secret mystical wizard's garden. So we spent a couple of hours in the fantastic sunshine walking round this place, which by its own standards was packed with people.
Was a nice way to spend a warm spring day, I think :-).
Chapter Two: Oblivion
One mistake which I've made recently was to install "The Elder Scrolls 4 - Oblivion" on my system. Though I say it was a mistake to install it, that's not because it's a bad game. In fact, it was a mistake because the opposite is true.
I have found Oblivion to be an extremely playable and addictive game, and within 48 hours of installing it, I had advanced to Grand Champion in the arena, and Archmage of the Mage's guild.
Oddly, Archmage or not, the other mages still told me that "I'm too busy to talk, apprentices don't teach themselves" whenever I went near them. A bit irreverent perhaps!
Ahem. Anyway, my nephew found me playing oblivion, and with horses, swords, castles, wolves and magic spells, he's taken to it immediately, and insists I play it whenever he's over here. Obviously because of his age, I've avoided any sojourn through the planes of Oblivion (featuring lakes of lava, burning and mutilated corpses suspended from massive gallows, hellishly twisted and deformed architecture, and an array of cruel and malevolent creatures) itself, keeping us to the relatively green forests filled with deer and the odd wolf.
He does keep coming out with strange requests, like "shoot an arrow at that person" (one of the local watchmen), "jump off this mountain", or "cast a spell at that wizard" (one of my subordinate mages). I can't decide whether this comes from his childish curiosity (and an urge to play with something hard enough to see just what it takes to break it) or whether he just wants me to get my ass kicked by the entire city watch. Who knows.
Later on he decided to build a sword out of lego, but it kept breaking. To keep him happy, I spent a while constructing the most beautifully strong and realistic sword possible. He wanted one of his own, so I ended up making two. Both of which he insists are now "his". Fine. I want these anyway.
Chapter Three: The Royal Armouries
I was woken yesterday, benefitting from a measly 4 hours sleep and a stinking hangover, to go with my mum and nephew to some secret destination. After a short trip, we arrived at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. I didn't know it was free to get into this place - it is. Anyway, there's not much to say. We wandered around for a couple of hours looking at swords and bows and suchlike, trying to engage my nephew's interest with heavily armoured horses and things.
Eventually though, we went to the tiltyard for a demonstration of falconry.
The first bird on show, Bungle IIRC, was a beautiful, huge, and very hydrophobic Eurasian Eagle Owl. I wasn't aware that birds didn't like rain, but apparently they don't. Especially this one.
He came out of his enclosure reluctantly, perched on the fence looking soggy and bored, and when requested by his keeper to fly to the glove, gave him a "you must be joking" look that I thought only a cat could give.
Eventually, after lots of cajoling, the owl noncommittally jumped onto the floor, walked over to the handler, flew to the glove for long enough to collect his treat, then jumped back down to the floor and walked back to his spot on the fence.
We saw the owl later in his enclosure, and he gave us an "I'm not hungry and you're not interesting" look. You'd think someone had transplanted the psyche of your antisocial housecat into this bird.
The next one was a Harris Hawk who's name I've forgotten. A much smaller bird, but much less afraid of the water. He gave us a good practical demonstration of how Falconers use their birds to catch prey.
The third one was a beautiful girl, a cross between a Merlin, and a Peregrine Falcon. I can't remember her name either, but god, was she fast. Apparently this individual was capable of flying up to 150mph (241kph), and seeing her scream from one end of the tiltyard to the other, I could believe it.
At one point she was chasing food on the end of a bit of cord (I'm sure there's a technical term for it) and she kept swooping, making a pass, swooping again and making another pass. At one point, the keeper swung the cord into the air, and the bird went inverted, doing a loop, going right over the top and down the other way - to the delight of the crowd, myself included. What a flier.
Later on, after buying (amongst other things) a plastic sword/shield and Knight's helmet for my nephew, we we back out in the Tiltyard watching a display of skill (skill at arms I think it was), from some very talented riders and their beautiful horses. Challenges included cutting vegetables in half with a sword while racing past on a horse, and collecting rings with a lance while racing past. I'm sure you get the idea.
All in all, a very good day out. Even if the first thing I did as soon as we got home was to leap into bed (actually i just kinda wearily crept in) and fall asleep in about 5 minutes.
Chapter Four: New Lens
Bloody hell, what a drama.
I started by putting up some stuff on ebay so I could raise money for the new lens. The auctions were pretty worryingly low at one point, but all met their reserve in the end, and everything sold for a decent amount. I shipped everything the day after, next day, and two days after the auctions closed, everyone had confirmed receipt of the items.
Shortly after, two guys write to tell me that their lenses were not working with their cameras.
Well they bloody worked with mine. Anyway, I sent out an email to each of the two guys trying to find out what the problem was.
One guy wrote back to describe the problem, and eventually after a few emails back and forth and us trying different things, we conluded that the lens really didn't work, so I fired back a refund because I'm nice like that.
The other guy hasn't emailed me back, and has since left me positive feedback. So I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that he has now got the lens working.
All that over, I've been searching the itnernet for a place that won't completely rip me off. Nikon as I've said had officially raised their 70-300 from £390 to £450ish.
Most of the places were charging £450ish, this place was charging a rather worrying £493.
Argos had been advertising the lens at a much lower price, £392 if I remember correctly, and as a result, they were completely out of stock all across the board. Not a lens anywhere in sight.
Thankfully, my brother managed to find one that had been hidden in plain sight, in the next town, at Argos's standard price. So as fast as I could, I reserved it, and today, I got a lift into town to buy it.
I'm so happy with it I even took some photos of it to show people how awesome it is :-).
But anyway, I've got work in an hour, so I'm going to chill out and drink coffee and suchlike.
Here are lots of photos in the vague order in which they were taken :-).
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