Ugly and pretty at the same time.

I bought this thing in a 2nd hand shop when I was trawling for ultra cheap props to photograph. The mechanism was a dud so I did a bit of surgery and replaced the works with another I had from a wrist watch.

I'm really not sure if I like the thing. But it's been sitting atop my PC tower on my desk since I fixed it. 

Up-date !

It's been a while since I wrote anything of any length here. And about 6 weeks since I had much pizazz for anything at all.
I've been quite busy all in all and a few good thing have occurred. I've done a video editing course as it seems we're about to get fibre broadband in the area, which would make up-loading history videos about the different sites a possibility. Since I have a camera that can record HD, it seemed a sin not to use it. Who knows, I might stink, the camera might hate me. But I sure know how to cut and splice, fade and bin a taped recording.
I've been to three openings, something I swore never to attend after living in London and involving myself in that scene, and disliking it intensely. And same-same, but slightly different. You still have the greedy, the arrogant and the selfish populating the Arts. But you also have the generous, the kind and the actually very good artists.
I got my tax number for the Artists Exemption, meaning I can earn €50,000 from my work before tax hits. It's not really as generous as it sounds. But it does confer a recognition hard to get any-place else.
In all this I've been ill, but not anything I could put a finger on. I went to the doctor and the prick said he'd never heard of the list of symptoms and suggested I find another doctor. So basically I've been left to figure out what the hell has been going on these last number of year on my own. But then I see on the BBC that the NHS has a Health Advisory about Type 2 diabetes and 'tick' to every darn bullet point. I've suspected this for a few years, but was being told it was high cholesterol. The upshot of this is I'm furious at the person who has the gall to title themself doctor and was so unwilling to hear a client. Well, lets see if his Medical Council will heed a letter.

Anyhows, since I climb a mountain most weekends, rain or shine, it's not really newsy. And there really are only so many shots off or of Slievenamon I can upload without people saying 'wow, but the grass has grown a bit since last week'. But today was good. It took me twice the time to get to the top. Storm Clodagh was tearing through with winds of Force 10. It was absolutely magnificent. 

From last week

Even I'm pretty darn impressed with what this cloud did.

new photo

Replacement.

As you know I convinced myself of the neeeed for a Wacom tablet and pen input set up. And I duly bought the thing.
About a month ago I started to notice that the surface of the tablet. A surface best described as a light sharkskin had become smooth in the middle of the working area. While it was annoying that a 'feature' of the new tablet was vanishing it wasn't until I really thought about it that I decided to ring Wacom and ask them. I was put onto a chap that wasn't that good with English and when I broke into German I was given a huge run around. So I realised I was getting nowhere and blah blahed the rest of the convo. However once I finished the call I contacted Amazon.
Now say what you like about Amazon, when you have a problem so soon after a purchase they are excellent at solving it. The issued a replacement procedure and the new tablet arrived today.
On the new surface, the sharkskin is really tactile. All in all I'm quite glad I was so bolshy and didn't just accept the old one.

St Partick's Well

This was renovated with donations from the Catholics of LA.

An example of what a poleriser does for the class.

Autumn colour.