Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Towers
The pictures below are of the second tower attempt in the recent past - the one before this being last Christmas. The idea is to hit the ceiling, with the top of the tower being strong enough to support a shark (ex pirate lego). We did not attempt the shark on this occasion, the shark being in the roof, but we did achieve a very respectable height of good stability. Stage 1 castle lego; stage 2 technic frames; stage 3 log cabin style; and, stage 4 a spire or spar. New architect for the castle lego base gave a good foundation. Then a new technique for building the technic frames which was far less wasteful of beams gave some more inches. Tried to brace the spar at the top in the way of a yacht's mast with cross trees - something which we pulled off at Christmas but on this occasion seemed to do more harm than good. So added two cranes to make the thing a tower crane rather than a tower - albeit of rather limited utility as we had no beams to make a jib. All in all a successfull outing for the lego, only marred by the difficulty of loading the pictures. For some reason the Blogger image upload seems to prompt this computer to think that it has lost its connection and one has to click through a few pop-ups before it decided that it has not. But it still won't let me stick more than one image in a posting. Maybe there is someone out there who can guess what I am doing wrong.
To Headley Heath yesterday, where the image of the National Trust is getting more and more bossy and officious. Which is a pity because it is a very good heath. On arrival, one is greeted with signs threatening one with £50 fines if one does not pay the parking fee. Then the heath itself is littered with A4 laminate posters explaining various goings on and prohibitions. All the fault of HP with their cheap printers which the worthy retireees (not sure about spelling: I think three e's looks better than two although it gets massively less hits than two) - whom I assume to be the driving force behind all the posters - can afford. On the other hand their playing at farm worked for us on this occasion. We came across half a dozen splendid highland cattle with very impressive horns, one of which was leg deep in a small pond set in clumps of bushes and small trees while it grazed on tufts of protruding grass. All very bucolic. In between times we were entertained by a light aircraft doing various loop-the-loop type manoeuvres. Blackberries well behind those down in Epsom. Maybe they do not do so well on chalk as they do on our clay.
Another new recipe. Having rather a lot of left over boiled rice we decided that we had to use it. So cooked up our new mess of spices, garlic, onion and tomato. Fried the spcies a bit browner than usual. Added some chopped leef beet. Stirred in the rice and left on the heat for a bit. Turned out a bit like a veggie risotto and not bad at all. Maybe the next step is to make a meat version - or perhaps a prawn version. Moving gently in the direction of a biryani - which is something at which I have yet to succeed.
To Headley Heath yesterday, where the image of the National Trust is getting more and more bossy and officious. Which is a pity because it is a very good heath. On arrival, one is greeted with signs threatening one with £50 fines if one does not pay the parking fee. Then the heath itself is littered with A4 laminate posters explaining various goings on and prohibitions. All the fault of HP with their cheap printers which the worthy retireees (not sure about spelling: I think three e's looks better than two although it gets massively less hits than two) - whom I assume to be the driving force behind all the posters - can afford. On the other hand their playing at farm worked for us on this occasion. We came across half a dozen splendid highland cattle with very impressive horns, one of which was leg deep in a small pond set in clumps of bushes and small trees while it grazed on tufts of protruding grass. All very bucolic. In between times we were entertained by a light aircraft doing various loop-the-loop type manoeuvres. Blackberries well behind those down in Epsom. Maybe they do not do so well on chalk as they do on our clay.
Another new recipe. Having rather a lot of left over boiled rice we decided that we had to use it. So cooked up our new mess of spices, garlic, onion and tomato. Fried the spcies a bit browner than usual. Added some chopped leef beet. Stirred in the rice and left on the heat for a bit. Turned out a bit like a veggie risotto and not bad at all. Maybe the next step is to make a meat version - or perhaps a prawn version. Moving gently in the direction of a biryani - which is something at which I have yet to succeed.
# posted by Jim @ 1:06 AM 
