Door knocker in Bath

At last I have got a few pix of Bath Doorknockers sorted. I think they were taken back in the late 1960's when I got my Minolta 9000 and the Tamron 70-300 mm lens.

Some were in excellent condition. Some, where the houses were divided into flats that became "cash cows" were neglected; as were the doors and paintwork.

A great pity because these old knockers are not only of historical interest but also have many artistic points.

Abbot of Glastonbury's fish house

Had a nice surprise this morning. Email message to tell me one of my pix (the above) was featured on Morguefile Home page.

The fish were mainly eels I understand. Some tenants or underlings were listed as paying a set number of bushels per year as part of their rent.
Eels are most nutritious food rated 3rd on the list behind mackerel and herrings.

I used to log on to the home page but then found I could save one step by logging to MY log-on page., so I would not have known without the emaul.

I think that makes it 3 now.

Did some work on abstract files; found my Paint Shop Pro 8 is saving files in an unknown format. They can't be read or recognised by PSP7 Adobe Elements 6 or  PSP X4.
I must now edit with either 7 or X4. I must learn the new editing series from X4 and not rely too much on 7.

Came on a set of pix taken back in September when in Holland.

They should have been edited long back but were somehow shunted into a file and mislaid.

Found them purely by chance when tidying up odd stuff from my hard drives.

Syrphus ribesii

Came upon a series of 14 hoverfly shots from the A350 taken way back midsummer in 2008.

Lucky to have been able to take them, it was busy cleaning and stayed in the same area all the time.

Episyrphus balteatus AKA Marmalade Fy

Came upon a series of this little elegant hover fly.whilst clearing my Sony A350 cache. 

They move like lightning and are only 10 mm long.

This one was deep into the Honeysuckle flowers and lingered long enough for me to get a series of shots. 

Also called "the marmalade fly" it is one of the most common in the gravel patch I call a garden.

After feeding it moved on the leaves and cleaned itself before flying off.

Pretty little fly and I am glad it consented to pose for a mini-series of pix.

Came across a negative I made many years back. Must have been around 1961. An effort to combine 2 35mm shots, one taken with a Tamron lens on the Pentax S3 and one taken on the same camera using a Hoya 400 mm shot of the sun behind clouds.

The cottage on the seabank

I took the shot of the cottage at full extension with a Tamron lens I believe it was 35 to 80 but may have been 28-80 using an adaptall mount.

Used Ilford 35 mm HP3 film. Shaded off the top when printing and then shaded off the bottom and exposed for the sun and clouds.

I was calling at Blake's Wharf Farm in Kingston Seymour when the idea came. As I looked up the wall what we always called Cox's Cottage showed up well. 

Crossman CO2 air pistol

Went out with Martin for a pistol shoot. Very muddy and we tried several places out of the way from footpaths etc. only to find them wet and mud that would be up to the ankles.

Eventually got out into the wilds. Muddy track and I could feel the front wheels sliding in places. We set up the target holders on each side of the car and let the windows down and fired from inside. The idea worked well and we fired at the target holders at around 45 degree angle at about a 25 foot distance.

Found I was shooting a group at 8 oclock and altered the sights.

A simple layout

Co2 cartridge gives around 40 shots at full pressure but it is important to count them as you fire. So easy to think you have some left, or even to think that you have fired all 10 pellets only to find one left in the magazine.

Ended up getting a better group but with a wild shots on them.

Is it the pellets or is it me? NIce to be able to shoot a pistol after so many years but I wish it were .22 long cartridges in it instead of air gun pellets.

Scorpion Fly on nettle leaf

Thick legged Flower Beetle on Convolulous flower

Finished transcribing The Clevedon Mercury Directory booklet and gone back to sorting and editing JPG pix from my Sony A350 files.

I had kept them separate from my main JPG's to look though and forgot I had them till I started tidying up my hard drives.

Both of these rather terrifying looking insects are harmless as far as human beings are concerned.

I was happy to find them though. I thought I had lost the pix when my hard C drive had to be formatted when it went down. Luckily the folder A350 was on one of my Auxiliary hard drives.

I still bless the day when I was told about the Australian 'recover my files' programme.