Why do these things happen to me?

Is it because I try to work too quickly? I was going through the 1871 census for Walton-in-Gordano and getting on fairly well. Then came the time to save it and take a break. I asked Word to save the document and was told it could not be done. Purely for convenience I was working with it on a memory stick. I had moved the usb holder and inadvertently held it next to the on/off switch. My fingers tips being a bit big had switched off the connection. File was saved as a Temp, I thought OK I can open it and transfer to Word.Doc. Could I hell; the Temp file could not be opened.

Now since my trouble with the hard drive on the PC failing and having to be re-formatted I decided to use hard drives in a caddy and a dock for my files. I upload my programmes to the C drive but my work folders are saved in auxiliaries N, O, P. When my hard drive failed I lost around 10,000 JPG’s. I just did not know what to do but was told about a fantastic programme from Australia “Rescue My Files”. It cost around £70 but I was able to save all the files that had not been written over by reloading the Windows XP system. In spite of the re-formatting they could recover them, and I wound up with around 13,000 JPG’s and a lot of Doc files. True it had recovered not only full sized picture files but also thumbnail images. All of the files had the pre-fix lostfile and series number. That made a lot of work time to sort them but better that, than no pix at all.

Next thing I knew was that my auxiliary drive N a 2.5 inch 500 GB drive in a Novatech Dock disconnected. I jiggled it about and managed to regain contact but it was a warning. Solid state drives are now being sold that will hold 1 and also 2 TB’s. The price though dropping is still out of my range, on EBay I managed to get another Seagate 500 GB 3 inch drive for £20. I already had a spare Novatech Dock so 9 hours work saw the files transferred. Yes 9 bloody hours – my JPG’s numbered over 22,000 and required 3 hours alone.

Now I have a total of 2 TB’s on 4 auxiliary drives and I am making sure that they are cross-saved as back-ups.

 I wonder what the next crisis will be?

Sony SLT A77 with Sigma 70-300 mm plus 55 mm lens reversed

Following a posting on Morguefile.com I hunted out my reversal adaptor.

I found that it would fit my old Sigma telephoto lens. I rigged my 1200 AF ring flash gingerly on the front of the 55 mm with no clips holding and found I could get almost 6 times life size, I checked by looking at metric ruler

However it is very difficult to focus and the Sigma has only 5 contacts rather than 8 and does not like stopping down. 

I feel safer going to 4 times with the Kenko rings and tele adaptor there I can manoeuvre with confidence and also without so much weight on the lens mount.  I will try with a converter on the front of my 18 to 270 mm tele and see what happens then. I still don't like the idea of the ring flash loose though. I would hate to bust it after so much trouble getting one.

Experiment

Tried an experiment. The pencil lead was taken with the Sigma 70 to 300 zoom lens, plus reversed 55mm. Set on program on the SLT A77 Sony. 16,000 ISO hand held by the light of an anglepoise. Weighty to hold and hard to focus

The Metric rule was the same unit with a Minolta 1200AF ring flash on the reversed lens. The flash could not be clipped so any pix have to be taken at level or an upward tilt. This gives approx 6 times life-size.

The Tamron + had the 55mm reversed on the 18 to 270 tele zoom. I had to use step-down rings and the 1200 AF flash, hung precariously on the 55mm. Hand held but gives only a useable centre section approx 6 times life-size.1/200^th at f22

The Tamron 90mm macro was used with a 2 times tele extender and 5 Kenko rings. The 1200AF flash mounted safely on the front; hand held 1/200^th at f22. gives a pic of approx 4.5 times life-size. 

Lighter than the Sigma set-up and can be moved around with confidence because the ring flash is firmly fixed.

The Friday market in Arnhem has many types of fish for sale. The Dutch nation like their fish and I was in a way, not surprised to see these smoked eels for sale.

Eels are the third most nutritious fish, 1st are Herrings, 2nd Mackerel, and then Eels.

I was rather amazed though to see what they were priced at !. € 19.50 at that time equal to around £15 per pound weight.

It made me think of getting out my old eel sprear again and going out onto the moor. However 

when viewing it I realised it was way past its sell-by date. There was no way that it could be fastened onto a 10 foot long withey pole. a few strokes with it and it would have collapsed from old age.

That is if I hadn't collapsed first ! !

It is now strictly illegal to use an eel spear. The same with clotting for eels. Clotting is only allowed by licence in a few villages down by King's Sedgemoor,on the Somerset levels. Yet they will let almost anyone have a licence for catching elvers as they make their way up the Severn Estuary.

Spearing was decided to be cruel to the eel 

because it was squeezed between the blades of the spear. You will see on the lowest picture the notches in the blades in the white lined section.

They have almost rusted away but when the spear was first made it held an eel firmly when the spear was pushed into the mud at the bottom of a rhine or river. Then it was raised a little and moved across the bottom for about the width of the spear and it was plunged into the mud again.

When you felt it strike an eel you pulled it out and put the eel into a sack. Half a dozen eels simmered, then the flesh stripped off from the back bone and mixed with a little stuffing and baked, made a very satisfactory dish. 

I have in my time made many visits to the moor fields in spite of the law. A dish of eels was a welcome meal in the days of tight food rationing during the war years and also for a couple of years afterwards.

In the same way in the 1930's, a couple of chaps out on a sultry night's clotting, could get enough eels to feed both families.

Following a discussion on Morguefile.com about reversing a standard lens on a longer focal length lens by way of double male adaptors; I hunted out some that I took on the Romano-British farmstead we dug at East End Farm.

The piece of rose quartz had been faceted and polished, presumably to use as a decoration on a broach.

The little site had been vandalised at a little later date (probably when the Roman occupation had ended) and my last dig as an amateur archaeologist  to 'prove' the drainage ditch recovered a large quern stone that had been broken.

The small blue bead is around the size of a match head and the boot nail was found near it in the ditch immediately to the north of the stone floor.

There were a series of nails but the leather had needless to say rotted away.

The quern seems to have been deliberately broken and is quite large in size. Most domestic stones are more like 10 or 12 inches across. This one was so large it required a whrist to turn it rather than the domestic type small hole for a wooden peg.

I dream of the days that are gone.

When the Somerset Rivers Board or Catchment Board ruled the roost.

When the Walking Pelter and Mr Cox of Congresbury, inspected the rivers to make certain that riparian owners had done their keeching.

When the district council had to ensure that their river sections were trimmed and weeds were cleared.

When anyone guilty of not doing the maintenance on their sections of rivers or streams were prosecuted for allowing 

them to be restricted for the free flow of water.

Before the Environment Agency took over and said "No No we must not slub out excess mud accumulations" and allowed rivers to get befouled.

When the sight of a river blocked by weed growth was the exception and not the rule.

When the Rivers Board would pounce on wrongdoers and get them fined for failing to dredge the section of river running through their fields, or through land alongside which they owned properties.

When the Richards brothers of Yatton ran their scythe blades across the river bed and cut back all the weeds growing that stopped free flow of the water.

Oh how I dream and how useless is it for me to dream because no-one will bother to take action.

I thought I was done until nest spring.

Then I noticed a Good King Henry, Chenopodium bonus-henricus,

plant growing in the gap in the concrete by the car bay.

Such small flowers that they only measure 

about 2 to 3 mm in size.

Even with additions to get ehm to 4 times life size they don't show up very well.

These plants were the medieval spinach. Tend stems could be gathered and cooked and were a good subsitence food for peasants and I expect most country folk.

The tiny yellow dots in the lower picture are the flowers. to see the blossoms larger click on the pic and will will grow to screen size. The plants are very similar in appearance to Red Goosefoot AKA Fat Hen Chenopodium rubrum. However the leaves are more of a lanceolate shape  whereas Fat Hen has a small red flower and a hastate spear shaped leaf towards the base. both plants are edible and the young plants can be treated as salad contents instead of, or added to lettuce. 

There was a 'natures food' enthusiast who lived in Clevedon some years back, that regularly picked them and ate them when he pulled the tops off as they grew in waste ground..

Went up to post off my driving licence renewal and noticed from the hill that there was a mist out on the moor.

Grabbed the camera when I got back and went out to Manmoor Lane. In that short  time the mist had dissipated but still showed a trace. 

I took a sweep pic that covered the fields and also the Blind Yeo.

Still a little mist along the water but not very much. It is beginning to FEEL like autumn now, in spite of the trees still showing green. I was glad that I had stopped to put on my top-coat when I got the camera.

Took a shot downriver too towards the M5 bridge. A few swans there but not as many as I have seen in previous years. They can be as bad as Canada geese for trampling the grass and early crops down.

I must post a set of pix  on Flickr, with the notation 

"Clevedon is more than a pier" Why is it that the pier is all that some folk see to take pix of?