Blackbird trapped in the Italianate Conservatory-Greenhouse Ramsgate 14.06.10

The blackbird was trapped; kept hitting it's head and wings on the ceiling; so I left the low door open and moved to the corner...fortunately it eventually got out through one of the top broken panes.

Click on the link for the rest of the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id18.htm

Pegwell Bay pictures this morning oh yes June

I put an 80 x 2010 zoom lens on after a bit didn’t have very long to take the pictures as I dropped the children off in Ramsgate at 8.30 for a school trip and had to be back to open the shop for 9.30.

The rest of the pictures are at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id17.htm I obviously need some practice with this lens, I haven’t used it much for about 20 years and it is all a bit manual as you can see from the picture above.

Pegwell cliff top evening walk a few pictures 14th July 2010

This is from my mobile so I won’t attempt to enhance the pictures, in fact I can’t really look at them properly until they have published to the internet.

Once again this is very much a post for people who can’t get out for a walk here for one reason or another, I suppose for most people there will be far too many of them so I will apologise for the quantity now and get it over with.

Here are the links to the pictures.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop610/id5.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop610/id6.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop610/id7.htm

I expect it will be some time before they all appear on the web.

1 Granville Marina restoration work starts again.

This is one of those only in Thanet sagas all the information below for those of you unfamiliar with it, the picture above is of the new development that they have just started on, I think, click on it to enlarge.

First the link to the Planning Inspectorates decision allowing the development that the council turned down:http://www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/fscdav/READONLY?OBJ=COO.2036.300.12.1781107&NAME=/Decision.pdf

This link takes you to the planning inspectors decision to award costs against the council.http://www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/fscdav/READONLY?OBJ=COO.2036.300.12.1781128&NAME=/Costs.pdfIt only goes to show what you can get away with when it comes to listed buildings.

The links below take you some of my previous posts about the matter.

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/02/goody-goes-bananas.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/02/goody-outlawed-httpwwwmichaelsbookshopc.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/12/congratulations-to-tdc-planning.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/06/restoration-ramsgate-style.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/10/1granville-marina-when-is-planning.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/10/plans-for-marina-restaurant.html

More pictures of the restoration work.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cafe/index.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cafe/id2.htm

these pictures taken today http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id16.htm

Pictures of my Morning Walk at Dumpton Gap

Dogs a burnt out car even someone doing something that looked a bit like tai chi chu chan, gathering seaweed for garden fertiliser and a lovely morning, but then it wasn’t my car.

Click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id14.htm

A few pictures of Ramsgate and Broadstairs during the last couple of days

Most of what I am working on will have to wait for a bit. I have been putting a lot of pressure on the Pleasurama issue, so am expecting something there soon.

I am also developing considerable reservations about aspects of the windfarms and am working up to some uncomfortable and probably unpopular posts about this.

Looking at things with my science and engineering hat on instead of my shop assistants can be an uncomfortable business.

Anyway I thought the pictures should be fairly cheering, the bowls players were very good, as is the rose garden, as far as the picture quality goes I published them on my notebook so the only way I have seen them is 3 inches high anyway here is the link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop610/id4.htm

Reflections on art and music a parent’s perspective or why I can’t get out of the back French windows due to the string.

My children are to a greater or lesser extent able to play some musical instruments and although not at all good at this myself, I have always insisted on certain criteria for this endeavour, namely that the musical instruments they use must be of reasonable quality and in tune.

I also insist that if they play a chord it must be one that actually exists, I am sure that there are areas where free expressions is a good idea, but for one reason or another I prefer it if it is other people’s children that go on the quest to find the lost chord and from a long way off.

With this the music lessons that they get as extras when at school have the same rigorous demands, by this I mean that when one of my children are for instance playing “Ode to Joy” it is recognisably that tune.

Now for some reason that is quite beyond me this quality of recognition doesn’t seem to extend into the visual arts, nor to the other criteria of good quality materials and a framework similar to chords so that things appear right rather than wrong.

Now my feelings are that it is much easier for the teacher to look away than to shut off their hearing, so if say a child is taught to paint a picture of a particular garden and it isn’t recognisably that particular garden , then for some reason this doesn’t matter.

I believe this is called free expression, unfortunately the idea here was developed by artists who were able to draw a garden that was defiantly recognisable as the right garden and then wanted to go one further.

Now there are loads of things that I have great reservations about their ability to be taught to anyone regardless of their natural ability, singing dancing to name two, but I would honestly say that there isn’t a person in a normalish state of physical health who cant be taught to play the lead to “smoke on the Water” on a guitar that is in tune or “Ode to Joy” on the piano, at least to the point where anyone can recognise it.

The same applies to drawing, hence the string, now if you stand say a yard or so away from an open window and look at the view from it, it is not for most people easy to draw what they see, so this is what I did today with respect to teaching children to draw.

The picture above shows this and it may be helpful to anyone wishing to teach their children to draw too.

You really do need an artists easel for this and Lovely’s in Cliftonville have some good ones on special offer at the moment.

First get a tape measure and mark of round your window frame equal distances, I used distances of one foot for this, then get some drawing pins and string and square of your open window as shown in the picture above.

Next get some paper attached to a bit of stiff board and square that off too.

Place your child where he she wants to stand to paint and draw round their feet so they are always standing in the same place when looking at what they are going to draw the picture of.

Then tell them to draw in what they see through each string square on the corresponding square on the paper.

One final thought it is important to shut one eye when looking at the view through the string squares.

Fire Brigade Extinguish Sea at Ramsgate and other pictures

This is very much a post for those people who can’t get out for a walk easily, taken a bit tongue in cheek as most of us live in houses something that means we are all for the fire brigade doing plenty of practice exercises.

However from a purely spectator point of view it does look pretty funny and has all the hallmarks of boys playing with expensive toys, click here for the rest of the pictures of this event and click here for the rest of yesterdays pictures of Ramsgate