Sunday 26 June 2011

Bye bye my little boy

I have just got back from a week in The Lake District,  so normally I would be posting a few of the many shots I took from the shores of Derwent Water. Unfortunately this post is tinged with a huge amount of sadness instead.

We had a good week, my wife, my little black cocker-spaniel "Boysie" and myself.   Boysie came to us as a rescue dog 8 years and 4 months ago, he was reckoned to be about 5 and a half when we got him which makes him about 14 or 98 in dog years! Days were spent walking the beautiful landscape and evenings were spent photographing it. For an old boy he was doing spectacularly well,  walking 5 miles a day over fell and dale yet still he was keen to go out with me of an evening.  He was always excited going out and just as excited to come home again.

On Friday we were on the last walk of the week in Borrowdale when suddenly Boysie screamed and held his back leg up. It soon became obvious that he couldn't walk on it, so we carried him the half mile to the car and took him to the vets.

The vet x-rayed him and said he had broken his femur (which would normally be the result of a car crash not slipping when walking). The vets gave him some pain killers and we agreed to take him to our vets on the following day as we were due to go home. We went back to our holiday cottage and as he kept waking up distressed I decided to spend the night sleeping next to him so that he wouldn't be alone and scared.  All through the night whenever he seemed distressed I stroked him and he settled down again.  In the morning my wife came down stairs to find us both fast asleep next to each other.

We undertook the long drive home to Essex on Saturday morning & then straight to our vets.  The news from our vets was not so good,  It turns out that he was riddled with bone cancer.  We had no choice but to put him to sleep. We have now lost 2 dogs in 7 months - I am just devastated.



This is Boysie on the beach Thursday at St.Bees in driving rain. For me this picture sums up his spirit, whatever was happening he always wanted to be part of it and to be by your side.
Miss you so much little fella

Saturday 18 June 2011

The Magic of Steam

There is nothing more likely to bring out the small child from the grown man than a steam train.  I took am not immune from the romance of steam.  Here are some shots from The North Yorkshire Moors railway that I just couldn't resist.


Tea Time

of Gloucester

Freight Train

Driver takes a break


Old Friends
Motive Power

Sunday 12 June 2011

Space the Final Frontier

It happens to us all.  Your shiny new PC, that was equipped with masses of disk space when you bought it, has suddenly started to complain about a lack of disk space.  Where has it all gone?  Well those 1000s of photos could well be taking up stacks of space that you could easily free up by deleting them but there must be something less drastic you can do?

Don't worry, help is at hand in the form of some clever free bits of software that can help you manage your drives:

CCleaner

CCleaner (or crap cleaner) is an excellent product, which when run on your machine will get rid of all those temporary files that applications are so keen on leaving all over your hard drive.  It is worth checking the settings before as you may not want it to remove things like your internet browsing history (or maybe you do).  CCleaner also includes a registry repair process which removes junk from your registry.



WinDirStat

WinDirStat will helpfully scan your disk drives and map the files on it and their usage.  The graphical display makes it really easy to see what is hogging your disk space.

WinDirStat maps your disk drives



PCDecrapifier


The PC Decrapifier is for people who have just got a new PC.  running this application will help you get rid of all the junk that PC manufacturers are so keen on hoisting on their customers.  Highly recommended.

If you have any recommendations for useful disk software please add a comment,  I would love to see what people are using.

Saturday 4 June 2011

On Suttton Bank

Last month I spent a fantastic week in North Yorkshire,  staying right near the abbey at Revaux.  As I was not far from the great inland cliff of Sutton Bank and  I managed to get out a few times and this is the result of my evenings spent on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors.

Take A Seat


Sunset at High Barn

Sunset over Boltby

Overlook
Hambleton Down

Windypitt Sunset

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Graham Nobles is photographer of the month for June

This month our photographer is Derbyshire based Graham Nobles.  Grahams work covers a wide range of landscape and wildlife photography and his website is well worth a visit.


Barn Owl
by Graham Nobels



Previous  Photographers of the Month