the eye of the fish

A wonderful sunny day 30 deg out in the sun not bad for October. I have been attempting carpentry again, nothing is easy, I think I spent just as long getting the handle and lock working on the door than I spent fitting it. In the end it looks pretty good for a €160 door from Bricodepot.

I bought a cheap fisheye lens  from Amazon that will screw onto the end of a new 50mm lens I have ordered, it was only £25 and got good reviews,  I thought it might be fun to use, I have just held it in front of my little Panasonic camera for a few shots of Karen gardening.

Busy day today fitted new window in study as well as shopping for cheap plants at superU.

You were right Xander looks like the little dog is stopping Karen has bought her a winter coat!

Can dogs see in the dark?

oops not taken a photo today so made one instead

First french lesson of the new term today and it has poured down all day windy with leaves and twigs coming  off the trees, I know it’s no excuse, I did take my camera out with me but did not feel inspired to use it at all. So I have used one I took a few days ago and played around in photoshop with it to to give it a touch of a psychedelic gothic theme. I will try harder tomorrow

The french went ok but it does seem to take up all of the day, my lesson starts at 11am till 1.00pm then I collect Karen and take her back and her class finishes at 4.00pm. It is good to be back in Rosiline’s class she is a excellent teacher and a real sweety, same group as last term with one addition.

Gavarnie

Today I went on a walk with the group I belong to, we should have been walking up to the ‘breche de Roland” the right angled rock on the top right hand side of the photo a place I have always wanted to walk to. It is a breach in the ridge which forms the border between France and Spain with a pathway leading across the divide, legend has it it was made from a blow from the sword of the giant ‘Roland’.

When we drove up to the ski station where we were to set off it was blowing a gale, at least 50 kph with bigger gusts and freezing, we decided to go lower and do a different walk, which was a wise move. we walked along the valley away from the cirque dropping down to the road and walking back into the village and finally back to the cars. It was a good day but being the only ‘Anglais’ has it’s communication problems, everyone speaks very fast to each other but I do get the gist of what they are saying some of the time. They are all very nice and try to include me in the conversation.

Autumn colours

Natures autumnal colours are here and the leaves are beginning to fall, the  type of stones in the wall are everywhere in the ground left behind I imagine by retreating glaciers in the ice age. All of the older houses including ours are built in this way.

We had the most bizarre dining experience for a long time last night, we had been to Pau for some new windows and called in at a Chinese buffet restaurant on the way back it was fairly empty and ordered drinks just as we started eating it was raided by the police, around 15 in total mostly in plainclothes with guns on their hips!  The owners a middle aged Chinese were taken into the back whist the poor waitress turned customers away. No-one told us to leave so we just carried on eating, we soon gave up hope of having hot food from the wok but managed to dive into the buffet!

After a while the owner came out on the arm of a policeman tried to apologize to his customers but was bundled away to give his keys to the waitress, I heard him say “gratuit’ so when we went to pay it was indeed free. We don’t expect it to be open next time we pass.

cats eyes

not a very good day for taking photographs today, pouring down when I took the dogs for a walk this morning and spent most of the day in the loft laying down insulation ready for the winter.

I decided to go for a night time flash photo when we went out for a walk in the evening, I was hoping for a view of the moon, last night it was very low in the sky just above the next row of hills and bright orange. It was a three quarter disk perched on top of the hill like a giant sail, it took me a few seconds to work out what it was, but alas tonight there was no sign of it.

Our cat has taken to coming for a walk with us this week and her and the little lost dog chase each other about in the dark which is very entertaining.