curiouswombat: (notes from a small island)
[personal profile] curiouswombat
Life at the moment seems to be work, shop, eat, sleep, work...

The pictures for the week tend to reflect this - a couple of them were simply taken out of the car window as I drove between patients at work, or was pulled up outside a shop to get milk!



Monday - this is simply taken when I got out of the car about 6pm on my way home from work. This is where I often park the car - yes - on the double yellow lines up the street...! The traffic wardens finish at 5pm, and the police seem to realise that we, as a street, do not have enough room to park when we are all home. Aren't the flowers in the near garden lovely? It is always colourful.


365 week 22 Monday


Tuesday - it was a rather wet day. Not a good day to be a tram horse... The horse trams run the couple of miles length of the promenade in the summer - but in years gone by they ran all year around, I think, which is why they have a couple of 'closed' trams. The manager obviously expected it to be wet all day, which it was, as they had got one of the closed trams out on Tuesday.


365 week 22 Tuesday


I rather like the way I have caught the horse with all feet off the ground. (A picture of a more usual horse tram can be seen here.)


Wednesday - shopping on the way home from work - even the car park of the supermarket looks nice in the sunshine -


365 week 22 Wednesday


Sorry about the pole up the middle - it didn't even occur to me at the time - I was a bit zombie-ish!

Thursday - a visit to a government run older persons' residential home in the south of the island - this is the entrance to Southlands - it has wings out to either side of this central area, but I would have had to stood in the road outside to capture more of it!


365 week 22 Thursday


Friday - a 'grab the camera and shoot out of the window' moment - I had to stop to let this family cross the road in front of me - not a terribly clear picture, but it gives you the idea!


365 week 22 Friday


Saturday - I spent Saturday working too. I usually work Monday to Friday, but we are still monitoring any possible cases of H1N1 swine flu, swabbing them individually to confirm whether they really do have it, and taking the tamiflu out individually from a central supply; I have been the nurse doing this for the whole island for the last couple of Saturdays. It is quite tiring, but mainly because I don't get a lie-in, and don't have time to do my usual Saturday stuff. This Saturday one of the cases was in the far north of the island and I took the shortest route - through one of my favourite places - Tholt-y-Will and Sulby Glen.

You really can't feel too harassed and hassled when you drive down this road...


365 week 22 Saturday

I finished about 5pm, and went straight from dropping off samples at the path lab to doing my shopping. So at least I didn't have to go shopping today before we could eat - which happened last weekend!

D-d was camping with friends last night, S2C was at work, neither were around when I sat out in the garden to eat my lunch and read -


365 week 22 Sunday



Tesco's sushi, home-made smoothy, The two Towers (I'm reading all the Faramir stuff carefully...). Note pebble holding book open - D-d and I both read out there, the pebbles are kept on the table for that very purpose.

If I'd turned the camera around a bit you would have seen that I also had a full line of washing out. There is something quite satisfying about a line of clothes in a warm breeze!



This week is going to be busy, too. I am teaching other nurses for two full days - and I still haven't printed out the handouts!

I'm doing flu-duty this Saturday, too. But then no more for at least two weeks! Squee! And it will be WriterCon UK!

Hmm - I have a talk to do for that yet, too... although putting that together will be fun, rather than hard work!

Date: 02/08/2009 07:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] just-ann-now.livejournal.com
Well, I was feeling very sorry for myself over workish things and not-much-else going on, and nothing much to post or talk about, but your post cheered me right up! I love the picture of the sheep in the road particularly. Your posts always make me smile *g*

Date: 02/08/2009 08:02 pm (UTC)
debris4spike: (Horse and sun!)
From: [personal profile] debris4spike
Brilliant pictures - Hope that you don't show the picture of the horse to DJ - Don't want him getting exciting thoughts!

Date: 02/08/2009 08:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Thank you. The sheep on the smaller hill roads are just a natural hazard - like the chickens!

Date: 02/08/2009 08:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cairistiona7.livejournal.com
Love the shot of the sheep in the road! And the chikens. And your lunch looked very relaxing. :)

Date: 02/08/2009 08:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
The horse tram picture was taken through the car window outside the little Spar on the prom, and the others were almost all taken within about 10 yards of the car as I went to and from work!

Actually Tolkien can be quite heavy going - my husband says many people who have written since have written better... I like LotR more than The Hobbit, I think. I tend to go back to read bits as a refresher, rather than the whole thing through, though. The films give such a good visual feel for his world, I think. The Hobbit will be out on film in, oh, a year or two...when Peter Jackson finishes it.

Date: 02/08/2009 08:15 pm (UTC)
ext_11988: made by lmbossy (stormy horses)
From: [identity profile] kazzy-cee.livejournal.com
I didn't realise there were horse drawn trams in your neck of the woods! :) They are lovely!

Mmmmm sushi!

Date: 02/08/2009 08:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
I'm not sure he'd really enjoy having to work in the rain!

The horses actually only do short shifts - you see them changing over at their stables regularly, and then they work a week on week off, or similar, and spend their non-work weeks out in the countryside.

Date: 02/08/2009 08:17 pm (UTC)
debris4spike: (Yawn - Horse)
From: [personal profile] debris4spike
I'm sure DJ would cope with the week off idea!!!

It's good to see the heavy horses still in work - otherwise the breeds will die out.
Edited Date: 02/08/2009 08:18 pm (UTC)

Date: 02/08/2009 08:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
The sheep are just part of life on the smaller hill roads - if you scan down this post (http://curiouswombat.livejournal.com/47318.html#cutid1) you will see that they even have their own road signs!

The lunch was good - I felt so much better after it.

Date: 02/08/2009 08:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wildecate.livejournal.com
Every time I see pictures of the island I think "I really must go back and visit."

Lookiing forward to your talk......

Date: 02/08/2009 08:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
To be quite honest, when it is busy the horse trams are a nuisance, because anything wider than an average car, or even an average car with a non-local driver, won't get between the tram and the parked cars for ages, so there is a tail-back of traffic along the prom all moving at tram pace!

We don't have any sushi places here, but I have decided that I quite like Tesco's or M&S - although it is possible that they bear little relationship to the real thing!

Date: 02/08/2009 08:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
I think our island is a nice place to visit - S2C says it is a good place to live, but he can't see why anyone would want to come for a holiday!

I am hoping my talk will entertain...!

Date: 02/08/2009 08:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fenchurche.livejournal.com
I've told practically everyone I know that there is not one place on the Isle of Man that isn't beautifully picturesque and I suspect they don't all believe me... but every photo you've taken just goes to prove my point!

Date: 02/08/2009 08:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Hmm - you'll just have to aim them at my flickr account!

We are very fortunate to live where we do - although this is very good discipline for me, to take the camera out and look every day, and it has made me realise how pretty so much of the island is.

Date: 02/08/2009 08:40 pm (UTC)
ext_135782: ([teens-pray]PAVANES LOVE you!)
From: [identity profile] rolypoly-laurie.livejournal.com
Beautiful pictures!! :)

I adore the ones of the sheep and the chickens...looks like the sort of things I see outside everyday!

Date: 02/08/2009 08:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com
Swine flu has made a lot more work for you, then. I hope things settle down a bit soon.

I loved the hen and her brood and to hope the sheep have good traffic sense. I can't help but worry about those that live on the sides of the roads. The horses seem very well looked after and I can imagine there are more popular with tourists than locals.

Date: 02/08/2009 09:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] petzipellepingo.livejournal.com
A horse - and sheep!

Date: 02/08/2009 09:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Thank you. And, you know, for some reason it hadn't occurred to me that you live in the countryside!

Date: 02/08/2009 09:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
I'm hoping we either get a lot less swine flu, or so much that we go to the same system as England.

The sheep up there are pretty car savvy - and most of the drivers are used to them, too, so accidents with them are fairly rare.

And yes, the horse trams are more popular with the visitors than the locals!

Date: 02/08/2009 09:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
I was really quite happy with that 'snapped through the car window' shot of the horse tram. But I like the sheep one even better.

Date: 02/08/2009 09:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zanthinegirl.livejournal.com
A horse, chickens, and sheep. Sounds like a rural kind of week!

Date: 02/08/2009 10:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
The horse is pretty urban - but the sheep and the chicks were certainly very rural.

Date: 03/08/2009 12:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pfeifferpack.livejournal.com
Wonderful pictures! Thank you. Jim and I often look in on the Webcams on your fair isle but your photos show so much more...they show life!

Sounds like your life of late has been a mirror of mine. Work, sleep, necessary errands, eat, work, sleep, rinse and repeat.

*hugs*
Kathleen

Date: 03/08/2009 12:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] framefolly.livejournal.com
Good Lord you've been working hard!

It's amazing that you always take the time to appreciate and share the beauty in your world, even during such a tough week.

Hope you get a breather soon!

Date: 03/08/2009 06:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bojojoti.livejournal.com
Thank you so much for sharing. What a beautiful area.

Who uses the horse-drawn tram? Is it IoM's form of public transportation?

The idea of livestock wandering about is a foreign one in the Midwest. One's livestock stays on one's land through fences: limestone post fences, barbed wire, and even electric wire. One of the odious chores of a farm is recapturing the livestock when a fence is compromised and then having to make repairs to said fence. You showed hedges earlier, and I thought they were meant to keep livestock in certain boundaries, but are they more property markers?

Date: 03/08/2009 07:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Yes, it is very much a rinse and repeat life at the moment. Remember when we were young, and they promised us that 'in the future' we would only need to work for a couple of hours a day as computers and robots would do it all? What happened?

Date: 03/08/2009 07:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
I have my camera in my bag on the passenger seat of the car - sometimes, like the horse tram or the chickens, the pictures are taken out through the car window!

Date: 03/08/2009 07:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
The horse drawn trams are basically a tourist attraction, just running the length of Douglas promenade in the summer - the locals see them more as a moveable chicane...

The livestock actually are kept in place on their owner's land - the road simply runs through the middle of the land. So - the hills that high up have hedges or fences to divide it up, but these can be two or three miles apart in places, and where they cross the road there is a cattle grid to keep the sheep in their own area. The land up there is not all that good as pasture so small fields wouldn't work.

The same system of upland farming is used throughout the British isles - I think our unfenced roads are mostly above about 1,000 feet above sea-level - below that the stock is contained in fields by those sod and gorse hedges.

The main road over the high ground, 'the mountain road' is well fenced on both sides - the road itself forms the demarcation line between different people's land.

Date: 03/08/2009 07:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pfeifferpack.livejournal.com
They lied about so much! I DO remember. In school we would get these wee magazines and I clearly remember articles with "the future" (meaning ours) and very little has happened that they predicted. Of course I remember one article with the supposition that we'd be taking a pill for our nutrition and food would be a thing of the past....rather glad that didn't happen. I like my food to be real LOL.

Kathleen

Date: 03/08/2009 08:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wildecate.livejournal.com
It's a good place for us to come for a holiday cos Glenn's brother lives there with t'kids. Have been to some gorgeous places in IOM and would definitely come back. Tis the kind of place to hire a cottage and stay for a week and just bumble about doing stuff.

Date: 03/08/2009 09:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sammywol.livejournal.com
Lovely pictures. Now, of course I am hungry as a tram horse, but am yearning for some sushi.

Faramir is an interesting one. I think that there is quite a variance between the film Faramir and the book Faramir. (Although if the brothers want to draw attention away from Arwen's otherness then try letting Eowyn loose on those ghastly ladies in waiting.)

Date: 03/08/2009 10:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ningloreth.livejournal.com
I couldn't help noticing your discussion with [livejournal.com profile] aleia_kali: I have a great Tolkien icon (see above)! The poor thing never really set out to be a novelist &, in a way, his fame has done him a disservice. Have you read The Silmarillion? Writing-wise, I think that's his best. It shows that he really could write when he wanted to. [I have bought a book on (real) Anglo-Saxon elf lore, btw. It's next on the to-read pile, so I'll let you know if I learn anything exciting].

Do you take any special precautions when you visit people with swine flu? Personally, I expect to get it just before WriterCon, so I miss the fun, but I don't expect to have it bad!

I love the tram picture, the chickens (I used to have a pet chickie), and the sheep. You seem to have the best of all worlds there -- the picturesque with a decent supermarket.

Date: 03/08/2009 10:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lindahoyland.livejournal.com
What wonderful views!

Date: 03/08/2009 12:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
That is the best way to visit I reckon - and there are a lot of lovely self-catering places.

Date: 03/08/2009 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
I didn't really like the way PJ made Faramir... well... nastier!

I think I will keep with the book version. Although I do tend to get my 'images' from the film... in Return of The Key I described him as one man looked a bit like a fairer, younger, version of Aragorn, when he should really be as dark as Aragorn.

I think I will get to Éowyn in the next chapter.

Date: 03/08/2009 12:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
I haven't re-read The Silmarillion for years - I keep meaning to, but then not..

We wear disposable aprons, gloves and masks when we visit the swine flu suspects, then bag all that lot and take it to the hospital to be destroyed with clinical waste. Seems to work - none of us have caught it so far... but I guess there's a first time.

And yes - "picturesque with a decent supermarket" sums us up well!

Date: 03/08/2009 12:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Thank you. Where I took the picture of the sheep is one of my favourite places.

Date: 03/08/2009 02:01 pm (UTC)
jerusha: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jerusha
Busy, busy! Your dinner looks yummy!

Date: 03/08/2009 04:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Dinner was very nice, thank you!

Date: 03/08/2009 06:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sammywol.livejournal.com
I think I will keep with the book version. Although I do tend to get my 'images' from the film Be cautious. you have also taken your canon of event from the film much of which differs massively from the book. It might be confusing to suddenly turn him brunette now. Although I always loved the image of him as looking like Aragorn's younger brother and that the blood of Numenor ran strong in him unlike his father and brother. It fits your view of the problem of Aragorn's reign. Boromir was always the popular leader for all that he was a grandstanding pain in the ass, feeder of the troop death mill of a Richard the Lionheart of a general.

Date: 03/08/2009 08:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Actually to a large extent I have used book canon - so in my stories the twins went to join Aragorn with Halbarad and the Grey Company, travelled the Paths of the Dead with him and fought on the Pelennor Field with him, as well as accompanying him to the Black Gate.

I had the separate coronation (without Arwen), as described in Return of The Key, with Arwen arriving for a midsummer wedding, and so on.

I took advantage of film-canon to find a workable way to get two elves who weren't the twins or Legolas there too. In the summary on Open Scrolls (which gives you more words to play with than TtH does!) I finish the summary with

It is mainly book verse - except that I took the PJ version of the battle at Helm's Deep. I reckoned 'Why not? I'm dropping a twenty-first century teenager into it, why not have the elves at Helm's Deep?'!

So Faramir, personality-wise, will be book-Faramir, rather than film Faramir - but as I mentioned in RoTK that he looks like Aragorn but fairer then, should the colour of his hair be mentioned he will still have to be fairer...

Date: 03/08/2009 10:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sammywol.livejournal.com
D'oh! Obviously I need to reread the books and rewatch the films. My apologies.

Date: 03/08/2009 11:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
No need to apologise - I am a bad, bad, girl for mixing the movie-verse into Proper Canon!!

Date: 05/08/2009 06:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ozma914.livejournal.com
That is such a wonderful place to be ...

Date: 05/08/2009 07:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vegmb.livejournal.com
I've been thinking of copying you and doing the 365 picture thing. I've been paying attention this week to what I'm doing and what pictures I would take. I really don't know how you do it and come up with interesting photos for every day.

Date: 05/08/2009 07:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Thank you - it seems pretty ordinary to me, most of the time, and then I try to look at it as if I don't know it and agree that, even with the wet weather, it is a rather good place!

Date: 05/08/2009 08:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Sometimes it is really useful that my job gets me out of the office - but other days the picture is just something around the house, or something I see on the way to, or from, work. But it is a good exercise in looking at things, if you see what I mean!

Date: 06/08/2009 06:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ozma914.livejournal.com
We all need to be reminded sometimes of the beauty right outside our own door.

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