Becca Jane St Clair

Personal Blog

Archive for August, 2010

Happy Birthday Tim!

Today my husband (and yes, I still get a thrill saying that) is celebrating his 40th birthday! Yeah, we’re only 4 days apart (but I’m 9 years younger). It certainly makes having parties a lot easier. We had a big bash on the 29th and I’m sure I’ll be posting pics from it soon.

And now I can tell you all what we got him for his birthday! Me, his parents, grandad, aunt, & siblings all pooled our money together and bought him the driver’s experience at Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway! Ben (Tim’s brother) and I had wanted to get him a driver’s experience and we had been discussing it MONTHS ago…but all the places I checked wanted between £300-£600 for the experience…PLUS, they were all located in Wales, which meant that at the very least, Tim and I would have had to travel down to Wales (okay, that’s free on the train for us) and get accommodation somewhere. If anyone else wanted to come with us to see Tim drive, they’d have to shell out the same, so the driver’s experience would have easily started costing the family over £1000. I had thought about contacting friends to see if they wanted to contribute, but in the end, Ben and I had given up the idea and I told Tim we just couldn’t afford it.

Until we were at the Cleethorpes Light Railway last month. I snuck away from Tim (“I have to use the loo…”) and spoke with a secretary who told me their experience was only £150 for the day and it would include an opportunity for family to then ride behind a train Tim drove for free, too. I immediately texted my mother-in-law who agreed that it was a good price and said she and father-in-law would contribute, so I purchased it that day on a gift certificate for Tim to redeem whenever he wants. Even better is they claim “Your day’s training will be tailored to your level of experience, skill and ability”, so hopefully, Tim will really get a great day out of it since he already has quite a bit of experience, skill, and ability when it comes to trains and steam!

We presented it to him at his party…and he was [I’ll edit this in later as I’m writing this four days early. If I forget to update, assume he was surprised and happy]

I can’t wait for him to go!

*Of course, Tim did start to get concerned when my loo break took over 20 minutes. I blamed it on the long queue! Fortunately, there really was a queue as they had forgotten to unlock one of the toilets, so we all had to wait for the only open one.

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Applologies for the Large Photo!

So sorry about the not re-sized photo in my last post. I wrote all the posts last week when I had time and scheduled them for later publication, so I didn’t catch it right away since we were out all day. When I add photos in a gallery, WordPress does it all automatically and makes the gallery, but for some reason it seems to not resize one photo and then I am unable to manually resize it, so I have to go in and delete the offending photo.

It’s now been taken care of, but I’m sure it messed things up for some people. Sorry about that. If it happens again, please send me an email or poke me on IM to fix it.

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Anglesey in the Rain

Tuesday brought us rain. Not wanting to walk around castles in the rain, we headed over to the Isle of Anglesey. Anglesey is the largest Welsh island and the largest island in the Irish Sea, as well as the fifth largest island surrounding Britain. It covers over 700 square kilometres of land (over 250 square miles) and includes the port of Holyhead. You might remember that my mom and I took the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead (and back) as part of our visit to the UK in September 2009.

Our first destination was the Pili Palas, a butterfly hut that included a reptile room, bird room, farm animals, and other insects (There was a row of spiders which I avoided looking at!). The butterfly section was kept at a balmy 80 degrees Fahrenheit for the tropical butterflies…which were allowed to roam all over the room. Unfortunately, the extreme change in temperature (from the chilly outside to the warm inside) caused the digital SLR to steam up. Fortunately, I also had my small camera with me, and I was still able to take photos of the butterflies. Also unfortunate was Mark’s displeasure for the heat. He did not spend much time with Helen and I as we admired the butterflies, and we moved quickly through the rest of the palas.

Our second stop was Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. No, I’m not kidding. It is, in fact, the longest town name in the United Kingdom, and is tied for the third longest word in the world as far as I can tell*. The town name means “Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of Saint Tysilio near the red cave” in Welsh. Most people refer to it simply as “Llanfair PG”, but I kept calling it “Llanfair gogogoch”. I remember when I was at Penn State and I lived on the International Language floor, all our rooms were named after international cities and one of the rooms got the name “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch”…though we all thought the town was in Scotland, and were told it was the home of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. Whoops.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is pretty much only known for it’s long name. There’s a railway station and a shop/cafe. After Lunch, we shopped for a bit, then wandered over to the station to take some photos.

It was still early in the day, so we headed over to Beaumaris. We did not go into the castle grounds since none of us were in the mood for climbing lots of steps, but we took some photos and explored the town and waterfront area.

On our way back to the mainland, Helen spotted a spot to stop where we could get photos of both the Menai Bridge and the Brittania Bridge, the two bridges that connect Anglesey to the mainland.

*Through research, it appears to be the third longest word in the world at 58 English characters, but in Welsh, double letters count as one letter, so it then becomes tied for third. The longest word in the world, by the way, according to the Guinness Book of World’s Records is the Swedish town of NordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhÃ¥llsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten, which apparently means “Coast artillery flight searching simulator area material maintaining follow-up system discussion post preparation tasks of the Northern Baltic Sea”.

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Digital SLR

I’ve talked about this in a few places, but not given much detail. Tim has a Canon EOS 300D. I, do not. I tried using his camera in 2008 when we were in Wales and I thought his camera was too heavy, and so I gave up on using it…but recently he encouraged me to play around with it. I love it. I took all the photos in Wales exclusively with the SLR camera, and even took loads in manual focus.

Does this mean I don’t want my new Olympus mju 3000? No way. I’m so excited for my new camera my mom and aunt gave me for my birthday. I love having a portable camera, and I can’t wait to try out the new settings. Sometimes, a small point and shoot can take just as nice photos as a big SLR.

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Happy Birthday to Me!

No blog update for today. It’s my birthday!

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Llanberis Lake Railway & Caernarfon

Monday took us to Llanberis Lake Railway and the adjoining National Slate Museum. We arrived early enough in the morning to watch the two engines get steamed up, and got to ride on the first train of the day.

I was lucky enough to be able to show my Network Rail Spouse ID card and received a 75% discount on my ticket. A regular return ticket costs £7.20 for this five mile journey. The return trip takes an hour, and it is well worth it. The scenery is beautiful, and if you’re lucky, you can even catch Snowdon as it peeks out from the clouds!

The Llanberis Lake Railway is a narrow gauge railway. Mark was told the official size is 1 foot 11 5/8 inches, and our friend Dave told us on Wednesday that this is close enough to be considered two-foot gauge. We all enjoy narrow gauge railways very much, as that’s what Helen and Mark, Tim and I, and Dave and his family all have running through our gardens in a much smaller scale (we use 16mm to the foot, so our tracks are 32mm). One of the engines at Llanberis is blue and named “Little Thomas”, but they will claim it has nothing to do with a certain children’s story….

There’s not much else to say about Llanberis, as everything is better said in photos.

After our trip on the train, we took a quick look around the slate museum before heading off to Caernarfon, where we had lunch at the Floating Restaurant and then had a look around Caernarfon Castle.

The Floating Restaurant was fantastic. If you are trying to find it, you will need to walk the entire way around the outside of the castle and you will find the Floating Restaurant tied up close to the swing bridge. While we were eating we got to watch the bridge open several times. The food was reasonably priced and very good…and you got quite a lot for your money! During low tide, the restaurant doesn’t float, but once the tide comes in you can feel the boat sway slightly.

Admission to the castle is £4.95 for an adult, but if you have an English Heritage membership, you can get in for free. The earliest date with a reference to the castle is 1289, and it’s quite impressive how much of i is still standing. While visiting you can climb up the steps of all of the towers to see impressive views over the sea and town, walk around the castle walls, or look at the small exhibits scattered around the castle. In 1969 the castle grounds were used for the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales and you can still see the dais where it took place in the centre of the courtyard.

The castle lawn is immaculate, largely due to the many “keep of the grass” signs, no doubt. It struck me as a little odd that people could not use the castle lawn area for picnics, games, or lounging when I am used to seeing people scattered about on the castle grounds at Lincoln, but I’m sure there is a reason behind it.

From Queens Gate (which is the gate Queen Elizabeth II entered from during Prince Charles’ investiture), you can look out over Caernarfon and see the Welsh Highland Railway. I visited the Welsh Highland Railway in September 2009 with my mom and Tim, but sadly, I never blogged about it. Something about getting engaged while visiting the UK in September and then planning a November 2009 wedding got in the way of blogging that trip.

Admission is money well spent, provided you have enough time to explore the entire grounds!

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250 Posts

Today’s post marks 250 posts for my blog! I started this blog a little over two years ago (I missed the blog anniversary), and I’ve averaged 2-3 posts/week. Not bad!

This milestone comes at a good place, too. My birthday is in two days. I’ll be 31. Somehow, it’s not so bad. I panicked when I turned 30, but in the past year I’ve gotten married, moved across an ocean, joined a ladies barbershop chorus, and done so many things I had never done before.

Bring on 250 more posts!

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Llandudno and the Great Orme

Our first full day in Wales was spend visiting the seaside town of Llandudno, the largest seaside resort in Wales. Llandudno is located on a peninsula between the Great Orme and the Little Orme. There are four ways to get up the Great Orme – drive, walk/hike, take the Great Orme Tramway, or take the cable cars. We chose to take the cable car, since Helen and Mark had ridden the Tramway in previous years and I knew I’d ride it with Tim in the future (Tim doesn’t like heights, so I knew he wouldn’t go on the cable car). Before we headed up the Great Orme, we split up to explore Llandudno.

I chose to visit the World War II Home Front Museum, as one of my specific interests is life during World War II in the UK of everyday people. Things like the child evacuation and the Ministry of Food initiatives fascinate me. The museum is hard to locate. It’s off on a side street, behind a church. I felt as though I was entering a residential area, but most of the homes that line the street are bed and breakfasts. I finally found the museum and paid my £3.25 admission. I was handled a WWII era torch to use in case I wanted to take a closer look at anything.

I was disappointed. It’s a very small museum, and for someone who is interested in this era and has been to lots of museums/exhibits on the subject, there wasn’t anything “new”. The museum contains a collection of war-time toys, gas masks, food products, and mock-ups of a grocery store, kitchen, and police station. If I hadn’t stopped to read everything, I would have been done in about 20 minutes. I stayed for about 45 minutes.

I still had nearly an hour before I was to meet back up with Helen and Mark, so I rang Tim for a few minutes, and then did some charity shop browsing (always fun to do in a new town!). As I was walking back up the high street, I noticed a parade going on, so I stopped and watched the majorettes for a bit before meeting up with Helen and Mark for lunch at a Wetherspoons. It was so busy, we had to wait 45 minutes for our food to arrive, but we were pretty impressed with the portion sizes once it did arrive!

After Lunch, we headed on over to the cable cars and had a long wait to get on one! The cable car is £6.50 for a single (one way) or £7 for a return (round trip), so we paid for returns. The cable car is the longest cable car ride in the UK and is over a mile long! The views going up were spectacular! Absolutely breathtaking and well worth the £7. We got to the top and had about an hour before the last return trip down, so we set off to explore the surrounding area and to do some shopping in the summit center. We also walked over to the tramway to get some photos of it. I also had what I have to call the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Whether it was because I don’t eat a lot of ice cream any more, or because I was eating it at the summit of the Great Orme I don’t know, but it was delicious!

We then headed into the queue for the return trip. There was a long queue! A man came by to make sure we had return tickets and assured us we would get a ride back down. After about 45 minutes, we finally boarded a cable car to begin the descent, and once again, the views were spectacular. We saw Llandudno from above, and I loved the way the houses all curved away from the shore.

Back at the bottom of the cable car ride, we wound our way down a footpath through the bottom of the mountain and headed back to the car to return to our caravan.

Later that night on the evening news, we heard about a crash that had happened a year ago on the Great Orme Tramway and the results of the investigation. Made us glad we had opted for the cable cars after all!

A selection of photos:

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Lincolnshire Plum Bread

[If a Lincolnshire publication would like to reprint this, just contact me!]

Lincolnshire is famous for several kinds of food. There is Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese – a sharp, biting cheese, Lincolnshire Sausage – a sausage seasoned with herbs, and another famous Lincolnshire food item is Lincolnshire Plum Bread.

No one seems to know exactly when people started making Plum Bread, other than that it is “centuries old”. Several local bakeries that have been in business since the early 20th century claim Plum Bread as one of their first specialities, so we do know that Plum Bread has been around for at least over 100 years, possibly even 200 or 300.

We also know that “plum” doesn’t refer to plum fruits or even to prunes (dried plums). “Plum” simply is a reference to dried fruit, such as calling a Christmas Pudding a “Plum Pudding”. The word “Plum” for dried fruit originated during the Middle Ages, when dried fruit was used to help preserve meat. This type of preservation continued and the recipe was modified into what we now call a Plum Pudding or a Christmas Pudding.

The use of the word “bread” to describe this food item is a bit of a misnomer as well. You wouldn’t want to use this for sandwiches. Lincolnshire Plum Bread is traditionally served at breakfast time or tea time. In medieval England, the words “bread” and “cake” were used interchangeably, and they still are today. Take for example, banana bread. Banana bread is surely more closely related to being cake, yet we call it a bread. Banana bread did not formally enter kitchens until the 1930s in America, though there is speculation that it may have been invented in the late nineteenth century by American housewives. Either way, it’s still a long way away from medieval England when either word could be used.

If Lincolnshire Plum Bread is not a bread and does not actually have plums, what is it? Lincolnshire Plum Bread is a sweet, almost cake-like cinnamon-flavoured bread with dried fruit in it – sultanas, currants, and fruit peel – that has been soaked in cold tea to help the dried fruit “plump” up.

There are several bakeries in Lincolnshire that claim to be “the original”, but perhaps the most famous brand is Myers. in 1977 a loaf was given to the queen at her silver jubilee and Myers Lincolnshire Plum Bread is served on British Airways in their first class cabin. Other brands also exist and the loaves retail for about £2.50. You can purchase Lincolnshire Plum Bread throughout Lincolnshire in small bakeries and at the co-op.

If you’re outside of Lincolnshire, hope is not lost. There are many recipes floating around on the internet for Lincolnshire Plum Bread, and I will include my own recipe, modified for a bread machine, below.

Lincolnshire Plum Bread

First, you will need some cool strong tea. The easiest way to do this is to take a glass measuring cup, put 2 tea bags in it, and fill it halfway with water from the kettle. Then, forget about it for about 5 minutes and let it get nice and dark. Remove the tea bags and add cold water to cool it down quickly.

Add about 300-400g dried fruit (sold in grocery stores as “dried mixed fruit” or use a combination of dried currants, sultanas, raisins, and peel) and let it sit until the fruit is nice and plump.

Meanwhile, get out your bread machine and add to it:

100g butter (melted)
120ml warm milk
2 eggs
450g bread flour
100g sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Follow the instructions on your bread machine for what order you should add ingredients. Mine calls for all the liquid to go in first, which includes the eggs. I also save time by microwaving the butter and milk together – an extra bonus is it keeps the butter from exploding all over the microwave.

Set your bread machine to a 1KG loaf (2lbs), medium crust, and use the sweet setting (on my machine, this is setting 4).

Start your bread machine.

Follow your machine’s instructions for adding fruit. Most machines will beep when they want you to add fruit, so wait for the beep, drain off the tea, and pour in the fruit. You might need to keep an eye on it for a few minutes and use a spatula to make sure all the fruit gets mixed in.

Let the bread cool in the pan for about 20 minutes before turning out. I find it’s easier to cut the bread if I let it cool completely, but by all means serve it warm!

Traditionally, Lincolnshire Plum Bread is served with butter and cheese. Give it a try, you might like it!

This bread has the seal of approval from several Lincolnshire born & raised men and women! 😀

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A Trip ‘Round the Garden

We had a steam-up a few weeks back, and a friend had a video camera mount on one of his wagons and he was nice enough to film a trip around our garden for us – as if you were a passenger on the 16mm railway! This is especially special as this was the first steam-up where people could go the entire way around the garden!

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK6XpZGet2o

Our next steam-up is on the 29th to celebrate our birthdays! Hope to see you there!

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Caravan Camping vs. Tent Camping

This past week in Wales, I stayed in a static caravan in Nebo with my friend Helen and her son, Mark. Our caravan was really nice – a lot nicer than I had expected! We had a large living room/dining room area with seating for at least 8-10 (though a small table that would struggle with more than 4!), and adequate walk-through kitchenette, a bathroom complete with a shower stall that was at least twice as big as the shower we have at home, and three bedrooms – a “master bedroom” that had a double bed, and two “kid’s rooms”. The kid’s rooms had single beds. One had two, and the other had two plus the capability of having a pull-down bunk bed up top. Each room had at least one small wardrobe and several drawers – the most being in the master bedroom, of course.

I slept in one of the kid’s rooms, and since I was alone was able to leave my suitcase and other belongings on the bed I wasn’t using, since there wasn’t really space to store my suitcase anywhere else. I even managed to unpack into the wardrobe and drawers, and had some of my toiletries lined up on the small shelf under the mirror. My room had one electric outlet, so I had to take turns charging the camera, phone, and ipod. The room was small – about as long as a single bed and then about a foot longer and really narrow. There was barely any room between the two single beds, but it was designed for kids, not adults.

The room next to mine was Mark’s, and his looked mostly the same except that at the foot of each bed overhanging it was a small wardrobe cabinet. I still think he and I should have changed rooms though, because he kept whacking his foot into the cabinet in his sleep and it woke everyone up!

Helen had the master bedroom. From what I could tell, it had plenty of storage and a small vanity, too.

Our living/dining area was nice and roomy. Three corners of the room were taken up by various sofas, and in one corner there was a dining table. The fourth corner held the entertainment section – a television, freebox, antennae, and DVD player. All running off of two outlets, so you had to constantly switch which item was plugged into the TV and outlet, but we managed. The people we rented from even leave a few DVDs in the caravan for perusal, though we had brought some of our own. The living room also had a gas operated fireplace, which was quite welcome on the chilly nights!

The kitchen was in the narrow hallway between the bedrooms and the outer wall, but adequate for a week. It had a small fridge/freezer, stove, microwave, kettle, and toaster. The owners stock the cabinets with dishes and cooking equipment as well as some dish soap and a dishtowel.

And boy, were those walls thin! Any noise in one of the rooms would carry into the others if it was loud enough. a few times I heard Mark’s CD player going at night. We had a bit of a fright on our second night there, though. We heard this loud knocking. I thought it was Helen knocking on my bedroom door, so I said “Yeah?” and then when no one opened the door, I got up with my torch (flashlight) and went to see what was going on. Helen was doing the same….and we had no idea where the noise was coming from!

The wind and the rain was pretty bad, too. The wind would shake the little caravan so much I really feared it tipping over and the rain was so noisy on the roof.

Were we camping? Technically, yes. Though, I don’t know many people who go camping with DVD players! In a few weeks, Tim and I will be tent camping (ie – REAL camping) in Austria and Germany. Since I’ve slept in the tent a few times, I know what to be prepared for…I just wish the tent had a kitchen! LOL

Here are some photos of the caravan:

And here’s a google earth shot of the 2 static cabins, the cottage the family lives in, and the surrounding area:

There were lots of public footpaths nearby, and we did go on a walk the first night (a post later with some pics). I’m hoping Tim and I can go back on our own and do some more walking!

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Return from Wales

I’m back from a week in Wales with my friend Helen and her son, Mark. Tim was unable to come with us due to his work schedule – he had the overnights this week – so I went without him. Our trip had it’s ups and downs…a major down being the camera (I took Tim’s big fancy Cannon EOS 300D) lens getting fogged up at the Pili Palace and me worrying that I had broken Tim’s camera (I hadn’t), and the rain. It rained one night so badly it was shaking our little static caravan! We had mostly good weather during the day, but then it all let loose on Friday afternoon and made it pretty miserable and wet in Porthmadog. But, a good time was still had by all and I will have several updates, hopefully before I head off to Austria with Tim 🙂

a few photos (highlights, really) are up on Facebook. I still have to pull the pictures off my regular camera (an Olympus SP 320)

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Lincoln Sounds Performance

A lot of you have been asking to see our performance at convention, so I’ve finally uploaded it to YouTube:

Or, if the embed doesn’t work, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxusrQBarmo

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Yet another Mobile Update…

So, after bouncing back and forth about switching from Orange to O2, I finally made the definite decision. Because it will take 2-3 business days to transfer my number between the networks and because Orange still hasn’t sent me the damned return package for the phone I don’t want*, I’m not switching yet. After we return from our holiday in Austria (end September), I will be heading into the 02 shop with my PAK code and will be purchasing the LG Cookie.

I popped into the O2 shop last week and spoke with one of the sales associates – a woman who was older than the average mobile phone seller age, which was nice because I sometimes feel the young ones (hah! They’re not that much younger than me!) try to pressure you into buying things you don’t want/need…and at least in the case with the young guy at Orange, didn’t listen and was no help at all. Anyway. I explained to her the situation and she let me play with the Cookie – O2 has LIVE PHONES on display, whereas Orange only has the mock phones. After playing with the Cookie for about 10 minutes, I told her I wanted it but couldn’t buy it until the new Orange phone gets returned. She understood completely, and told me she would see me end September/beginning October.

Because of switching networks I will be current number less for 2-3 business days. BUT, O2 will give me a temporary number that I can use for a few days while it switches over. Better than being totally phoneless for a few days. I’ll probably do the switch the Thursday after we return from Scotland (going to see my favourite band, Barenaked Ladies the weekend after we come back from Austria!) and then be temp numbered over the weekend. I don’t use my phone a whole lot to begin with, but I always like knowing I have it and can use it when it’s needed.

So, final decision made. Not using Orange for mobile anymore. Funny, I almost had Tim convinced to switch HIS mobile to Orange so we could try to package bundle with Internet/Phone. Hah! We do still have Internet through Orange, but we never have any problems with it.

*Even better? After I send the phone back, it can take 30 days for the credit to show up on my card!

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Bramble Ramble

Monday was a day off for Tim. After I got back from a GP appointment, I said to Tim “let’s go on a walk ’round the farmer’s fields”. Tim got out the Ordnance Survey Map for the area instead and picked out a route that went across the A46 through a wooded area and through some fields. We were originally going to walk to the Stepping Stones (some metal stepping stones placed in the river to walk across), but Tim got a phone call while we were out asking him to pick up a shift that evening, so we cut across a nettle-filled path that went right on the edge of a grain field and the beck to get home, but we walked 5 miles in total! We stopped at the corner Spar shop on our way out and picked up some sandwiches and snacks, and filled up our water bottles before we left. Fortunately, the rain held off and we only got spritzed on as we were almost back home.

There are over 140,000 footpaths in England and Wales. Picking up an Ordnance Survey map is a great way to get to know an area. The maps have all the public right of ways marked, so as long as you can read a map (and maybe have a compass) you’re good to go out and explore. You just need to remember to always stay on the footpaths. Some footpaths go around farmer’s fields, and some even cut through people’s gardens! Tim was telling me a story once about a public right-of-way that actually went through a person’s house because their house got built on top of one.

As we were walking, I noticed wild blackberry bushes. I commented that I wished I had brought along a basket…and then I had a brilliant thought. I could use my hat! So, my hat became a basket and we gathered blackberries and hazelnuts (off the trees) while we walked.

Apologies for the photo quality. I forgot to grab my camera and I’m still using the Sony Ericsson W200i phone, and it only has a VGA camera.

I’m going to freeze these, I think. I leave on Saturday for a trip to Wales with my friend H and her son, and I don’t want to make something Tim will forget to eat, so I’ll freeze them and figure out what to do later.

We also have a bumper crop coming in outside on our “cultivated” bushes, as our neighbour called them. Apparently the difference is the “cultivated” bushes have tighter, smaller sections than the wild ones. No matter to me, a blackberry is a blackberry and mmm, I’m already dreaming of blackberry and apple crumbles made from our own apples and blackberries!

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Swagbucks: Not as Cool as it Looks….

I’m nearly to 450 swagbucks, so I was browsing around looking for the Amazon vouchers.

Yeah. US $5 voucher? 450 SB. CA $5 voucher? 450 SB. £5 UK Voucher? Frigging 849 SB.

See?


(click to make bigger)

Not fair, especially when the current US$ -> UK£ rate is really low. 600 SB I can see….but 849? That’s almost double!

So I might start collecting US$ Amazon certificates because I can always use them to buy gifts for people in the US or use them when I’m visiting the US and can bring them back with me…I think 849 is a rip for £5. And it sucks that people who don’t have a US address available to use don’t have the option of getting US certificates.

This all being said, I do like the idea of earning points for things while I search on Google, so if anyone is interested, here’s a pretty graphic link to join from:

Search & Win

Or click here: http://swagbucks.com/refer/BeccaJaneStClair

I could really use the referrals!

[x-posted to LJ]

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Technorati Claim Code

Everyone else can ignore this. I’m adding my blog to Technorati, and they need me to post a code to verify that I own the blog I’m claiming. Here’s the code:

FRCDJAYCCRAR

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