Hereford

At the weekend i paid a visit to Hereford, a lovely medieval town and home to one of the great cathedrals of England of course. This time i did venture inside the cathedral (i didn't on my first visit to Hereford last year) and it is an impressive sight. I didn't take that many photos (or not as many as usual) but you can see the ones i did take here.

Colouring in is the new rock and roll

Colouring in books for adults are the latest hip trend some selling millions of copies, a colleague has even seen a typography related one (which is maybe a little too hipster). At first i could not see the appeal of colouring in which i thought was something i grew out of when i was about 8 then i saw the Haynes Cutaway colouring in book...

Yes cutaway drawings of cars from Haynes manuals to colour in! I got the book today along with a pack of coloured pencils and happily began colouring away. As others have said it is relaxing and takes you away from the cares of the world and also gets you away from technology. I recommend doing some colouring in. Even typography. As for my first project well it had to be the Lada Riva which was my first car...

Vampire

The latest model project, project #065 a De Havilland Vampire, has finally been completed after a lot of delay. There always does seem to be a lull in model making in the high summer and it was compounded this year by some house improvements which took up time. But anyway its now done and looking good.

More Banbury

Today i paid another visit to Banbury, a place i do like to visit indeed. As usual i took a few photographs of narrowboats and railways. The Oxford Canal was particularly busy though this is peak season of course. You can see my photos here.

Wild flowers

Some wild flowers (or weeds if you like) i encountered this lunch time.

Rachel 2.0

A couple of Sundays ago i noticed something wrong with my iPhone 5c (which is called Rachel - all of my computer and gadgets have names). Rachel was starting to warp, something appeared to be pushing the screen out from the back. I assumed it was a glue issue or maybe warping caused by heat so i taped the screen back in and all was fine again (apart from sellotape over the screen!)

I was due an upgrade on my phone contract with Vodaphone anyway so got a new Lumia Windows phone (which is called Hazel) but hoped that Rachel would be able to continue, albeit with tape, as a spare phone. Unfortunately the phone warped again. I went online and found it was probably due to the battery expanding after a gas build-up! Suffice to say it was time to contact Apple...

And everything was sorted out very quickly. Apple sent me a box with pre-paid postage to send Rachel to them. I posted it on Monday and on Wednesday night i took delivery of a brand new iPhone! So now i have Rachel 2.0. Its easy to moan so i thought i would write a blog post to praise Apple for sorting my phone out so quickly. Now all i have to do is try and remember all of my passwords again...

Incidentally Hazel is a very nice phone, i like Windows Phone OS too. Hazel is very good, but just not quite as good as Rachel.

A tale of 2 Risboroughs

Yesterday i headed down to the medieval market town of Princes Risborough. Until now its only been a place i have travelled through so i thought it was high time i got off the station platform and explored the town itself. First however i did take the Aylesbury branch line train but only as far as the adjoining village of Monks Risborough and then walked back through to where i started.

Both places are idyllic and full of lovely (and no doubt expensive!) old houses - quite a few with thatched roofs with the Chiltern hills as a backdrop. You can see the photos i took here.