Why, yes, it sounds like my masculinity draining away, as I admit that for the past two days, I’ve made an effort to walk several miles, just to take pictures of some flowers. No, really.

OK, I suppose there’s a bit of a reason behind it. They’re not just any old flowers. these are sunflowers, and for the second year in a row, a small portion of Hartlepool has been dedicated to growing these. Last year, I didn’t know where they were located, so I never got a chance to photograph them. This year though, I recognised the location from other photos, and was able to photograph them.

Both days, I recorded the journey via tweet. N particular reason, other than it felt pretty lonely walking up there on my own, especially when it was still relatively dark.

It took almost an hour to reach the field. On my way, I found a golfball. I was so happy, I tweeted about it.

Just found a golfball. Dog could have weed on it but never mind 5:52 AM Sep 3rd via txt

It was found some considerable distance from the nearest golf course. In fact, according to Google Maps, it was roughly 433 yards away from the golf course. So, someone’s either got a massively errant swing, or it was deposited there by some other means. Either way, it ended up in my back pocket. I pick pennies off the street too, scruff that I am.

Er, anyway. I made the twisty-turny journey up Worset Lane towards the field, only managing to twist my ankle once on the failing road surface. That’s a bit of a record for me.

After walking past the pile of decaying shit, which I described back in June….

Super farmy 12 June 2010 04:01:01 via txt

… it was still there, the smell less pungent, however. Maybe because it was still early.

I was happy to find that the field was “welcoming”, as in, it wasn’t gated off, or anything like that. In fact, they encouraged you to ‘appreciate’ them, complete with A4 laminated sheets, explaining what they were being grown for.

They were certainly appreciated. Not just by me, there was some red van driver who happened to be going along the road. I heard him suddenly stop, and put the van in reverse, just to take some photos on his mobile of the field, and the sun coming up over it. I’m a little bit annoyed with myself, as for this first journey, I didn’t take my main camera thinking it wouldn’t be necessary. This means that this shot really isn’t as good as it could have been…

One thing that the little Canon is good at, however, is macro shots.

The walk back was all downhill, so thankfully, there were no almost-twisted ankles. On the way back, I found a football. “If found, please return to 7 sumthing”. I did find it, but as there was plenty of streets nearby with a door number of 7, I didn’t return it.

Although not really visible in the photograph, this ball also had other words scrawled on it, such as “Elish”.

“Elish” was a word that appeared to me in the early 90s, and somehow still survives to this day, as a slang word for something good, and is presumably a mis-spelling of the word “hellish”, as the nHartlepool accent is known for dropping its H’s, therefore a localization of words such as “bad”, “sick”, “wicked” meaning something good.

For instance, if some kid came into school with a new item of clothing, the conversation would go…

“Like my new [garment]?”
“Yeah, it’s elish.”

I went earlier today, and the football had vanished, either returned to “7 Sumthing Close”, or picked up by someone else that lives at a number 7. This time, the walk included my good camera. It was the same journey, though this time it seemed more uphill. Maybe because it was a little later in the day, therefore a little warmer. One thing I did notice is that when I walked past that decaying shit pile for the 2nd time, it was a little more fragrant…

Walking past the shit pile. Wretch. 2010-09-04 08:02:58

It took me exactly the length of “Tunnel of Love” by Dire Straits to walk from the edge of the golf course to the first opening of the sunflower field. I don’t see any reason why that would be relevant to anything, ever, but I thought I’d mention it. The sunlight was much better and brighter than my initial walk the previous day, and in the 48 minutes I spent in that general area, I managed to grab 80-odd photos.

In a rare decision, I won’t post the whole lot of photos on flickr, as not all of them were excellent.

… just a very busy one who’s not had chance to update on here for quite a while. Therefore, I’ll attempt to give it a go now, taking recent tweets as source of my iinfluence.

2010-07-19 02:42:26: Just been freaked out by a light bulb and now can’t sleep.

a few mornings ago, I witnessed an odd phenomenon which I simply can’t explain, but it made me think something was wrong with the electrics… I’m sure you’re all aware of energy saving bulbs, and the fact they have electrodes at either end of the tube (and of course, the basics of how fluorescent tubes work). I was lying in bed, and I noticed a flash, then another one, rather like an ambulance going past with its lights blaring. This happened every few seconds. I looked up, and noticed it was the light bulb doing this, even though the light was completely off. I unscrewed the bulb, put it back in, and the flash never reoccured.

Ferr-eaky.

2010-07-20 19:19:37 Blossom Garden chow mein. Best food ever

This was altogether a fun and interesting day. Mainly because we were hit by another one of those freaky storms, similar to what happened in 2003, but not quite as severe. It was my first day of the second week of day shifts. The fun and interesting part came because everything broke at work. Twice. Unfortunately, my usual drinking establishment, which I’d planned to attend that evening, turned out to be flooded because of the severe storm, so Daddykins picked me up from work, made an excellent detour to the Blosson Garden takeaway. Regular viewes may know that this is my favourite takeaway in the entire world, and it didn’t disappoint. I also received a present from the postie…

Yes, it’s an Xbox 360 controller, but for Windows. I don’t think that there’s any difference between these and a wired Xbox 360 pad, except they come with a driver disk and a few windows logos splattered about the place. Still, I got it half price, so if I don’t use it much, I’m not going to be overly bothered. I found out that it makes “Flatout: ultimate carnage” playable. To an extent.

2010-07-23 19:09:49 Old tapes, beer, then indian. How can tonight get any better?

It simply couldn’t. I spent the whole night wallowing through as many tapes as I could lay my hands on… in fact, I started to write this post:-

For many years, Mercuryvapour Towers has been a place where things go to die. Music, records, computers, cassette tapes, and wasps, if my recent contributions on flickr are anything to go by. For several years, I’ve been able to make use of most of these things (barring the wasps), however, I’ve not been able to play cassette tapes. There are years worth of memories buried in these tightly wound reels of magnetised plastic, but seeing as I’ve had no way to access them, they’ve been kicking around in random boxes, gathering dust, losing their oxide, and sadly getting damaged.

Well, that day was today! I now have it sat next to me, and I’m playing some of those old forgotten memories. Currently, I’m listening to “Everything I Do” by Bryan Adams, as recorded off “Radio Cracker” – a temporary radio station set up in Hartlepool for the Xmas season of 1991. It was the first and only Hartlepool based radio station for 12 years, before “Pool FM” got their temporary broadcasting license.

I still have the tape recorder, and yes, I’m listening to a tape while I’m typing this. Right now. Currently playing is a “The Sound of Silcence” I must have recorded off the radio in something like 1995… Home taping is killing music? Remember that? If I didn’t have these badly recorded radio versions, I’d have forgotten about the songs I taped, then would have never bought them on CD. Tee hee! Anyway, that’s a rant for another day!

As I type, I’m “getting my shit together” and “about to bust all sorts of moves”, after under 2 hours sleep, as I head off to the CockDockfest. Be aware, however, that I shall also be twittering from there. Whatever that means. So feel free to follow me, and I might follow you in return. Maybe. Possibly.

In other news, I received a few records today, including Dog Kolsrud’s version of “Jingle Bells”. No, really. It appears to have been released (or at least given its catalogue number) during his stint with One 2 Many, as its catalogue number is AMY 489, whereas the three One 2 Many singles have catalogue numbers of AMY 476, AMY 490 and AMY 518.

More on that when I actually get round to playing it.