Reblogged from Bente Haarstad Photography:

I live in the countryside quite close to the woods, but I have not gone skiing yet this year, before today. Because it has been too cold, because the day are too short, or other excuses. But skiing is a norwegian tradition on sundays, so today me and the dog went for å short trip to the forest. It is only five minutes away, and now the sun sets around three, so there was still some day left. And yes, it was a bit cold. Cross-country skiing will be nicer in February, and especially in March. We did not go …

This reblog is especially for Enkunalma: some Scandinavian snow and an Irish Setter

Taken in Maldon, Essex by Lockhart Murdoch of David White (photographer of the pram sheds shot yesterday) and a man of many talents; to be found at the Beecholme blog.

Stamford Hill is a Hasidic Jewish stronghold and some of the council housing there has the luxury of a pram shed to go with the tenancy of a flat. Of course, from time to time, someone has to come along and give these outbuildings a lick of paint.

My mind travels back to the days when mothers pushed proper shiny prams (uncollapsible in every way) and lived above ground level, without lifts. Straightaway you see why you’d need, not a garage, but a pram shed.

I am reminded of pushing my own sister round the block in one, a second-hand cream contraption, with instructions to keep going round and around until she stopped screaming, sometimes with Toby the dog for company. She was a colicky baby, perhaps. Just as well we didn’t have pram sheds in Lincolnshire, if we had it would have certainly crossed my mind to park them both in it. And close the door quietly before tiptoeing down the dyke to watch a fenland sunset…

There’s an excellent insight to life on a Hackney estate from an aesthete’s point of view at this blog.

but the older I get the more I see the possibilities contained within the mistaken, the broken, the misshapen and the downright ugly

maybe because I have to

nonetheless, in the mess and the lack of punctuation, under the dust and dog hair, in the grit and the mud and the blush and the sweat of it and the tumbling incoherent words of everything

and all of it

so, (and) you should never start a sentence with that word, don’t you know?

so, today I may have taught a class with all of the above. And ketchup round my mouth.

and teeth on loan like overdue library books

Breathtaking Landscapes from Old Books by Guy Laramee

I cannot help but wonder what I could have got with
i) a better camera
ii) dry feet
iii) no moaning children

There was a man shooting with all the above on Pier Hill and no moaning kids; I will have to check out the Southend Flickr group later.

Note the city of Oz on the horizon. I would move there, but I know all about wizards and flying monkeys.

A London walk is planned in March.

The film starts, serendipitously, in Hackney.

Anyway, this song has been a friend to me for as long as I can remember, at least a quarter of a century. That explains why I think of James Taylor as this beautiful young dude with long hair but now the reality is this much older face. When he sings this song the music transfigures him, it reminds me, and it moves me.

Like, I said, it’s always raining in the morning round here.

You have until Friday 27th January at 11.00 a.m. to submit your question using the #askgove hashtag

Graham Stuart MP, who chairs the committee said

“This is a good way of breaking down the seemingly vast gap between the governed and the governing. We are always looking at ways of reaching out and making sure people can use our services to help us hold the government to account.” More on the story here

I’ll start the ball rolling

Why does the Minister feel it necessary to impose his own personal curriculum likes on the children of the 21st century? #askgove

How will the Minister rebalance the curriculum to ensure that the value of education lies in the process and not in the production of league tables? #askgove

Does the Minister feel it would a good idea for him to shadow some teachers to get a real feel for the scale of the task the profession faces in today’s test-mad culture #askgove

I could go on…

The Northern Lights, Cresswell Beach, Northumberland by Lee Jennings

When I run out, I will have to think up my own.

Schrödinger’s cat explores the interpretation of quantum mechanics through the possibilities for the fate of the cat in the box, before the box is opened and observed.

It’s a good mental warm-up on a Sunday for the woman thinking of cooking an unobserved roast dinner.