The Master Barber's Shop

In October I visited Southport - a seaside town north of Liverpool. It is a town which I knew well as a young man. Like so many places the main shopping street is a shadow of its former glorious self. However there is still one splendid emporium: a 'proper' barbers. For those of us in the Apostrophe Club it should be noted that the shop is called The Master Barber's Shop.

Seven Dwarfs - Revised

In response to the fact that so many of you spotted the duplication of one of the dwarfs, Adrian has 'found' the seventh dwarf whom he managed to 'lose' and here are the seven dwarfs resurrected. 

Seven Dwarfs

I expect that almost all my readers will know that the Seven Dwarfs in the Disney version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were named Happy, Doc, Grumpy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey. 

However in 1916, Snow White was produced for the first time in film by Paramount Pictures, adapted from the 1912 Broadway version. This was during the silent film era and at this time the  Seven Dwarfs were named for the first time Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick and Quee.

Tolkein also was very keen on dwarfs and it was he who coined the plural of dwarf as Dwarves.  We know the names of the lines of Dwarves of the 7 founded, these are: Longbeards, Broadbeams, Firebeards, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Blacklocks and Stonefoots. However we only know the name of the father of the first line (Longbeards) which was Durin. 

All that was simply to introduce you to a composite of seven of the pictures I took of Joshua. Adrian, that wizard of photo manipulation, produced the following:

Art v Reality?

When my visitors mentioned in the last post were here I, of course, took lots of photos. I have only used a few but it was quite interesting to see several which formed part of a long sequence of Joshua running along a ridge above me at Garry Sands. Straight out of the camera they looked like the first two with dark foregrounds and were, I though, quite 'arty' and I liked them. However with a little tweak, they became visual records of a moment in time and little more.

What thinkest thou?

 

Visitors

After my October visit to my brother and sister-in-law (blog posts still to come) my God-daughter, partner and their 4-year old came up to see me from the other side of darkest Manchester. I apologise for mentioning the name of That Place which is at the other end of the Lancashire Road to the fair city of my birth.

It really was great to see them even though, for various reasons including the English schools half-term only being a week long, their visit was short.

They were fortunate with the ferries and young Joshua even enjoyed the ferry journeys. 

The weather wasn't too bad either (for Lewis) and we got to see beaches and the Arnol Blackhouse and the Garenin Blackhouse village. Everyone was disappointed, though, to find that we couldn't go inside the blackhouses at either place because they were closed. 

However the beaches and the Callanish Standing Stones were open! So was the Callanish Visitor Centre where we had a very enjoyable lunch.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visit and so, I think did my visitors. 

Haste ye back!

At Garry Sands - Traigh Ghearradha - Stacs and pools (full of little fish)

Sand is interesting

Chasing a ball is even more interesting

Traigh Mhor

Over The Rainbow

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Twenty Years On

On 3 November 1998 an event of great significance to me (if not in the greater scheme of things) occurred: I was operated upon for prostate cancer and had my prostate removed. At that time it was an operation involving major surgery and a long stay in hospital. Now it is possible to have it removed by keyhole surgery.

It happened as a result of my GP asking a consultant urologist to examine me and perform a biopsy despite the fact that I had no evidence of prostate problems never mind prostate cancer. Indeed to all intents and purposes I was as fit as a fiddle and felt great. The only problem was that I knew that I had cancer. I just had no idea what sort or where in my body it was. 

The rest of the story is history and I have been treated ever since as a result of the cancer cells that had already escaped into my body before the operation.

Those decisions by the medical profession as well as their skills have given me 20 wonderful years. For the most part they have been amongst the best years of my life and include a decade of a whole different life in New Zealand.

So today I shall raise a glass and toast the dozens of people in the medical profession, together with many other people, who have been instrumental in not only keeping me alive all these years but also enabling me to have a great quality of life.

Thank you one and all.