New horse and new horsebox

A sub-title might be A Tale of Two Tias, but that somehow did not look right.

A few weeks ago, I bought a brand new shiny Ifor Williams HB506 horsebox. (Or horse box. Or horse trailer. Whichever you prefer).



It did seem a bit extravagant, but they hold their value remarkably well and for a whole variety of reasons I prefer to own than to hire. More pictures are here.

Although Claire has had a horse on loan for some time, she has now, at last, bought her own. She is called Tia and is very beautiful:



More pictures of Tia, taken when she was being "vetted" by the vet prior to purchase, are here; and pictures of her arriving and first ride in her new home are here.

This means we now have two Tias, Tia the horse and Tia the cat:



For completeness, more Tia the cat pictures are here.

A cold - and a cat

I am in the rather unusual position of being a bit ill. Only a cold, but probably the first since I stopped working and that is not far off five years ago.

The sore throat has gone and now it's just the sinuses, ears and general congestion and overwhelming lethargy which have driven me reluctantly to bed, where I have the lovely Tia for company.

This really a test of blogging by email with a picture of Tia on the bed.

--
Bob Cox. Stoke Gifford, near Bristol, UK.
http://bobcox.com/
Sent from my BlackBerry

London for the day: testing BlackBerry camera phone

Yesterday was spent enjoying a day out in London, where I met up with a friend of some 30+ years standing, the whole thing made almost affordable thanks to super-duper-advance train ticket discounting. It was also a good excuse to spend some time with my new BlackBerry Bold 9700: playing with its GPS and annoying various friends and family members as the journey unfolded by emailing them screenshots of my progress from the BB Google Maps application.

Trying out the BlackBerry's camera:

Here is a view from the steps outside the National Gallery. Somehow, camera phones never seem to get views and landscapes quite right and this is no exception:



On the other hand, more close-up images seem to be quite good, even when taken under fluorescent lighting. This is some tiling detail seen in Bakerloo Underground Station:



and more of the same:



The BlackBerry is an impressive smartphone. It is seriously superb for email and is blessed with a real qwerty keyboard. The camera is adequate, but not wonderful, as seen above. (However, this is not supposed to be an equipment review, but just a few snaps taken in London!)

Ratcliffe Drive resurfacing update

As mentioned in my previous blog, at least part of Ratcliffe Drive is enjoying some long overdue resurfacing.

A case of out with the old:



and, on a crisp, frosty first day of February, in with the new:

Resurfacing of Ratcliffe Drive starts tomorrow

After years of making do by filling in the worst of the potholes, Ratcliffe Drive in Stoke Gifford is due to be properly resurfaced, starting tomorrow.



As if to prove that the council really means business, this large and impressive road planing machine arrived in the early hours of this morning:



Quite a beast.



The next few days should be entertaining - and noisy, no doubt.

Snowy start to 2010

Writing about snow is hardly an original theme, with practically all of the UK blanketed in the stuff. No doubt there is more to come as well. So before it does, here are a few pictures and scribblings for the first week of the new year.

On January 3rd we spent a few very pleasant hours walking on the Malvern Hills. As for snow, there was just a dusting on the highest ground. Claire and Katrina on Midsummer Hill at the southern end of the Malverns:



Claire has several more pictures of this walk on her own website.

Much closer to home, on the afternoon of January 5th, we visited Claire's loan horse Harry, who is kept in a field near Hanham. There was a bit of a snow flurry at the time which it turns out was a taste of things to come:



Back in Stoke Gifford, as in much of the country, we awoke to quite a covering of snow on the morning of the 6th. At 7.30am it was still snowing and this photo was taken from the shelter of the porch of our front door and illuminated mostly by the streetlamp:



Later on in the day, out on an errand in the Land Rover, I took these near Old Sodbury. The minor lanes were quite snowy and there was a bit of drifting as snow was blown off the fields, but nothing especially serious; just very pretty:





On the following day I visited Harry again, who was looking very well, with some proper snow on the field and in lovely winter sunshine:

Fieldfares in our garden in Stoke Gifford

As far as I know, this is the first time we have had Fieldfares in our Stoke Gifford garden. Or maybe it is the first time I have noticed them. Their visit was extremely brief, so they could easily have been missed.



There were between eight and twelve birds, in and around a large cotoneaster bush. Clearly, they were feeding on the remaining berries and such was their enthusiasm that many berries were falling onto the snow covered ground and also onto a frozen bird bath.



They did not stay long. They had all departed within five minutes of taking these pictures.



The photos were taken hand held, from inside the house and, unfortunately, through a not-very-clean, old, double-glazed window, so inevitably the quality is poor.



According to the RSPB Fieldfare page, Fieldfares "may come into gardens in severe winters when snow covers the countryside."

As the countryside is well and truly covered with snow, then the unexpected but delightful visit this afternoon is rather neatly explained.