Sunday's spotlight - A bargain is a bargain is a bargain (ad infinitum).....

By guest blogger Pete

For my wife and I it was back to England for Easter. Unfortunately, rather like Christmas, the religious connection with the festival is becoming lost in this country and we are making Easter into a celebration of the Blessed Chocolate. Even those who spend the greater part of the year avoiding any contact with this delectable yet fattening confectionery regard Easter as a compulsory time to indulge in the odd Easter egg or ten !..


The Monday after Easter is a bank holiday here. However, the Monday after Easter this year will not be eulogised and fondly remembered for luxurious balmy weather but with thankfulness for the fact that it was at least dry. This caused those unnumbered hordes of seaside worshippers to head for the coast; there to shiver in near freezing but dry weather conditions and congratulate each other because they are breathing in healthy, good, fresh, exhilarating and full of ozone fresh air which will keep them going until the first Monday in May, when they can experience it all again. After the congratulations and a quick walk along the sea front it's queuing for three quarters of an hour for a cup of luke warm tea in a damp overcrowded cafe. Oh, that's the life! Lincoln lies midway between the East Midlands and the Mecca of the East Midlands, Skegness. Therefore, only the hardiest or most foolish of Lincoln citizens venture beyond the local bypass on Bank holidays.

True to custom we paid the first visit of the year to a local car boot sale. This is another weekend phenomenon that has taken root in this country. Folk fill up their car boots (or "trunks", if you prefer) with all sorts of rubbish and then head for the local Car Boot Festival. Here they sell their rubbish and then promptly go out and buy another boot full of other peoples' rubbish, which they can then sell next weekend at the next Car Boot Sale.

Car Boot Sales, however, are a good source of cheap 2nd hand books, DVDs, CDs, Computer games and Videos. I got a bargain when I bought a brand new filing system, that I didn't need, for £1. Quite made my day. I'll keep it for a year and then pass it on to a charity shop, where a car booter will buy it to sell for £1 at the next Car Boot Sale he/she goes to. But, then, a bargain is a bargain is a bargain is a bargain....................

Spring has sprung and the garden begins to call. Already I've woken mine up from its winter slumbers and new life (amongst the weeds) is beginning to be seen. I've no photos of car boots or car trunks so I'll include a couple of floral photos for this blog.

Good bargain hunting where ever you are or where ever you go.

Sunday's spotlight - Kaleidoscopes

By guest blogger Pete

I can never understand why the majority of people in the world drive on the WRONG side of the road! What's wrong with them? Surely they realise that the English way of driving is the best? Now, I'm a wrinkly - a BALD wrinkly too - and although I've driven in the States - I would guess, in all, about 35 miles - it is not my favourite occupation.

When Ruth and John lived on Sanibel Island my wife and I took up cycling. I won't say which one of us fell off because that wouldn't be fair to her. We regularly used to pass one of those road signs that told you how fast you are going and, being delinquent daredevils, we used to speed up and flash by the sign at something approaching 10 mph. No speed cop ever caught us!

It was whilst on Sanibel that Ruth and John arranged for me to meet a character called Dick Shepherd. He had a photography business somewhere in that vast hot expanse that goes under the name of Fort Myers. Now the 35 miles I've driven in the States didn't include Sanibel to Fort Myers. Ruth took me on this occasion and arranged to meet me at a coffee shop called Borders; I think they sold books as well as coffee! However, this meeting place involved crossing a multi-lane highway - at the time it seemed as though there were 50 lanes at the particular spot I decided to cross on. I waited for the traffic lights to favour pedestrians and set off at a good sprint for a 60 something year old. I must have been about 2/3rds of the way across when the lights decided to favour the movement of vast amounts of traffic. That was an experience that did wonders for my prayer life. It is, also, the only time I've argued with a 50 ton truck!

Dick was very much into photographic kaleidoscopes and much of his keeness rubbed off onto me. Kaleidoscopes feed my love of detail. When I got back to that special land favoured by all people with good taste I tried it out for myself using as much of Dick's basic method as I could remember. They were a bit too basic but over time I developed my own method that gave me more detailed kaleidoscopes.

From this:

to this:
The main weakness with my method was that everything had to be done "by hand". Recently Ruth introduced me to a programme (sorry "program") known as "Kaleidoscope Kreator".

It took this photo from this:


To this:
Now this programme offers speed and detail with some amazing results. If you're into digital photography then why not try it out.

(Editor's note: I actually won my copy of the program from the Metal Clay Store - and it can be used to create photopolymer plates for metal clay - but only on a PC, not mac!).