Pig Sty Avenue

Garry and Molly I , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . Herself's brother gave her a wee webcam, and we used it whilst I was in Libya and we'd have Yahoo chat's most nights: it was a bit like being at home, seeing her there, our sitting room in the background. Anyhow, after I got home we weren't using the webcam. Then she remembered that it takes still photos too, and bingo! A new craze: low resolution photography. Watch this space!

On Sunday I went to church. Yes, you read that correctly. I went to church to see the priest about getting Molly baptised. Herself had rang to find out the procedure, and he said, rather pointedly, that he’d see us after mass. Hmm. We had thought to go all three of us, but the rain was torrential so I shouldered the parental responsibility and toddled up to the local church, that of St Joseph the Worker, on my little ownsome. I’ve not been to mass for … well, decades - but for the occasional Christmas, wedding or funeral. It was slightly more informal than it used to be, with altar girls, and children generally being involved. I noticed one woman, thirtyish, with her jeans’ waistband half way down her arse and a fluorescent turquoise thong on view, which is the fashion no doubt, but wouldn’t lead to pious thoughts if you were in the pew behind her during the prayers. I didn’t even attempt to join in with the hymns. In Jarrow a combination of Irish immigration, intermarriage ...

This is the John Marley building, where I work a couple of days a week. It's in Benwell, Newcastle, and I believe it was once a school. I wonder how many of its pupils appreciated the wonderful architecture? Not many of the vicious little bastards, I bet. I wrote a post at work - in this very building, but the computer system there has crashed. I'll blog it in a day or two. Meanwhile, I'll post some pictures.

Jarrow Jesus , originally uploaded by vee8 .

Do you have permission to take photographs? , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . The weather was changeable so we went to the pedestrian tunnel. Brenda (left foreground) had bought two remote controlled flying saucers, and we were having a gas photographing them in the eerie surrounds of the tunnel. Then this arsehole turned up and asked the above question - Brenda's on the phone trying to get permission. We couldn't take him seriously because he wouldn't give us his name or show any ID - really he was just a miserable bastard freaked out by people doing something a wee bit unexpected. Twat. He went away and told us to vacate the tunne, via the PA system . Sad man. I don't know why I adjusted the colour of this photo so bizarrely. That's Sam to the right, and Oliver's behind Brenda - not hiding or anything.

We had great fun. Pics to follow.

To the optician this morning, not before time. The clearest indication you're getting older, once you're past 40, is the deterioration in the old peepers. Hmm. I chose those glasses which have little holes at the end of the legs so you can put a string in them, and hang them around your neck [sighs]. I pick them up on Saturday morning. Saturday is also the day of the Jarrow and Hebburn Flickrmeet, at the Ben Lomond, 1.00pm. Thank God for Molly to keep us young. And the allotment. I had a pint with the old man today and laid some plans for the spring. And tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll move some more stuff from my old allotment. Weather permitting! Snow's forecast. Meanwhile, here's a link to a video of a fat bloke dancing with a tiny baby! It's silent, but I can tell you, they're dancing to Watch That Man , by David Bowie. Tell you what, I'll put that track on the podcast, when I get around to doing it.

mydailycommute , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . That was on the way to work yesterday. Mostly, the metro is very good. But once in a way, it isn't. Yesterday was one of those days.

This is a picture of Fellgate Metro station I took this morning. Today was foggy for the first time this autumn - if it is still autumn, it feels like winter now. A strange thing: it was foggy in Jarrow, and in Benwell (in the west of Newcastle) where I was working today, but not in the City Centre, which I had to travel through. Weather's great though, especially when you're fairly new to a job and need a topic for conversation. It's the consensus that we're in for a very severe winter . People seem delighted at the prospect. Herself had a slight calamity when the breast pump broke this afternoon (thus the heading), so I went to Boots on the way home and got a replacement; ( Avent this time). The bottle feeding has been going very well, but it's been a bit fraught the last few days: perhaps we were using the wrong sort of teat, and I blame that little bastard, Tippee. It took Molly nearly half an hour to settle for me tonight, (whilst Herself was a having a...

I've taken the Flickrbadge from the sidebar there. Flickr, and particularly the DMU group have become rather addicitive. Perhaps it's the need for peer group approval, a transference from the days when I used to spend evenings (and many's the afternoon, actually) in the pub. It's all harmless fun, of course, but mostly futile. I have learned a lot about taking photos, but need to spend some time putting it into practice. Also a podcast. This audacity software looks rather daunting, so it'll take me a bit of time to get the hang of it, no doubt. It'll be a right laugh. I'm going to put it together under the name of the Pig Sty Avenue Podcasting Corporation. Friday was given over to studying - well, not actually studying, more getting a programme of study together for the next couple of months, principally deciding what I'm going to do for the Methodology assignment, which is to be completed by late January. I need to get cracking with a lot of r...

Molly's First Bus Journey , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I know it's not a great photo per se, but it records Molly's first expedition on public transport. The three of us took the bus into Jarrow today and did a bit of shopping. She slept most of the time.

Hang on... I think I've lost a fiver , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue .

Here's another creation tonight: Chop up several rashers of bacon, fry for a few minutes in a wok. While that's doing take twenty or so brussel sprouts, remove the outer leaves and roughly chop. Stir fry the sprouts with the bacon for five minutes or so, and then add to a pyrex dish, cover with a few ounces of blue cheese, sprinkle on oregano, and bake in a preheated oven (gas mark two) for a few minutes (until the cheese begins to melt). Bingo! We had it with fried rice, but you could have it with spuds or chips or whatever. It would work well enough without the bacon for non-carnivores. Herself doesn't much like sprouts, but she loved this. All three of us have been under-the-weather the last twenty four hours: we were worried it might be 'flu, but it's passed now. Strange.

...here's a less spooky version: I've been playing around with photoshop: there's an awful lot to learn there. I did have a purist view about photos, reinforced by some of the overprocessed shite one sees on Flickr. But now I think post-processing's fine if it's well-enough done. It's not easy though. I realised yesterday that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about creation: how to make interesting 48 second, silent videos of Molly or of Jarrow or Hebburn. Or looking around me to see what would make a good photo, always thinking of the light, of a composition, looking for incongruity and colours and patterns. It's not that I'm suddenly an Artist or anything, it's just that creativity has begun to feature in my life. And that's because of the internet and digital technology. Presumably, many people around the world are undergoing similar processes, looking at the world in aesthetic terms. Surely, that's A Good Thing?

spooky eye molly , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . Crazy, eh? Like something from a horror film or agitprop against nuclear weapons... That's our Molly. A supermodel, a star, a trouper. She's away tonight into the big cot - out of the moses basket. AND it's the first time she's gone to bed before us... She's through in the bedroom now, sleeping, and we're in the sitting room, and it feels a bit odd. The health visitor paid her last scheduled visit for a while today, and Molly weighed in at 8lb 8oz! That's two pounds she's put on in five and a half weeks. Not bad, eh? Mind you, she's breastfeeding 18 hours a day. And the last three nights I've given her expressed milk from a bottle. Each night it's gotten easier, and tonight was a breeze - as if she's got the idea now, that getting fed by her Dad is a different though comparable experience. PS Herself's going apeshit about this photo. That's a mother for yo...

Here's a link to the video . Notice how neither the star nor the director know quite what they're doing for the first twenty seconds, and then it all gets going.

"Maybe I should get a domain and just pay for a few hundred MBs of space..?" I was thinking on the Metro this morning. But Sam and The Apologist have stopped any such tomfoolery with their helpful suggestions, the one for videos and the other regarding podcasts. Thanks lads. I've already opened an account with youtube , and, inshallah, I'll upload 48 seconds of Molly's antics later. Feedburner isn't podcast hosting as such, but it puts you well on the road, and in particular gives a link to a free download of audacity , which looks like a programme on which you can put together all the necessary audio for a podcast - which will be splendid if it does what it says on the tin.

I listened to a podcast yesterday, [no link, no pack-drill], and it was fucking dreadful. And it made me think: I could do tons better than that. It'd be a right laugh, like Desert Island Discs without that Sue fucking Lawley. So I've downloaded some free software (link if it works) and I'll get a wee mic tomorrow and I'll draw up a play list and do the fucking podcast. This afternoon I made a video of Molly with my compact digital. It's nice. I've spent a couple of hours now trying to find a way of hosting it, and even set up a free website here , only to ascertain that the free account doesn't support MOV files (or MP3s for when I get the podcast together). If anyone knows of a free way to do that, let me know please. (I wasted a lot of time with Putfile and Streamload, too).

That was a troublesome night, last night: Molls was up, more or less, from about 2am. She woke up properly at 9am, and has been feeding on and off ever since. She doesn't nap much during the day. I managed to keep her mind off feeding for half an hour just now so that Herself could have a bath. Hmm. But the thing is, if you make up your mind that there's nothing to be done about it, that you can't really go out for a newspaper, or get a bath, or have a meal when you want, that every minute is wrapped around this wee person's needs, then: it's cool. Everything swings around Molly, and if we get a few minutes at something else, well, that's a bonus. It's more fun when the sun doesn't shine outside, being cabined-up like this. Cosy. Mind you, there's still an external life. I'm going to have to join a local University library to do some studying, because our flat's too small for a baby AND an MA. Next week, that'll be. It'll f...

18th century molly detail , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . She has a look here, doesn't she? It reminds me of a detail from a Dutch master... or something.

Alexander and Molly , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue .

That wine I started a while back has turned to vinegar. Well, that answered questions I was asking myself back then, viz., 'Do we get vinegar flies around here?' And, 'Are all these little flies vinegar flies?' The fuckers. I thought I was being a clever recycler, not buying proper air-locks and using the old plastic-and-lacky-band method. Ah well, another step up another learning curve. Anybody need three gallons of white wine vinegar and two gallons of the impossibly exotic strawberry wine vinegar? It's been a 'business day', dealing with officials and filling out forms. Don't get me started! Alex came over tonight. He gave me the Aphonic CD (he's been in touch with them and they sent him several copies). I thoroughly approve of this new trend of bands getting their work known over the internet, by-passing (initially at least) the poisonous attentions of the music industry. Come to think of it, some of the people in that business are rat...

My metro to work this morning stopped just outside Pelaw, and slunk around between there and Heworth for nearly forty minutes. There was an announcement that a train was in Gateshead station waiting for an ambulance, so some poor sod must have been taken ill. I mean, nobody wants to get ill, anytime, anywhere, but on a rush hour metro, oh my God! At lunchtime, went to meet Superchou , who was en-route from Edinburgh to her granny in France. There'd been a bit of a mix up with the times, so it was all a bit breathless. It's cool when your virtual life overlaps however briefly with your real one. Come to think of it, unless virtual friendships can become real ones, this is all somewhat pointless. I also met Sam and Adam for the first time; as they are local, of course, I'll see them again. All of this socialising is due to the tirelessness of Brendadada .

First Smile for the Camera , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . Gorgeous, isn't she?

amongst leeks , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . she's_a_sprite was flummoxed by the concept of leeks. Do they call them something else in America?

A Proper Camera , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . What larks, eh?

I couldn’t really afford any of the cameras and lenses that were going the other day , even though they were real bargains. And then I remembered, the Old Man had an old camera. I rang him up this morning, and he brought it over: a Chinon CS . Not the most famous camera, perhaps, but Chinon has a (very small) Flickr group . So this is the plan: get a tripod and some black & white film and have a go at real photography. Whatever that is. I’ve learned a lot using a compact digital, but this will teach me f-stops and film speeds and DoF and all that malarkey. An irony that occurs is that a big old camera could be more acceptable, in some situations, than a compact. I mean, you look the part, and people might relax a bit more: you’re not just some auld gadgie with a digital camera and a possibly reprehensible intent.

Hedworth Bonfire III , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . There was an impromptu bonfire and fireworks party across the road by the railway embankment last night.

Yesterday was productive, the Old Man and Alex helped me dig all the tatties up from my old allotment. Three different varieties safely in the shed now, should see us through most of the winter. And Dad had planted a load of pot leeks there whilst I was in Libya, and they want using up in the next few weeks, so I need to think on leek dishes. Speaking of which, here's a little something I invented last night: 3-4 medium sized poatoes 1 small/medium leek 3 rosemary twigs 4 oz grated cheddar cheese 4 fl oz single cream Finely chop the leek and strip and finely chop the rosemary. Sweat with butter for about ten minutes. Scrub and thickly slice the potatoes, and boil them for five minutes. Put the spuds onto a roasting dish, the leeks and rosemary on top, and cook in a preheated oven at gas mark 5 for a about 20 mins. Then stir in first the cheese and then the cream and return to the oven for about seven minutes. Serve. Goes well with fish. Lovely.

My hard disk's gone apeshit, so I'm on Herself's laptop [ooh-er!], and I've a mountain of studying, and of course there's Molly... so no nonsense for a day or two.

Apparently, when confronted by lady mice's smells, gentlemen mice sing. Here's an mp3 of them doing so . And the story's in the Guardian, here .