January. What’s it good for?
I’ll be the first to admit that I really dislike January. It’s like the Monday of the entire year. Dull, dreary, full of pessimistic woe and you just can’t wait for it to be over.
Well, we’re only 23 days into the new year and we’ve already had enough drama for one year thank you very much.
Obviously you’ll know about Alex’s accident with his hand, well there’s been something else now and once everything is sorted, I’ll probably tell you all about it… and yes, I’ll name names and detail the sheer ineptitude displayed as a result of it all. That’s if I think it’s worth it once I’ve calmed down.
Let’s move on to some lighter things for now.
First off, we had a visitor to the Towers. A “local” and commenter here on the blog – Ben. He popped round for an afternoon last week and we had a good old chat about stuff including making object d’art. I don’t think he’s been scarred for life with my wall of talk, so he got off quite lightly, it would seem. Anyway, it was a pleasure to have him here.
Recently Mana asked me to teach her how to draw a face, so I drew one with her copying what I did as I explained why I was doing what I was doing. This was the result…
Pretty good for a five year old’s first attempt, I’m sure you’ll agree. And she did ALL of this on her own.
Speaking of Mana. For a long time we’ve wondered if she may have some issues with her eyesight and recently the school performed an eye test and as a result, they recommended that we get a further test done at a local optician. Yes, they too agreed that she did need glasses.
Mana chose the frames herself. They’re Snow White frames… as you can clearly tell. Apparently.
Like the rest of the UK, we’ve had snow. And don’t I bloody well know it…
A bit of an arty shot with a shallow DOF, taken in our garden with the spangly new camera. Of course Mana and Alex had to sit in the snow and generally roll around in it and throw it at each other. *Tut* Kids.
Lord alone knows what Alex is up to here, but I think we can all guess what his sister is preparing to do. Splat!
We bought a sledge some years ago. Now we could actually use it! Okay, so we have used it before.
As usual, Daddy has to over egg the pudding and play up to the camera. Show off.
Strangely, after doing this type of thing for an afternoon, suddenly my age decided to creep up on me and delivered a lovely shooting pain, stemming from the base of my spine and travelling the full length of my left leg. Thanks for that.
Apparently I’m no spring chicken anymore. Why the very nerve of such a sentiment. I’m in my prime!
In other news…
A Terraleptil gets a bath. (This is an exercise is rescuing old latex.)
And an Etheric Beam Locator gets a refurb. More on this story later.
I’ve been tinkering with other TARDIS tools and such like recently too…
That’s pretty much it for now.
Bye!
It’s like the Terileptil is being reborn…or baptized.
I have to agree with you there – it does have that look to it.
When I have a bit of time to devote to it, I’m thinking about making an under-skull out of foam and gluing this to it to hold its shape. Then when I find some decent reference pictures, I may have a go at creating the frills around the face to finish it off.
Do you, or anyone else, know what colour their eyes were? For some reason, I have it in my head that they were chrome or silver. I bet I’m entirely wrong there!
I found a decent sized screenshot of the chief Terileptil with Peter Davison, and after some color correction, the eye looks like a metallic blue. It could be silver and just reflecting blue from the lights or something. But it looks metallic.
Oh right, that’s promising. Thanks for looking.
I’ll have to see if I own the DVD, if I do, I may actually have to watch it! I’m sure there’s shots of them out in the daylight.
Just to note, there is a green cast in the scenes in the chief Terileptil’s annex in the estate he took over.
I’ll keep my eye out for that then.
Just realised what I’m thinking about outdoor scenes, there’s some shots of the costume in the making of book that were taken outside.
Hrm, sounds like January has been a right trial. I hope all is well with little Alex! Mana’s glasses are adorable. She has good taste, and I’m sure she knows that. As for her drawing, she’s already drawing better than I can! Although, my stick figures are widely envied by toddlers all over the world. They are really something else…
I don’t like snow, and I’ve decided that recently. It freaks me out… it sounds like you are walking on broken glass. Not only that, but it is wet and cold and… well, that’s about it. I know it’s supposed to be beautiful and whatnot, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or whatever that nonsense is) and I find my tropical swamp filled with gators extremely preferable to a winter wonderland. But much respect for your sleigh pulling abilities… I’m sure my Dad would have risen to the challenge had we lived somewhere north. Actually, that’s a lie. He would have removed me from the sleigh and commandeered it to reenact the saucer scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Hopefully I got the title right and you can call that scene to mind. If not, youtube. You will not be disappointed.
You’re absolutely right, January has been a trial!
Thanks for your kind words, as usual. Always appreciated.
With regards to snow, I find it quite hypnotic when it falls, I do like the change in lighting that it creates when it’s laying and I do enjoy how it changes the look of the environment around us. What I don’t like is how it brings the idiots out of the woodwork, then changes to a horrible, brown slush once the weather warms slightly.
I haven’t seen Christmas Vacation in years, so I’ll be visiting YouTube shortly. Yeah, the shots of me crammed onto the sleigh with my knees pressed into my earholes were deliberately not shown. I know I look gawky, but I don’t have to advertise it… so much.
Oh yes, now I remember (thanks YouTube) – “Later dudes!”
My attempt wasn’t quite that great as my weight on a child’s sledge kind of ground me a bit…
i have to say i like “Seasons” ,proper ones ,living ooop north not so much well we have rain lots of it ,so logically cold means lots of snow right,wrong just wet grass barely enough for a footprint ,pathetic really,
my good lady who is from central Europe finds it laughable her drifts can go many feet up
I do love to sledge and Xmas Vacation is on every year at this time i love that film along with Trains Planes Automobiles ,ah proper weather
So sounds like you had a heck of a turnaround i agree wet dull no work or money January sucks