Stormlizard's favorite articles

Thursday was the last day of term for my son at university, and thankfully, he finished early. Usually, he’d finish at 6pm, and what started as a 15-minute journey to collect him has recently turned into a 30-minute journey through horrendous traffic. I can only assume it’s due to the looming holidays and late shoppers. I was sat in the car waiting for him, when I espied him talking to a friend who then proceeded to try and give him a hug. My son tried to avoid the hug, not sure why, but capitul…

I think I mentioned that I'm making presents for my neighbours, I've already got them chocolates, wine, scarves etc, have finished the necklaces, but now I'm making the girls tote bags!!! I've never made these bags before - and I'm relying on tutorials on YouTube to get them right. I've finished one....... I've still got to put the magnetic clasps on it, but it's come out better than I'd hoped. I think I went a bit wrong on making the bottom flat - but I'll get better at it I hope. Now a…

…On a wet and windy Sunday morning. Now and again, I open YouTube and just see what’s available. I’ve been listening to Gerry Rafferty – Get it right next time, it really speaks to me – when I noticed an ‘ad’ for Enigma. Man, that took me back, and I spent half hour or so listening to various Enigma tracks before bed. It left me feeling very mellow, and Saturday night, in spite of the rain lashing against the windows, I slept well. Although I like Enigma, and more contemporary music too, my favo…

I have removed 8000 photos from Ipernity and I have 4,700 full size photographs still to remove. I have found a way to save photos in Photoshop at 25% of the normal size so that is going to be my normal post size once I have my full size photographs saved to my external hard drives. I hope the downloading process will not take too long now.

[EN] Dear members and friends of ipernity! 1. Tomorrow the meteorological winter begins. Therefore we have switched the ipernity front page to "winter operation". Once again, we would like to thank the photographers who contributed with their pictures to create a versatile collection. 2. In order to disturb the ongoing operation as little as possible, the cleaning of the database was switched to individual account processing. To be on the safe side, each individual account history is…

Wow is it Monday again? This past week has flown by. Despite my cold finally coming up for air, and an upset stomach to boot, I’ve had some good rest this week and even slept in 3 mornings. By sleeping in, I mean I’ve slept past my usual 5 or 6am wake up. Despite being windy and wet here, the temperatures have been quite mild. The Ship has been tossed about a little, in the high winds, though swinging gently in my hammock has been restful. One night, I slept for almost 9 hours. My leg was hurtin…

Hello my Friends, If you don't see as much of me lately, it's because I am busy with my job during the holiday season. I have increased hours with the accompanying increased stress and fatigue, so it has been very difficult to take photos on a regular basis or even to stop by and comment on your photos as much as I wish. I want to thank all of you who visit my page regularly, and I hope to visit you more frequently after my schedule returns to normal. In the meantime I will visit you as often…

Well this afternoon I was sitting on my couch, doing some more sewing when a movement outside caught my eye. I realised that a squirrel was out in my garden - now this is quite a rare treat so I watched it for all of 20 seconds when it shot off into the undergrowth!! Oh well, at least it was a little surprise and a very pleasant one at that. I had no idea that a squirrel was around these parts. Pippin came over onto my table to get some strokes, when he suddenly stiffened and stared out the w…

Now that my new GP surgery has my medical records, finally, I decided to bite the bullet and ask for a referral to Neurology. I saw my GP Monday, described my symptoms, the fact that I’d seen a neurologist, however briefly, in Wales and that far from getting better, my symptoms have recently worsened. Last week I stumbled up the stairs, twice, and recently banged my head on the sizeable fridge door handle after misjudging where it was – I’d dropped something, picked it up, and brought tears to m…

[EN] Dear members and friends of ipernity! 1) After having weighed all requests for changes made by the Community with regard to the new ipernity tariff structure, today we present you a revised proposal. It is intended to make this structure official by November 30, 2018, after a final fine-tuning, if necessary, so that Flickr and Google+ users who are willing to move will be able to find out what to expect from ipernity. 2) We aim to implement the new tariff structure…

Dear members and friends of ipernity! 1) After having weighed all requests for changes made by the Community with regard to the new ipernity tariff structure, today we present you a revised proposal. It is intended to make this structure official by November 30, 2018, after a final fine-tuning, if necessary, so that Flickr and Google+ users who are willing to move will be able to find out what to expect from ipernity. [Chart - which can be found here :- https://www.ipernity.com/blog/…

My kid sister is a hoarder. I’m talking big time here. Furniture, books, material, statues – what’s that about? Seriously, she could open a mausoleum with the creepy-arse statues she has in her home. I love her to bits, like her too, but her house never feels comfortable to me due to so much stuff in it. What got me thinking about this? I had to renew the house insurance ready for next month, and although I have some nice furniture here, nothing I own is of significant value. Whilst I like my…

[EN] Dear members and friends of ipernity! 1 ) During the last two weeks Ipernity's performance was unfortunately not always as good as it should have been. The reasons were explained in the comments to the last Newsflash. In the meantime, various technical and organizational measures have been taken to recover the usual performance. 2.1 ) There are always requests about the warnings of modern browsers that ipernity is not safe. We would therefore like to point out again that ipern…

Since moving to the Midlands, England, some months ago, I’ve been called some names. They range from chick, hen, chook, duck, and darl which I assume is short for darling. They’re obsessed with fowl! Lol. Mind you, I feel it’s preferable to what they call people in South Wales which is: my love. I’m not sure if that’s a Valleys thing or that general area of Wales. I think I prefer the fowl, and yes, the title was a play on words. After our Chinese food attempts, we’d cut back on the meat for…

The [FR] & [DE] versions are here www.ipernity.com/blog/team/4713290 [EN] Dear members and friends of ipernity! 1) During the last two weeks Ipernity's performance was unfortunately not always as good as it should have been. The reasons were explained in the comments to the last Newsflash. In the meantime, various technical and organizational measures have been taken to recover the usual performance. 2.1) There are always requests about the warnings of modern browsers that ipernit…

Over the weekend I phoned my kid sister; we both have ‘free’ calls on the weekend if we natter for under an hour. Is it Saturday already she asked? No, I truthfully replied; it’s Sunday. It was her turn to call, and somehow, she’d lost a day. She’s not working, medically retired, however her partner works so he must know what day it is. How can one lose a day? A whole day? It got me thinking about time. When we natter, I have to keep an eye on the time because if we go over the hour, we get char…

This thank you has been a long time coming, but it comes straight from my heart. As most of you know I had a huge Brain Bleed/Stroke on Friday the 7th of September this year. On that evening my world changed beyond description. I was one of the lucky ones as Jay, my husband, came into my work room and knew the signs of a stroke. (I will come back to this later.) He called 911 and an ambulance came fast. It's a ride I do not remember! But it would be another 5 weeks before I came…

Where Mandi lives in Turkey, is full of tourists in the summer, but then it's just the villagers at the rest of the time. Mandi and Dogan are well known for being cat friendly in the village, so someone decided to leave a tiny kitten for them!!!! It's little mews alerted Mandi and she had to look for him - eventually finding him all alone in the long grass. In case the mama cat was around, Mandi left him for a while but after 3 hours and no-one had come for him and he was getting weaker - Mandi…

As regular readers will know, I like food, like to eat out on occasion, and am invariably disappointed. To this end, the Deckhand and I decided to make our own Chinese meal on Saturday. He prepared a simple marinade for ribs, I coated them, then left them to marinade for hours. After lunch, I made a marinade for the tangerine beef, and the sauce, and asked him to make the marinade for sesame chicken. We had the laptop open in the galley, and 2 word documents where I’d copied the recipes from the…

This year after a wet, tropical-like hot summer followed by Indian Summer in much of September, the spring before Halloween was present for all who sought it in the New York City metro area despite brilliant reds, oranges and yellows that drew attention and thick canopies of leaves that concealed the off-season blooms. It is as if the Jack O’ Lanterns played a seasonal trick with spring flora and gave us an April-like treat this October. In the late 19th century, poet Mary Clemmer wrote, “Th…