Whew..!! Off for quite a while now. Her eit is January, and I now know how it feels to take a load of time off for a rest from an injury. I was out of it for a time due to that hip injury, and now of course, it has become a load of work to get the bike out and go for a ride.
I did get out last weekend though, and did 14.7 miles gettign out to Malvern and riding around till I caught (yes, embarrassing) a train back to Worcester. Ouch!
ODO: 1230
I have taken some time off to let a leg injury heal up. I then took a few rides, two of about 40 miles, and one of 25 miles, and things appear to be okay at the moment The leg has been doing very well, for the most part, except for the least bit up the hill between Worcester and Leominster. I went up to croft Castle on that trip, and I have been to Pershore and to Whitley Court. All have been great rides!
For the moment…
Kelsey
ODO: 1010
At 1007 I had to put the bike in the shop due to a fault in the free-wheel
that caused it to catch and suck the top of the chain down. I had that done
on Friday evening / Saturday morning, and I had them also replace the rear
derailure with an upgraded one. I now have a Deore LX, and it shifts
flawlessly. I forgot what that felt like.
I am still waiting for the pictures I sent in to Transpcolor to come back to
me. I have three in for printing in fairly large size. One is intended for
the doctor who recommended the location photographed in it, and the other
two are for me.
Other than that, I am just chilling and waiting for the repair guy to pop
round to fix our boiler as it keeps shutting itself off several times a day.
Waiting, and waiting, and waiting…
Kelsey J Bacon
kjbacon@kelseyphoto.com
www.kelseyphoto.com
ODO: 990
Wow, I sent that last post to the wrong blog! That was intended to go to MSN Spaces, but what they hey?
As you can imagine, I am a bit excited about crossing that threshold that stands just ten miles before me now. I will soon cross the 1,000 mile mark, and I will have done it within the first year of this bike’s life with me. That is good. That makes it an average of more than 2.74 miles per day. And we all know that a guy will miss days here and there. Maybe the coming year will be even better, especially with the medical assistance of the good Doc. Solesbury in my shoes.
I have a load of kittens that need a home soon. There are seven of them. I would only be satisfied to give them to a good home, and they are free to such. Obviously, they need to live with someone who lives in the Worcester area. The speak English with a British accent, just so you know. It is a rather refined sort of mew.
At the moment I am sat at home waiting for some deliveries to arrive. I am expecting one from Amazon and two rolls of film. It will be most nice when that stuff gets here.
UGH… One of the kittens just made a pressie..!!! I might be willing to compromise on the GOOD part of the home!!!
Ta..!!
I have a dry skin condition on my feet and hands that cracks and bleeds when it is mild, and itches like mad, to the point the only relief I can get is the temporary relief of removing any of the dead skin from them. That then makes them hurt beyond my ability to walk on my feet. Obviously I do not walk on my hands, so the pain is something I have to beat, or it keeps me from doing much of anything.
So let’s see what Dr Solesbury has to say about this, and what she can do! I have had Diprosalic, and Diprobase. DS has given me the best results in reducing the condition. I need it sussed out so I can ride and photograph without inhibition.
I arrived here at 11:00, and got deli-number 5. It is 11:27 now, and I am still waiting for my 11:20 appointment.
12:23. Such was the advice of Dr Solesbury that I may actually follow it to the T. She was very understanding with the psoriasis-a-macallit that I have to be thankful. Beyond that, she reccomended a church to photograph. So I would love to go out and sort a photo and have it printed to give her with a note attesting to the fact that some patients actually do follow their doctor’s advice. She was that good about the whole thing. Also, she said she’d rather be doing what I am doing than medicine. Imagine that! From a doctor! I’d better get to work and make the most of it!
Kelsey
ODO: 867
I have obviously been riding lately, but I have been ignoring my blog. There has been talk around the house of me doing a ride across Wales in the summer. I have a week I can do it in at the end of July, beginning of August. I just need a tent that is reasonable to carry, and a sleeping bag, new, frankly. I am not fond of climbing into things that other people have sweated in. It grosses me out. Anyway, I am looking at a route, and I am going to also consider other possibilities since I am going to be allowed a train fare to return on. For example, this might be a good opportunity to ride across the width of England.
Whatever the course, I do not want to go in a hurry. I want to see historical locations, and I want to take pictures along the way. We’ll see… Update you more on this later.
As for travel in the last twenty days, I have taken the boys out to Huddington Hall, and I have gone to Upton Upon Severn yesterday. The boys and I did 19 miles, and Upton Upon Severn took me some 25 or so. There have been the trips to and fro as well. Yesterday I stopped into the church at Powick and walked the yard. The cemetery is huge, and divided into two. The first part is kept, and with the old growth trees has a beauty like no other I have seen in the area. The back part of the cemetery is cut once a year, and encourages woodland animals to inhabit it. Need I say that haunting is the word best suited to that part of the cemetery?
ODO: 771
Yesterday I rode to Droitwich and then to Hanbury Hall and finally down to Crowle. I had to fight wind half of the time and half of those were headwinds rather than crosswinds.
I got a couple of pictures, one at Hanbury Hall, and two at the church on the hill overlooking it. It was a beautiful day, but the wind was chilly. Other than that, it has been a lot of back and forth to the school since my ride last week to Brockhampton Estate.
ODO: 703
Just back for lunch before I go get the kids… I had a ride this morning that took me out a ways and back. (30 Miles Round Trip.) I was surprised to find myself out at Brockhampton Estate before I turned around. I was working on the time it would take me to get back to the school in time to get the kids, leaving a cushion for flats or anything else that might crop up. In the end I made it there and back okay, and without any troubles, which is pretty good when you consider that I did not make it to the school and back this morning without a flat. So, the first thing I did today before my ride was repair my front tire. (Tyre, for those inclined to speak English.)
I got a couple of photos of a couple of churches today too. I first stopped 5 and a half miles out of Worcester to snap Mary Magdalene Church, which claims to be a XII century church. Okay, that is not as old as Worcester Cathedral, but it will do for my gallery of old churches. Another was the private chapel on the Brockhampton Estate. That is a lovely little church from only the 19th Century, with a magnificent design to the steeple.
I hope that these photos will not be as long in the coming as other photos have been… ie, never at all. I have just recently sent in over 30 rolls of film, and have it all back now for the scanning. In fact, the ride today has been a break from that. Now it is time for a break from the riding…
I hurt from it now, but the actual peddling was not as bad as days gone by have been. What a fantastic feeling to get out and ride that far without absolutely killing myself. I remember last year, ten mile fewer than today, and I was toast. So the warm up for this season, taking the kids for rides, has been worth it.
Cheeri-ho… ;o)
Kelsey J Bacon
ODO: 622
Well, it has been a while since I have posted, but that is because the only riding I have done lately has been to and from the school, and the only photography has been for the most part, with my kid’s digital camera. I have taken loads of shots..!! These have all been mediocre, to say the most. There is a lot of white that shows up in the images, and of course the quality is pretty low. The camera only shoots 3.2 mega pixel. When I shoot with my Hass and scan at 1600 dpi, I am getting roughly 16 MP on a 5.5 x 5.5 CM image. What is that to a 35mm? Maybe 20 MP? Without doing the math, I can tell you that there is a SERIOUS quality difference. The big experience for me is knowing how it feels to shoot with reckless abandon, and then have the images to look at on the computer as soon as I get home, rather than buying and loading film, then shooting with caution and without a preview, and then having to wait for a week after I finally get the roll turned into the lab.
Now that Hasselblad does make a 16 Mega pixel back for the 503 CW, does anyone have $10,000 they could spot me for the digital back?
In other news, the PC is smiling. 2.5 GB of RAM and 460 GB Hard Drive space. Okay, the processor is 3.0 Dual Core, but it does a fair number for my work. The specs are happy specs.
Kids will be on holiday after a couple of weeks. They will be off for two full weeks. I need to get some proper film before then. The other reason to go to digital… The stooped local camera shops do not carry a variety of films.
PS, Jessop’s??? They are horrible! Poor customer service, lousy film and services for medium format, and next to nothing available in store. Delivery time is very long, and processing time has taken up to a month for my film. But hey, I have only shopped with them a few times, maybe 12. And they have only done me wrong 8 or so times, so I guess I shouldn’t complain!
So this leaves me two options… I need a digital back, or I need to have a much better supplier for my film. Guess which is the cheapest over the short run? Processing is sorted through Transpcolor, and they do fine work. Thank god somebody in England does..!!! http://www.teanspacolor.com/
Happy shooting..!!!
ODO: 609
The weather has been mostly crap lately, and has not facilitated the sunny, bright, and happy images I would like to create, not the rides I want to take. Any consolation though is the fact I have now got two huge water jugs that need to be emptied of their spring water in order to take them over to Malvern to fill up with Malvern Spring Water. There is just something very yummy about it..!!!
