Family – Page 18 – Richard & Caroline's Blog

August 27, 2015August 28, 2015

Orkney – Land of Rugged Coastlines & Neolithic Tombs

Orkney is a fantastic place to explore, if your into walking, wildlife, arts or crafts and especially history then there is something to see.

The coastal scenery is just stunning, this shot is just a quick snapshot from my iPhone as we walked around one of the tiny uninhabited islands to visit an old viking settlement.

Everywhere you have everything from stunning beaches to stark cliff’s, while we did not see any puffins this time there were plenty of cormorants and other sea birds.

In the first few days we visited the main towns and then went off and found the famous tombs of pre-history that Orkney is famous for.

Some of them like the Tomb of the Eagles had a entrance only three feet high, lucky there a trolley which you could lie on and a rope to pull yourself along.

These early trips gave me lots of ideas for photographs and i’ll be revisiting them later on in the holiday with something a little better then an iPhone to photograph them better.

August 25, 2015August 27, 2015

Travelling to the Orkney Islands

Every two to three years we visit some of the smaller islands that make up the British Isles. The term Great Britain is just the name used for the largest of the islands that make up the British Isles, but all the habitable islands and some of the uninhabited islands are well worth a visit.

We took a couple of days to get up here but finally arrived at the top northern coast of Scotland. From here we took the car ferry to the main and largest Orkney Island. Its here where we will be stopping for about a week, using it as a base to visit three or four of the other main islands including at least one uninhabited island.

As you can see from my snapshots the dogs and people had a good crossing over to the islands and so far the weather has been unusually fine for the Orkneys.

August 10, 2015August 14, 2015

Finally a weekend in the Garden

Its been pretty busy the last few weeks again but this weekend we got some time on our own which we spent in the garden

We harvested all the remaining potatoes and also picked some salad for lunch.

It was great to have a lunch consisting of local food. The bread was from our village artisan baker only a few hundred yards away, we also have a local butcher down the road so a lovely pork pie and a Lincolnshire delicacy, a roasted haslet, which tasted fantastic. The salad, potatoes and herbs all came from the garden with the eggs from our chickens.We have also had a bumper onion harvest this year, so in the afternoon we used one of them with some of our eggs and some local cheese to make a lovely quiche for tea.

July 30, 2015July 31, 2015

Apple Pay

When Apple Pay was announced there was a lot to like about it. The security model is the key feature with your debit/credit card number never needing to leave your device plus biometric security.

As of now, few UK banks accept it and those that do only to the £20 contact payment limit. Come on banks get with it. I am in the process of changing bank accounts due to my current provider ending interest payments. Thanks, i’ll just change banks thank you very much.

There are a couple of banks currently offering over four percent and its one of those that will likely get my business but which to choose, well it might be the one that offers Apple Pay first.

July 28, 2015April 12, 2020

Mac Sound output

I love good music and HiFi, since getting my new Mac setup the sound quality was not quite as good as I thought it should be. It was then I remembered that the default output was not as good as it should be. You need to go into the Audio Midi setup program and configure it to the best settings.

See above.

Having the new Mac Desktop I now have the line out direct into the active speakers giving me better sound quality then Apple AirPlay.

July 27, 2015April 12, 2020

The end room takes shape

Our spare end room over the last few months has been stripped down to bare walls and concrete floor. We have plastered painted and decorated. Including painting the roof and open roof beams.

This weekend we finally laid the new floor.

We just have the beading left to put round the edge and its finished.

Then its new book cases and we can unbox the books and also finally setup my hifi. Then we have a smart new space which we can use as a reading room, music room and when necessary a studio space and even somewhere to layout quilts.

July 20, 2015July 19, 2015

Gardening – Peas and Beans

Saturday was a full and busy day shooting for clients. We in the full swing of wedding season now.

Sunday was a little more relaxed. After a bit of shopping in the morning we hit the garden and harvested the remains of the peas and broad beans. It’s been a much better year for them then last year.

We also had a major weed of the front garden.

The early evening drove me back to the computer to do more editing while Caroline supervised the chickens while they did there bit of gardening.

July 17, 2015April 12, 2020

Hifi in the Office

So with the new Sonos speaker in the kitchen I got for my birthday last year, we have decent music in the house again that is until I finally get my separates system setup in the room we are currently decorating.

Enjoying the Sonos made me think about my office, how to get decent quality sound from the PC without too much cost.

I wanted stereo so another Sonos was not going to cut it, purchasing two would be more then a quality set of active speakers, plus I also wanted to stream from other sources not just using the Sonos app.

Quality wise, CD was good enough, most of media is either vinyl or CD and also sat in my iTunes library at 16 bit at 44 kHz which is CD quality. I do have a few other audio files which are at studio master quality 24 bit and 192 kHz but thats just over kill for a simple budget office system.

I am lucky enough to have an Apple AirPort Express in my office, as well as providing wireless internet I have my large format Epson 3880 printer plugged into one of the ethernet ports. The device also supports Apple Airplay at 16 bit / 44 kHz so it could act as the music source for the speakers.

So first I set a budget, then looked at small desktop active speakers that fitted that budget. By active I mean with built in amplification. Basically it would be a simple setup. Apple Airplay sending my music collection from laptop, or iPhone to the AirPort Express and direct into the speakers. This meant I could keep my current cheap computer speakers and have the computer sounds come from them leaving just the high quality audio of my music streamed to the speakers. Longer term I might upgrade and add a high quality USB DAC into the system, driving that from the USB port in my computer.

So what did I pick, well first job a trip to the website WhatHiFi and look at what they liked, then a web search to find the best prices. After that it was a trip to my local Hi Fi shop who offered to price match. We had a listen, using my iPhone as a source and I picked the Ruark Audio MR1.

June 2, 2015June 6, 2015

Lincoln 1940’s Weekend

One good thing about living near Lincoln is that there always seems to be something going. Whether the Santa Run or Lincoln Christmas Market in the winter to cycle races and Steam Punk events.

Last weekend was Lincoln’s 1940’s weekend and unfortunately I could not make it but from looking at the photographs people have been post on the Internet it looks like it was a fun filled weekend with lots of photographic opportunities.

June 1, 2015April 12, 2020

June is here and the garden continues to burst with Life

I cannot believe its June already. Where is the year going? For us its being a very quiet/busy May; I know that sounds conflicting but we have just not had time to get anything really done.

Caroline’s father has been in hospital having a new knee, so things have been focussed round him, which is why we have been busy. So on the house and garden front its been very quiet.

I can say that the Peas, Beans, Leaks, Lettuce and Potatoes are going great. The cabbages though are not surviving, someone is eating them big time and stripping all the leaves off.

Hopefully June will see us back in the garden and also finally laying the new floor in the music/library/studio room which apart from the floor and some furniture is finished. I cannot wait to have my first studio shoot in there.