Skip to main content

Autumnal Star Weekend


setting sun on hill opposite NineBanks Hostel

I feel autumn is on us, I drove to Ninebanks youth hostel this weekend and the trees were really quite stunning as I motored through the forest - on Friday afternoon the low sun just touched the leaves with a hint of orange and a very deep russet - there is still quite a bit of green there so the effect was very pretty and a very pleasant visual start to a great weekend.   So spirits lifted after a hard computer based day at college (interesting, enjoyable but tiring)  I headed to meet the willing delegates for the star weekend Yuri Cosmos aka Dr Fred and I arrange twice a year.

The autumn event is always busy, and there were mostly  familiar faces, and some people we hadn't seen for a long time. I set about sorting people into the right rooms and getting dinner on - As now officially - its on my CV - Artist in Residence / Glamorous Assistant its my job to take care of hospitality and entertainment ha ha .... basically cakes and cooking in general with the odd quiz thrown in and invitations to view my latest creation - this time photos of  Wor Geordie - our snowdog.. I didn't even need a quiz this time as a long term guest had made a interesting cryptic one up.

The problem with these weekends is you can book one of the most scenic venues, cook nice food, have excellent lectures on tap, get interested knowledgeable and curious attendees - but you can't guarantee the the weather.... we have been very lucky the last 4 or so sessions with glorious dark clear skies for the lunar eclipse, the transit of mars and just general star gazing - even in a foot of snow but this weekend it just didn't happen...

Cloudy skies both evenings - but this didn't dampen spirits and with a good quiz to baffle and laugh over and a few glasses of wine, Dr Fred on hand to answer deep space questions and give us a sneak preview of his musical / space travel presentation we were well entertained.  Its a good crowd, up for an interesting - sometimes mentally challenging couple of days, with lots of cake thrown in to keep sugar levels high.  Ninebanks has a comfortable feel and is a great location and on Saturday afternoon everyone headed out for tramp across the hills and dale for several lungfuls of atmosphere.. the clouds of course lifted in the day time!!!  Dr Fred and I took off for a short local walk - very pretty ruined church - more stone to draw.. and an interesting common occurrence in this part of the world tens of tiny dead moles strung up on the fence... swaying in the breeze - A warning to other moles?  anyone know why they do this?

moles hanging out to dry.....

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous13 October 2016 at 16:11

    In order to collect payment for each corpse from the landowner.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful.   There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...
1 comment
Read more

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords  looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop.   More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained.  The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...
6 comments
Read more

Istanbul

We had a really excellent day exploring Istanbul. It's over 25 years since I went to Istanbul on a long weekend trip with somebody that I thought was my friend at the time. But with with hindsight.... Well that's another unimportant story for another time... All that time ago I did have a brilliant time and loved the city. I loved the mix of east meets west - It left me intending to return sooner than later so I was really looking forward to revisiting.   I was a bit unsure about how Dr Fred would take to the place because it is enormous, it's bustling, it's noisy, it's smelly. There are lots of exciting backstreets and of course there are a lot of tourists - And I was determined to visit the Grand Bazaar... Istanbul didn't disappoint - but I have to say it was a very different city to how it had been all those years ago. It seemed even bigger, and was definitely more full of visitors. I had started with a plan that packed the ...
1 comment
Read more