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.....

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...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Goodbye Dissertation!!!

The dissertation is finished... it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh... I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic! there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....

Planet Ruby Starrs

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