Random thoughts and photos of my journey through life…
Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
Robert A. Heinlein
12 Comments CherryPie on Jun 5th 2011
I enrolled on a photography course, courtesy of a voucher when I purchased my new camera last year 
I was struggling with the settings, which apart from taking flowers in AV mode (my speciality) I hadn’t quite grasped without the auto settings.
Today was a day to remember and re-learn photography techniques. The day was; enjoyable, productive, informative and tiring. I have the notes from the course and my additional notes, written up after I got home. I am pleased with some of my photo results, which were quite different from what I usually achieve in similar situations.
The course also covered aspects of nature and thirds, which reminded me of conversations with a friend of mine.
I had a great day
Thank you Panasonic for the money off offer (plus the software) when I purchased my camera and thank you Paul for such an informative course, I will be joining you on part 2 soon
14 Comments CherryPie on Jun 5th 2011
30 Comments CherryPie on Jun 3rd 2011
I wasn’t sure what my result would be this week. I ate out a couple of times and the choices weren’t brilliant, but I did my best under the circumstances. I did however eat lunch before I went on my trip to Dudmaston Hall so I wouldn’t be tempted by anything inappropriate 
I felt a little fat tonight but the results said otherwise…
In other news. When I arrived at the meeting I was told that I was in charge of the sales table today due to a holiday absence by the regular sales table person. :-O I don’t like being responsible for other people’s money…
On the plus side, it is nice that I was trusted with that responsibility I was a little flustered on occasions, but it went OK with a little help from my friends
8 Comments CherryPie on Jun 2nd 2011
I was lucky enough to have an extra privilege days leave which was tagged onto this bank holiday meaning I had an extra day off. I also took Friday as leave so I have had a long weekend, mostly chilling out and catching up with a few jobs. The weather wasn’t good enough for days out.
Today however I managed to dodge the rain showers and spend a couple of hours at the Dudmaston Estate. I decided to do the pool walk and take in the gardens rather than tour the house. I must go back again soon and perhaps go on one of the guided garden walks which should be very interesting.
12 Comments CherryPie on May 31st 2011
The practice of keeping bees in hives dates back at least as far as the ancient Egyptians. The summer edition of the National Trust magazine has an interesting article entitled ‘The Beekeeper’ in which Emma Hill the head gardener for Dunham Massey treats the reader to some interesting facts about bees:
A bee society is predominantly female. There are three castes of bee: the single queen, who lives for five years and lays some 2,000 unfertilised or fertilised eggs a day in summer. The unfertilised ones become drones – stingless males, whose only job is to mate with the queen. The fertilised eggs become the smaller, female worker bees. Their roles include polishing cells with propolis (tree sap), guarding the hive, foraging and removing dead bees – they keep the hive spotless. During summer a hive can have 50,000 workers and a few hundred drones.
Emma has been studying bee behaviour and has observed that:
When their stomachs are full of honey (a worker bee has two stomachs – an extra one for storing honey) they’re happy and emit a low hum. A high-pitched buzz means they’re angry. I know when they’re going to sting me. A worker bee can fly two miles (3km) to collect nectar, pollen, propolis and water. They perform a waggle dance – a figure of eight movement – to show other bees where to farage and their excitement is visible.
Our bee population is threatened by the varroa mite which weakens their immune system. The bee keepers at Dunham Massey are using icing sugar to treat the disease. The sugar is sprinkled onto the bees through a fine mesh, this encourages the bees to groom which in turn removes the mite.
8 Comments CherryPie on May 30th 2011
