Pairing my Nokia folding keyboard with a mobile phone

Using Blogger's own software I'm trying to post to the blog using my newish mobile phone (a budget job, a Moto G4, seeing as you asked) paired with my old Nokia SU-8W folding keyboard.  

My phone has quite a large - 5.5 inch - screen with a fairly decent resolution. This means I can now read blogs without using the mobile phone version of the blog, which makes reading blogs on the phone a far better experience. Following from this I reasoned to myself that it should also be possible to post to the blog using the original version of Blogger rather than its mobile phone App.   

THE LOCAL PATCH IN THE WET 

Even with a large screen, I still find it tricky using the phone's small keyboard, continually mis-typing. That's why I'm pairing it with the fold-out keyboard. I believe that this will result in better blog posts - if you believe that more of my paragraphs results in better posts, and that's a stretch...

I think there are two advantages of doing this rather than using Blogger's own mobile app. The first should be the ability to position and size the pictures where and when I like, whilst being able to see the pictures. With the old app I used, Bloggeroid, I couldn't see the pictures, which meant that on a long post with quite a few pictures I would have to remember which I had posted, which proved tricky at times. The second is that when using Blogger I can left and right justify text, which I prefer to simply left-justified text. I know others prefer left justified, so this is a purely personal preference. 

BROTHER DAVE, SISTER PIP, AND ME 

So here goes.  Let's see if it works. And, it appears to have worked - including a picture edit. 

A 2016 Family-Matters catch-up.

I'm in catch-up mode, so from last year here are a few pictures that make me immensely happy. 

Elsie Mae Sloman arrived on my birthday, at 10:13am, weighing in at a healthy 7lb 7oz. Her big sister, Lyra, is plainly delighted. Her mum and dad, Zinnia and Oli, are doing jolly well and were engaged on Christmas Day. 

OLI, LYRA & ELSIE

ZINNIA & ELSIE

ZINNIA

Meanwhile, my other grandchildren, Luca and Ezra are thriving. Ezra is now a healthy one year old and toddling. Luca occasionally behaves very well at school. This is being encouraged.

LUCA

EZRA

****

And now, in the spirit of 'Old Mortality:' After listening to Radio Four Extra this evening, I Googled "Sixty Degrees North." This is from the writer, Malachy Tallack.

Family Matters

But Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."

***

No, I haven't been ignoring you. I've been away from the blogosphere for a little while, doing good work: Good deeds, indeed! And now I'm back. This is just a short post with a few pictures of happiness.

On 9th December Ezra Simeone arrived, very reluctantly, on his father's [Rod] birthday. It was all a bit traumatic, involving lots of doctors and nurses and the Intensive Care Unit, but everyone is fine now. He weighed in at 8 lb 9 oz. 

I'm a very proud Grandad, again.

EZRA SIMEONE

BIG BROTHER LUCA SIMEONE

LUCA & ROD SIMEONE

RACHAEL SIMEONE

TGO Challenge 2015: We have company

It will not have passed the brighter members of the congregation’s notice that Phil & I will not have the pleasure of Mr Walker’s excellent company on the TGO Challenge this year. In the past few years the blighter has lost eight stone in weight. For our American cousins, a stone is a quaint English measurement, comprising fourteen English pounds. (And that’s lbs, not £s.) Andy achieved the astonishing transformation from lard-arse to racing snake by consuming just twenty grains of rice & a small portion of lettuce, with prunes for pudding every day for three years.

To cut a long story short, the bounder now bounds up mountains, leaving Lord Elpus and I, who have perfectly honed southern-softy, couch potato physiques, floundering in his wake. Now he will be free to float along the terrifyingly vertiginous peaks whilst Phil and I will be plodding and ploughing our furrows through the gloopiest of Highland bogs known to man.

But this abandonment left our intrepid team with a problem; Neither Phil nor I are the sharpest navigators on the planet, so how were we to find our way across Scotland? Mr Walker tried to help by flogging Phil his satellite navigation device loaded with Her Majesty’s mapping. Well, it was a good idea, but as you will have gathered from Phil’s recent trip to the Pyrenees, it all came to naught. Fortunately Phil’s errant route-finding was corrected by his Brother-in-law, David, who steered our lost soul back onto the correct track.

It was all looking desperate for our duo, when all of a sudden, in one bound we were free!

CLICK TO ENLARGE EACH PIC [TOP LEFT - BROTHER DAVE, TOP RIGHT - RICHARD WHITE, BOTTOM LEFT – PHIL, THEN ME]

We are now to be joined for our first four days by Dr White of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Richard is a chap who knows his way around the world. Indeed, he has already successfully steered me across Scotland in 1996 and 1998 and helped out heavily for a couple of stints on my LEJOG in 2007.

We are then to be left dangerously alone to find our way across the Monadh Liath and thence to the Cheese & Wine Party, which begs the question - Will we ever make it to our own party?

Fortunately my Brother Dave then collects us at Ballater to escort us over Mount Keen to Tarfside. For the last God-knows-how-many-years Dave has lived in Yorkshire and has successfully negotiated his way over Ilkley Moor without a whippet. This is the chap who gave me one of his kidneys, and so I am sure he is only coming along to ensure that I won’t die a horrible premature death alone on some terrible Scottish Mountain, after having gone to all the bother of saving my miserable skin once already.

So there we have it. We will not be alone. Two wonderful chaps will be guiding and nudging us to our destination. If you bump into this incredible pair this year, please buy them a pint. They’ll deserve it.

Cunning Mums and Regeneration.

There are things for which you never quite forgive your parents, like my Mum chucking a half-brick through the store room door window and me ending up in Heatherwood Hospital having stitches in my eyebrow and chin, but worse than that, years after the event, finding out that your Mum has lied to you.

As a small boy the New Town I lived in was a great place; We played football all day in the park, (jumpers for goalposts) we dammed the Splash round the back of our house, by digging out the clay banks, building temporary dams so the main dam builders had time to work on the principal structure which held water up to our thighs, (The Green Man came round our house on his bike and told Mum & Dad about that one) and scrumping apples from the Old Manor’s orchard.

Our town was also popular with royalty. It was rumoured that the Shah of Persia was going to visit, to see how New Towns should be built as he was planning to build a clutch of them back in Persia. I was never too clear where Persia was, but it sounded far away and exotic.

However, Mum made it quite clear to me, repeatedly, that the Shah of Persia would not be coming if I didn’t eat my greens. I ate my horrid greens dutifully for months, not wanting to be blamed for the Shah’s non-appearance.

Indeed, he did come, and toured our town in an open-top Rolls-Royce. I seem to recall that he waved directly at me, obviously grateful that I’d done as I was told and had personally made his trip possible. He particularly liked our town centre, with it’s wonderful Broadway. It’s said that in that far away exotic land there are three or four Broadways modelled on our own.

Well if the old bugger were alive today he would be deeply saddened. They’ve flattened the Broadway. It’s going to be “regenerated.” So, Dyasons fish & chip shop, Woolies, Mac Fisheries, Fine Fare, Tescos, where Mum used to get book-fulls of Green Shield Stamps, and the Co-op department store with its pneumatic cash-tube that thundered around the building, have now all gone.

I had a last look around the place last summer before the demolition crews moved in. They had already smashed up the trees that had lined the way. Now it’s just a huge windswept dustbowl with towering piles of crushed concrete aggregate. I only had my very old phone with me with its ropey old camera but I’ve cobbled together a few images, just so the Shah can have one last look at the place. You can click on each picture to blow it up.

 

 

 

 

 

The tall slim building at the end of the Broadway is the 3M building. It had once sported a fabulous illuminated digital clock. We were dead impressed by that. The cows in the neighbouring village of Binfield weren’t that impressed though as their milk yield dropped dramatically after the 3M Building was put up. You could see it for miles around, especially at night.

But now, they’ve decided to tear that down too. Here’s one last longing look at the old girl. She’s very unloved these days:

I expect they’ll be after this leviathan next.

UPDATE: SATURDAY 21st JUNE 2014:

Here’s what the town centre looked like a few days ago: Notice that all is left is the security camera. Modern times…

BRACKNELL TOWN CENTRE. THE SECURITY CAMERA REMAINS... – CLICK TO ENLARGE

Some happy April music from The Puppeteers.

This is my nephew, (Brother Dave’s excellent lad) Tom’s band, and it makes me very happy.

Ramblings

If you have stuff to do, you can leave now; You’re not going to be interested in this post. It’s a catch-up for the last few months, most of which have been dark, very wet and a bit miserable down here in the south east. Having said that, most of the photos are bathed in sunshine. It’s the memory. It’s not what it was. I need an upgrade. And while they’re at it. Wait, no. I can’t remember what it was.

Anyway: Here are some pictures from the last few months, with occasional helpful comments.

The first four are from a walk on my birthday with Mr Walker:

WINDSOR GREAT PARK

 

LIZ WAS OUT, SO WE DIDN’T GET AFTERNOON TEA

 

WINDSOR GREAT PARK

 

ANDY ON A HORSE

 

A CANAL WALK INTO LEEDS [ON TOP OF A HILL AND MOSTLY SPENT IN A LOVELY PUB] WITH BROTHER DAVE & DEBBIE

 

A WALK IN YORK WITH BROTHER DAVE

 

YORKSHIRE DALES WITH LINDSEY

 

YORKSHIRE DALES WITH LINDSEY

 

YORKSHIRE DALES WITH LINDSEY

 

DOGGING WITH LORD ELPUS & MISS WHIPLASH IN BRECKLAND [YES. HONESTLY!]

 

LORD ELPUS, MISS WHIPLASH AND THE NEW, TRIM MR WALKER LEAVING THE THREE BLACKBIRDS.

Found: Film footage of our Dad!

My brother Dave has been busy! He has unearthed what looks to be an Imperial War Museum clip of 6 Squadron flying Hurricanes in the Western Desert in WW2. The first man who appears in the film is definitely our Dad! Good find!

OUR DAD IS THE FIRST MAN WHO APPEARS IN THIS FILM!

You can find out a little more about our Dad by clicking HERE.

Four kidneys on the Dales Way

After having had a splendid time at Rick & Lindsey’s I set off on the short hop over to Leeds (via Oxford, for more tests) to spend a few days with my Brother Dave and the Masterful Debs.

By now Dave had been clambering around the Helvellyn horseshoe and was back in the swing of things at work and seemed to be back to perfect nick. So he took me on one of their favourite afternoon strolls in the Dales.

GRASSINGTON WITH BROTHER DAVE – CLICK TO ENLARGE

Now this was pushing the boat out. I had already done six miles with Lindsey, but this was a wopper; SEVEN miles, with about nine hundred feet of uppishness.

Grassington looked lovely, but we only had time to visit the pie shop, before striding off down to the River Wharfe’s gorgeous meadow. The river was running well.

RIVER WHARFE

This stretch of the river is really popular with walkers – easy to see why, really – as it is quite gorgeous. We were passed on the smooth-surfaced minor road by dozens of lycra-clad cyclists on impossibly slender bikes, swishing past with friendly waves. These cyclists seem like quite a nice mob.

This led us into Conistone, which looks like a rather splendid little place to live, and we had our pies on the little bench on the village green, as troops of ramblers trooped past.

I don’t know what it is about Ramblers groups. I’m sure individually they are all fine people (apart from the pair I know from Liverpool, who are despicable, stupid, drunken oiks), but when I see them in a group, I can’t help myself; I just descend into a mad dose of horse’s burial. The leader never appears to know where they are going. They all carry those ludicrous great map cases slung around their necks on green string, but they obviously haven’t a clue how to read them. The leader asks you where they are, and when you tell them, they shake their heads in disbelief.

How they ever get back to their cars I’ll never know.

We waited until they were long gone, and then headed up into Conistone Dib ourselves.

CONISTONE DIB & BROTHER DAVE – CLICK TO ENLARGE

This is a frabjous little hidey-hole, with pretty little flowers in every crevice. I’ve no idea what they are, so perhaps you’ll be kind enough to let me know? Ta.

PRETTY BLUE FLOWERS (ANY IDEAS?)

After leaving the gorge you enter a beautiful dry valley, which reminded me of Velvet Bottom in the Mendips; both are limestone dry valleys.

CONISTONE DIB & A HANDSOME BASTARD – CLICK TO ENLARGE

We clambered up on the Dales Way to a long shallow dry valley with sections of limestone pavement for added interest. Drystone walls, limestone scars and rocky atolls are all about. This is a glorious stretch, with lark-song as your musical backdrop.

HANDSOME DOG ON THE DALES WAY

You can’t possibly get lost as the route takes you straight as an arrow back to Grassington, with glorious views back to Grass Wood tumbling down to the Wharfe. We made it in time to visit a couple of the pubs, where there was plentiful supplies of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord and Black Sheep to occupy the remainder of the afternoon before Debs finished her stint at the library.

Dave pointed out that these pubs were on the Yorkshire Dales Inn Way, which is a six day walk of seventy six miles that takes in twenty six pubs. This sounds like just the sort of walk to get me back to full fitness… I can feel a plan coming together.

Birthday Announcement

I am delighted to announce the arrival of LUCA JOSEF SIMEONE.

Congratulations to Rachael & Rod. Luca came into the world yesterday evening at 8:05pm. He is a healthy young man, weighing in at 9 lbs 6 ozs. Both Rachael and Luca are doing well. Time keeping is obviously not Luca’s strong suit as he arrived five days later than expected!

I now have a Grandson, a cousin for Lyra.

Family Guy

Just a few self indulgent pictures from yesterday’s family day over at Son Number One’s place. And why not!

A splendid day!

87, Not out!

Large family gatherings tend to take place at weddings and funerals. I have been to too many funerals lately and so it was marvellous to have a reason for a big family celebration last weekend: Mum’s 87th Birthday party. Happily, she was in fine form.

The “Welsh lot”, the “Westcountry lot”, the “Northerners” and the “Bracknell mob” all turned up to celebrate Mum’s big day.

Missing from the picture are Jack, Dave, Debbie, Tom, Leighton & Jane (& me). Not sure how I missed them.