Some photos from this years festival - mainly the parade through Coventry City Centre.
Click on the thumbnail to view the image
On our way to the shops this afternoon, we saw someone standing on a patch of grass near the road, feeding the crows. Surely this cannot be a good idea. Feeding pigeons is a bad idea but feeding crows is worse. You really don't want crows to get used to swarming around people, expecting to be fed.
While I was driving home tonight, it was raining heavily. We live near the top of a hill so there was a lot of rainwater flowing down the road. The drainage grids seemed to be at full capacity and there were a lot of deep puddles on the road.
The water from up the hill was flowing down within the drains at such a rate that I saw a fountain of water coming up in the middle of the road, in a similar fashion to an artesian well. The fountain was only about 3-4 inches high but it was an unusual sight. It was far too wet to stop and take a photo.
Ostara was a one-off open air event which started in Charterhouse Fields before moving to Far Gosford Street. There is some information about it on the Coventry Telegraph website.
We missed the start because we had only just got back from the Thame Country Show. We managed to catch the parade as it crossed Gulson Road towards Far Gosford Street.
It was raining quite heavily while we watched the parade. It is a shame that open air events in Britain so often fall foul of the weather.
The Coventry Beer Festival started last night but we didn't go until the saturday afternoon session. We were a bit disappointed to find that some of the beers had sold out already, such as the elderflower beer, which we would have been interested in trying.
The range of beers was impressive, especially when we realised that we hadn't seem many of them before. A lot of previous beer festivals have had a lot of beers in common but this year the selection of new beers was impressive.
There was also a good selection of ciders and perries and also fruit wines. We finished off with a glass of the sloe wine and the rosehip wine.
I drove down Charter Avenue today, between the A45 and Cannon Park. The last time I drove along it the road surface was pretty bad, with quite a lot of potholes. Today the potholes had spread along most of the road. The freezing weather earlier in the month seems to have taken its toll on the road surface. A lot of roads have suffered but this one seems worse than most.
It started snowing yesterday and by the time we left work there about an inch or so had fallen. The main roads on the way home weren't too bad but our road was very slippery. We live on the side of a hill so I had to drive up very carefully. Even so, I could feel the car wanting to slide sideways.
The road was no better this morning. All the pavements were very icy. I walked into town to take some photos of the city centre in the snow.
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There were a lot of Chinese Lanterns released over Coventry to celebrate the new year. The photo here shows one flying near the full moon.
At last, over a month after it was delivered, it was time for our recycling bin to be emptied. We filled it a couple of weeks ago and we've got enough new recycling to fill it all over again.
There had been a heavy frost overnight. It took a while to defrost the car this morning.
On my way to the office this morning, I overheard some women talking. I missed the start of the conversation but I think they were talking about the cold weather. I heard one of them say "But it's not even December yet!".
I had lots of spare unripe tomatoes in the fridge so I decided to make some Green Tomato Chutney. I followed one of Keith Floyd's recipes from the BBC website. Chutneys are supposed to improve after a few weeks so I won't sample it yet and give it a chance to mature.
I probably can't blame Friday the 13th but tonights drive home was probably the slowest ever. There had been a crash which closed the M6, causing most of the traffic to divert along local roads. Roads which were normally free-flowing were backed up for miles. It took us a couple of hours to drive the 5 miles home.
Our blue-lidded recycling bin has finally been delivered, although the first collection isn't until the start of December. It will make recycling so much easier. We will be able to dump paper, card, tins, glass and plastic bottles in it. This will be so much easier than having to put everything in the car and drive to a recycling point somewhere.
Here are some photos I took when I attended the 1 day Nature Photography course at the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust at Brandon Marsh. The day was aimed at complete beginners but there were people there with a variety of experience levels.
We were given various themes to photograph, starting with Colour, then Patterns & Texture, and finally Mood & Atmosphere. Later, we had to choose our own theme and put together a series of photos illustrating it.
Click on the thumbnail to view the image
Today is proving to be a numerically challenged day. The Daily Mail has problems with years and now this:
There are speed cameras along the A46 in the roadworks near the junction with the M40. The speed limit has been lowered to 40mph and signs light up to warn speeding motorists of the new limit. I was driving at 38mph, according to the speedometer in the car. This didn't stop the sign from flashing at me telling me to slow to 40mph.
Walking home from the City Centre tonight, we saw some bright orange lights hanging almost motionless in the sky. At first they seemed to be two points of light. As we got closer and got a better view, it became clear that they were chinese lanterns. It was difficult to get a sense of scale but they seemed quite large - possibly several feet across.
I wish the Council would hurry up and delivers our recycling bin soon. We have seen the new blue lidded bins being delivered to other parts of the city but they haven't been delivered to our neighbourhood yet. The bins are able to take almost anything: plastic bottles, paper, card, glass and cans. We already recycle these but at the moment it means we have to take everything to various places. Supermarkets let us recycle paper and glass. Plastic is readily recycled just over the border in Warwickshire. It will be so much easier when we can do all that from our doorstep.
We will probably be among the last people to receive the new bins because our area is traditionally poor at recycling. Very few people put the paper recycling boxes out. The %$*@s who stole ours stopped us from doing that. If everyone had the new bins then it would make it easier for them to recycle.
Areas like ours should have been the first to receive the bins - it might encourage people to recycle. So Coventry City Council, please hurry up and deliver our bin. We have 3 bags of plastic and cans, 1 box of paper and 1 box of glass all ready to be recycled.
