Kobione

Great choice, Annie - congrats, Terry!

JOLT

This is our Country Fire Authority statewide map right this minute. So you can understand it better the blue diamonds with the 'bubble' on are 'advices' - in other words our 'watch and act', or put your firesafe plan into action now!! The red diamonds with the exclamation mark are 'Immediate threat - take cover, or get out NOW!!' The red circles with the cross on are status updates on individual fire, and the circles with a flame inside represent a going fire. http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/warnings-restrictions/warnings-and-incidents/ Pretty scary, 123 appliances still at one fireground in the high counrty - that's why we chose not go and camp in our favourite spot this Summer!! Don't know if it hit the news over there, but they used snow making machines at Hotham Heights in our Alpine area to protect the buildings of the Alpine Village! Very lucky around our area so far. Everything is so very dry and there were many fires started on Friday by lightening strikes. Of course this website will update to reflect current conditions, but I bet a lot of these warnings etc will be theer for at least the next 24 hours! And, don't forget, just to put it into perspective the area you are looking at covers all of England and Wales, and a bit of Scotland.

Terrific action shot, well done Scott!!

Hi, and welcome, Scott - enjoy your time with us!

JOB

Well done, Bill, a worthy choice!

Well, that's my awww for the day - lovely!!!

Colin, it fascinated me on my trip back to UK how popular the conservatories had become. In a couple of the family homes I stayed in for a few days about 80% of the homes around had them. Not so in my days living there.

Microchipping is compulsory here for dogs - only now enforceable in the last 12 months, after several years of being a choice. What it has done is drive the often, at least I think,irresponsible backyard breeders underground. All puppies offered for sale must be chipped, and Kelly comes under that regime. so why do we still see strange vans and utes in shopping centre car parks - often off in the quieter areas - and people going away with puppies!!! The effect it had on us, when we were considering taking on a third GSD was that all the nice backyard or home breeders no longer do it because of the cost involved. The cost of a pedigree Shepherd from a registered kennel went up from an average $1000 per puppy, to $1500 per pup. The 'ferals' ain't going to pay that and the puppy farm syndrome will continue unfortunately. PS: We were lucky. Kelly is from a family bred, 99% pedigree background, fully vet checked and chipped and cost us $400, and we have updated her info.

STOOL

Hi, and welcome, riddell - as above for me!

Several posts have kept me interested browsing through new images again this week. Annie is going really well with her 'bird project' and I loved the 'Poser' shot especially. Liked Fuji's Big Ollie post as well. BP has posted some great images of coast and rocks, and his Dunstanburgh Castle is just lovely. In the end I have gone with a picture that just 'grabbed' me as soon as I looked at it. The clarity and detail of the feathers and claws, the lichen and branch, the way the bird is looking at you, and the composition of the shot made it for me. Well done, ColinB, The original thread can be seen here:

Glad to say we get very little of these sort of calls. Did have a burst of the microsoft ones a while back, but stopped now.The only thing we have had recently were messages on both mobiles, telling each of us 'Congratulations, your number has been randomly selected and you have won one million pounds'!! I wish!

FRIES

Well done, Lee - lovely picture!

Thank you all for the information, and the examples, that does give me a better idea of the aims and results. Guess that's something I could play with at a later date :D

That's probably a couple of stressful days out of the way, John!

Have just been looking at a couple of recent posts and this one of Colin's : and I don't really understand the hi-key and texture bit. I 'googled' hi-key so realise it is to do with exposure. I don't have Photoshop, but guess I could do similar with 'hue and saturation', or even boosting the exposure levels on the camera before taking a picture of a suitable subject. Yes? Also can somebody explain a bit more about adding textures, please. Not sure on this one! Sorry to appear dumb, but this actually interests me in a technical sense!

I remember that! I was studying at the then Wulfrun College in Wolverhampton. We lived at Albrighton and I used to get a trolley bus(?) to Tettenhall, then a bus from there to the end of our street. The trolley buses were working, but the other buses were all pulled off the road, so I had to walk home from Tettenhall. My Dad set out from home and walked to meet me. I remember how cold it was and how 'slushy' underfoot, and how quiet with no traffic at all going past. I also remember that this was the first instance of seeing really heavy snow fall after our return to UK, and my teacher of the afternoon, (Chemistry - a guy called Mr Nutter!), simple let me sit and look out of our second floor window and be fascinated by the falling snowflakes! We have some respite here today -only 36 deg.

Well done, Fuji. A lovely appropriate choice, Kate.

I suppose basically you over there are set up to deal with the colder weather, whereas we are the reverse. We have 3 split sytem air conditioners - the Boeing in the lounge area, and two medium ones in the bedroom and 'puter room. We have ceiling fans in every room, excellent insulation and heavy duty canvas pulldown blinds on the north facing windows. On an over 40 day we get out and about early. take the girls for a swim in the dam about mid-morning, like we did today, and that keeps them cool!: Then we 'shut down' for the day. During the night we close off the bedroom, say to the girls 'Come on in the coolies' and they do and as a result we all sleep. lol

We read the Daily Mail. UK on line most mornings, and there were some lovely snow pictures today, and even looking at them made us feel a heap cooler! Our recent weather has been very uncomfortable for the exact opposite reason - did you see Sydney reached 45.8 deg. yesterday!! We have had 4 or 5, 43 deg days in the past 2 weeks, and the days between have not been below 35, and the nights not below 20deg. Consequence - my garden has gone, (for now), nothing is thriving, all in 'preservation mode', so no garden pics. Too hot to go for days out - unless to a beach and that's too far! Fire danger too high, so quite a few days on guard. Result - I'm bored, and the girls are going stir crazy!! We have lived where we did get snow, but it was a real novelty. Looks like you are getting some real dumps over there, so how is it actually affecting your daily lives? I only have very faint memories of my Dad digging the car out of the drive!

I think that chat about other subjects, if kept in balance with the main objectives of a forum, can help that forum continue in a community sense. All of us, at some point face things where it is nice to 'off load', and a sense of 'having friends' to support can be helpful. Leon,I fully agree that you cannot, in any way, change all the bad things going on in the world, and I don't deliberately delve in to subjects that sadden, or anger me, (not on here, I mean in a general world news sense.) If a thread on here starts getting too heated, sorry, but I dib out, doesn't mean that I don't feel for the people!

o' CLOCK