We walked from Yewfield above Tarn Hows down to Coniston Water.

Just one of the stunning views from Black Crag today

With the tables and chairs removed so the floor can be done, the dining room looks and feels amazing. It highlights the structure and architectural features. Check out the unique fireplace. Really this isn’t a dining room but a hall.

With all the guests having left yesterday, the Centre closed it’s door for a month, as it does each year. This gives staff time for holidays and for essential maintenance to the building.

A very gorgeous house at Sparsholt near Winchester

Upon which I will be spending a lot of time this year.

Previously I had the prAna Revolution but I found it too cumbersome to carry and cold to the touch. This one is much warmer and more cosy. I also didn’t need the huge size of the Revolution.

Happy stretching in 2011!

Photo of original art by Rich Morrison, as seen in Surfer’s Path magazine

Overnight, the snow has been replaced with deep fog. It’s quite a treat to see and feel the grass once more.

I am very impressed by the clarity, stability and naturalness of the e-ink displays. I bought a Kindle for Caroline’s Christmas present and now I’ve ordered one of my own. Black and white seems a slight step backwards compared to the multi-coloured iPad but after all, most books are in black and white. Not having an LCD/LED screen is also easier on the eyes and means a battery life of one month.

Happy Christmas everybody!

(P.S. Jesus and Santa are as fictional as each other)

I’m looking after the chickens while Mark the groundsman is away. I really like them. How can a creature so ordinary look so odd?

He was meant to be a man but was born an owl

…and the chickens carry on regardless.

I thought that the photograph looked kind of unreal and it’s because of this many of the colours you see are not pigment but refraction:

Many of the brilliant colours of the peacock plumage are due to an optical interference phenomenon, Bragg reflection, based on (nearly) periodic nanostructures found in the barbules (fiber-like components) of the feathers.

Different colours correspond to different length scales of the periodic structures. For brown feathers, a mixture of red and blue is required: one colour is created by the periodic structure, and the other is a created by a Fabry–Pérot interference peak from reflections off the outermost and innermost boundaries of the periodic structure. Many colour mutations exist through selective breeding, such as the leucistic White Peafowl and the Black-Shouldered Peafowl.

Such interference-based structural colour is especially important in producing the peacock’s iridescent hues (which shimmer and change with viewing angle), since interference effects depend upon the angle of light, unlike chemical pigments.