Hello everyone,
I’ve just been trying to figure out what I’ve been doing for the last fortnight … Yep, it does feel a bit like that :-D. I think it sums up as a lot of late finishing days in the office and topped off with a castles trip and a very late night research run.
Oh ! I was trying out another game …
I’ve had the daft idea for a while to make a game character inspired by the fridge magnet character I got from Norway and Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord has what you could call the ideal character creator for the purpose.
And by that I mean it’s pretty crude and excels at making characters that most people would call cursed. But there she is, my latest Bashara character, all set up for forming a warband that will hopefully grow into an army fit to conquer nations. I think I got the eyes right ? (Unfortunately 😀 ).
Outside of that, another Deus Ex Mankind Divided run is finished, I think I lost part of a weekend by falling off the Little Big Workshop wagon again (great game, very cute much addictive). And I’ve been looking at Star Trek Online again. While enjoying reading Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Maybe a few starts of plans appearing as well too. Since the cruise, I’ve been actively wanting to take better pictures and the current thing is the night sky. A separate inspiration there is Wildbeare (youtube link) and how she goes out into the wilds and comes out with lovely stories for her watchers. And being out in the wilds away from city lights seems ideal for being able to see the night sky. I’ll come back to that.
In the mean time though, I was picking up some gear again with a side trip to see castles on Friday.
That’s the gatehouse of Carmarthen castle, which is sadly mostly just what’s left of Carmarthen castle. The main castle part has been displaced by the council buildings. There is a little bit left of the outer wall but no access to the top of those gatehouse towers. (More pictures on my Facebook than I’ll put here)
A side reason for going to Carmarthen outside of Somewhere New and castle was because they have what turns out to be an excellent camera shop there. Things may have been acquired … Picture later but I now have the bluetooth remote trigger (will be handy for star pics and tripod pics) and a way better tripod than the one I got last year. This one is articulated with a ball joint, the old one was on a couple of hinges which got incredibly stiff and seized. It was nearly impossible to point the camera accurately at the bridge when I took the old tripod to Portishead’s Battery Point in the last post.
Classic now and then shot. Carmarthen is on quite a wide river there, so when river and sea traffic was the main option it was a very prosperous market town. As trade moved to the roads and larger ports, everything moved to where things were a bit closer. Carmarthen is 100 miles away from where I live, which would have been even more of a factor in the days of sail.
So, tripod acquired, remote clicker acquired, tasty brownie acquired, off again. It was Star Wars day so I was drawn to Cardiff …
That’s Cardiff castle. I went to Cardiff because it has the Lego shop (with offers for Star Wars day) and the Snack shop. At some point, I’ll go to more of the Welsh castles … although it was getting late on Friday and I just about only made it for both the snack shop (close at 5.30pm) and the castle (close at 5pm). There’s a bit more leeway for the Lego shop (close at 8pm).
Cardiff castle is one of very few to remain mostly intact, with the small bailey castle inside the surrounding curtain walls. It was too late for me to visit the museum part (again) but I’ll make it there some day.
Castle for squirrels ?
They were clever centuries ago, being able to build miniature castles on top of the trees for the guard squirrels to help in the defence of the realm. (I swapped to the longer lens for this one).
Before I close up, this wasn’t the only trip of the weekend … The skies cleared on Saturday night and I had (somehow) enough leftover energy to try and indulge that need? to try and see the galaxy. I do enjoy doing that in Elite, although that’s suffered due to my arms being poorly and sore. So if I can’t go to the stars, can I get pictures of them ?
I didn’t get any usable pictures from Saturday night but I took away a good number of learning points …
First was – there are very few parking places open or accessible after dark around Bristol, located in places away from the city. I think I know why but won’t go into it here (they’re over wary about people setting up semi permanent camp). I think I have one now. The main criteria is that it has to have an open view to the South because that’s the part of the sky with the galaxy in it.
Second – need a good view of the sky with a parking place that you can get in and out of. The place I did take (bad) pics from has a car park resembling a moon crater. So I won’t go there again.
Third – bring Stuff. And by Stuff I mean light. And probably more things as well to add to the list which would strongly resemble things people would take when camping. That’s one reason why the camping option is really strong, because it means everything is set up well in time for the stars to show themselves.
Four – I learned more about the camera ! I did manage to take some pics but I hadn’t bothered setting up the tripod so they’re unusable. But what it’ll do when you persuade it to take a long exposure shot is turn off the display, have one ominous red light and be unresponsive. Cue me thinking that I broke it. Oops. But it was actually just taking a long 8 second exposure shot. So I have success there, switching it to Manual Focus is how you get those night sky pics.
Will have to be back for another attempt when timings allow and the skies are clear. The Lords trip could actually be a good option there. It’s not something I can really attempt with work the next day as it involves getting back in at 3.30 or 4am. I’d recommend a phone app called Stellarium there, it’ll show you the night sky wherever you are and show you what stars you are looking at.
Any more from Cardiff ?
There was, of course, plunder. In the form of nice snacks, the Lego Pod Racing diorama, the tripod over to the left there and a Lego Dwagon. I’ll show the dwagon build at some point, although I do know that I’m way behind on a few build type posts (and the rest of the cruise) and actually putting some things together as well.
I think that’s my cue to disappear from this post though, have a lovely week everyone.