I was watching the Narnia: Prince Caspian film tonight, and I think it's the first time I have ever exclaimed "I recognise that beach!" whilst watching a film.

That would be because I've been to that particular beach in New Zealand - Cathedral Cove.

Screencap from film:


Photo I took:


To be fair, I think I do remember them actually telling us this at the time. But I hadn't seen the film prior to now and had forgotten they'd said that.

But it was cool to see it! (Though poor thudjack had to put up with me going "I know that beach! Oh oh!" Heh.)

I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance, the British series on BBC1, and really loved this particular dance. It's the first time I think I have ever got teary when watching dancing.

It's about a woman who is battling breast cancer.



Turns out the choreographer Tyce Diorio did the exact same dance originally on the American series of SYTYCD. But having seen both, I think prefer this one. Mostly, I think, because Charlie seems to have so much emotion when dancing it. Both her and Robbie (along with the judges (and I imagine the audience)) were all teary after finishing the dance because it was so emotionally demanding to do.

Ow.

Well, that's a new one. I was getting something out of the fridge and when standing up, I managed to whack my head on the (inside) top of the fridge!

So ow. And it also made a rather impressive noise as my head made contact!

Pictures from the aquarium at uShaka Marine World in Durban, South Africa.


I love this jelly fish!

( Turtles and seahorses and sharks and fish and weird spider things and worm-y things... )

I finally watched Avatar tonight!

( A few thoughts... )

All in all, a fantastic film.

Just because I like to annoy you with such things... :-D

Tomorrow is the 2nd episode of Lion Country. This one has Sango, Batoka and Bhubesi - all of whom surface_missile & I walked with and stroked (and have photos with!) when we were at the Victoria Falls project.

Plus it has Echo and Etosha, who are gorgeous male lions. So friendly. (And I went out on a morning (4am start!) drive with them (well, they were outside the vehicle, we were in it to get them used to being with one for when they would start hunting at night with the vehicle for company)).

Anyway - tomorrow (Wednesday) on ITV1 @ 7.30pm.
In case anyone is watching it (I doubt anyone other than Sam particularly cares! lol).

There was a really building in Port Elizabeth, South Africa that had some pretty cool graffiti on it.



( And the close-ups. )

(Yeah, been a few weeks since I last posted some trip photos!)

Sam and I went over to Robben Island when in Cape Town. This is the island that held the political prisoners during apartheid.

The guides who show you around are actually people who were previously on the island - both prisoners and guards. The man who showed us around - who was an ex-prisoner himself - told us that being back and having to face ex-guards had helped him come to terms with the time he'd been forced to spend there.

( Photos & more )

Another thing we got told when there was that the guards used to write fake letters to the prisoners from "family members", saying that their wife was pregnant with a friend's baby and that she wanted a divorce. The guards wouldn't give any of the real post to the prisoners and would lie and say that no one was visiting them (if someone was trying to visit, they were told the prisoner didn't want to see them). This was done to make the prisoner depressed to try to break them. However, when this kept happening, the prisoners got suspicious and got family members who were being allowed to visit others to check whether it was true, and of course found that it wasn't.

I have two amazing photographers on my f-list who I'd just like to share with everyone.

jr_moon I've known for years, back when we both did more graphics than photography - and her graphics were always amazing too. Her photos are always fabulous, whatever the subject, and I especially love the stuff she does on all her film/analogue cameras.

Check out her stuff on her website or deviantART.


light finds a way in by ~jr-moon on deviantART

ahkna and I have a mutual jealousy thing going on. I absolutely love her stuff, but feel she's progressing faster than I, which totally shouldn't be allowed. Whatever she does always seems to look great and I love when she posts new photos.

Check out her stuff on her LiveJournal or flickr.

We're watching So You Think You Can Dance on BBC1... and there's a Stargate on stage.

An actual Stargate.
With chevrons.
And symbols.
Covered in glitter.

Nigel Lythgoe even mentioned "coming through the Stargate".

Random, yes/yes?

I went for a 4-mile hour-long (well, 1 hour and 10 mins!) walk this evening, just me and my mp3 player. I love walking. And I love alone-time like that. Walking and music. I didn't want to stop walking (a case of once I started, I could have just kept going!). But alas I need sleep tonight and have work tomorrow and had to come back and pee anyway ;-) TMI? Never!

I watched NCIS 7x12 too and ( just want to say that... )

I've also finally gotten around to watching NCIS:LA and I love it! It's got the NCIS humour to it, but isn't really much like NCIS all that much. I love their team so much.

In memory of family and friends who have lost the battle with cancer; and in support of the ones who continue to conquer it!

Post this on your LJ if you know someone who has or had cancer.

Grr, my external Hard Drive appears to have randomly died. No dropping involved. It was working fine the other day as I was watching something directly off it.

Turns out that it's a common problem with Seagate external drives too. *kicks it*

Luckily I'm not stupid enough to have had my photos only on there - I have copies on my PC too (my laptop for all my travel photos).

However, it does mean that all my TV shows and films that I had on there are now lost as those I didn't have in more than one place as they're too large to do that. And there was a lot on there.

I guess I shall be looking for a new non-Seagate drive to buy to re-back up my photos and documents.

There's a programme on Wednesday on ITV1 at 7.30pm that all you UK peeps should watch.

It's called Lion County and it's where surface_missile and I were in Zimbabwe this time last year! (This is where my default icon really is perfect for the post!)

Now I need to make sure I don't forget it!

Aww, my fishy died today - shortly before I got back from being in Kent.
Alas it was to be expected (I spoke to an aquarium man a few weeks back about the fact that my fish was still bent, and he told me that on one side of him his central nervous system had died and the muscles contracted and he wouldn't live for much longer).



Poor fishy :-(

But he was around 11 years old. He lived a good life.

This year I have read a total of 18 books. Rubbish compared to most of you guys, I know. But amazing for me compared to my total of 5 books last year!

I also decided to do reviews of the books I'd read this year... or at least part way through this year! The missing ones are from books I read whilst travelling.

1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
A story told from the PoV of a boy with Aspergers. A really great read that I read quite quickly (for me). I'd definitely reccomend this to anyone.

2. Don't Tell Mum - Simon Hoggart & Emily Monk
A fairly amusing book about emails that people who have gone travelling have sent back home to their families. Some crazy stuff that people do when away! And one good piece of advice is don't tell your parents before you plan to do something crazy (like a bungy), especially if you don't email them for a while afterwards!

3. The Trophy Taker - Lee Weeks

4. In Her Shoes - Jennifer Weiner

5. The Exodus Quest - Will Adams

6. The Murderers' Club - PD Martin

7. The Chase - Clive Cussler

8. The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson
A look back at life in 1950s America. An amusing but forgettable read.

9. Broken Skin - Stuart MacBride
The author tried to get the Scottish accent of the characters across in their speech, but it just made reading some of what they said quite hard! The plot itself was good though, with fallible (even the main guy) but likeable characters.

10. Gone For Good - Harlan Coben
My first book that I've read by this author, but his writing is fantastic. He had me hooked within the first few pages. And I'd definitely recommend this book, it's full of plot twist after plot twist that you just don't expect, right up to the end.

11. Northern Lights - Philip Pullman
I loved the first half of this book, but part way through it seemed to... I'm not sure exactly. It seemed events happened too quickly in comparison to earlier on, plus the main character had everything going right for her all the time or something. I can't quite put my finger on it.

12. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
This one seemed to be written in a very different style to the first book. Reading it straight after the first one really showed the difference in style, but it really worked and I very much enjoyed the story.

13. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
I really enjoyed the conclusion to the trilogy. Though I did feel a little heartbroken when reading this one!

14. Lyra's Oxford - Philip Pullman
A short story about Lyra two year's after The Amber Spyglass. Short but sweet.

15. Shut Eye - Adam Baron
I enjoyed the plot of this crime thriller, but at times the author was over descriptive, which would really annoy me when reading. You don't need to know the exact ingredients and measurements when the character is cooking a meal, or when they use the enter key when using a computer!

16. About A Boy - Nick Hornby
The book that the film is based on. I remember that I enjoyed the film when I saw it but didn't really remember what had happened in it. But the book? I loved the book. I loved how all the characters developed throughout the story, and you couldn't help but get drawn into their lives. Great book.

17. The World According to Clarkson - Jeremy Clarkson
This is a collection of Jeremy's articles in the Sunday Times from 2001-2003. I quite enjoyed reading it - however I think it would have been better to read by dipping in occasionally rather than reading the whole thing as my current book, because of course the chapters didn't flow as a story would so I never quite got into it. Being Jeremy Clarkson also means that a few of the things he'd write about I didn't agree with, but mostly it was just amusing and sometimes got you thinking about some of the issues he discussed.

18. Ugly - Constance Briscoe
This is a story of the author's childhood, where her mother both abused and neglected her. How she survived this and seems to have turned out so normal I have no idea. But it is well worth a read. The Evening Standard review sums up my feelings quite well: "Reading the book is like an exercise in bottling up your rage. Afterwards, you feel happiness and disturbed. Which is only right." I don't think I've ever felt anger towards a book like I did when reading this one.

Am somewhat amused that everyone's Christmas is over and I've not had mine yet. That'll be tomorrow.

Today we had Dad, Tom, Rob, CG and myself here and we've been doing... well, I'm not sure actually! But we filled a day without going on the computer until just now nor watching any TV. Though I did spend hours (and I mean that literally) cleaning the shower because it was... well, disgusting doesn't begin to describe it. *shudders* Tom did help do part of it though. Apparently 3 males in a house with no mother or any sort of woman figure is a very bad thing.

Not seen Doctor Who yet. Might watch it tomorrow. Might not. Depends if I have time. I'll watch it eventually at any rate!

Sarah, Emily & the girls come tomorrow. Pete's working (and spent today at his gf's) and will be back in the afternoon. Will no doubt be another busy day. Probably complete mayhem actually!

Hope everyone has had a good day whatever you've been up to.

OMG, that was the scariest weather I have ever driven in!

I left my flat 10 minutes early this morning because I wanted to get petrol before work. However that didn't happen. As soon as I stepped outside, what looked like wet pavement (it was raining last night) was actually ice.

I had no grip on my shoes (I think only a pair of crampons would have helped!!) and was sliding all over the place.
I unlocked my car but thought I hadn't when I couldn't open the door... I had to yank it hard to break through the frozen door handle to actually get in the car.
It then took me 10 minutes to break through the ice that covered my windows, and that was only once the heating I'd turned on had started melting it. It was then breaking off in who large sections of sheet ice. And I had to hold on to my door handle to stay upright whilst doing this!

Finally I could drive... and the traction light kept coming on as I started reversing. And also as I drove Very. Slowly. up our road. Upon reaching the top and stopping at the junction with the main road, I stopped fine but my car slid sideways into the kerb!

I was going to turn onto the main road (you could see the gritting lorries had been over them), but after going sideways a bit as I tried, I decided to just go straight over the road (my normal way) and up some more side roads. Luckily nothing bad happened.

My whole way to work my average speed was probably 15mph, top speed of 25mph on the main road out of Southampton!

And then arriving at work, I was the first car in our area of the car park! he other people who had arrived were public transport people! There are also currently only a dozen of us in. People keep phoning to say they're either coming in later or are stuck at the moment and won't be in!

Crazy! Driving -or walking - on ice is so not fun. I saw a few pedestrians slip over as I drove in.

One day in Cape Town we went up Table Mountain, which the town sits at the base of. It was so amazingly hot that day, with next to no breeze either!

We got the cable car up (and back down) although you can walk up to the top if you wish.

I also managed to lose Sam up the top at one point, as I circled around the cafe area a few times trying to find her and yet didn't for ages!

( On to the photos )

Found on YouTube...
Tribute to David Tennant: My Doctor



It'll be such a shame when he's not the Doctor anymore. Only 2 episodes left. *is sad*