Linda's Meta-learning Journal

I was on the Solway Firth today visiting a beach I knew well as a child. It was strange to be there again and to look across at Criffel. When I was little it was such an important landmark. It was strange to be on the English side of the Solway, to look across and see Annan, to try to work out where SandyHills (my all time favourite childhood beach!) was. Anyway, it was lovely to be there and to walk across the shingle, see wild flowers on the edge of the beach, look at a huge 360deg sky, look east towards the Lake District hills. I know I live by Morecambe Bay but it never feels like the real sea, not like the Solway.

I thought I'd try out this album software. It looks pretty good!

I went for a walk in a local wood yesterday.

This film is bigger than usual - 4.4 MB. is as small as I could get it and keep the definition. I think it must be because of all the movement of the leaves. I got a copy of Quicktime Pro over the holidays so I've been experimenting. I tried exporting it from Quicktime at dsl medium quality first but ended up going back to iMovie and exporting it at web streaming quality. The file size was the same but web streaming plays faster so is better I think.

A few Ultrastudents met up at Hampton Court recently.
The river trip to Kew was a delight - sad that because of the tide we couldn't get all the way to Hampton Court by boat. Still a lovely peacful riverside walk and a train ride later we were finally there.
The kids enjoyed the maze but found it a bit easy I think. I thought the formal gardens were pretty but very, very formal. We headed for the indoors at the first crash of thunder and watched from the Kings chambers as rain lashed down on the Privy Garden. The palace itself left me a bit uneasy. It seems so much an expression of power and as such quite an ugly place. It brought out all my (not very!) latent Scottish republican tendencies. My hackles rose and I could feel the ancestors breathing down my neck!! Ah well, there's a surprise! Once outside again the Privy Garden too seemed all about power and imposing order by dominating. I spent the whole day with the music from "The Draftman's Contract" running through my head. Still it was lovely to see friends and add another face to text.
These face to face meetings are really good. It's like meeting old friends not strangers.I'm wondering about a blogmeet next. Anyone interested?

Stormy Boat Trip

I finally got round to edititng a little video of my boat trip to the Thames Barrier last week. It was quite stormy and you can hear quite a bit of thunder. What I didn't realise till later was that there were floods in West London and torrential rain.
Anyway, it was a good boat trip and I found the barrier itself quite asthetically appealing. The sky and the Thames were wonderful steely grey/blue tones and set it off to perfection. Of course the Dome was a very important thing for a lot of the people at Ultralab and this was the first time I'd ever seen it close to.

Tam O'Shanter

In answer to people's questions in the comments section of the last entry.
This is a poem by Robert Burns (Scottish poet from Dumfrieshire) based on an old legend.
Tam is a drunkard whose horse (a grey mare) takes a short cut home through the woods after the pub one night. Tam happens to see a coven of witches dancing wearing only their "cutty sarks" or short shirts (basically a revealing undergarment like a short loose shirt). The youngest witch is dancing the best and leaping higher than the rest. Entranced by the beaty of this witch Tam cries out "Weel done Cutty Sark!" and thus reveals himself. The witches give chase on broomsticks(!) and Tam's mare flees for her life. The youngest witch is also the fittest and catches Tam's mare's tail but the horse pulls away and the witch is left holding just a tail whilst Tam and his horse escape.

If you want to hear it in all its Lalands glory try this link here where you can download someone speaking it in a broad Dumfrieshire accent. I don't recommend you try to make sense of it by reading it. Too many dialect words! But if you insist the text is available here. (glossary provided).
For myself I prefer his more political poems like In Honest Poverty with its disdain for title or position and its call for a brotherhood of Man.
Though Holy Wullie's Prayer is an old favourite. Burns had no time for hypocrites.

I saw this famous ship yesterday and wondered how many of the people looking at it knew the story of Tam O'Shanter and what a cutty sark actually is - or for that matter that the figure head is a witch and what she is holding is the tail of Tam's "guid grey mare".

I've been trying to find out exactly why the ship was called Cutty Sark but so far have only established that she was built in Dumbarton and her first master was a Scot.

I didn't cheat - honest!!

This lovely little garden is tucked away behind the Storey Art Gallery near Lancaster railway station

I have managed to work out how to get the digital camera videos on to my mac. Turns out you have to use something called Image Capture, then drag the clips into iMovie.
Here's my first effort, a memory of a lovely day. Funny how relaxing it can be sitting in someone else's garden. There was a warm wind and just total peace.

July 31st London

So it's all planned and people are starting to say they are coming! The idea that started in November with me asking"When's the social then?" is finally going to happen. And of course it's not just for JellyArt, the rest of the Ultraversity Community, and anyone from Ultralab that fancies it, are all welcome
Find the details here
JellyArtSocial
Itinerary
or the wonderful Visual Itinerary
Thanks go to Andy R for those:-)
Oooh I'm all excited at the thought of it!