Here's Johnny

Johnny did the music at the party.

A very decent chap he is too.  Afterwards he was heading down the Legion to join his wife.  That's the British Legion Club to you non-Liberties peeps, not to be confused with that other famous Legion (The French Foreign One).

Hair, no hair

Note the straight hair.  I don't like the straight hair.  Well, I do, but I prefer the natural curls.  

But hey, what do I know? I'm just her 52-soon-to-be-53-year-old father, with very little hair.

Taken on the German Rangefinder and a 21mm lens, HP5+/ID-11.

A teenager in the house

Well Missy's party went well - the sun shone, the DJ played the right tunes and the right people showed up.

We were slightly over-prepared on the food front - clearly the music and the general excitement didn't leave any time for burgers or hot dogs, so we had a small mountain of left-overs.

The cake seemed to go down well enough, though:

There was an awful lot of hair about, as you can imagine.  And most of the girls seemed to be permanently attached to their phones.  But as time went on things loosened up and the phone usage got less as the party games got going.

The Hound was well-behaved, getting into the thick of things from time to time.  He got lots of pats and didn't bite anyone, thank goodness.  It all went smoothly enough and I think the same number of bodies left that arrived - in more or less the same condition, give or take.

The lads:

We were all feeling a little jaded yesterday, for obvious reasons.

It's a big day

It's a big day in The Liberties, since Missy here becomes a teenager today.  She is very excited at the prospect of being a teenager - she said being 12 is like being in the middle, you're not a child but you're not a teenager.  I don't remember becoming a teenager was anything that special - I can remember being 10 and that being a big deal - double figures!  Perhaps that was a hint towards my fascination to come with numbers.

Another one printed on RC Warmtone.  The scan isn't very good - the skin tones in the print are quite nice.

So we have a party organised.  About 5.30 a group of Missy's friends (how can she so many close friends?) will descend on the McNeill homestead where they will be entertained with food and music until 8pm.  At which point most will depart, leaving a couple who are 'sleeping over'.  As usual in these affairs there will, I expect, be precious little sleeping done.  They will no doubt get shouted at about 2am and then hopefully things will be quiet for a few hours.

The weather has been amazingly good all week - very warm, full sun.  All being well that will continue at least for another 12 hours - after that I don't care, it can rain all next week if it likes.

The plan is to get a film developed early Sunday morning, before anyone else is up.  In which case there might be something to show on this place come Monday.  Hopefully.

Financial Maths 101

A little light diversion for y'all today.  My stepson is in the middle of his finals at University in Belfast.  You might remember him and his girlfriend Clare - well, you'd remember her shoes at least.  He's under pressure, for he has an unbelievably good job offer from BT which is dependent on him getting a 2.1.  Not easy when you're doing a degree in Maths with Computer Science.  He's good on the old computery-stuff, but final year Maths stuff is, well, somewhat challenging, shall we say.

I should know, 'cos I did a degree in Mathematics a very long time ago (before I found out that Computer Science was a lot easier).

So he messaged me at the weekend, in some sort of panic-mode since his exam in Financial Maths is, well, today.  You'll have to excuse the digital images for once but this is what he sent me:

Still with me?  Good, then we shall proceed by simplifying the second term (you just knew I was going to say that, didn't you :)

I like the comment from the Lecturer 'There is a lot of scope for making errors...', followed by a "much easier" approach.

I'll spare you the final page - although please let me know if I've left you hanging and you really need to know how this ends or else you'll never get to sleep...

Rather him than me, that's all I can say.  I did give it a good look but the terms are so complex it's hard to see the wood for the trees - and it's over 30 years since I did anything remotely similar to this.  My stepson has a good strategy, though.  In his own words, 'I'll have to be on my bullshit A-game tomorrow'.  Indeed he will.

In the moment

There she was, across the table from me, and I snapped her up in the moment:

I printed her out on Ilford RC Warmtone in Fotospeed WT-10 developer for a change.  The Warmtone is a lovely paper for this sort of stuff.

Moan

The other week I had to go to Ballymena Health Centre for a routine appointment.  Along I tootle, heading for the usual place - which like a lot of older hospital buildings used to be the Ballymena Workhouse:

All lovely old stone work, as was the norm back in the day.

I remember my grandfather never wanting to go to hospital, as in Coleraine too it was in the old Workhouse building.  Such was the fear that he had for anything to do with the Workhouse.  Difficult for me to understand really, being from a different era, but for sure I understood it was not a place you would ever choose to go.  Interesting the plaque states that the Workhouse System ended in 1948.  I would have thought it ended a long time before that, but there you go.

Anyway, as I entered the building I did think the place was a bit deserted and then I was informed that the department had moved next door, 'to the new building'.  No problem, says I, and off I tootle again.

And there we have it.  No doubt many a design award has been won.  That would be Slemish mountain you might be able to make out there way in the distance, by the way.  Not really a mountain, of course...we're not talking K2 or Annapurna or one of them boys here in County Antrim.  However, it is the same Slemish on which good old St. Patrick was rumoured to have tended swine when he was a young whipper-snapper - that would be before he saved Ireland from Druidism and brought enlightenment (i.e., Christianity) to the people.  Indeed, he got very busy in his old age, did Patrick.  Not like me.  I've got very un-busy in me old age.  Ah well.

So where was I...oh yes, the lovely new health centre in Ballymena.  So I rounded the corner and stepped inside - and thought for a minute I was in an airport:

You might spot the front doors there, if your eyesight is good.  Cleverly, all the treatment rooms appeared to be on the upper floors.  Now there are lifts for the not-so-mobile (like me) but they are, naturally enough, right at the back of the building.  It's all lovely and clean and what-have-you, but not only do you have to walk across the full length of the light, airy, polished-to-death atrium (just wait until it's wet outside - won't be long - and see how many people fall over and break a bone on that floor) to get to the lift, but then down seemingly endless long corridors once you actually step out of the lift.  Clearly this was not designed for people who might be elderly, infirm, unable to walk very well, or, heaven forbid, ill or anything like that.  No, this health centre was obviously built for people who are healthy.

Sometimes I think all I do these days is moan but honestly, it really gets my goat when I see millions of pounds being spent like this, on something which is nice and bright and clean and very suitable for all the staff and people in suits but is clearly not designed for the people that actually matter -  the users.

(Of course I realise that is very old-fashioned thinking...the people that matter are the managers and staff.  How silly of me.)

And then to cap it all, once my appointment was finished, the very nice lady asked me to take a note to the admissions desk in order to make my next appointment for 6 months time.  Excuse me?  Now there were 3 people in the room - the health professional person I had come to see, a student nurse and yours truly.  One of the three has had 4 hip replacements and has obvious mobility problems.   No matter, I'll take another walk down another long corridor followed by a very lengthy and uncomfortable stand in a queue before handing over 'the note' to someone sitting down (in an ergonomically-designed chair, no doubt) behind a very nice-looking desk.  It's mad.

It's the same on the rare occasion that I actually see a consultant.  He or she usually prescribes some drug or other ('cos that's what they do).  Do they give me the drug?  No, they write a letter and give the letter to me.  I then take said letter to my GP Surgery (car journey #1).  Then I wait 24 hours.  Then I drive back to the GP Surgery (car journey #2) to pick up another note ('prescription') and then I drive to the Pharmacy (car journey #3) and wait in line, as the Americans say, to get my drug.  Or sometimes when it works the prescription gets magically picked up by the Pharmacy and I can just go straight there, after 48 hours.  Either way, it's still mad in this age of electronic communication.

But - taking a deep breath - back to things that do work well.  All snaps taken on a lovely little German rangefinder with a 35mm lens attached, some type of Ilford film in it and sloshed in ID-11.  Magic.

Sorry.  I got a bit Mr Angry there.  I'm calmer now, had some Green Tea, feeling much better, thanks...