Moored up outside Bath, or I suppose, in Bath as we can see the terraced golden stone houses across the hills over the towpath and the railway.

Moored up along the concrete side of the canal and everytime a boat passes, the boat hits the side and the clang echoes along our 47′ narrow boat called Ena. The wind is now picking up and as we are on a sort of embankment, the boat is rocking with the gusts.
This canal was built at the end of the 18th Century and designed for barges. The locks and bridges can cope with wider boats – after all it seemed to be a rapid transit in days of sail to transfer goods (think sugar and coal) to London.
Now to cruise into Bath proper and see what the moorings look like (will there be room at the inn?)

* apologies to Iain Banks

Job done
All cars stripped, painted and decals applied. New tyres as old ones crumbling. Curious how some rubber products liquefy while the rest dry out and become brittle. Have I spoilt these models by the refurbishment — I don’t think so. Does a classic car lose value by being resprayed or having new tyres?

These now have pride of place on my mantelpiece in the study.

Now for the next project … A model train set.

This will be my 4th set … The first as a child, the second to celebrate my first child, the third for my youngest and the present one for Cameron, my first grandchild. Mind you, it will be a long while before he can do more than just watch. He can start with the Duplo train and then graduate onto Thomas and friends. Where did those old Rev Awdrey books go to?
http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Wilbert_Awdry

Next time, some thoughts on scale and the history of HO/OO

Just arrived, the last of the Dinky racing car series. This is the Alfa—Romeo 23F. As usual, a decision has to be made when restoring a collection or starting from scratch as to whether to leave as is — job done, it is meant to look like this — or to restore the model.

Really it is a personal decision. To talk of reducing the value of the model really means reducing the money one can get for it on eBay. Original models in pristine condition in their original boxes, command silly money. To achieve this, the original purchaser ( or collector) will have to put the boxed article in a dark room or secondary box, away from the light and bring it out 50 years later. Not really a very good investment and of course, no pleasure in playing with the cars.

My models came in a variety of dilapidated states. Some had been repainted — really, just overpainted and poorly at that. The paint work was chipped and faded.

This latest model had its original paintwork. The tyres had perished (we do replace the tyres on real cars from time to time without loss of value — indeed to some gain in market price). A good paint job also gains value.

And so:

• dismantling — starting by drilling out the rivets
• caustic soda bath (very refreshing) to remove all paint
• primer spray for bare metal
• gloss black spray (2 coats) for the baseplate
• hammer the axles straight
• brush paint for body and driver plus details
• repeat as necessary
• allow paint to cure
• reassemble, superglue in new rivets
• enjoy

Final pics of completed set on the Dinky section of this website. In the meantime, some pictures of the Alfa in transition

This then is my Book of the Month : The Mystery Of Easter Island by Katherine Routledge. A facsimile of the original, published in 1919. Setting out to explore one last unexplained area of the world before they died; they were away for more than 2 years. The 1st World War started after they were well on their way and the world was not the same as when they departed for the Pacific— contrary to the reassurances they made to their family and friends. The transportation to Easter Island even had to be built in the form of a 'yacht' called the Mana.

The first excavations of the stone statues and the last chance ever to speak to the old men (not women) who carried the oral history of the island were carried out by this expedition.

A good read and beautifully written, with just the right amount of 'dated prose'.

A cogent and entirely reasonable argument for the retention of books in print rather than ebooks (though I really miss the ability to define words and to chase interesting facts and ideas down the rabbit hole of Wikepedia.

You can buy this book. From a really nice shop on the Main Street of Hanga Roa or almost certainly from Amazon.

As an aside, I'm also reading World War Z by Max Brooks — either Easter Island or the Falkland Islands would be good places to escape the Zombie plague — assuming that of course you close down the airports after you arrive.

Rivets drilled out and caustic soda applied, old paint washed off.
Primer sprayed onto body shells and base plates sprayed gloss black.

Well on the way to a complete refurbishment after 50 years.

Now for the fine, painstaking (and colourful) work on the racing strip. HWM is on the grid

Minor changes to the website today. These include more pictures on the galleries and an invite to a guest blog.  More to follow. 

GPS data as part of the metadata in photographs is a relatively new addition to my workflow. I increasingly value this as part of the ‘worth’ of my photographs and would just like it to work automatically – as iPhone photos do. Sadly, not all cameras provide this data as standard (nearly all do not). Top end DSLR’s do have this facility – via an add on device and unsurprisingly, these are expensive add-ons.

I had 2 systems of getting this data onto my photos and now I have a third.
The first or basic one was to use Aperture, select a spot on the map where I think I took the photos and then ‘pin’ the photos to that location. This has the advantage of making you think about the location of your photos, but it is not automatic and therefore, falls down pretty much at the first hurdle.  There is also a tendency to lump photos together and although the general location is clear, the GPS data is not too helpful if you want to go back to that exact place to take more photos, or even to find the place again.
The second system I thought about was to use my iPhone. I would religiously take a photo with my iphone and therefore tag the location and therefore all the photos I then took with my DSLR could be tagged by a process of copy and paste of GPS data. Great system, but I have forgotten to take photos of new locations with my iphone – especially when moving around or between two adjacent locations. It is also labour intensive and not automatic – it requires a lot of phaffing around in post process –  this system was ok-ish until I found my latest solution.

GPSPhotoLinker Help
www.earlyinnovations.com

This is a program that runs on the Mac.  The process is to start your GPS tracker on your iPhone or similar when you go out on a photoshoot, when taking the big camera out (Canon 7D for me).  At the end of the trip (I use Motion X – gps on the iphone – but you can use dedicated GPS trackers eg Garmin)  stop the tracking program. You then save the track. On Motion X, you can email yourself a .gpx file which is an xml file with your timings and geolocation.
Then download the photos from your camera to your computer – I put them into folders – Photoalbum/DVD_27/130616 photos folder for example. Read the workflow from ‘The Dam Book’ by Peter Krogh ( a must buy – go out and do it now)  ‘DVD’ for me is a superfolder and I keep it to the size of a DVD to help backup to DVD storage.
You then load the .gpx file and the photos into the GPSphotolinker program – click on auto convert and the geolocation for the photos is matched up between the times on the .gpx file and the camera time (make sure that your camera time is up to date and the same as the iPhone)
It writes the gps data to the photo metadata on the original photo files .. in my case .CR2 RAW files and then you can upload your photos to Aperture or Lightroom for further processing.
Automatic and so far, works a treat.
Here are some geolocated photos from our walk this am in the sunshine.

So NEMS Market research thinks that the TPS (telephone preference service) does not apply to them as they are not sales, but ‘market research’ – go figure

If this invasion of the home telephone continues, then this device will go the way of the Dodo.

I jealously guard my mobile number and do not give it to all. A call for sales or other such spam would be a grievous blow against me personally. I can see that coming, especially as spam text messages come in from time to time. No I have not been missold PPI and If I have had that accident in my car, it must have been a bad one, as I seem to have lost my memory of the tragic circumstances.

Technology allows these cold callers access to our lives. Me I can’t wait until autumn and the arrival of IOS 7 and the ability to block phone numbers from bothering my iPhone.

Perhaps we should bring back this punishment for the owners (not the hapless employees) of these firms?

A change of direction in this blog post. I’m going to look at new directions in technology and how we communicate. It’s all too easy to trudge down the old paths, deepening the ruts in the dirt and never straying from this comfortable path. Our prejudices are reinforced by the information that we allow into our lives.

We should widen our horizons. The Internet age can result in headline skimming and short attention spans (see The Shallows – http://www.theshallowsbook.com/nicholascarr/Nicholas_Carrs_The_Shallows.html)

It can also give you the freedom to dive deeper and deeper into the reality behind the headlines. 
The choice is yours.

I’ve been a subscriber to The Magazine since the start (on the iPad and iPhone via the Newsstand).  Started by Marco Arment (of Instapaper fame), it proposed a different way of publishing. The scope has grown from a geek look at the world to a considered collection of thoughts and memes.  It presents the articles in a way that is easy to read and dip into, yet possesses hooks and links to enable you to go down the rabbit hole if you so wish.
Take a look at this article on vaccination and how we make decisions. A subject close to my heart.
http://the-magazine.org/15/give-it-your-best-shot

Back home, and more busy than ever. Lots of photos to process with Aperture on the Mac.  Oodles of music and apps to sort out and put in their right places.  The joy of unlimited and fast broadband still brings a smile to my face. The sheer convenience of data synching across all devices makes my life simpler.
More on Chile and Rapa Nui to follow and then to find out how to start new blog subsection
In the meantime , views of Tynemouth – ships waiting to enter the Tyne and trees on a Glorious Saturday – hot and bustling by Tynemouth Station