Hi Dear peregrinos, friends and relatives
Some months of hard work, and much of it brain work chuckle, has come to the end as the Ford Transit van I bought is now clean and polished and fitted out for us to use to go on holiday with any time. It now sleeps two, has a fridge, small stove, microwave, toilet and sink with water at the tap. As most cooking will be done outside the fact that there is no pop top should be no problem. I like the benefit that it still goes under my carport! It's great for gnomes and little people like me and Maisie.
Give the videos time to load (buffer)
(music composed and played by Maisie! - Maisie Blues!)
The weather has been not of the holiday type this month! It's still winter here! Lots of rain, with one day that I had to phone Maisie to pick me up as I was soaking wet and decided it would be wise to return home from my walk in a warm car!!! Sorry to say my walking has been mostly cut to every other day while I have been working on the van.
The old 29 Chevrolet had to have its starter motor fixed and this I managed to do and it should be tested soon so I can use it in September ( I have to use it for a Chev club friend's wedding).
The videos
We have been making or should I say trying to make videos with our photos and I would like to thank some of you who sent ideas to me about it.
Meantime we found a new program that helps us do this better than the old one anyway. Photo Story for Windows seems to be the best as for once it is simple to use. The van video above was made in this program in one of its smaller sizes. The bigger files give a clear full screen for the home use but are too big to send email. There is another option that is a bit smaller and if you don't put too many photos on, it seems to be ok for most using broad band to receive. There are a number of programs to make the photos smaller but remember if made too small they finish up not clear. One problem I found with using this program is if you use a lot of photos it cuts down the quality too I think.
We have had a lot of fun digging up photos I took as colour slides in Spain in 1967 and using these, Maisie put them together with music of the era. I think they bring back great memories
Many of my peregrino friends have been on holidays but few seem to be walking Caminos, but one I know hopes to walk the North Camino in September. He kindly asked me to join him but it could not be. The North is a lovely Camino if any of you get a chance go see that part of Spain and its lovely people!
What else this Month?
Unfortunately we were unable to attend Maisie's cousin Gerald's wedding in England, he married Jane so congratulations are sent to both of them.
Our little grandson Benjamin was 2 years old on the 10th! We couldn't get down to them either in Denmark but John has some lovely photos on his photo page, see the link on our web page!
We both had to have new spectacles this month, headaches when working on computer or watching TV. It had been about 4 years, if not more since I had had any. We found a company that promises two pair for the one low price! The snag is that you end up buying 2 pairs of spectacles when you really only need one - but in the end we did pretty well and came out with $100 left from a $1000 and four pair of glasses, see the photo below taken at the Perth Big Sing
Yes we did get to Perth's Big Sing !!!
This was like a big singing workshop held in one of the biggest theatres in Perth. We found ourselves in the front row!!!! The highlight was that everyone on the day is taught the words etc and eventually sings as a chorus accompanying a rather lovely girl with a beautiful voice singing "Carmen." This was amazing as there was some about 1000 people singing ! As far as I know, no one noticed my poor effort (I haven't sung in a choir for some years now and was very rusty!) But I enjoyed it immensely so did Maisie.
That is a massive organ that took up the whole of the rear of the stage, great sound too
Having finished the van we decide to take a few days holiday in it we thought about 11 days!! Now you can watch the video of it
That is what happened! Poor Maisie fell asleep with an ant in her clothing and was badly bitten while she slept, so bad that we decided to drive the 500 k home again!!! She is on the mend now thank goodness!
Maisie has written about the holiday on the Our News page of Our Web Page and you can see more photos if you click on the links in Our Web Page to August 2009 album 1 and August 2009 album 2 There are also a couple of videos of sea views and Murchison Gorge on the link to Maisie's Blog.
Also John has uploaded some lovely photos of his family, including Benjamin's 2nd birthday which you can see by clicking on the link called John and Silvia's Latest Photos on Our Web Page.
Bye for now and enjoy the last of your summer as we just start our spring (very wet one as yet chuckle)
Abrazos
Michael
