Postcard Friday #1: Ullswater

Ullswater is described as England’s 'most beautiful lake'. It is the country's second largest lake, which sits amidst the splendour of some of the finest fells in Lakeland. It is located in the Lake District National park in Cumbria. It is also the setting for William Wordsworth’s famous “Daffodils” poem.

My family went to Ullswater in summer of last year together with some family friends. From Glenridding, we went cruising with one of the Ullswater 'Steamers', the Lady of the Lake to enjoy the very beautiful scenery surrounding the lake. We dropped off at Pooley Bridge to have a relaxing lunch before heading back to Glenridding. Ullswater is one of the lakes found in the Lake District and is only one of the few we went to during our holiday.

Our kids had a great time communing with nature and away from the bustling city life. I was just awed by the beauty of Ullswater and the rest of the Lake District.

If you're interested to know about Ullswater here's a few links to go to:

• Ullswater
• Ullswater 'Steamers'
• Ullswater - Wikipedia entry

Postcard Friday

I came across this blog, A Postcard a Day, which features postcards as daily blogpost entries. I have collected a few postcards myself. It’s mainly about my home city of Peterborough and some from my travels to other parts of the UK. I also bought a few postcards from my recent holiday to the Philippines, the country of my birth.

I plan to come up with dedicated blogposts on postcards in the future. I will follow a simple rule: blog a postcard every Friday and give some background information about the postcard’s subject. But I may not have enough postcards for this blog project. So, I will participate in Postcrossing, a project that allows anyone to receive postcards (real ones, not electronic) from random places in the world. (http://www.postcrossing.com/)

The goal of Postcrossing is to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world, for free. Well, not exactly! The main idea is that: if you send a postcard, you will receive at least one back from a random Postcrosser from somewhere in the world. If you want to know more about Postcrossing just go to their website, which I’ve mentioned above.

Since I plan to do this regularly I will create a dedicated page, which I will call Postcard Friday. Be sure to check the page regularly so you won’t miss out.

Wordless Wednesday #1: Mother and sons

Wordless Wednesday

I found out an interesting way of creating entries for my blog. It is not a recent phenomenon; in fact, I seem to vaguely recall that I’ve read a few blogposts on it a few years back. I am referring to Wordless Wednesday.

According to an About.com article:

Wordless Wednesday (WW) is a blogosphere phenomenon that apparently no one on the Internet has stepped up to take credit for. Whereas blogs (web journals) are primarily about "words" bloggers love to dress their journal entries with imagery. WW is a simple blog post that features a photo that speaks for itself without words. However, there are no specific rules about WW posts so a few (and sometimes, many) words may accompany a photo or image that is the focus of a WW blog entry.

Phineas and Ferb lunch bag: my son's favourite

Last summer, our sons got hooked on the Disney Channel tv show, Phineas and Ferb. As a consequence, they've been hounding us with requests to buy Phineas and Ferb merchandise. Our younger son, in particular, is the bigger fan; understandably, he's the more persistent one.

One merchandise that he wanted to get was a Phineas and Ferb lunch bag. I tried looking in our local supermarkets like Sainsburys but could not find one. Pressed for time, I went online through Amazon UK. I found one and immediately ordered. I was worried that my order will not arrived in time for the first day of school. But it did, arriving a day before school started! My son was a very happy bunny.

I was a bit annoyed afterwards, though. A week later, I went food shopping at our local Sainsburys and guess what I found there. Yes, the same Phineas and Ferb lunch bag sold 25% less!

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of Amazon UK. But I am also a satisfied customer who regularly buys from them for the lower price and convenience it brought me.

School field trip to Moor Farm

Photo: geograph

Last week, I joined my younger son's class on a school field trip to Moor Farm, located 7 miles northeast of Peterborough. This was the second time I joined my son in a school field trip as a parent helper. Because of his multiple allergy, either my wife or I will accompany our son during a field trip as requested by his schoolteachers.

Moor Farm is a medium-seized mixed arable farm (200 ha in size) with cattle and sheep and run by a husband and wife team. The farm offers free educational visits to primary schools. When we arrived at the farm, owner Judith gave a brief welcome orientation to the children before going out on a short educational tour around the farm.

Creating photo collages with Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008

Have you noticed anything about the images I've used in my recent posts (click here)? Yes, I'm using photo collages, which I created using Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008. AutoCollage is "an advanced computer vision and image processing program which automatically creates collages of your pictures." (Source: Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008 website)