photos

Oldest Digital Photo… of Me

Some younger/hipper friends tell me that there was a thing going around on Instagram this week where people post photos of themselves aged 21.

I might not have any photos of myself aged 21! I certainly can’t find any digital ones…

Dan, aged 22, stands in a cluttered flat with his partner Claire and several members of Dan's family. — The closest I can manage is this photo from 23 April 2003, when I was 22 years old.

It must sound weird to young folks nowadays, but prior to digital photography going mainstream in the 2000s (thanks in big part to the explosion of popularity of mobile phones), taking a photo took effort:

Most folks didn’t carry their cameras everywhere with them, ready-to-go, so photography was much more-intentional.
The capacity of a film only allowed you to take around 24 photos before you’d need to buy a new one and swap it out (which took much longer than swapping a memory card).
You couldn’t even look at the photos you’d taken until they were developed, which you couldn’t do until you finished the roll of film and which took at least hours – more-realistically days – and incurred an additional cost.

I didn’t routinely take digital photos until after Claire and I got together in 2002 (she had a digital camera, with which the photo above was taken). My first cameraphone – I was a relatively early-adopter – was a Nokia 7650, bought late that same year.

It occurs to me that I take more photos in a typical week nowadays, than I took in a typical year circa 2000.

Monochrome photo of a toddler, smiling broadly, pointing at the camera. — The oldest *analogue* photo of me that I own was taken on 2 October 1982, when I was 22 months old.

This got me thinking: what’s the oldest digital photo that exists, of me. So I went digging.

I might not have owned a digital camera in the 1990s, but my dad’s company owned one with which to collect pictures when working on-site. It was a Sony MVC-FD7, a camera most-famous for its quirky use of 3½” floppy disks as media (this was cheap and effective, but meant the camera was about the size and weight of a brick and took about 10 seconds to write each photo from RAM to the disk, during which it couldn’t do anything else).

In Spring 1998, almost 26 years ago, I borrowed it and took, among others, this photo:

Dan aged 17 - a young white man with platinum blonde shoulder-length hair - stands in front of a pink wall, holding up a large, boxy digital camera. — I’m aged 17 in what’s probably the oldest surviving digital photo of me, looking like a refugee from Legoland in 640×480 glorious pixels.

I’m confident a picture of me was taken by a Connectix QuickCam (an early webcam) in around 1996, but I can’t imagine it still exists.

So unless you’re about to comment to tell me know you differently and have an older picture of me: that snap of me taking my own photo with a bathroom mirror is the oldest digital photo of me that exists.

Mental Elf Day

Christmas Jumper Day at the kids’ school. Because I’m the “embarrassing parent”, I joined in for the school run too.

(Also for my meetings today, obviously.)

Freezing Fog

Gorgeous freezing fog over the fields on the school run this morning.

Monster Munch Sandwich

Experimenting with some unusual combinations in anticipation of International Crisp Sandwich Day.

This one’s Roast Beef Monster Munch on Farmhouse White.

(I hereby release the crisp sandwich photo into the public domain / CC0 license; your choice.)

Note #20998

Beginning to prepare/test my costume for an upcoming murder mystery party, I glanced into the mirror and briefly didn’t recognise myself. Glasses can do so much to change your face shape!

“Walking” the dog

Brought Demmy out on the school run for her first “walk”, this morning.

Child Photographers

Taking a photo of our kids isn’t too hard: their fascination with screens means you just have to switch to “selfie mode” and they lock-on to the camera like some kind of narcissist homing pigeon. Failing that, it’s easy enough to distract them with something that gets them to stay still for a few seconds and not just come out as a blur.

Dan with the kids and his bike, on the way to school. — “On the school run” probably isn’t a typical excuse for a selfie, but the light was good.

But compared to the generation that came before us, we have it really easy. When I was younger than our youngest is , I was obsessed with pressing buttons. So pronounced was my fascination that we had countless photos, as a child, of my face pressed so close to the lens that it’s impossible for the camera to focus, because I’d rushed over at the last second to try to be the one to push the shutter release button. I guess I just wanted to “help”?

Monoshcome photo of Dan, circa 1982, poiting towards the camera. — Oh wait… is there something on that camera I can press?

In theory, exploiting this enthusiasm should have worked out well: my parents figured that if they just put me behind the camera, I could be persuaded to take a good picture of others. Unfortunately, I’d already fixated on another aspect of the photography experience: the photographer’s stance.

When people were taking picture of me, I’d clearly noticed that, in order to bring themselves down to my height (which was especially important given that I’d imminently try to be as close to the photographer as possible!) I’d usually see people crouching to take photos. And I must have internalised this, because I started doing it too.

Unfortunately, because I was shorter than most of my subjects, this resulted in some terrible framing, for example slicing off the tops of their heads or worse. And because this was a pre-digital age, there was no way to be sure exactly how badly I’d mucked-up the shot until days or weeks later when the film would be developed.

In an effort to counteract this framing issue, my dad (who was always keen for his young assistant to snap pictures of him alongside whatever article of public transport history he was most-interested in that day) at some point started crouching himself in photos. Presumably it proved easier to just duck when I did rather than to try to persuade me not to crouch in the first place.

As you look forward in time through these old family photos, though, you can spot the moment at which I learned to use a viewfinder, because people’s heads start to feature close to the middle of pictures.

Dan's dad on a train station. — This is a “transitional period” photo, evidenced by the face that my dad is clearly thinking about whether or not he needs to crouch.

Unfortunately, because I was still shorter than my subjects (especially if I was also crouching!), framing photos such that the subject’s face was in the middle of the frame resulted in a lot of sky in the pictures. Also, as you’ve doubtless seem above, I was completely incapable of levelling the horizon.

I’d like to think I’ve gotten better since, but based on the photo above… maybe the problem has been me, all along!

Holidays in the Age of COVID

We’ve missed out on or delayed a number of trips and holidays over the last year and a half for, you know, pandemic-related reasons. So this summer, in addition to our trip to Lichfield, we arranged a series of back-to-back expeditions.

1. Alton Towers

The first leg of our holiday saw us spend a long weekend at Alton Towers, staying over at one of their themed hotels in between days at the water park and theme park:

Children playing outside the CBeebies Land Hotel — The CBeebies Land hotel is… whimsical.

A muppet assists with hotel checkin. — Yes, there’s a puppeteer (somewhere) in that cabinet processing checkins.

Kids in a decorated elevator. — Even the elevators play tunes and put on a light show with every journey.

A rabbit... playing a saxophone? — It took me a while to see this rabbit as playing music, rather than, y’know… vomiting.

The Windmill restaurant at the CBeebies Land Hotel — The whimsy continues in the theming of the restaurant. Yes, that windmill turns.

The kids on an enormous chair. — Technically, this is part of one of the other (similarly whimsical) hotels on the site, but nobody seemed to mind our exploring.

Ruth, JTA and the kids eat dinner. — On at least one occasion we ate dinner in “The Library”, which turns out (disappointingly) not to be a library but a room with pictures of books on the wall.

Children watching a show in the hotel. — The hotel puts on a series of show somewhat reminiscent of an “upscale” Pontins.

Bing the rabbit at the hotel. — Bing the rabbit made me glad that the other end of this hotel room had a bar.

JTA and the kids relaxing in our Octonauts-themed hotel room. — The (Octonauts) theming of our hotel room even extended as far as the phone, TVs, and that notice they put up about towel washing. Neat.

Mini-golf game in progress. — Hole in… seven?

Dan, Ruth, JTA and the kids at the water park. — For obvious reasons, we don’t have photos inside the water park. Ignore the sign, we asked permission before taking this one!

The kids by the pond between the hotels. — Befriending wildfowl is what people with kids come to theme parks for, right?

Kids at the "frog" fountains near the entrance to Alton Towers' theme park. — Yay! Frog fountains!

Riding the In The Night Garden boat ride. — The In The Night Garden Boat Ride was a particular favourite.

Ubercorn poses for a photo with a fan. — Social distancing was imposed reasonably wall, all things considered, although (as you’d expect) many fairgoers were less-disciplined than we’d have liked.

The Octonauts rollercoaster. — We spent a lot of our first day in the theme park in CBeebies Land, but we only had the patience to queue for the Octonauts rollercoaster the once.

Duggee at Alton Towers — CBeebies Land itself had a variety of shows with different characters.

The kids learn from a Mr. Tumble screen. — Makaton for “friend” is just cute. Thanks, Mr. Tumble.

Dan and JTA wear masks indoors. — On these, among the hottest days of the year, we got quite sweaty inside our masks.

Charlie and Lola photo opportunity. — I’m not sure we optimised this photo opportunity for height.

Imprisoned nose-picker. — An unrepentant nose-picker gets jail time in Mutinty Bay.

The kids drive through the Postman Pat ride. — The Postman Pat ride designer had the foresight to provide two steering wheels in case the participants weren’t good at sharing… but still provided an odd number of buttons to use to “deliver parcels” at key points during the ride.

Congo River Rapids ride.. — Later in the first day and into the second day we stepped up to more-exciting family rides, like the Congo River Rapids, and even a few thrill rides that interested only a subset of our party.

Ride photo from the Congo River Rapids — The Congo River Rapids had a tediously long queue (not least because no groups, however small, were allowed to share a boat), but at least we all got to take part together as a family.

Ride photo from the Runaway Mind Train. — The kids had to make a solemn promise to stop their bickering before they were allowed to sit together for this ride.

Ride photo from Duel — Not everybody was equally-enthusiastic about haunted house shoot-’em-up ride Duel.

2. Darwin Forest

The second leg of our holiday took us to a log cabin in the Darwin Forest Country Park for a week:

Feeding a sheep. — We punctuated our journey from Alton Towers with a trip to Chatsworth House to feed some livestock.

Rope climbing. — Chatsworth House also has a spectacular adventure playground.

Kid carrying huge stick. — “I found a stick!” “That’s… half a tree!”

Log cabin in the Landal Darwin Forest. — Eventually we reached our cabin, unpacked… and jumped into the hot tub!

Lounging on the sofa with a CBeebie toy. — For the duration of the week we instituted “holiday mornings”, permitting the children to get up by themselves, assemble their own breakfast, and watch broadcast TV… so long as they did so without disturbing the adults. It worked pretty well.

Ruth hops across balancing logs in the Darwin Forest. — The forest trails are full of obstacles fun for children… and adults.

Kids different ways up. — No, THIS way up!

Dan on a climbing wall. — Further along the trail, there’s a traverse wall.

Fairy houses in a wood. — Off the trails, all kinds of curious sculptures – like these fairy houses – can be found.

Running around on a football pitch. — We forgot to bring a football, but we played lots of imaginary sports.

Soft play dome. — The on-site soft play centre operated at minimal capacity, which felt about right.

Soft play slides. — A soft play centre with a low population means you’re often alone on the racing slides…

Dan and the kids on a racing slide. — …that is, unless you bring your own racers to compete with!

Mini-golf in the Darwin Forest. — The second mini-golf course of our holiday was deceptively harder than the first thanks to awkwardly-shaped obstacles that reflected the ball out at terrible angles.

Dan, Ruth, JTA and the kids outside St. Elphin's Park Retirement Village. — Ruth’s old secondary school is now an old folks home and an attached fancy tea room, so – as we were in the vicinity – we had to go visit!

Stirring tea. — Remarkably, the kids (for once) showed impeccable table manners.

Wiping with a napkin. — I’m almost embarrassed to say that this, one of the best photos I’ve ever taken, was snapped accidentally when a 4-year-old reached over and touched my camera.

Dan, Ruth, JTA and the kids outside the Devil's Arse. — What else does one do in the Derbyshire Dales? That’s right: go down caves!

The kids visit a restored ropemaker's hut in the Devil's Arse. — Staff at the Devil’s Arse were amazing and even took the kids on their own personal tour of a ropemaker’s hut (not part of the routine tour).

Ropemaking demonstration. — We also got to bring home a length of rope that the kids helped make.

Family down a cave. — It turns out to be hard to take a good photo down a cave. Can’t think why.

Dan, Ruth and the kids in a boat down a cave. — Our second spelunking expedition took us into Speedwell Cavern by boat.

Dan, Ruth, JTA and the kids above the "bottomless pit" in Speedwell Cavern. — The bottomless pit, behind us, turns out to be less-bottomless than advertised.

Ice cream. — When it wasn’t raining, it was hot. Either way, we were on holiday, so ice cream was in order.

The kids asleep. — The kids shared a bedroom for pretty-much the first time since we moved house last year, and routinely sat up late reading stories to one another until they zonked out mid-book.

Dan, geocaching. — Naturally, I took one of our “chill out and rest” days as an excuse for a nice long hike and a geocaching expedition to the Sydnope Valley.

Dan, Ruth, JTA and the kids at the Crazy Cat Lady escape room. — We also tried an local escape room and it was spectacularly well-designed (and amazingly family-friendly).

Dan drinking from a champagne flute. — Oh, and there might have been a modicum of drinking, both in and out of the hot tub.

3. Preston

Kicking off the second week of our holiday, we crossed the Pennines to Preston to hang out with my family (with the exception of JTA, who had work to do back in Oxfordshire that he needed to return to):

Boy eating a crumpet alongside a bowl of fruit. — Our resident 4-year-old foodie claims that no crumpets are as good as Nanna Doreen’s “giant” ones.

Boy lying on Dan, waving, eating an ice lolly. — Sometimes you just need an ice lolly and a bean bag to chill on. If you can’t find a bean bag, use Dan.

Children running out of a shed. — Now that she doesn’t have any cats, dogs, or chickens, my mother’s old sheds have been converted into playhouses.

Ruth provides tickling. — Who needs a tickle? You need a tickle.

A girl with felt-tip whiskers drawn on to look like a cat. — Fortunately, the felt-tips she found were of the washable variety.

Dan takes a picture of Ruth taking a picture of the kids. — Why yes, this is a picture of me taking a picture of Ruth taking a picture.

A woman and a girl press their faces together and rub noses. — I’m not sure what this pose was MEANT to achieve…

A woman and a girl; the girl is face-painted as a cat, the woman has bit of the face paint rubbed off onto her. — …but what it ACTUALLY achieved was my mother getting ink splotches on her face.

Two adults and a child using mobile phones and tablets. — Syncing everything up in anticipation of a Pokewalk.

A woman and a girl outdoors looking at their mobile devices. — “Which way to the Pokestop?” (I’m guessing. I don’t understand Pokemon Go.)

A woman and a girl on a cycleway, holding hands, between trees and weeds. — “How far to the Pokegym?” (I still don’t know anything about Pokemon Go. Don’t flame me.)

Sarah and Ruth pull strange pouty faces together. — I feel like every time I visit my family I acquire a larger number of photos that I can’t begin to explain.

My sisters wrestle(?) on the floor. — Like this one. Is this some kind of game? What are the rules? Who’s winning? I just don’t know.

Becky lies on the floor, surrounded by/covered in children. — Is this the same game? Are the children all on the same team (against Becky) or not? I have so many unanswered questions.

Dan and Sarah hold their heads with their hands, at a strange angle. — And this one. What are Sarah and I doing? Simultaneously cracking our necks, perhaps?

Hedgehog on a garden path. — The kids put food out for the hedgehogs and attracted a big one.

A boy, holding a GPS receiver, runs across a park lawn. — Now THIS kind of GPS-based sport I can get behind. Lead on to the cache!

Two children hold a geocache. — The kids were less impressed by this geocache than I was. And I wasn’t THAT impressed.

A girl does sit-ups in an outdoor gym. — Not content with sprinting around the 400m track wearing her wellies, our 7-year-old then proceeded to dominate on the park gym.

A boy on a cross-trainer. — If you pedal one of these things hard enough, does it take off?

Sarah helps a child on a zipline. — Wheeee!

A boy enjoys an ice cream at a park cafe. — So. Many. Sprinkles.

A boy runs in the distance. — How do they find so much energy?

A girl runs with a small dog on a lead. — We borrowed a dog from a family friend. If our 7-year-old had her way, we wouldn’t have given it back.

Jemma blows out candles on a birthday cake. — It was Jemma’s birthday, apparently, so we marked it at a family barbecue.

Ruth photographs a boy on a pontoon. — Nearby Brockholes nature reserve provided a wonderful outing.

Ruth photographs her 4-year-old as he stands on a pontoon dock. — This one’s the less-accident-prone of our children. Otherwise he’d probably already be in the water, somehow.

Ducks approach a girl on a pontoon bridge. — Our 7-year-old likes to befriend ducks wherever she goes.

Children run away into a meadow. — Again with the boundless energy as the kids disappear into one of Brockholes’ meadows.

A boy runs away from two adults. — That boy loves a big open space to run in, for sure.

A girl shouts with excitement as she crosses a wobbly bridge. — Brockholes’ adventure play area is pretty exciting too.

A boy concentrates hard as he crosses a wobbly bridge. — But crossing a wobbly bridge isn’t the easiest thing when you’re little.

A boy climbs a two-rope crossing, balancing on the bottom rope while holding the top rope. — Luckily our children are both pretty fearless and adventurous and will give pretty much anything a go.

A boy shouts from the top of a grassy knoll near a car park. — It’s hard to tell, but he’s not shouting in distress here, but in joy.

Children petting an English Longhorn cattle. — I believe this is an English Longhorn, a traditional draft animal of North-West England in centuries past.

Two adults and two children pose with a wooden sculpture of a doe lying down. — I made several attempts to get my mother, my sister Sarah, and both our kids into a single frame in which they were all looking at the camera and none of them were blinking. I failed, but this was the closest I managed.

4. Forest of Bowland

Ruth and I then left the kids with my mother and sisters for a few days to take an “anniversary mini-break” of glamping in the gorgeous Forest of Bowland:

Dan and Ruth outside a wooden "pod" glamping structure. — This caravan-sized wooden hut became our delightful little home for a few days.

A river snakes through a lightly-wooded valley. — Here, at the edge of the Forest, the Bier Beck snakes lazily towards the River Ribble.

Dan strokes a large brown horse wearing a red jacket. — The farm on which our pod was situated kept horses.

A horse wearing a zebra-print jacket. — I just loved the fact that this horse had a zebra-print jacket.

Ruth and Dan at the trig point at the summit of Pendle Hill. — One morning, we took a scorching hike up Pendle Hill. Didn’t see any witches, but also didn’t receive any mission from God, so I guess all’s well.

Steve Taylor wearing a bathtub and climbing Pendle Hill. — We DID get to meet Steve Taylor, though, who’s repeatedly climbing the hill, carrying a bathtub, until he’s ascended to the consecutive height of Mount Everest. He’s raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, the hero.

Dan and Ruth enjoy cocktails in a beer garden. — That pubs expanded their outdoor seating provision to handle social distancing works wonderfully when you get to sit in a gorgeous but quiet beer garden.

Ruth plays a pipe organ. — During a self-guided tour of the nearest village we bumped into the vicar who showed us his church’s pipe organ. Ruth tried to explain to me how (and why) this particular pipe organ was unusual and cool, but I’m not sure I’ll ever “get it” as well as she does.

Dan, sweaty, at the top of a rise. — I found a second wind on a walk around Gisburn Forest and jogged up to the trail’s highest point, leaving Ruth far behind the sweaty mess ahead of her.

Orange-red river water beneath Dan's feet. — I’m not aware of any iron mining operations anywhere near this forest, but there must be iron oxide in the rocks to turn this stream so red.

Ruth and Dan eat (fake) duck pancakes outside their lodge. — Each evening we’d record a quick selfie video to say hi to the kids. Sometimes (with some help!) they’d send one back.

A fire pit rages and sparks. — A particular treat was stargazing by the fire pit on an evening.

Dan and Ruth with the sea in the background. — As we checked-out of our accommodation, Ruth suggested we see the sea (we’re a long way from it, normally), so we diverted via the coast.

(If you’re interested in Steve Taylor’s bathtub-carrying virtual-Everest expedition, here’s his Facebook page and JustGiving profile.)

5. Meanwhile, in Preston

The children, back in Preston, were apparently having a whale of a time:

Children pet a starfish — Starfish-petting.

Starfish with childrens' hands nearby. — (Yes, actual starfish.)

Boy in the (bones of the) mouth of a shark. — That’ll be Seaworld, of course.

Underwater transparent tube with fish outside and children inside. — Tube. Tube tube tube.

Child peering into a fishtank using a dome underneath it. — Do you think the fish think that humans are the exhibit?

Children in a VR motion simulator. — Both kids play with VR at home and are way less susceptible to VR-nausea than I am (even with all the practice I’ve had!).

Girl in front of a LEGO mosaic of butterfly wings. — Legoland Manchester. (Did you even know there was a Legoland in Manchester? I didn’t.)

Kids with Lego Batman. — The 4-year-old took “meeting” Lego Batman way more-seriously than the 7-year-old, I think.

Child in a lego space suit. — That’s one small step for…. OW I STOOD ON A LEGO BRICK!

Child with a contributory LEGO mosaic. — This brick was her contribution, I guess?

Boy balancing on a beam at a park. — I think this must be Avenham Park in Preston.

A boy doing finger painting. — Many of his paintings start out as beautiful coloured stripes and end up as brown handprints. I can’t imagine how.

Children play shop: a boy operates a checkout and a girl buys shopping. — “Do you do contactless?”

Children gardening. — I gather the children even got a little gardening done… or at least, grazed on the entirety of my mother’s herb garden.

6. Suddenly, A Ping

The plan from this point was simple: Ruth and I would return to Preston for a few days, hang out with my family some more, and eventually make a leisurely return to Oxfordshire. But it wasn’t to be…

I got a “ping”. What that means is that my phone was in close proximity to somebody else’s phone on 29 August and that other person subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.

My risk from this contact is exceptionally low. There’s only one place that my phone was in close proximity to the phone of anybody else outside of my immediate family, that day, and it’s when I left it in a locker at the swimming pool near our cabin in the Darwin Forest. Also, of course, I’d been double-jabbed for a month and a half and I’m more-cautious than most about contact, distance, mask usage etc. But my family are, for their own (good) reasons, more-cautious still, so self-isolating at Preston didn’t look like a possibility for us.

Ruth and Dan in a car, in a car park. — Ruth and I went directly to a drive-through PCR testing facility.

As soon as I got the notification we redirected to the nearest testing facility and both got swabs done. 8 days after possible exposure we ought to have a detectable viral load, if we’ve been infected. But, of course, the tests take a day or so to process, so we still needed to do a socially-distanced pickup of the kids and all their stuff from Preston and turn tail for Oxfordshire immediately, cutting our trip short.

The results would turn up negative, and subsequent tests would confirm that the “ping” was a false positive. And in an ironic twist, heading straight home actually put us closer to an actual COVID case as Ruth’s brother Owen turned out to have contracted the bug at almost exactly the same time and had, while we’d been travelling down the motorway, been working on isolating himself in an annex of the “North wing” of our house for the duration of his quarantine.

Barricade with signs reading "Quarantine: Zombie Outbreak" — I set up a “yellow zone” between Owen’s quarantine area and the rest of the house into which we could throw supplies. And I figured I’d have fun with the signage.

7. Ruth & JTA go to Berwick

Thanks to negative tests and quick action in quarantining Owen, Ruth and JTA were still able to undertake the next part of this three-week holiday period and take their anniversary break (which technically should be later in the year, but who knows what the situation will be by then?) to Berwick-upon-Tweed. That’s their story to tell, if they want to, but the kids and I had fun in their absence:

Dan and his 4-year-old wearing silly hats. — Silly Hat Morning!

Dan and the kids on a swan boat. — Swan boat ride. (I had to do all the pedalling, but the kids were good at shouting orders and threatening to fire upon or board the other boats!)

Monkey on roof of car. — A trip to Woburn Safari Park isn’t complete without a photo of a monkey on the roof of a car.

A child watches a giant tortoise try to open a gate. — That giant tortoise was determined that it could open the (latched) gate if only it pushed hard enough.

Children petting a goat. — Kids love a kid (goat).

Girl eats half a sausage roll. — Nothing beats a picnic lunch right as everybody else rushes to queue for food in the heat.

A boy pours a juice drink onto some candy floss. — Ever the culinary experimenter, our 4-year-old tries pouring a Fruit Shoot onto some candy floss.

A boy holds a GPS receiver as he walks down a lane. — And of course, some geocaching might have happened.

Children look around a field. — “The cache is this way!” “No, it’s THIS way.” “Kids! It’s still 200 metres away, keep walking!”

Children hold a toy plane with "geocache airlines" written on it. — GC98N1P – whose cache container is this aeroplane and is hidden in a “crash site”! – is one of my favourite local caches.

A girl plays a kazoo. — I gave the 7-year-old a kazoo. #parentingmistakes

Children painting — We start with nice colourful lines…

Boy with painted brown hands. — …and end up with brown hands! It’s part of his artistic process, I guess.

Children in pyjamas at a breakfast table greet Robin outside the patio doors. — We enjoyed a socially-distanced visit from Robin one breakfast time.

A girl wearing headphones programs in Scrach. On her screen a witch is hunting for a broomstick. — We also extended our practice in programming with Scratch.

Dan holding the Wild Wolf 3 geocache. — I found an opportunity to retrieve a much-loved but no-longer-sustainable geocache of my own. Look at this monster!

Butter pies in an oven. — I tapped into my Lancashire heritage and had a go at making “butter pie”, a regional dish distinct to (pretty much) just Preston and Chorley.

A butter pie with heart-shaped pastry decorations. — This one turned out pretty well, but I’ve still got ideas about how I’ll improve for the next one.

8. Reunited again

Finally, Ruth and JTA returned from their mini-break and we got to do a few things together as a family again before our extended holiday drew to a close:

A hug with Ruth. — The children were glad to see mummy and daddy return.

JTA greets the kids. — Also, to explain everything that’d they been up to. (Possibly just as a ruse to keep from being sent to bed for a moment longer!)

A girl looks lost in a maize maze. — I specifically said, “Look like you’re NOT completely lost in this maize maze,” I swear.

Children playing crazy golf. — I feel like I’ve played a lot of crazy golf these last few weeks. This course was perhaps the second-craziest.

A girl digs in a tabletop sandpit. — There was some kind of puzzle to solve in a maze. Then you had to dig in the sand to find a token of the right colour and put it in a box to show you’d solved it. I don’t know.

A boy dives onto a trampoline. — I’m not sure this angle of approach is going to end well.

A girl on a carousel horse called "Annie". — Nice horse.

Two children crawl through a den of sticks. — Den-building? Or poster art for some gritty new Netflix series?

A girl hangs upside-down in a soft play area. — “I’m being a bat.” She hung there for some time, greeting other children as they entered her “cave”.

Dan and Ruth with their 4-year-old. — “Smile!” “Wait… what’s in your mou-?” [click]

A girl picks gooseberries. — Gooseberry-picking.

Ruth and the children pick gooseberries. — The gooseberries later made a great reduction to go on our Sunday brunch pancakes. Except for all the ones the kids ate before then.

A girl looks at a strawberry. — Choosing exactly the right strawberry requires significant mental effort.

A boy inspects a strawberry on a vine. — You need to check the fruit from every side before picking it.

A girl pulls a face as she looks at a strawberry. — This one failed quality control.

People stand around in a garden at a barbecue. — We got to go to Liz & Simon’s barbecue party and it was awesome to catch up with everybody.

Dan plays with a small baby. — Plus there are a few new faces in our friend group who I hadn’t had a chance to meet before.

Children at a picnic table in a garden. — Making (and re-making) friends is so much easier as a child.

Adults eat barbecue food. — For us adults, though, sharing food and alcohol goes a long way.

A child in the smoke of a barbecue holds his hand over his eyes. — “It’s smokey over here.” “By the barbecue, yes.” “Why?”

Children play together; adults sit and talk in the background. — It’s amazing how a toy designed for somebody WAY younger than you is fascinating if it’s just different enough from one you have at home. Novelty wins.

Children watch as our 7-year-old plays Pokemon with Simon. — She came here to kick ass at Pokemon and eat your burgers. And you’re all out of burgers.

The kids pose with a fruit-topped cake. — The fruits we picked earlier in the week made a great addition to a cake.

Fairpoirt Convention's livestream plays on TV. — Of course, we were SUPPOSED to be at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention this weekend, until it was cancelled for the second year in a row. But we still enjoyed Fairport’s livestream mini-concert.

Children dancing. — We adults felt too old and/or self-conscious to dance in our living room, but the kids had no such limitations.

Ruth and the kids in a heap at the end of the virtual concert. — By the end of the virtual concert we were all ready to flump into bed.

A fully-assembled 'hamster heaven' cage. — We built an enclosure for a new pet we’re expecting in the coming week (the kids’ first pet; let’s see how that goes…).

Robin reverse-abseilling up a tree. — Robin (and Owen – now recovered but not featured in this picture) – were instrumental in helping us run some ropes over a high bough of one of our garden’s trees…

The kids play switch while they hang in a 'nest swing'. — …to facilitate the installation of a wonderful new ‘nest swing’ Ruth had bought the kids but that they’d not really been able to use until now.

9. Back to work?

Tomorrow I’m back at work, and after 23 days “off” I’m honestly not sure I remember what I do for a living any more. Something to do with the Internet, right? Maybe ecommerce?

I’m sure it’ll all come right back to me, at least by the time I’ve read through all the messages and notifications that doubtless await me (I’ve been especially good at the discipline, this break, of not looking at work notifications while I’ve been on holiday; I’m pretty proud of myself.)

But looking back, it’s been a hell of a three weeks. After a year and a half of being pretty-well confined to one place, doing a “grand tour” of so many destinations as a family and getting to do so many new and exciting things has made the break feel even longer than it was. It seems like it must have been months since I last had a Zoom meeting with a work colleague!

For now, though, it’s time to try to get the old brain back into work mode and get back to making the Web a better place!

Dan’s Office (360° Panoramic)

This week, some colleagues at Automattic and I are sharing pictures of our workspaces. So I made a 360° panoramic with interactive “info points” (apologies for work-specific jargon). Would you like to see it?

Passport Photos

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

“Passport Photos” looks at one of the most mundane and unexciting types of photography. Heavily restricted and regulated, the official passport photo requirements include that the subject needs to face the camera straight on, needs a clear background without shadow, no glare on glasses and most importantly; no smile.

It seems almost impossible for any kind of self-expression.

The series tries to challenge these official rules by testing all the things you could be doing while you are taking your official document photo.

…

Max Siedentopf

I love this weird, wonderful, and truly surreal photography project. Especially in this modern age in which a passport photo does not necessarily involve a photo booth – you’re often permitted now to trim down a conventional photo or even use a born-digital picture snapped from an approved app or via a web application – it’s more-feasible than ever that the cropping of your passport photo does not reflect the reality of the scene around you.

Max’s work takes this well beyond the logical extreme, but there’s a wider message here: a reminder that the way in which any picture is cropped is absolutely an artistic choice which can fundamentally change the message. I remember an amazing illustrative example cropping a photo of some soldiers, in turn inspired I think by a genuine photo from the second world war. Framing and cropping an image is absolutely part of its reinterpretation.

Darkroom Printing

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

One of the benefits of being in a camera club full of largely retired people who were all into photography long before digital was ever a thing, is that lots of them have old film, paper and gear lying around they’re happy to give away.

Last year I was offered a photographic enlarger for making prints, but I initially turned it down because I didn’t think I’d have the space to set up a darkroom and use it. Well, turns out with a little imagination our windowless bathroom actually converts into a pretty tidy darkroom with fairly minimal setup and teardown – thankfully we also have an ensuite so my partner can cope with this arrangement with only minimal grumbling

…

Rory Prior (Light Priority)

My friend Rory tells the story of how he set up a darkroom in his (spare) windowless bathroom and shares his experience of becoming an increasingly analogue photographer in an increasingly almost-completely digital world.

Finding Lena Forsen, the Patron Saint of JPEGs

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

Every morning, Lena Forsen wakes up beneath a brass-trimmed wooden mantel clock dedicated to “The First Lady of the Internet.”

It was presented to her more than two decades ago by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology, in recognition of the pivotal—and altogether unexpected—role she played in shaping the digital world as we know it.

Among some computer engineers, Lena is a mythic figure, a mononym on par with Woz or Zuck. Whether or not you know her face, you’ve used the technology it helped create; practically every photo you’ve ever taken, every website you’ve ever visited, every meme you’ve ever shared owes some small debt to Lena. Yet today, as a 67-year-old retiree living in her native Sweden, she remains a little mystified by her own fame. “I’m just surprised that it never ends,” she told me recently.

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Anna Huix (Wired)

While I’m not sure that it’s fair to say that Lena “remained a mystery” until now – the article itself identifies several events she’s attended in her capacity of “first lady of the Internet” – but this is still a great article about a picture that you might have seen but never understood the significance of nor the person in front of the lens. Oh, and it’s pronounced “lee-na”; did you know?

Screw you, TV Licensing. I’ll write wherever I like.

This link was originally posted to /r/firstworldanarchists. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: http://i.imgur.com/7IfzgQJ.jpg

The Wedding – Unanswered Questions

The photos from Ruth & JTA’s wedding are coming soon, I swear. In the meantime, here are a few questions that I’m still puzzling over:

What kind of chord do I think I'm playing? — What kind of chord do I think I’m playing?

What does my mother think smells so good; and why does Becky disagree?

On what subject is Bryn pondering? And did his mighty brain come to a conclusion on the subject?

Why is Owen carrying Robin around? And is this truly the happiest day of Robin's life? — Why is Owen carrying Robin around? And is this truly the happiest day of Robin’s life?

Who choreographed Matt and I's dance moves? And why do we look so awesome? — Who choreographed Matt P and I’s dance moves? And why do we look so awesome?

Who's just hit Matt R in the back of the head with a snowball? — Who’s just hit Matt R in the back of the head with a snowball?

To whom is Liz threatening fisticuffs? And does anybody other than Finbar even use the word 'fisticuffs'? — To whom is Liz threatening fisticuffs? And does anybody other than Finbar even use the word ‘fisticuffs’?

What does that look on JTA's face mean? No, wait... I know this one... — What does that look on JTA’s face mean? No, wait… I know this one…

If Robin is interviewing Tom, why is he using an invisible microphone?

Some or none of these questions will be answered in time (and, perhaps, when you see the whole picture). Keep an eye on the wedding blog for updates just as soon as Ruth and JTA find the time to update it! And I’ll look forward to hearing your caption ideas for some of the “sillier” pictures.

Meanwhile, if you’re among the people who took photos at the wedding and who hasn’t yet given me nice, hi-res copies, please get in touch!