Steve Blogcks

Impossible Xmas presents

2011-01-01T19:31:00.001Z

Tom's idea for Christmas presents that he couldn't get: "two houses, two cups of tea and two slaves."

SWAT family 2010 Christmas newsletter

2010-12-31T19:40:00.001Z

Mercifully short and multimedia rich!

https://sites.google.com/site/stevelocks/xmas-newsletters/2010

While Shepherds Snoozed

2010-12-26T22:11:00.003Z

A little arrangement I made of a well known tune for Christmas 2010.

Starring Steve, Wendy and Amy.

Medical Physics for a class of 6-year olds!

2010-01-21T21:04:00.003Z

At the request of his teacher, today I gave Tom's class a talk on what I do at work!

It was good fun and they had endless questions!!!

I've uploaded the talk here
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2268177/c5mp.pps
but you might not understand it if you're under 6!

360

2009-05-02T13:57:00.003+01:00

Our next door neighbour had some scaffolding up and he invited me to see the view.

Click on the photo for a larger version of the 360 degree panorama that I took.

Morpeth Floods

2008-09-07T12:43:00.013+01:00

That was the view from our garden on 6th Sept. 2008.

The river Wansbeck started rising in Morpeth in the morning but by the mid afternoon it had broken its banks and the flood defences until approx a thousand houses and a number of shops had up to a couple of feet of water inside. We saw cars in water up to the roof and wheelie bins, fences, awnings and huge tree trunks go down the river. Here is a video found on youtube somebody took of a car floating down the river:

We saw crayfish swimming on flooded pavements and overheard someone saying they rescued a fish flapping by the side of the road!

There were plenty of people wandering around Morpeth taking photos and there were camera crews from the BBC and ITN. It seems like we saw everybody we knew on Sunday wandering around the streets of Morpeth!

I've uploaded some photos I took, with captions, to http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/steve.locks/MorpethFloods# so for details see there. The swimming pool and the library looked particularly tragic.

I have also uploaded some videos:

Our house is fine. As soon as the national news had finished loads of people rung and texted to check we were okay! Our house is about 20 feet above the highest level the flood came to. But we do have good views!

When the water was nearly back to normal (I'm writing this paragraph on Monday 9/8/2008) we took a plumb-line and measured the hight from the bottom of the footbridge we could see from our house that the water came just up to, down to the current water level which is about a foot above normal now. This came to 11 feet, so the total maximum flood was probably about 12 feet above normal river level.

One mystery is that we noticed large numbers of House Martins flying above the floodwaters. We wondered if they were catching insects knocked out of their usual places by the flood (not that we could see any insects). We even found a dead House Martin by our house the day after the flood.

Eventually the question was answered by someone posting to my YouTube video. The House Martins had nests under Oldgate Bridge, so they had been flushed out by the flood and were trying to get back to their nests.

HMS Repulse and Malcolm

2007-06-12T22:47:00.002+01:00

I found the following interesting sites for the ships my maternal grandfather was on.

The HMS Repulse (world cruise):

The "World Cruise" of the Special Service Squadron

HMS Repulse photos

HMS Repulse (1916) From Wikipedia

Details of Repulse

The Story of Repulse

Gallery of images

The Sinking of Force Z

The Malcolm (at Dunkirk):

Photos

Brief details

My New Website:

I have now put a website together for this and the photo album from this cruise:

http://worldcruise1923.1924.googlepages.com/

Cygnets hatch in Morpeth

2007-06-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

A few days ago some cygnets hatched under the bridge just up the river from our back garden. Here they are before they were hatched:

Today they were swimming around in the river at the bottom of the garden, popping on and off the bank, eating weeds and being photographed by every local who walked past.

From our vantage point at the top of our garden I got my telescope out, held my camera over the eyepiece and took these photos:

I spoke to Bill Bryson

2007-06-09T21:51:00.000+01:00

I had been singing at Windsor and was spending last Monday wandering relatively aimlessly around London before a meeting the next day in Teddington. I had just taken a long "one of those snacks you have between lunch and tea (what are they called?)" in Borders bookshop cafe and was off on my wanderings again when I saw Bill Bryson wander over to a table next to the Cafe accompanied by a shop assistant with a pile of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. I decided to get a copy signed for Wendy but wanted to make some remark about how I'd enjoyed his book The Lost Continent. Of course I immediately forgot the name of the book, so I had to hide round the corner for five minutes until it came to me!

When I went up for a book signing I was the only one who seemed to have noticed him and he said: "Have you been wandering around London hoping to bump into me?" Which was strange as I had been wandering around London looking for a present for Wendy and a signed book by Bill Bryson was just the ticket!

I told him how I had taken the The Lost Continent on holiday with my wife and how I had laughed out loud with it so much that she had to keep nudging me as I was embarrassing her! He said: "Well, thank you very much!"

2006 Christmas Newsletter

2006-12-13T13:47:00.000Z

Our 2006 Christmas Newsletter is available at www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/news/xmas2006

This year it contains videos, an interactivity and - by popular demand - is a little bit rude!

The videos will probably be blocked if you're looking at this from work, so you might not want to consider it "work safe."

Not quite a humming bird!

2006-09-18T21:35:00.000+01:00

On Sunday 10th September, Amy and I were taking a stroll down to a coffee shop from our house in Morpeth when we spotted this:

It was hovering whilst beating its wings so fast they were a blur. We thought it was a humming bird that had maybe escaped from somewhere where it was kept as a pet. I was all ready to tell the local paper when I thought, well, I'd better just check it out on the Internet I suppose...

There I found that it is a Humming bird hawk moth which as you can see from this photo pinched from www.uksafari.com:

looks very much like a bird, where it not for the antennae! It also has a long curly proboscis, but I mistook that for the long tongue of a hummingbird.

I didn't notice the antennae until I looked at the photos later (it was moving around too fast). You can see them in this other photo I took.

More details here.

Amy and Tom

2006-09-15T18:02:00.000+01:00

I sent that photo to the blog directly from my moble phone. Just testing!

Tom's sayings

2006-07-09T22:54:00.000+01:00

Here are some things Tom has said recently that I thought should be saved for posterity...

......................................................

Tom: My Duvet is too small!
Me: Why do you think it is too small?
Tom: Because it is too big!

......................................................

Amy: Tom, why are you so cute?
Tom: Because my love you!

......................................................

Me: Tom what are you made of?
Tom: tidily om-pom!

Steve's alternative portal

2006-04-28T23:10:00.000+01:00

If you want an easier way to remember how to find my places on the web, you can now just go to steve.locks.googlepages.com

Amy creates her own website

2006-04-28T23:06:00.000+01:00

Just type amy.locks.googlepages.com
into your address bar (no need to type "www") and discover all about Amy, what Tom had to eat in York and who knows what else!

Website design, all of the content and most of the technical bits are by the webmiss herself.

I spoke with Richard Dawkins

2006-04-28T21:43:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to the centre for life to hear Richard Dawkins (and his wife Lalla Ward - who used to be Dr. Who's assistant when Tom Baker was Dr. Who).

They were reading passages from his last 3 books, and then taking questions from the audience.

I eventually plucked up courage to go up for the book signing at the end. During the questions he had mentioned that he thinks it is a shame indeed that primary school children are not introduced to the wonders of evolution and deep time etc. and that he thinks they could be taught this from about age 7.

Knowing a particularly inquisitive 7 year old myself, when I went up for my book to be signed I asked Richard Dawkins if he could recommend a good book for a 7 year old? He said that no he can't think of one actually and it was something he would like to look into. I mentioned that I had searched and found few books like that (just 2 on the Net) and suggested that he could write such a book! Dawkins replied that he has been wondering about doing just that!

Mad Scientist

2006-01-19T22:39:00.000Z

Just what do you think Amy is doing here?

Snowman

2005-12-30T01:04:00.000Z

Amy and Tom were very proud of this snowman. Tom was tumbling over his words in excitement to tell me about it when I got home from work!

2005 Christmas Newsletter

2005-12-10T23:03:00.000Z

The traditional Steve, Wendy, Amy and Tom Christmas newsletter is now available.

More of a visual feast this year than the normal wordy ramble!

www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/news/xmas2005

"SWAT fun!"

Festive greetings!

New Ancestors

2005-11-23T21:13:00.000Z

I received an email informing me of my father’s, father’s, father’s, wife’s parents and siblings. i.e. "new" great-great grandparents and all their children.

I already knew about my great grandmother, Florence Jessie Toms, but the new ancestors are her parents who (with her siblings) are given in the graphic below. Note you can click on any images below to see larger versions:

Here's a photo of Florence Toms and John George Locks and various relations (I hadn't noticed I already had photos of Florence Toms' siblings!):

More to be seen at my family tree website.

Amy's Rules

2005-11-20T23:36:00.000Z

I left Amy at the computer where she forbade me to look apart from the occasional help with spelling. After about 20 minutes I discovered she had written the following:

Amy's Rules

When Tom's asleep I can play in my room.
Listen to what mummy or daddy is saying.
Tell mummy or daddy if something has gone wrong.
Say pardon me when you burp.
When you do a pump say excuse me.
Give your toys to charity if you don't want them.
Say please and thank you.
Be kind to everybody.
Do not hurt small animals and big animals.
Don't be glued to the telly.
When you are doing something and someone tries to help you do not get cross with them.

Amy gave me permission to post this excellent work on the Blog.

What would you score out of 11?

Accosted by Santa

2005-11-13T15:00:00.000Z

Amy and Tom wanted to see Santa but were warned that this was the first day he was in the shops, so there might be long queues and if so we should try again later.

Little did we expect to be accosted by Santa touting for business!

The cheeky "hairy man" (as Tom calls him) secretly put chocolate gold coins in the children's hoods - much to their amusement when they fell out later on!

A foul picture of Amy and Tom!

2005-10-24T22:17:00.000+01:00

This one turns Wendy's stomach and she can't bare to look at it!

A nice picture of Amy and Tom

2005-10-24T22:15:00.000+01:00

Amy's nose bleed

2005-10-20T20:46:00.000+01:00

Amy had a nose bleed, so I got her to hold it right there whilst I rushed off for a microscope slide.

I held it under her nose intending just to wait for a drip, but Amy obliged by immediately blowing her nose onto the slide!!

Then as soon as Amy's nose had stopped bleeding we went downstairs and had a look at Amy's nosebleed at 600x magnification!

Amy took the picture to school and her friends said it looked like a bowl of cheerios. Next time I might just take a photo of a bowl of cheerios to make it simpler...

Amy does a movie review

2005-05-17T22:12:00.000+01:00

There's no keeping Amy from contributing to the growth of the Internet. For Amy's review of Bugsy Malone click here and scroll down to find Amy Locks age 6 from Morpeth, England.

2005-04-09T22:11:00.000+01:00

Tom having a happy birthday!

2005-04-09T22:10:00.000+01:00

Tom starting to be 2

Tom likes heavy metal

2005-03-31T22:23:00.000+01:00

Oh dear...

I experimented with different kinds of music on Tom, attempting to interest him in Monteverdi, or even nursery rhymes, but he kept shouting "NOOOO!" until I played him this.

Tom even sat there headbanging. How did he learn to do that?

Amy does a blog

2005-03-26T19:15:00.000Z

I was suprised when I saw Hodman Dodmanott and Cash at Alnwick garden. I was with my brother, my mum, my dad, my cousins Anna and Lauren, Aunty Lisa and Auntie Jane.

2005-03-25T20:42:00.000Z

more strange goings on

2005-03-25T20:41:00.000Z

Strange goings on

Strange goings on at Alnwick Castle

2005-03-25T20:31:00.000Z

We were interviewed by a photographer from the Journal.

"What do you think of the Alnwick Gardens tree-house"
he asked Wendy.

"Very good" Wendy quipped (was that Oscar Wilde?).

Should be good enough for the local rag.

Otter

2005-03-06T22:00:00.000Z

Ooh, I saw an otter going for a swim in the river at the bottom of the garden today!

I reported it to Otterwatch.

Aaah!

What's a Blog?

2005-02-27T20:16:00.000Z

In a desire to fend off the inevitable questions - please see this link.

Amy intends to post her first blog entry on these pages soon. Stay tuned....

Amy and her snowmen

2005-02-20T22:38:00.000Z

This was taken with my mobile 'phone.

Amy said:

"We made all them snowmens"

We tried to correct her on her grammar but she liked it that way. So we sent this as a postcard via the mobile 'phone to my parents ("Nanny and Boopa" as Amy calls them).

The old folks were most impressed!