things change

Mike’s blog – for his amusement

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  • Epsom Downs

    • What a delightful scene
    • That’s Wembley Stadium in the distance
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  • Oh to be in Berlin

    My son says there was snow in Berlin, today. Lucky him!

    But here in the UK it was a lovely, sunny day.

    Nonsuch Park
    Ewell pond
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  • Scenes from a colourful hike

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  • What a fabulous match!

    Well the weather was too grim for a guy of my age to be attending a live football match (Sutton 1 – 0 Barrow, as it turned out) but somehow I managed to hit on a link to the beginning of the live, second match of the World Chess Championship. What an enthralling chess match it was and and how interesting it was to try to get onboard with the live analysis by a couple of chess experts. Great stuff, and there’s 12 more matches to watch – see schedule below – live at 12:30 UK time at chess24.com/worldchesschampionship.

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  • Gosh it was cold!

    An early goal but otherwise a dull first half, followed by a better second half and a cracker of a goal. But gosh, it was cold.

    Sutton United 2 – Mansfield Town 0

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  • Dorking-Brockham-North Holmwood

    What an absolutely lovely day for a hike along Surrey footpaths. This was a new area for me and unusually I had set off with a route marked in the Ordnance Survey app. A wonderful café in the beautiful village of Brockham served me with a hot ham & cheese croissant and a taste-destroying, over-milked tea. A walk through a field of cows was not too concerning though the mud and dung in a couple of fields made for unpleasant walking. A great walk of nearly 9 miles on a fabulously, sunny day.

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  • The first cold walk

    It seems fitting that the first cold walk of late autumn should be illustrated with grim, black and white images. Taken with my rubbish phone, I had to introduce a bit of drama using Photoshop.

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  • London – long time no see

    It’s been quite a while since I / we have walked around London. We strolled along the south and north banks of the Thames around the Tower Bridge area and on a lovely, crisp mid-week morning. Gosh, it was quiet! As well as the usual sunny-day pictures, I’ve thrown in a few black and white, arty-farty images.

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  • Zilch sunshine over 13 miles

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  • Painting kite flying

    After my last painting I wrote that it was my final artwork until I’d worked through some of “Acrylics for the Absolute Beginners, by Charles Evans”. Well that hasn’t happened – I’ve never been very good at RTFM.

    So here’s me at work, the laptop casting Steely Dan to the speakers, the iPad showing the photo I’m attempting to approximate, and the work in progress. Below is the finished painting. I confess that I’ve digitally brightened the image as my painting was, shall I say, subdued. I’m reasonably happy with it.

    You can see my artistic development / non-development at https://thingschange.blog/not-an-artist/

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