I want to stress now – this is NOT totday! Today it is hissing down with rain. I like the rain, but I wouldn’t sit on the grass in the rain! 😀
Last week I sat under a Willow by the lake near work and was just quiet for a few minutes. A white duck was doing it’s thing finding something to eat and qucking away while I looked at the umbrella that was the willow covering myself and the ground beneath. I wish I could have sat here all day!
Simon 🙂
I hope this is the case…
Simon 🙂
It’s been a hard week this week, but we got there in the end, it’s a long weekend with Monday off so things must be good!
My minion friends have been entertaining you all as usual with the unique wit and their thoughts on shoes sizes as one gets bigger and whatever you do – Don’t worry!
Minion Thoughts – At least my shoes still fit
Minion Thoughts – Don’t worry…
I’ve been meaning to pick up on the adventures of Minecraft Steve for some time so this week I got around to it – have no fear fellow Sci Fi readers and fand of the Totan Mystery – I’m in progress with the next part and it won’t disappoint – but you will all be seeing more of Minecraft Steve too!
Minecraft Steve and the Temple of Darkness
This week, my feet have been on a tree stump, a sunken DC from WWII (which i later found out is in Turkey) and a review of the Beauty Thief made for the extra mix of this weeks posts. I love the variety I can bring to you as bloggies and I hope you like reading them as much as I like writing them.
Where my feet have been – The Tree Stump
Book Review – The Beauty Thief
With Hubble taking adavantage of Mars’s oppositio the continuation of my series on the Solar System and pictures from ESA made for a busy week with space news.
Solar System Exploration – Venus
Hubble taking advantage of Mars opposition
Sacha alswys creat such amazing posts, Lucy has mentioned blog envy and I thought I owuld never feel it – but Sacha’s posts are a-mazing! This one the the mystery of our origin is brilliant and I’ve go to lean more about it as much of this I’ve encountered before.
The Zen of Earth – The Mystery of our Origin
Kisten Lamb’s posts are always great greading for any writer, focussing on writing twists this wek makes for a very useful read.
How to Write mind blowing twists – Kristen Lamb
I’ve also found another follow Sci Fi geek with theanalyzedlife welcome to the fun! Lastly happy blog birthday to Charlie Blog Birthday 500 Followers.
Have a great weekend all, enjoy the long weekend and have fun!
Simon 🙂
I rarely write book review posts, that becasue it takes me son long to read one you guys would get bored between posts and forget me. But I have just finsished The Beauty Thief, written by my bloggie friend Rachael Ritchey. The premise of the story is about where real beauty comes from and that outer beauty is superficial and without inner beauty we are an empty shell. The message is powerful and the imagery in the story around this is powerful.
The story is set around the betrothal of a young princess to a high prince and a mysterious character that has the ability to steal beauty to stay alive for many centuries. The story start off in a very chilled out way, there is a lot of familiarisation with the events, people and their backgrounds. Events in the book change when treachery and the key event of the story takes place.
After this the plot splits into different sub plots as honourable knights and dastadly villains play their own part. Setting against each other and finding their way around all the problems thown ni their way. There is more treachery and battles as the characters start to converge towards the story climax. The pace picks up a lot in the second half making it hard to put down as I found the different plot threads knitted together.
The final climax ends in a surprising way, I’m not going to say how because I want you guys to read it for yorselves. But as with any good story there are questions left which need answering and the inevitable thread which my or may not lead to a follow on.
This was not my normal kind of read, I approached it with an open mind and I was pleasantly surprised with the story. It’s something that would appeal to many, it’s simple language appealing to younger and older readers alike. Sure, some purists may think that the language is newer than the time the story is set and doesn’t work. But that’s not the point. This didn’t set out to be Lord of the Rings and only a very brave person would set out down that path. Its aimed at being a read that could be easy for young or old. It’s an enjoyable read and I would suggest all you reader bloggies should give it a try! Have a look at Rachaels website for details on where to get it.
Simon 🙂
Data from the New Horizon’s probe continues to arrive, this picture taken a mere 45 minutes before it’s closest encounter. The terrain it captured is of a type that’s rare in the Solar System, the now the scientis are trying to work out how it’s formed:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-s-fretted-terrain
Simon 🙂
No ownership claimed on images or materials – Credit NASA
I have a fascination of old and abandoned things. Things that are old and abandoned have a story to tell, they’ve been somewhere, maybe done something and that story can turn something relatively worthless into something of value.
This is the start of a feature where I will put before you old and abandoned things and try and think about the story behind them.
I’ve given you again a sunken object, this time not a ship but a plane! The sea is wonderful place, despite it’s power it’s in some ways a less aggressive place leaving an object on the surface open to the elements. It’ acts as a preserver of many things we’ve thrown or lost in it.
What makes these pictures so powerful for me is that we have an object made to fly underwater. For those thatknow this is a Dakota DC3 (or the military version which has a different name), one of the most sucessful planes ever built. It wasn’t fast, or big, it was versatile used for carrying passengers, troops, goods and anything. It must have been there for many years, maybe over 70 yars ago. Yet it’s still in relatively good contidion.
But how come it’s there? Where was it going? The landing gear is down so it must have been a relatively controlled landing. Did it simply run out of fuel? Did they all survive?
Perhaps sometimes the power of the story of a wreck is not in what we know, but the possibilities of what we dont.
Simon 🙂
A new Minecraft Steve Story for you all. Have a lok on my writers blog:
http://universeofpossibility.wordpress.com/Simon 🙂
It had been some time since Steve had been exploring on his own since Mike had turned up, but Steve had the opportunity since Mike had accidentally taken some poisionus potion, he thought he had made an invincibilty potion. Steve thought he shouldn’t have swapped the Golden apple for the spider eyeball.Mike was going to to be ill for a little while, so he left him in peace, took his diamond sword and other diamond tools and went out into the unkown.
Steve went exploring near the sea, looking for caves or anything else different or unusual. The normal holes in the ground that often appear were there, but Steve had spent a lot of time underground as wanted to explore something different. As he rounded a corner he spied an island he hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t sure, but even from where he was there was something he thought…
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It had been some time since Steve had been exploring on his own since Mike had turned up, but Steve had the opportunity since Mike had accidentally taken some poisionus potion, he thought he had made an invincibilty potion. Steve thought he shouldn’t have swapped the Golden apple for the spider eyeball.Mike was going to to be ill for a little while, so he left him in peace, took his diamond sword and other diamond tools and went out into the unkown.
Steve went exploring near the sea, looking for caves or anything else different or unusual. The normal holes in the ground that often appear were there, but Steve had spent a lot of time underground as wanted to explore something different. As he rounded a corner he spied an island he hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t sure, but even from where he was there was something he thought he could see that attracted him to it.
Getting out his diamond axe he chopped away at a tree and soon he had some planks and sticks to make a boat. In short time Steve was making his way over to the island. Luckily it wasn’t too far away. We he got there he climbed the island walls and was over the top. He soon relaised that some people had been here before. There was an old village, but no villagers, there was noone about. They had taken most of their stash too, nothing of value or use was left. He walked around some more and then noticed bubbling lava in a hole. This was dammed with a gate and a channel led away. Following the channel Steve had no idea what was going on, this seemed an unusual thing to create.
Soon he met with what appeared to be a cave, it was only small but dark. A crooked old sign with unreadable scriblings on was at the side. When Steve looked up he could see now what it was, a big old building hidden with plants and vines. This was the entrance to some old bulding, left for who knows how long. Steve wanted to explore the cave, but it was too dark, so drawing his tools he chopped wood and mined stone. he made a crafting table and a furnace and place them side by side. Steve made sticks and charcoal and soon had a good number of torches he could use to help him explore the building.
walking towards the doorway Steve stepped in and instantly dropped into darkness on the floor. It was quite a drop and he lost some health. Putting up some lamps around the room it seemed empty, the room he was in wasn’t too big. Steve made some steps out of Oak planks so that he could get out again, he didn’t have quite enough and would have to jump to get out. But at least he could get out. Drawing his sword Steve walked toward the corridor out of the entrace chamber. the corridor was made from bare stone and had strange markings and painting he had never seen before. Placing torches as he went Steve suddenly froze.
He recognised the sounds coming from ahead, zombies and skeletons we up ahead, but he couldn’t see anything yet. Creeping forward slowly he tried to see what was ahead. Placing a torch in front of him Steve could see a crowd of Zombies and Skeltons in a pit, running around in a random way, all of them making a noise that would strike fear into any crafter. He turned to leave, then noticed on his right a lever.
“What does this do?” Steve thought to himself, half afraid to flick it down, half daring himself. After a few moment he flicked the switch down a walkway streched out across the pit with the monsters in. It was narrow but passable, stepping out the door behind him closed shut as was trapped.
“Great!” He thought to himself “Now I have to go across!” Carefully Steve walked across the walkway, a few of the skeletons shot arrows at him, he managed to stay on and survived by eating golden apples. After what seemed like an hour he was across. Ahead was a new doorway, it was arched out of marble and gold and was obviously very special. He resisted the urge to mine the fine materials as now his main concern was getting home.
He walked though and ahead of him was a lever with a sign next to it. The sign read: To get home, flick this lever.
“In for a diamond…” Steve though as he flicked it. Out of the floor as if from no-where a villager in white robes appeared from on the diamond platform in front of him. The villager squeaked and moaned to him in a strange language that Steve could just understand.
“Hello” he said “I am Preeta, the high prient of the temple of the lost city of Minos. Thank you for releasing me.”
Steve smiled at him, not sure what to say.
“I need you help, the people of Minos are trapped and need help to be released. An evil crafter trapped them and myself long ago. To release my people is the only way you can get home now – will you help?”
“I will do what I can to help you Preeta.” Steve agreed, feeling like he had no choice. Preeta walked towards the large wall opposite the archway entrance. As he stepped onto a specially engraved stone, the wall opened up in front of them both. Sliding down the wall opened out onto the side of a huge hill and there in front of him was a huge city made from marble with gold and diamond lining the roads.
“The must be the lost city of Minos!” Steve thought to himself.
©Simon Farnell 2016
No ownership claimed on images
I couldn’t help but add this tune too…
Simon 🙂
ESA has again graced my emails with a weeks worth of pictures, featuring Mars in opposition, Earth from ISS after it’s 100,000th orbit, our favourite comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, a martian crater and a mosaic image of Africa.
Look at the link for more… http://www.esa.int/Highlights/Week_In_Images_16_20_May_2016
No ownsership claimed on any of the images or material. Credit – ESA
Simon 🙂
