The 60s/70s Party at Luke and Colm's

I hadn't planned to go to the party. Not worth the effort of dressing up, I thought. It was Simon and Michelle who changed my mind. "You'd have such fun taking photos of everyone," they said. They were right. They also said that Ruth would be wearing a blonde afro. That, I thought, would be worth seeing. Since I made up my mind to go only moments before leaving the house, I was not elaborately dressed. Odd for me to be the least weirdly dressed person at a gathering. I told Colm he looked like Jack Sparrow. Is that a compliment? And there were more: Best dressed lady: And, after many attempts, I managed to get a photo of this lady.

A small crowd dancing

At one point, most of 'em went for a walk around the estate. I didn't.
There really was a lot of wig-swapping going on.
They even got me with one. And there are no prizes for guessing who came as Elvis. His dancing, though, was unusually restrained.

Dancing Elvis

And I wasn't the only one taking photos.

A Photo Shoot

Hey! Someone else wore shorts. That means I could've done. Bah! But at least I stayed in bare feet. Most of the time, at least. We shall title this picture, Sarah takes evasive action. Well, we all had fun. I left early, and walked home, still in bare feet.

Messing with the new digital camera: I go for a walk

Okay, I was being a bit silly. But the camera is brand new. So there!

The Rostrum (interim posting)

The new rostrum was installed in the Kingdom Hall a week ago, and is working well. This post will be supplanted in due course by a better one, I hope. We do have a video of the rostrum actually working, but we're having trouble uploading it.

So, a photograph:

And another:

And this video shows something of the internal workings, but it's not at all clear, I'm afraid. I'll record another some time.

Demolishing the Treehouse

The treehouse was rotten and unsafe, and needed to come down. So Daddy started some work on it. Then Simon arrived, and got enthusiastic. When I came home from walking in the woods, I started taking photos. The one above is taken over the top of the garage roof.

"Is the recording with the orange light on or off?"

The treehouse has been used as a store for general junk for a while. There was a busted leather sofa in there, for one thing. There was also sacks of straw and hay for use as duck bedding, and cardboard to put under the straw to make it cleaner and easier to remove all the bedding at once and chuck it on the compost heap.

Does my voice really sound that silly? Or is it just when I hear it?

As with most acts of violence, there was a certain amount of fun to it. But it was sad, too. That treehouse has seen many happy days. We slept in it many times. Some summers, we were there almost every night for months. It was big enough to sleep five in comfort, and six at a push. I slept there alone for a few weeks too, when we had visitors in my room. (Well, my room and my brother's, but he was away somewhere else. I forget. It was a while ago.)

In case you're wondering, at this stage, I did do some work myself, including some axe-weilding. It just wasn't recorded. The treehouse is left now with the rotten external platform gone, and with the fireman's pole felled. All the vertical supports from the ground still stand, as does the treehouse roof, though the walls are gone.

Demolishing the Treehouse (part 1)

And so we did a bit of work. The camera was acting up a little, so the audio and video are not quite in sync. I think the batteries were failing.