February 5th, 2010
General
- Dictionary – whichever you prefer but something comprehensive. The New Penguin English Dictionary
is good for everyday use, but The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is good for a more in-depth dictionary.
- Thesaurus – the New Penguin Thesaurus is good as it is an alphabetical listing, but use whichever thesaurus you are comfortable with.
- Punctuation guide – Mind the Stop: A brief guide to punctuation by G. V. Carey is out of print, but copies can be found second hand. It is clear and concise and also and entertaining read, but again use whichever one you are comfortable with.
- Chambers Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms by Martin H Manser.
- Oxford Dictionary of Allusions by Andrew Delahunty.
- Dictionary of Quotations. There are a number of these available, but a good one is The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
- New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology by Felix Guirard. There are others available.
- The A-Z of Non-Sexist Language by Margaret Doyle or The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing by Casey Miller and Kate Swift.
- The Oxford Names Companion gives the meaning of first names, surnames, and place names in the UK
- Schott’s Original Miscellany by Ben Schott. An invaluable treasure trove of useless information that always comes in useful.
- Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, wonderful resource book.
- Encyclopaedia – whichever you find the best for your own use, there are a lot online such as Encarta and Britannica, though Britannica requires a paid membership.
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February 5th, 2010
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January 9th, 2010
Sorting through my notes and more books to get:
A Tour of Scotland 1769 – Thomas Pennant
The Domesday Geography of Northern England
British History and Heritage on the Web – ISBN 1-86008-184-2
The Local Historians Encyclopedia – ISBN 0-950365B-7-X
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September 25th, 2009
A while back we had a weekend on the Northumberland coast and one of the places we stayed in was Sefton House Bed and Breakfast. This is really near the sea front in Alnmouth, but you couldn’t see the coast from it as it was down a side road in a nice big old house. The people who run it were extremely friendly and welcoming and gave us advice on eating places and places to go.
The room was a small twin above the kitchen area, there were no other bedrooms above or below so it was really quite. The bathroom was great – it had this lovely huge roll-top bath which was a real luxury.
The breakfast the next morning was excellent, lots of local produce such as sausages and bacon from local farms, there was also a decent vegetarian fry up. Loads of cereal, drinks and such to set up for a days walking or touristing.
Definitely returning to here.
Contact details:
Sefton House B&B
15 Argyle Street
Alnmouth
Northumberland
NE66 2SB
Telephone: 01665 833174
Mobile: 0780 144 7482
Website: http://www.seftonhousealnmouth.co.uk/
Email: stay@seftonhousealnmouth.co.uk
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September 20th, 2009
We discovered this place in one of our weekend drives. We were on our way to the Ancient Unicorn in Bowes to have an evening meal, but it wasn’t open for another hour when we arrived there and we decided to go for a drive around the local area.
We went through Cotherstone (you know the name – Hannah Hauxwell lives there) and saw that the Fox and Hounds was open and thought we would at least have a look. Wonderful traditional village pub. We both ordered Fish and Chips, nice large portions and the chips were really tasty. If we had arrived on a Tuesday evening we would have got them cheaper as they have a Fish and Chips special on Tuesday nights.
The pint was D Gold and was really tasty and well kept, service was friendly and seemed to be predominantly young women. Overall a really nice experience.
It also does bed and breakfast and is just up the road from Barnard Castle in really good walking country.
Contact details:
Fox & Hounds Country Inn
Cotherstone
Barnard Castle
DL12 9PF
Telephone: 01833 650241
Website: http://www.cotherstonefox.co.uk
Email: foxenquiries@tiscali.co.uk
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August 2nd, 2009
We went for a walk today from St. John’s Chapel in Upper Weardale.
The walk took us north out of the village up the hills for about a mile, then we turned west for a couple of miles until we got to a small hamlet just outside Ireshopeburn where we had our lunch. We then followed the Weardale Way back to St. John’s Chapel.
I think the walk was about 5 or so miles. The Weardale Way section has had us looking at completing that this summer by doing circular walks along it to complete sections. The only one we don’t fancy is the actual Sunderland section.
Wonderful thing is that on the walk we saw loads of wildlife – wild strawberries, wild thyme, trout, heron, kestrel, buzzard, trout and a dipper – all this was over and above the usual wagtails and finches. Weardale still seems relatively quiet compared to Teesdale and Swaledale, long may it stay that way.
Have taken a couple of long landscape shots with my Nikon compact but I don’t take the DSLR on these walks yet as they are a bit too much and it gets in the way of enjoying the walk itself.
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June 12th, 2009
The project will be based around a journey between these points, following Dere Street as closely as possible (along the route of the A68?) – first and last ‘bricks’ of the site are photos from these points – also get a landscape shot of the area the ‘brick’ came from and some local history of the area.
For the book, the cover can be the first wall I start from and the back cover can be the wall I end at – the first page can be the collected bricks as the ‘wall’ – then even page ‘brick’, odd page a landscape and text.
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June 10th, 2009
Northallerton Auctions – www.northallertonauctions.com – 01609 772034
Thirsk Farmers Auction Mart – 01845 523165
Hexham and Northern Marts – www.hexhammart.co.uk – 01434 605444
Hawes Auction Mart – www.hawesmart.co.uk – 01969 667207
Leyburn Auction Mart – www.leyburnauctions.com – 01969 623167 / 624750
Darlington Farmers Auction Mart – 01325 464529
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May 24th, 2009
These are some notes for a quick reminder:
Mel Bochner – “A fundamental assumption in much recent past art was that things have stable properties, i.e. boundaries … Boundaries, however, are only the fabrication of our desire to detect them … a trade-off between seeing something and wanting to enclose it.”
Joselit, J. American Art Since 1945 2003, Thames & Hudson world of art pp.150-151
Relate to the project on walls, spaces enclosed by boundaries.
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May 14th, 2009
Login form can be transported into the main site but the look of ePortal site can be changed using CSS files found in the ePortal folder on the server
XML and CSS files can be manipulated. (more information on the SERCO site)
XML files have to be updated manually apart from three (settings, menus and timetables)
settings.xml – general settings that aren’t anywhere else
tolerance settings in settings.xml (regrollcalltoleranceminutes): any event which happens within that time will override rolecall – we shouldn’t over-ride the settings and actually have an AM and PM rolecall (whether in an assembly or someone going around the classes with a register)
<u>External LogIn</u>
<setting>
<name>extloginurl</name>
<value>http://schoolsVLE/SSP.asp</value>
</setting>
also in settings.xml there are areas for default email settings for contact and a place to change the default blank logo if there are no photos for the individual
there is also a setting for pdf enabled
<setting>
<name>taboowordspath</name>
<value>conf/taboo/censor.xml</value>
</setting>
<setting>
<name>studentreportfiletype</name>
<value>PDF;TXT;DOC;XLS;PPT;BMP;GIF;HTM;DOCX;XLSX</value>
</setting>
<setting>
<name>hideresults</name>
<value>false</value>
</setting>
<setting type=”date”>
<name>hideresultsafterdate</name>
<value>05-07-2005</value>
</setting>
Always remember to back up xml and css files before making any changes.
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