What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). It might be a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
The famous Falkirk Wheel
The Falkirk Wheel is a boat lift in Scotland that replaced a set of eleven canal locks. Here it holds a tourist boat full of passengers, it must be an extraordinary experience to rotate between the upper and lower levels in a boat floating in a short section of canal.
The rotation takes 10 minutes which seems rather slow, but it’s actually a great deal faster than passing through a series of eleven locks.
Themed image collections
The links below will take you to the first post in each collection
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). It might be a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
Mugman, always up for a laugh
I’d like to introduce you to Mugman! Some time ago I amused a friend during an online chat by moving this character slowly into view from the side of the camera frame while we were talking. I didn’t need to say anything, just the unexpected appearance of this nosy character intruding while we were talking was enough to cause a lot of mirth.
Sometimes it doesn’t take much. I’d really like to bring Mugman sneakily into shot during some of the political debate going on in the world. That’s not going to happen, of course, but it might be fun if it did!
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
My friend, Chris Dryden, posts clearly on this topic. ‘The end’ can refer to many different things, and Chris mentions several of them in his piece below.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). It might be a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
The beach at Weston-super-Mare
This is Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset in the UK on 22nd June. The beach is long and wide, golden sand at the top running down to sticky and dangerous mud at low tide. Beyond the mud is the sea, beyond that the distant north coast of Somerset, and finally the sky with a bank of cloud.
The colours here are so subtle, grey-blues and grey-browns. How would you describe these colours? Do any of them have names? Put it all together with the three figures and it makes a lovely composition, a peaceful scene. If I’d turned 180º and taken another photo it would have shown the hustle and bustle of the sea front streets – not peaceful at all!
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). It might be a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
The Library at Lydiard House
This photo is a shot of the Library at Lydiard House near Swindon. The house and the park around it are owned and managed by Swindon Borough Council as a facility for local people. It’s well maintained and well used for many indoor and outdoor purposes.
The house was built in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Tregoze family. While we were looking around the house, I spotted bound copies of ‘The Works of Ruskin‘, filling several shelves.
Themed image collections
The links below will take you to the first post in each collection
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
The word ‘worship’ isn’t here, but David does mention ‘praise’ in verses 5 and 6.
I was struck by the thought that perhaps we don’t often consider the basics. We use expressions like ‘The Worship Team’ or ‘The Worship Band’, and sometimes we call it ‘praise’. So what is the connection between worship and praise and music?
Are praise and worship synonyms? If not, how they are they different? At last week’s Small Group meeting in Stratton we read Psalm 63 and thought through the questions provided by CBC. The psalm is quite short, only 11 verses, I suggest you read it now before returning to the rest of this article.
Defining our terms
It’s immediately clear from Psalm 63 that ‘praise’ and ‘worship’ might not actually be synonymous. The word ‘worship’ isn’t here, but David does mention ‘praise’ in verses 5 and 6.
The dictionary definition of the English word ‘worship’ as a noun is ‘the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity’, and as a verb, ‘show reverence and adoration for a deity’ So we can summarise it as ‘feeling or expressing reverence and adoration’.
We also use the word ‘worship’ in non-religious ways. People might say, ‘He worships that woman, or ‘She worships her cat’, and perhaps tellingly, we might even say, ‘He worships his car’. A feeling of reverence and adoration indeed!
Praise is easier to pin down; we use this word in everyday life quite often. You might praise a child for doing well in exams, or for working hard. You might praise a coffee shop for excellent coffee or good service.
So what’s the difference?
I think it’s clear that worship is about valuing something (or someone) very highly, whereas praise is saying that something is good or was well done. Saying that a car is good, well-designed, or reliable is to praise the car and, perhaps, the designer and manufacturer as well. But worshipping the car is saying it’s the most important thing in your life! You can’t live without it, you are dedicated to polishing it, and everything else in your life has less value and importance to you than the car.
Clearly, we should be very careful about who or what we worship. But we should pour out praise on everyone and everything that merits it. If I praise you because you have done well in some way, that is more than OK. It’s kind, it’s encouraging, it’s thoughtful, and it might make you even more eager to do well in future. But if I worship you, you would do well to try your utmost to stop me. Or just walk away – fast!
To put it another way, specifically for people who follow Jesus – we can worship only one person, or more accurately three people, the Father, Jesus and the Spirit that flows from them. We can praise them too, but we can also praise other people and even inanimate objects. And those worship bands that I mentioned at the start? Well, they make music, often very praiseworthy music. And the people listening are doing what, exactly? I’ll let you decide, leave me a comment and tell me what you make of all this. Thanks!
It might be useful to look at the Hebrew and Koine Greek words commonly translated ‘worship’ or ‘praise’. I’m not going to pursue that here, but I might come back to it some other time.
Useful? Interesting?
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). It might be a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
Cerney Wick round house (left) and me on the right
I take photos far more often than I am photographed. On 11th July I was out walking with two friends, and one of them took this photo of me. We were following part of the Thames and Severn Canal; the building at upper-left is one of the five round houses built by the canal company for some of their lock keepers and lengthmen. This particular round house is close to the village of Cerney Wick.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image each day, or as often as I can; a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy. This is the second in the series.
The robin at Pretty and Pip
Pretty & Pip is one of my favourite coffee shops in Cirencester. I wrote ‘therobin‘ because he’s always there, in their lovely courtyard. If I didn’t know the guy that owns and manages this place I might even think the robin ran it! He certainly thinks he belongs there, and he does a pretty good job of picking up cake crumbs and generally keeping the place spick and span.
But come on mate, get preening! How do you expect to find an attractive female robin with scruffy, untidy feathers like that?
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m going to post an image each day, or as often as I can; a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy. This is the first in what may become a long series.
Roadworks on the A417, at the Air Balloon Roundabout
The scarp slope of the Cotswolds is steep, and roads usually have to twist and turn to reduce the slope to acceptable levels. A new section of dual carriagway is being built near the village of Birdlip, to complete the link from the M4 near Swindon to the M5 near Gloucester.
It’s involved the demolition of a famous old landmark, the ‘Air Balloon’ pub, and the amount of rock being moved is astronomical. All of this to smooth out a course for the new road that will let it make the 300 m climb in one, long, sweeping bend. The completion date is estimated to be Spring 2027.
Cirencester
For convenience, here’s a list of all the Cirencester area images:
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
Notes from bygone years – Julys duly described Hint: Click on the thumbnails for larger images.
July 2023 (1 year before publishing this article)
Solar panel installation
We decided to take the plunge and install solar panels on our roof. We had a long wait as demand was high, but the installers arrived in July and after a few days work we were delighted to have the system reducing our electricity bills to almost nothing. Of course, we knew it would be different in the winter months, but with a 10 kWh battery included, we found we could get right through the night on our own stored energy in the summer.
I was also experimenting with a reduced eating window, having breakfast around 11:00. I’ve tried restricted eating before, but this time I’m following evidence-based suggestions from Zoe (see also the Zoe website) .
I was doing Monday walks most weeks with my friend Stephen. We met at one of CBC’s Small Groups here in Stratton, and we got on really well together. Among other interests, Stephen played saxophone in the ‘JJ Band’. We shared similar views on many things and both had backgrounds in computing.
Stephen lived in the town so I’d usually walk down to meet him, we’d enjoy a walk in the park, and often buy coffees from the van or sometimes in town. I always looked forward to my Monday walks.
This was a busy month, I walked several sections of the old Thames and Severn Canal (something I’ve been doing again in 2024), we were regularly arranging the chairs at CBC on Fridays, and two people I knew died, Bob Morris and then Michael Sleggs.
Donna’s Dad was getting weaker and his Parkinson’s symptoms were worsening, so her Mum was needing more help than before and we travelled to Poole to help out more often.
We were living in St Neots, this is a view of the River Great Ouse flowing through the town centre, an easy walk from our house in Eaton Ford. Donna was looking for a school placement for her teaching, I was meeting with a group of friends in coffee shops, hanging out, doing Bible study here and there, hopefully helping people grow and thrive. I was also meeting at home with friends from various local churches.
World events: Israel attacked the Gaza Strip; and a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over Ukraine by a missile.
I went to a house church conference and was astonished to bump into my friend Jim Russell there. He’d always thought my views on church were not right, yet here he was! We had some great conversation and he took my photo while I took his. I had no idea that this would be the last time I’d see him.
Donna took part in the Bedford Race for Life organised by Cancer Research UK, along with her friends Gayna and Claire, pictured here wearing their medals. There was a big turn out, along with large numbers of pink-themed balloons and so forth.
We were living in Donna’s cottage near Kimbolton and had decided it was much too small for us both. We’d been looking for somewhere larger and the image shows a survey document for the house in St Neots that we eventually bought.
We visited Mum and Dad in Cirencester on my birthday. As usual we enjoyed spending time with my parents. The photo shows my nephew Tom, my Mum, Beth and Judy chatting together in the back garden. Rachael, Dan, Rosie and Tom were here the same day so it was good to see them too.
Debbie flew to Bordeaux on her French exchange trip (her exchange partner, Anne, had come to stay with us in March). We saw her through check-in and then waited with her on the tarmac, waving goodbye as she walked out to board the plane.
It seemed very strange to drive back home again without her.
We had a summer holiday travelling through Wales from south to north, staying at bed and breakfast places (gwely a brecwast). A few days before we set out, there was a fairly large earthquake, and in Bethesda our landlady was anxious as aftershocks were still continuing. The photo shows Debbie and Beth at the top of Snowdon with a train waiting at the summit station.
This was a short note on a combined staining method for plum reproductive tissues, to aid microscopical studies of the fertilisation process. It wasn’t published as a scientific paper as far as I recall, but was part of a poster presentation at a conference. I hoped other people would try it on different kinds of plant material so that together we could get a much broader view of its usefulness. I don’t think anything came of it in the end, but it’s important to try – that’s part of how science works.
World events: The Sony Walkman first went on sale in Japan; and NASA’s Skylab space station re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
Judy must have become pregnant about this time, but we didn’t know that until a little later, of course.
The Severn Bridge was only eight-years-old, and it still seemed amazing that we could drive to Wales instead of queuing for the old Aust Ferry or driving all the way to Gloucester. And there was no thought of a second crossing, of course! I took this photo, but forgot to adjust the focus (no auto-focus in those days).
I was lodging at Archgrove House in Long Ashton along with other students working at the Research Station that summer. Judy sent me the postcard from York (pictured) where she was on holiday with her parents and brother Frank. You won’t believewhat her Dad said about York Minster!
World events:John Fairfax was the first person to row solo across an ocean (the Atlantic); and Neil Armstrong was the first to walk on the Moon (we watched this live at Archgrove House).
Dad drove out to the gravel pits near South Cerney. Some of these were still being used to extract gravel, but some had been worked out and were used by anglers, for swimming, and for water-skiing which we’d never seen before. I took two cameras with me, my old Kodak Starmite loaded with 127 colour transparency film, and my new Kodak Retinette loaded with 35 mm black and white. This photo shows Dad using his camera and my sisters Rachael, Ruth and Cindy.
World events:Malawi became independent of the UK; and NASA’s Ranger 7 send back the first close-up images of the Moon.
I thought you might like to see this birthday letter from my Grandpa. He had emphysema, and died on 22nd August, my 11+ results came in before that and he knew that I had passed. Granny had decided that a sleeping bag would be a useful present as I was off to Cub Camp soon after my birthday and would then move up to the Scouts.
This is a postcard from my Mum to her family back in Northern Ireland. She writes about Cindy and me suffering from chicken pox. I had it before Cindy, so it’s likely I gave it to her (sorry, Cindy). Read the card.
My very first birthday came at the end of the month, a special day, no doubt, with doting parents and grandparents. I must have had other birthday cards, but this one from Watermoor Church is the only survivor. That’s interesting in itself; Mum would have kept them all for a while, but this one seemed more important, perhaps because of Mum and Dad’s strong faith.
On the back of the card is written, ‘Christopher James Jefferies, 37 Victoria Road, baptised October 24th 1948′.
Dad, along with his friend Joe, travelled by lorry, train and bus to Yatesbury where radar training began for them and many others. Dad liked this posting, writing, ‘Radar people seem a good lot’. He was able to hitch home in two or three hours to see the family in Cirencester, sometimes Joe came along too. By the end of the month Dad and others were using radar equipment to plot movements of real aircraft (‘pukka kites’). The photo shows an old aircraft hanger at Yatesbury in 2014.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
