Northampton Saints v Perpignan

A Sunday afternoon match in the Heineken European Cup, and a must-win match for the Saints if they are to qualify for the knockout stages. Fortunately, Perpignan can't qualify and therefore sent a weakened team.It has to be said that the first half wasn't the greatest I've ever seen, ending a mere 6-0 to the Saints. I managed to get a couple of decent photos in the good light - one of the better lineout shots I've taken (Juandre Kruger), and one of the rare situations where one of the better best shots of the day is of the opposition!The second half was much better, with the Saints scoring 3 tries in the first 15 minutes. The first came from another dazzling break by Ben Foden, who shipped it on to the try scoring machine that is Chris Ashton. I managed to keep track of this one, leading to quite a good scoring shot.After the third try (which took place...
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January Snow

I've been living in Bristol for more than 13 years now, and we've had negligible snowfall in most of that time - probably 2 snowy mornings - and I reckon the last decent snow I saw was probably in 1991. But in the last 12 months, we've had 4 decent snowfalls - 2 in Jan/Feb, one at the end of December and another one today. Being the inveterate snapper that I am (which you wouldn't guess from the amount I've posted to this blog, would you?), I've taken the opportunities to get out and take some photos. These are today's. The Downs A bicycle on Whiteladies Road Snowboarding on Brandon Hill St Mary Redcliffe The lump of metal in the foreground is a fairly famous piece of tram track that landed in the grounds during a German bombing raid in WW2...
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Pickles

Once the chutneyfest had been completed, we moved on to pickled onions. In the end, our garage smelled very slightly of vinegar - I wonder why that might be? We did two batches of onions - one used bog-standard Sarsons pickling vinegar, the second used vinegar "enhanced" by us. My brother is the first to have tried some of these, and reported that while his sinuses were perfectly clear, he appeared to be missing the top of his head. Got them about right then!...
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