Browse the +seymours collective
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Look Mum No Computer
Having just discovered Sam Battle's amazing Modular Synth live performances on youtube, we were very excited to be able to get 2 of the last tickets to see him perform at The Jericho Tavern in Oxford.
By Ben Seymour Date: 11th October 2024
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Lancaster for Bunkfest
Tremendous sights and sounds of the Lancaster passing over our house while doing laps for Wallingford’s Bunkfest.
By Ben Seymour Date: 3rd September 2023
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15km SUP
What a perfect afternoon, SUP’ing the 15km, from Clifton Hampden back to Wallingford with Jack.
By Ben Seymour Date: 16th July 2022
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Solar Eclipse
The UK had a partial solar eclipse today - maybe about 15% - so I had to dash out between calls to see it.
By Ben Seymour Date: 10th June 2021
It was rather cloudy - meaning, it was much easier to photograph.
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Garden Mutjac
Finally caught sight of our garden intruder.
By Ben Seymour Date: 8th June 2021
After hearing odd noises out the back in the early hours recently, it’s turned out to be a sweet little muntjac at 4.30am
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Garden Flowers
Enjoying the garden - and trying some photos to take advantage of the fantastic light, with great contrast.
By Ben Seymour Date: 5th June 2021
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Culham Canoeing
Glorious weekend weather, and with Jack at rowing, Zoe, Em and I went for a paddle on the Thames. Putting in at Culham, we headed up to the marina, explored some off-channels, then down to the weir and back.
By Ben Seymour Date: 31st May 2021
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Enjoying the garden
Spring has arrived, and along with it, a growing abundance of stunning wildlife, flora and fauna.
By Ben Seymour Date: 3rd April 2021
Everyday we enjoy sitting in garden, and the more we look the more we see.
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Swyncombe Stroll
With some fine weather on the penultimate day of 2020 (and with continued covid restrictions) we explored more of our local area. This time exploring Swyncombe woods, giving a little bit of elevation and some lovely open views. (Plenty of great climbing trees too)
By Ben Seymour Date: 30th December 2020
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Conjunction -2d
The conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter was amazing to observe live tonight. So glad Zoe reminded me about it, and so glad the family managed to see it for about 10 mins of observation before the cloud bank obscured it.
By Ben Seymour Date: 19th December 2020
On the 21st the two planets will be visually the closest since 1623... and another 400 years until the next time this close!
Only managed to grab one not-so-pic, so let’s hope for clear skies on 20/21
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Lap Land Postcard
What a spectacular treat, to be able to cruise (slowly) around the international circuit at Silverstone enjoying the festive laser light show.
By Ben Seymour Date: 18th December 2020
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ASIair first live stack ‘ish
Not much to look at, but I finally got my first images of any sort from the ASIair tonight.The tedious firmware update for the mount seems to have helped... and while progress is slow, it is hopefully something to build upon.
By Ben Seymour Date: 17th December 2020
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Winter later afternoon sun
Thankful for some weekend sun, when I can get out to enjoy it. After a lovely stroll around Blewbury we stopped on the way home to get some drone shots as the sun sank ever lower.
By Ben Seymour Date: 12th December 2020
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Streatley Hill stroll
With another break in the weather, we headed out to explore another new walk nearby. Parking up Streatley Hill we headed over the road and enjoyed a glorious walk around the autumnal trees, and carpets of fallen leaves. Culminating in a brilliant view across to Goring and the `Thames.
By Ben Seymour Date: 28th October 2020
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Thruxton Supercars
Porsche, Aston Martin, Ferrari 458, and McLaren 570s - what an amazing day.
By Ben Seymour Date: 26th September 2020
With delays of 18 months due to mechanical breakdown, and covid shutdowns, it was definitely worth the wait!
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Wilton Windmill
A 5 story brick tower built in 1821 to replace the five water mills made redundant when the Kennet & Avon Canal took their water.
By Ben Seymour Date: 26th July 2020
The fantail causes the supporting cap to turn to make the most of the available wind.
Restored in the 1970’s it is still operated by volunteers, and produced small batches of wholemeal flour.
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Blenheim Palace Drive-In movie
One of the creative responses to the COVID restrictions was for Blenheim Palace to host a Drive-In movie.
By Ben Seymour Date: 20th July 2020
So, for a treat it of a night out we loaded up the car with loads of blankets and pillows and a big packed evening treats and headed off to enjoy watching Back to the Future - and behind us someone even arrived in a DeLorean!
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Friday night comets and stars
Such a glorious evening for stargazing and the perfect start to the weekend.Comet Neowise attempts through 8" telescope and then 300mm zoom (I like the context given by the house silhouette).Then the Milky Way with wide angle + star tracker from the back garden while sitting out chatting with Em until the early hours.
By Ben Seymour Date: 18th July 2020
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Full Moon and close planets
The full moon had two close companions tonight : Jupiter and Saturn.
By Ben Seymour Date: 6th July 2020
still struggling to get results from the ASIair, I borrowed Jack’s laptop and ran the ZWO from that to get a great new image of Jupiter
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Race for Life
Well done Em ❤️Every year since 2002 she has run the #raceforlife in memory of family & friends who have been lost to cancer.Due to Covid restrictions her 19th run was a solo event, with just the 3 of us to see her off and to cheer her home.Jack found his 2019 medal which Zoe presented her with x
By Ben Seymour Date: 5th July 2020
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Windy Ridgeway walk
A blustery walk up on the ridgeway was the perfect way to blast out some cobwebs during this prolonged period of lockdown.
By Ben Seymour Date: 28th June 2020
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Wet Sunflower...
Our Sunflower appears to have stuck one petal out, concluded it is far too wet, and will leave fully flowering for another day...
By Ben Seymour Date: 27th June 2020
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The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
By Ben Seymour Date: 24th June 2020
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-the one who has flung herself out of the grass,the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down
-who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
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Jupiter & Saturn
3am and I just woke up Em and the kids so we could see Jupiter and Saturn through the telescope for the first time together- just incredible, I’m still buzzing from watching it
By Ben Seymour Date: 15th June 2020
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Sombrero Galaxy, M12 & M14
Trying out some longer exposures tonight (60-90s on 3600ISO)
By Ben Seymour Date: 29th May 2020
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Vega, Moon and ISS
Glorious moon, Vega sparkle, and slightly blurry ISS.
By Ben Seymour Date: 28th May 2020
Enjoying a lovely fresh evening of nightsky gazing.
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Spica and Double Double
Spica and Double Double (I think)
By Ben Seymour Date: 23rd May 2020
First time trying the DSLR with the telescope tonight, and I lost track of what I took photos of!
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Venus! (and the moon)
Experimenting with the stacking app (windows only!) to process the photos I took last night using a ZWO telescope camera.
By Ben Seymour Date: 4th May 2020
It’s designed for long bursts of short exposure shots, for distant object, trying to compensate for atmospheric disturbance.
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Plossl 40mm, 17mm, 13mm
Just enough gaps in the clouds to try to get higher magnification of the moon with the plossl 17mm and 13mm (along with the standard 40mm)
By Ben Seymour Date: 2nd May 2020
Shot on #iPhone attached to the eyepiece.
Also very glad I got a moonfilter I lost all night vision after the first look.
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Tents & Telescopes
More time enjoying the new moon tonight and clearer conditions and a little more practice, and we’re getting much closer shots of the moon.
By Ben Seymour Date: 25th April 2020
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La Dolce Vita - Aceto Balsamico
There are things in life that we end of ‘saving for a special occasion’... maybe a really nice bottle of wine, or that incredible balsamic that we bought in Modena during the 2018 europtrip.
By Ben Seymour Date: 12th April 2020
Well, it seems to me that the current times remind us that we are already living in the best of times... these times being any that we get to enjoy in good health, and in the company of our loved ones, whatever the other circumstances may be....
So instead of waiting for a special occasion, we made the time we already have more special now, by savouring this balsamic, and reminiscing of our family adventures.
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Fresh cress
Making the most of what we have:
By Ben Seymour Date: 4th April 2020
Home grown cress for a lovely egg and cress open sandwich
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Starry starry night
Perfect timing to have some really crisp clear nights, with almost no planes, and some really bright ISS flybys. Despite being really chilly Zoe and I sat out in the garden for about 1.5 hours enjoying the space around us and the space above us.
By Ben Seymour Date: 28th March 2020
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Toilet roll caricatures
For those with an abundance of toilet rolls.... and an abundance of time stuck in the house with the kids:
By Ben Seymour Date: 14th March 2020
Zoe suggests making toilet roll caricatures
My likeness is quite uncanny!
#coronacreative 
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Flat packed coffee
Trialling better coffee for when we get back to travelling for work again. Flat packed, pour in boiling water and it becomes the portable brewer.Reasonably good tasting too - much better than most hotel in-room coffee options.
By Ben Seymour Date: 12th March 2020
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Six Nations
Thanks to some good fortune with the Wallingford RFC ballot, Jack and I got to go and watch England v Ireland at Twickenham today.
By Ben Seymour Date: 23rd February 2020
Transport was remarkably good too, with all trains appearing just as we needed them, and we even had seats on every journey!.
The atmosphere from the moment we left the train station was amazing... from being with thousands of people walking down closed roads,... to the 82,000 attendance singing the anthems.... to the roar when the 2 england tries were in the corner right in front of us.... and the sound of thousand of voices singing Sweet Chariot.
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Haikus
Coffee by Ben:
By Ben Seymour Date: 22nd February 2020
Begin each day as
if it was on purpose but
don’t forget coffee.
Dogs by Zoe:
They are lovable,
unbelievably cute and
are adorable
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New Adventures 2020
Back in 2013, NAConf was one of the first web design conferences I attended, and it blew me away with some amazing talks, but also have an opportunity to get to know some of the interesting and lovely people in the industry.
By Ben Seymour Date: 24th January 2020
2020 was my 3rd time attending, and once again lots of thought provoking, eye opening talks, and from a social aspects it was like a reunion of old friends too.
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Bikes, Boats, Scooters and Cable cars (nearly)
With this area of the world leading the way in many innovations and new business approaches I got to try some new and old approaches to travel.
By Ben Seymour Date: 12th January 2020
I used Uber Rides (in conjunction with Jump bikes) to find one of the electric bikes randomly parked around the city. This was great fun as I went from bridge to bridge getting a little of the beaten track and covering way more ground that my usual walking.
Then I took the ferry over to Alcatraz, did the tour and decided to head up to Coit tower, for this I decided to try a short term rental of an Uber electric scooter, which was fun, nut couldn’t cope with going up or down the steep hills. That trip ended up at the Cable Car Museum, which was interesting and also had a sense of irony. I had planned to take the Cable car back to Union Square, but as I could clearly see in the museum (which houses the actual running mechanisms), the Powell cable wasn’t running... so in the end I strolled back to Union sq and my hotel.
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NEC for Motorcycle Live 2019
Motorcycle Live was a huge event, across 3 of the massive halls at the NEC, and its last day happened to coincide with my birthday, so Jack and I headed over. The Moto Cirque was the stand out item, with us watching the whole show twice - seeing the FMX riders do some incredible tricks within such a relatively small space was awesome- they were getting so close to the ceiling, with such precision
By Ben Seymour Date: 24th November 2019
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The extremes of The Roman Empire
Between Homestead Fort on the Scottish border, and Masada in Israel, in the last 9 months I have visited these two ancient Roman sites. With both sites dating from almost 2000 years ago, and nearly 3000 miles apart it’s quite incredible to contemplate the breadth of the Roman Empire.
By Ben Seymour Date: 8th August 2019
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Charles River Museum
In 1813 the first 'modern factory' designed by Lowell and Moody kick-started the American Industrial Revolution.
By Ben Seymour Date: 7th July 2019
Located beside the Charles River, it's power was harnessed through dams and water-wheels to start the evolution of high-tech engineering and production processes.
Latterly the Waltham Watch Co. was also based on this site (1854-1950) - the first high precision manufacturing on a grand scale.
The museum now on this site also has a Linotype machine - see : https://storyus.life/+seymours/linotype
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The Linotype
Described by Edison as the 8th wonder of the world, I was fortunate enough to see 2 of these pivotal machines at The Charles River Museum while visiting Boston for work.
By Ben Seymour Date: 6th July 2019
It was a hot metal typesetting system that literally used molten metal into lines on type for the printing process. Linotype became one of the mainstay methods to set type, especially small-size body text, for newspapers, magazines, and posters from the late 19th century to the 1970s and 1980s
More details on the factory site : https://storyus.life/+seymours/charles-river-museum
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British Museum
On my way to meetings nearby, I was able to take a 15 minute detour through the British Museum.
By Ben Seymour Date: 19th February 2019
stunning architecture, and with time for just one exhibit, I luckily changed upon The Rosetta Stone - one of my favourite historic artefacts, which I haven’t seen for perhaps 15-20 years.
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Motorsports heaven!
As well as visiting a number of race tracks including Le Mans, Monzo, Magny Cora, Spa and the Nurburgring, we also visited museums of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Red Bull and Mercedes, but the stand out experience was the tour of the Pagani factory. Utterly inspiring, and a shining example of what can be created when you couple amazing design and engineering but without compromise.
By Ben Seymour Date: 1st October 2018
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The fruits of our labours.
On the way back from my saturday morning swimming lessons I spotted loads of blackberries growing by the side of the road. It was a sunny morning, so we stopped and picked a carrier bag full. When we were back home Mum and I put them in a big pan, added loads of sugar, and then spent ages with them bubbling away. I don't like jam with bits in, so once it was at the right temperature we sivved it and put it into jars. Even when it was cooled it was still a little runny so I tried adding some to whipped cream, and it made it taste amazing - Dad said I've invented blackberry infused cream (he loved it too)
By Zoe Seymour Date: 22nd September 2018