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A small town. A three hour drive from New York City. 150 miles from the coast. Forty minutes from Albany.
This is where you find a large part of American East Coast society in the summer.
The reason is spelled horse racing–as it has been for the last 150 years. Gallop Magazine visited Saratoga in August.
And came home with a love affair.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t all starts about an hour's drive from the Newark Airport in New Jersey. The industrial estates are gone, as are the rusty old metal bridges. The feeling is no longer that of the kind of neighbourhood where bodies are found in Law & Order. All is green. The highway lined by well mowed grass. Traffic flows at 65 mph and nobody is in a rush. No supermarkets or used car dealerships block the sight of park-like forests. It's all neat and tidy in a way that for this European visitor feels more like Switzerland than America.
"I hear you went up to Saratoga. And your horse naturally won."
Carly Simon, "You're so vain
The famous Catskill Mountains appear. The 1950s' and 60s' main waterhole for the east coast urban middle class (Remember Dirty Dancing? That was here). But we're going further. We're going past the middle class.
We're going to Saratoga.
3,000 race horses. 25,000 people. A number of medicinal springs. And many, many millions of dollars.
THE YEAR IS 1767. The United States does not exist yet. British soldier William Johnson is wounded in battle, and friends from the local Mohawk tribe take him to a nearby spring with water that is said to have healing powers. Johnson survives, and the rumour about the water spreads.
Settlers come to the area, and in a few decades Saratoga Springs has become a place where the wealthy go drink the life-giving water. The railroad comes to town and brings even more visitors. With them come, the need for entertainment. Hotels and restaurants are followed by casinos and—in 1863—the race course that was to give the small town global fame opened its doors.
Present day. The air is hot and humid. It's been a hot summer in northern U.S. Fasig Tipton's Select Yearling Sale has just started in Saratoga. About a hundred thoroughbred yearlings are about to be sold during the two night sale. The sales pavillion looks like an elegant lecture hall. It is air conditioned, has comfortable arm chairs, and there is an art exhibition above top row. Outside, well-manicured stables, are literally in the middle of an upscale residential area. Buyers and sellers hustle with people who have just passed by to enjoy the sight of big bucks changing owners. The local beer from Saratoga Brewery gives comfort in the heat of the night. Ladies with Hermès bags eat oysters at one of the food stalls, while tourists and grooms have $6 homemade burgers at another.
The eight big black SUV's on the lawn outside indicate that Sheikh Mohammed from Dubai is in place.
Spotters with dinner jackets and headsets oversee the bidding even outside the sales pavillion.
"It's slow tonight," says Marion Altiere, a horse racing writer who calls Saratoga home.
She refers to the fact that no horses have been sold for headline making amounts. A few hundred thousand dollars average, but then two horses break the million dollar barrier.
A wave of excitement goes through the crowd. The people of Saratoga feel that there is still money in the sport and that their little town can continue to be the playground for the rich and famous.
"Stock analysts should come here," says Don Butte, the CFO of Fasig Tipton.
"Prices at the sales show what people with money really think about the future."
YOU DON'T REALLY need a car in Saratoga. This is one of the few places in the promised land of cars where this is true. If you're going to the races or the sales. walking or using a bicycle is the way to go. Parking is expensive, and you might find yourself far from where you want to go.
Nothing in Saratoga is further away than a 10-minute bike ride. Besides, the bike makes you experience the beauty of Saratoga up close.
Like most other American towns Saratoga has a main street. In Saratoga it's called Broadway, and in the outskirts of town it's lined by hotels and fast food places. Many of them have names and signs that speak directly to the racing fans, like Thorobred Motel or the Turf and Spa.
After less than half a mile on Broadway you are in the centre. Classic 19th century brick buildings standing side-by-side by wide sidewalks lined with trees. There is no shortage of cafés, restaurants and shops. You almost expect to run into ladies in crinoline dresses waving fans. In the alleys you find the cool, arty bars where Dylan and Arlo Guthrie played in the '60s.
A few blocks away are the wooden houses. On the east side they're humble in design. This is where the servants lived, the workers lived. In the last few years many of these houses have been bought and restored by young creative people taking advantage of the credit crunch.
On the west side you find the mansions. Here are the narrow streets with names like "Madison Avenue" and wooden houses that never cease to amaze. They are miniature castles surrounded by tall pine trees. Shaded front porches with antique rocking chairs are where people read race cards and drink lemonade. Many of the houses are rented out the entire summer, and few places should be as happy as Saratoga for the invention of broad band internet.
"We used to rent a house here all summer, but I still had to go to New York and work in the weeks," says a man in chinos and polo shirt we met at the sale. "I commuted and my wife and kids were here. Now I do most of my work on-line and just go down every once in awhile. Most people try to leave Manhattan in the summer anyway."
Chinos (or shorts), polo shirts and running shoes are all part of the Saratoga uniform. Oil skin coats are far away and suits are few. And even if cars and handbags indicate that financial muscle is present, Saratoga never feels snobbish or upper-class.
You can eat at decent prices on Broadway and spend an afternoon people-watching. Even the best restaurants have burgers for $8 or $9, and nobody will stare at you if you have a Coca-Cola with your Kobe beef.
SOME COMPARE Saratoga to St. Moritz in Switzerland: a small town that attracts money, society and and parties because of a sport. But here it is horses instead of winter sports, and there are plenty of horses. Three thousand horses do not go unnoticed. And the people of Saratoga love their horses.
"In the old days the horses would come by train," says Altieri. "Then they where ridden from the railroad station to the track, and some of them always got loose. Catching those loose horses was a bit of fun for the locals, and nobody got upset if they ended up having hoof prints on their lawn. It could be those of a future Travers Stakes winner."
Travers Stakes IS the biggest race in Saratoga. It is a 1 1/4 mile dirt track race for 3-year-olds that is often refered to as the Midsummer Derby. Several breeding giants can be found among the list of Travers winners: Birdstone, Point Given, Forty Niner, Native Dancer, Man o'War, Alydar. The winner of Travers does not only receive honour and money, the owner also gets to have his colors painted on the canoe in the infield pond!
The race that is run in late August and marks the crescendo of the season. An attendance of 60,000 people in a town with 25,000 inhabitants is nothing short of impressive.
"People start to line up at 3 a.m to get the best seats at Travers," says Molly Brinde of New York Racing Association. NYRA owns and operates the three major tracks in the state of New York: Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga.
Getting to the best places at Saratoga is not about getting the best seats on the long grandstand, but rather about getting the best picnic tables in the park in the track's "backyard."
"We get to see the horses up close in the parade ring here," says a father. "We get to eat our own food while the kids run around and play. We see the races just as good here since there are plenty of big screen TVs everywhere."
The trick is to put the family's best and quickest runner at the front of the line and to know exactly which tables to aim for. As the gates open the family runner goes at full speed and jumps over any obstacles to get the right table.
SARATOGA IS A CLASSIC race course, often portrayed in movies and books. It is a bit worn–in a charming way–with the red and white colour scheme on everything from tents to signs. Old school would be the word used today. This is a place where legends have run: Man o'War, Native Dancer, Secretariat, Rachel Alexandra. Seabiscuit was bought on sale here.
The grandstand is open and stretches for more than a furlong, but in spite of this there is a feeling of being close to the action. At the finish linen, the best seats are only some 30 feet from the track. There is hardly room for a winner's enclosure…
Water hoses hang along the outer rail, facing the audience. As soon as the jockey has taken off the saddle the horses are showered—so close to the crowd that a horse that shakes off the water, sprays a shower on the closest bystanders.
Inside the dirt track is the outer turf track, and inside of that the next turf track.
"Americans love time keeping," says Norwegian tipster and handicapper Geir Stabell, who is based in England but spends a lot of time in the USA. "Railing out a turf track (moving the inner rail out in order to reduce tear on the inner parts) as in Europe wouldn't work here, as it changes the circumference and then times are incomparable. Instead they have two different turf tracks so the betters know how to compare and with what."
Another big difference to Europe is that races can get moved to the dirt track in case of a lot of rain. You will even find horses that are declared with a reservation—they will only run if the race is shifted to dirt. It is rare a graded stakes is moved though.
Saratoga is also one of few major tracks in the USA with jump racing. Every Thursday a steeplechase is run over national fences—a kind of large, movable hurdles. Prize money is good—often up to $60,000—and there is rarely more than 10 runnes in a race. One wonders why so few Europeans try their luck here.
SO MUCH IN Saratoga is about the season, or as Americans call it, the meet. In Europe the term "meeting" is often used to describe one or a few days of racing on a certain race course. In the USA, it is different. Each race course has one or more meets that last for weeks or months at a time. During those, there is often racing five or six days a week at that track.
When a track holds its meet trainers rent stables and move horses and staff to it. Stable rent is often free, or almost free, for horses that are there to race, and that way stables are filled with horses that can fill the races.
In New York, Belmont has a 56-day meet in spring/summer and a 37-day meet in autumn, while Aqueduct has 79 days from New Year's Eve, and Saratoga has 40 days in the summer.
"I think we'll have about 3,000 horses here this summer," says Brinde. "It's a bit like summer camp for New York racing.Most horses have Belmont in New York City as their regular home, but we also have trainers who keep their horses in Florida for the winter. Some also stay here all year, and then we have trucks that drive them to Belmont for the races."
The summer camp metaphor becomes understandable when you visit the stable area—The backside—in early morning. An atmosphere that—for lack of a better word—could best be described as cozy. Even though people and horses work hard, it all has a feeling of vacation. Horses look at each other from open stall doors. The green wooden buildings are scattered around in a pine forest with trees everywhere giving natural shade. There is a feeling of the whole setup being smaller than it actually is.
Track ponies stand tied, saddled and ready for their next assignment. All of it has an old school charm to it, with trainers sporting hand painted signs with their names on the barns, and flowers in the stable colors in flower pots. The male dominance seams less here, and close to half of the exercise riders are female.
The Saratoga morning mist is legendary, and sunrise workouts look as amazing in real life as in pictures. The street outside the backside entrance is guarded by two men with stop signs and refelective vests. All traffic is stopped when horses are about to cross the street. The entrance is guarded by another two, three guards will make sure you have your access-card in order. Once inside you have almost as many people lining the rail here as you have on the grand stand on a normal race day in France or South Africa. Picnic tables and a place where you can get burgers, race card, burritos and pens. Famous jockeys drive around in golf carts, as it's far from the backside to the jock's room.
WALKING THROUGH the stable area you come to a fence with an open gate. A sign saying "Private Property" is all that informs you of the fact that whoever passes through the gate enters Sheikh Mohammed's facility. It features green grass, white wooden houses and stables of a kind that would have made them perfect for a fashion shoot. There is also a training course where the furlong markers are classic Saratoga style red and white.
As opposed to the other racing centres of the world —Newmarket, Chantilly, Lexington—the big players are not here under their own name. There is no Coolmore or Juddmonte and no Aga Kahn stud farm—yet. So far Sheikh Mohammed and Godolphin are the only global owners with their own place.
But New York is coming—big time. Breeders incentives and major prize money has been set up to attract the big-time players. Money comes from things like the newly renovated Aqueduct track where NYRA operates New York's first casino, or racino as it is called. One million visitors spent $1 billion there in July 2012. The profit is used to promote racing, and purses of $60,000 in maiden races are common in Saratoga.'
It's been about 150 years since the opening of Saratoga Race Course.
If you haven't been here—go! And if you don't make it for the celebrations, odds are you will have at least another 150 summer chances coming up.
Read our other stories about Saratoga:
Things to do in Saratoga
Saratoga – The early days
In the early 1600s, Charles II–"the racing King" who founded Newmarket–gave instructions to the governor of New York to establish a race course on Long Island, only a few miles from where Belmont Park is today.
Tha race course was given the name Newmarket and held its first races in 1655, more than 100 years before the creation of the United States. In 1821 gambling was legalized in the New York burrough of Queens, and a race track by the name of Union Course was founded. This was the first track to have what is today known as a dirt surface, but at that time it was called "skinned." The term refered to the fact that the grass layer had been skinned off. Some say this was in order to obtain higher speeds, and others claim it was because it was hard to maintain a good turf track in the dry American climate. The track was a one mile (1600 meter) oval and it became a template for other tracks all across the continent. At this period of time, each race normally consisted of four races of four miles each—meaning a race horse had to run 16 miles in one day! The oval track was perfect for this, as opposed to the often straight tracks in England.
The best known race of the era was held on May 27, 1823.
American Eclipse, a son of legendary sire Eclipse, was to race the Southern hope Sir Henry in three heats of four miles each. Prize money was a staggering $20,000, and people traveled from the entire East Coast to see the race.
American Eclipse was six years older than Sir Henry and had retired to breeding, so the odds wer in Sir Henry's favour. When Sir Henry won the first heat in a record 7:32,5 it created a panic on the New York stock markets! But American Eclipse fought back and won the remaining two heats. The local newspaper The Neighborhoods of Queens reported that "he saved the stock market from collapse, but led several Southerners, who had bet their entire plantations on Sir Henry, to commit suicide on the spot."[/toggle]


text: Panu Hällfors wrote: > On Sun, Apr 09, 2000 at 06:58:35PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: > > > I'd like to help in the development of Debian but preferably not > > > as a maintainer because I tend to have very busy periods in my life > > > It would help *a lot* if you could work on release critical or > > old bugs, or on orphaned packages then. This does not require > > continous work and it would help a lot. > > And I'll just mail the bug fixes to the maintainers? > Sounds good. Please don't forget to cc it to the Bug Tracking System so it gets recorded. This is very important especially when working on packages where the maintainer looks to be MIA. It's also a good idea to retitle the bug report after supplying a proper patch so the title is "[PATCH] $oldtitle" which makes it visible that a fix is already around. Regards, Joey -- GNU GPL: "The source will be with you... always."

subset: commoncrawl


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I am generally not someone who believes that boys and girls get their own gender specific activities – how wildly limiting! However, I can admit that many boys might not be quite as interested in crafting as girls – though it is hard for me to put it in writing. I just did. Right. It is with this commonly held belief/reality, that I encourage parents of the less craftily inclined to look at making stuff with balsa wood – in our case, a gender-stereotypical airplane. My guy loves machines and things that fly and sharp knives (there are craft knife cutting opportunities with this one), so there was no hesitation when I asked if he wanted to make a BALSA WOOD AIRPLANE.
This is a creative project in that there are no plans – rather, your child can design and assemble their plane and see if they can come up with a design that will fly well. The stakes are low, as the materials are not expensive and though it is wood, it is very easy to cut. My boy actually made some small versions of this for our tree and friend's trees, this past holiday season, and they were an awesome addition.
What you'll need:
• balsa wood – 1/16"
• craft knife and/or sharp scissors
• paper and pencil
• cutting board/mat
• glue
1. Draw the 3 parts of the plane – the body, the main wings, and the tail wings. We use a regular piece of paper and the body was about the length of it. Fold the same sheet of paper and draw the wing shapes from the folded side to the unfolded side. When this is cut out, it will be symmetrical and all one piece – this piece will slide through the body of the plane and be glued in place.
2. Cut out the 3 pieces with a pair of scissors and trace them onto the balsa with a pencil. Cut the shapes out of the balsa wood with either a pair of scissors or craft knife. Make slits where the wings will be inserted – attempting to give just enough room to slide the wings through but not too big that it is hard to glue in place.
3)Decorate with markers or paints – anything goes – and assemble. Slide the wigs through so they are centered and run a bead of craft glue where the wings meet the slit. Wedge something – like a piece of scrap balsa – under the wings to keep it in place while drying. My lad came up with clipping some clothespins to the body to keep it in an upright position while drying – good idea!
4) When it's dry, it is ready to be played with! Try clipping different things to the nose of the plane to assist in a balanced flight – paper clips, clothespins. Maybe you won't need anything.


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Important information to all customers
If you receive such an e-mail please open a new e-mail drag the fraudulent e-mail into it (so that it appears as an attachment) and send it to information-securitygreinerat – we will then analyze the e-mails. Thank you very much!
- Please do not follow the instructions in the mails.
- Please do not click on any links or files.
- Please do not provide any personal information.
Phishing is the attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money), by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing can also involve sending malicious attachments or website links in an effort to infect computers or mobile devices.


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Encore Cast Performing Arts is dedicated to providing Central Florida Residents and their families an outlet for creativity and expression in the performing arts as well as supporting charities that make Central Florida a better place to live.
Help Encore Grow
Help Encore grow and continue to dream big. As a non-profit organization with a commitment to giving a portion of our proceeds to our selected beneficiary of the time, we need your help to provide our community with what it needs both artistically and financially.
Our goal is to build a small fund to help pay for the elements needed to initiate production of our upcoming shows and create a foundation for longevity. Your contribution, no matter how small, will ensure the success of our artistic endeavors and our ability to dream big.
It's Grow Time!


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By Chris Schultz
Winsted-Lester Prairie Journal & Howard Lake-Waverly Herald, Minn.
Aug. 26, 2002
Mosquito-mania all around
It was early to mid-September, about 10 years ago.
I was in the heart of the prairie and grain fields of southwest Manitoba, Canada. I was there to write a story on the Turtle Mountains and International Peace Gardens and to do some early season hunting for Hungarian partridge and Sharptail grouse.
I had spent about two days working on the story and exploring the area with Manitoba Natural Resource officials. Enough was enough, and it was time to actually do some hunting: my first crack at it for the season.
Now, by myself and excited to get out the dog and start, I pulled my truck off the minimum maintenance road and starting walking along a long drainage ditch that was part of a Ducks Unlimited cell and wetland restoration areaa big one.
That year the area was dry and the water in the DU area carried thousands of waterfowl. The ditch had maybe a foot of water in it and had the right kind of cover around it to hold sharptails.
I figured, if there weren't any sharpies along the ditch, I would have a great evening of waterfowl watching.
I had walked the ditch for about two miles and there were a few sharpies in my game bag. Snow geese were flying in big numbers, and I would soon find out that the wet drainage ditch was a mecca for mosquitoes.
I was a long way from the truck, and as dusk began to set in, the mosquitoes came out in huge numbers. They were like miniature storm cloudsthick, fast, and hungry.
Before I knew it, I was engulfed in mosquitoes. As I ran back to the truck, opening my mouth and even keeping my eyes open was difficult. When I eventually got to the truck, the dog dove in before I could. After 30 seconds in the truck, the mosquitoes were again unbearable.
My hair and clothes were filled with them. I pulled over, hopped out, ripped off most of my clothes, threw them in back of the truck, and was flying down the road with all the windows open and an overheated, mosquito ravaged, soaking wet dog sitting on the seat next to me.
An hour later, I was being treated by a doctor in a small Manitoba clinic.
I was lucky, he said. If I were one of the many people that react severely to mosquito bites, the situation could have been much worse.
That was the one and only time I have seen mosquitoes worse than I have in our area this year.
In my yard, which is close to another creek with standing water, it is almost unbearable to go outside at dawn or dusk. When my dog is in the kennel, he is seldom out of his dog house.
Throw in the West Nile Virus and heartworm danger for dogs, the mosquito affair this year only gets worse.
Here are a few quick points to help you deal with the mosquitoes:
· Don't go outside at dawn or dusk
· Wear long sleeve shirts and long pants
· Use repellents with DEET.
You may also want to keep your lawn a little shorter, limit standing water in your yard, like in pails and bird baths, and wear mosquito netting around your head.
Another thing to remember is to do your best to enjoy the outdoors on windy days.
For more information on mosquitoes and the West Nile Virus, check this article.
Outdoor notes
The early or September Canada goose hunting season in our area and across much of the state is set to open Sunday, Sept. 1.
Hunters can find more information on pages 87 and 88 of the 2002 Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations Handbook. Hunters should also be prepared for mosquitoes and take steps to prevent mosquito bites to have an enjoyable and safe hunt.
Quack, quack it's back, the Winsted Chapter of Ducks Unlimited will host its annual banquet Tuesday, Sept. 10 at the Blue Note Ballroom in Winsted. Tickets are available at the Blue Note.
The application deadline for antlerless permits and special hunt permits is Thursday, Sept. 9.
The application are now done through the ELS when you purchase your license.
This year avid deer hunters may want to take a look at the new All-Season deer license which costs $75. More information on license option can be found on page 54 of the 2002 Minnesota hunting and Trapping Regualtions Handbook.
Spinning wings decoys are banned for the Sept. 14 youth waterfowl hunting day in Minnesota. There are also banned on public waters for the first week of the regular waterfowl season.
Now is the time to get yourself and your dog in shape for the upcoming hunting season.
Sharpen your shooting eye and get ready for fall with a practice round of trap at the Lester Prairie Sportsmen's Club. It's a good to review firearms safety and get familiar again with your firearm before the hunting seasons start.
The fish have been biting on a few area lakes. Big Swan has been giving up crappies, muskies are hitting on Sugar and Waconia. Parely has been giving up sunfish and although the bite has slowed a bit Mille Lacs has still been giving up a lot walleyes. Look for the northern pike action on Mille Lacs and many local lakes to pick up in the next few weeks.
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Pigeon fanciers in eastern China are caging, cleaning and vaccinating tens of thousands of the birds in an attempt to contain the spread of avian flu as the death toll from the disease continues to mount.
"We've been cleaning a lot of cages," said a man from the Beijing Fengtai District Carrier Pigeon Association who gave his name as Mr Wang. He added that the Beijing government had required the association to cancel upcoming long-distance races and instruct members to keep their birds caged for at least a month.
State media reported four new cases of H7N9 avian influenza on Monday, including one death. Since last month, the virus has infected 24 people and killed seven of them; cases have been reported in Shanghai and throughout three eastern provinces. The World Health Organisation said it had not yet found evidence that the virus could be transmitted from person to person.
In Shanghai, authorities ordered the slaughter of at least 100,000 chickens, ducks and geese after a national laboratory found traces of the virus in two pigeons near one of the city's live poultry markets.
Now the country's pigeons have become a focus for concerns over the spread of the disease. The Hangzhou Carrier Pigeon Association said it planned to suspend races and vaccinate up to 90,000 pigeons, according to state media. "Right now, pigeons in [Shanghai's] squares and public parks have all been caged," reported the China Sports Daily website.
Pigeon racing is a popular pastime in China dating back to the Ming Dynasty, which ended in 1644. Almost 300,000 people across the country participate in the sport.
According to the news portal Zhejiang Online, a complaints hotline in the metropolis Hangzhou received a flurry of pigeon-related calls on Sunday, when local media reported that samples of pigeon feathers found at a local market had tested positive for the virus.
Chinese researchers have identified the H7N9 virus as a "genetic mix from South Korean migratory birds and ducks from Zhejiang province", the independent magazine Caixin reported on Tuesday.
Chinese health authorities have not detected any flu-like symptoms in 621 people who have had close contact with infected patients, the director of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, Liang Wannian, announced on Monday.
The outbreak has had an effect on China's capital markets: shares of mainland poultry-meat producers have slumped since reports of the disease surfaced last week. Chinese airline and hotel stocks have also taken a hit, suggesting fears that the outbreak could affect the country's tourism industry.


text:
Far be it for me to criticise how people speak;
But this is, after all, suppose to be quite tongue and cheek.
I cannot curve my appetite for offering advise,
When people make mistakes – another words, don't dot their eyes.
I know that some can't help theirselves, but somethink must be done;
Our language is on tender hooks – it's doomed! Ask any one.
'Cause when the death nail sounds and we ignore what could of been,
We'll all be saying 'PIN number' and 'ATM machine'.
We need to reach agreeance on the things what people say,
And weather one way's better then a wholly nother way.
It's still a working progress; all we need is some incite.
There's no statue of limitations on getting it right.
Whatever your criterias or currant paradigm,
I urge you all whole-hardily – it's really worth your time.
If that don't work, I think I'll chuck it in – I minus well;
For all intensive purposes, our lingo's gone to Hell.


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|Heavenly Soles Ankle Boots, JD Williams*
As much as we like to dream that we will wear flip flops all summer long, we British know that is far from the case. Ankle boots can be worn throughout the summer much more than expected. From the cooler, cloudy days out where you aren't sure which way the weather will turn, to a couple of street music festivals and fancy meals out. They are also great on dog walks and training sessions...
|Pepé showing off
|Teaching an old dog new tricks
Being outside in the summer rain, these man-made synthetic boots are water resistant and will see me through the different seasons. They have been great for wearing in the summer and I look forward to wearing them long into the autumn.
There are many ways you can wear ankle boots. I've worn them with leggings and skinny jeans but I think you could easily get away with wearing them with a dress, depending on the style and your confidence. Perhaps even on a night out with a skirt or pair of shorts. The only limit is your imagination. From a walk in the park to a meal with friends, they are stylish enough for many occasions.
The only thing I would advise is that you use their foot measuring guide prior to purchasing and read the reviews on the JD Williams website on specific items to get an idea of how well they fit. I am a standard size 5 so requested their Heavenly Soles Ankle Boots in a size 5 wide e fit as no standard fit was available. I was expecting them to be a little on the wide side but found them surprisingly narrow and far too roomy around the toes. I would slip around even with thick socks on which is not what you want to be wearing when it's warm outside. Reading the reviews, I was not the only one to find a sizing issue with these boots so I tried a size 4. It fit much better but again they were narrow. Despite this, they were comfortable. If you do require a wide fit then perhaps choose another from their plentiful selection. This particular boot is available in a wide ee fit, so you could go or that option.
|Cute details, JD Williams
I love blogging about fashion but I don't think Tea in the Tub will be will be turning into a fashion focused blog any time soon. Maybe when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Massive respect to fashion bloggers out there, I don't know how they do it. Taking photos of yourself is hard and getting someone else to take photos how you actually want them is even harder!
|This is what happens when someone asks me to "smile"
How would you wear ankle boots in the summer? Have any own-brand clothing lines ever taken you by surprise?
Helen x
Bloglovin' | Twitter |
*PR supplied product. All opinions and thoughts are my own.


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Home Developments
Our practice provides architectural services that embraces the diverse home development needs of our clients. We do not simply produce designs but make significant attempts to understand the needs of our domestic and non/domestic clients. These needs are then cost effectively and energy efficiently expressed in our aesthetically appealing home development designs. Our building users dont just live in our designs rather we make our designs an extension of the user satisfying wide residential needs. We help our clients through the planning permission with successful records.
Home Extensions
We understand the need for additional spaces in our homes due to expanding family sizes, modernisation, desire for increased natural lighting etc. or simply the desire for larger spaces in our homes. Such extensions could involve kitchen/dining extensions, conservatory extensions, single storey or two storey extensions etc. We understand the value of every square inch hence we are experts in listening to and understanding our clients needs, maximising available floor space, ensuring that the extensions seamlessly connects with the main building Our extension designs (which include conservation area extensions) are usually simple and elegant!
Home Renovations
If you just purchased a property that needs renovation, or if you are simply thinking of carrying out renovation works on your home, we can help you identify how best to create value. Our practice can also help provide aesthetically pleasing and cost effective modern designs to suit your individual needs both from a business and a home user point of view. If the renovation is subject to planning approval, we can help you through this process as we have successfully done for our other clients.
AA-Architecture is a chartered architectural practice based in the UK. We provide architectural services which include modern designs with speciality in residential buildings, home extensions and home renovation.
We more importantly prefer to assist our client in securing planning approval for our designs, which we have been executing successfully for our clients.
We combine innovation and design elegance with practicalities in building construction to create high value architecture.
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text: Funny comedy about the romantic adventures of a young student, coming to rest in Greece. Girl, I should say, very beautiful and not ashamed to bare her body. It changes several lovers, has not been a handsome, owner of a small yacht, traveling alone. Excellent capture of beautiful areas of Greece, something resembling Koktebel, wonderful music and all the above mentioned, made this band one of the most popular at the dawn of a video.


text:
MTB team RacersONDREJ CINK
After his win at the under23 World championships, the plan was to cautiously get Ondrej Cink closer to the top in what was his first season at the elite level. But things turned out completely different, and the young rider from the Czech Republic became the shooting star of the season. Cink had a strong start to the season: Teaming up with Thomas Litscher at the Andalucia Bike Race, he made it to the overall podium in 3rd before winning his first elite catory-race at the Kamptal Klassik. As soon as the Worldcup season started, Ondrej Cink exceeded even the most optimistic expectations: After a 12th place at the first race, Cink scored an excellent 6th place in Nove Mesto and confirmed that performance with a 10th place in Val di Sole. But the real highlight was to come in Andorra, one week after he had won the Czech national championships. For more than half of the race Cink was riding on his own in the lead in Vallnord before Nino Schurter finally caught up with him and dropped him on the last lap. Cink still finished as a strong 2nd and added two more top10 results at the World championships and at the Worldcup finals. At the end of the season, these results put him in 5th both in the UCI's World ranking and in the Worldcup's overall standings. No wonder Ondrej Cink's main objective for 2014 is to repeat these awesome results.
SIZE 178 cm
WEIGHT 65 kg
PLACE OF RESIDENCE Rokycany (CZE)
LEARNED JOB Car mechanic
COACH Milan Spešný
HOBBIES Cycling, Coffee and TV
MARITAL STATE Single
TWITTER @ondrejcink
2013 Czech Republic's national champion crosscountry, Worldcup results: 2nd in Vallnord, 6th in Nove Mesto, 8th in Hafjell, 10th in Val di Sole, 12th in Albstadt and Mont Sainte-Anne, 6th at World championships crosscountry, 7th at European championships crosscountry, 3rd overall at Andalucia Bike Race, winner Kamptal Klassik,
2nd at Kitzalp Bike
2012 World champion Cross Country under 23, European champion Cross Country under 23, 4th at Czech national championships elite, 14th at London's Olympic games, under23 Worldcup results: Winner in Nove Mesto and Houffalize, 4th in la Bresse, 5th in Pietermaritzburg, 10th in Val d'Isère, 5th in overall standings
2011 5th at European championships Cross Country under 23, Czech national champion Cross Country under23, under23 Worldcup results: 2nd in Nove Mesto, 7th in Offenburg, 12th in Dalby Forest, 14th in Val di Sole
2010 Bronze medal at World championshops team relay, 14th at European championships Cross Country under23